War on Terror Log
And while we think that election results – however fraudulent or however complex (Iraq's next government may take months to form) – are an improvement, we do not stop to ask who really wins these elections.Who really wins these elections?
Iran, whose demented president knows how to handle "democratic" polls, is of course the victor.
Its two enemies, the "black Taliban" and Saddam, have both been vanquished without a single Iranian firing a shot ...
Robert Fisk 08 March 2010Robert Fisk
The Truth Seeker
Iran
David Cameron: Israeli blockade has turned Gaza Strip into a 'prison camp'
Prime minister intervenes in Middle East dispute and hopes Turkey can stop Iran's nuclear weapons programme
Cameron's comments, in a speech to business leaders in Ankara, prompted the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to issue another strong condemnation of how Israel dealt with the flotilla.
Erdogan likened the behaviour of Israeli commandos, who shot dead nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists, to Somali pirates.
Cameron's criticism of Tel Aviv came when he called for Israel to relax its restrictions on Gaza. "The situation in Gaza has to change," he said. "Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp."
He strongly condemned Israel after the assault on the Gaza flotilla.
"The Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable," he said. "I have told prime minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu we will expect the Israeli inquiry to be swift, transparent and rigorous. "Let me also be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change." ...
Cameron also said Turkey should use its links with Iran to persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons programme ...
Guardian 27 July 2010 Iran IsraelGaza remark signals Cameron's kick-and-run diplomacy
A tale of three wars
Should Israel Bomb Iran?
An Attack on Iran: Back on the Table
Leaks Add to Pressure on White House Over Strategy
The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, struck a similar note on Monday in responding to the documents ...
“We are in this region of the world because of what happened on 9/11,” Mr. Gibbs said. “Ensuring that there is not a safe haven in Afghanistan by which attacks against this country and countries around the world can be planned. That’s why we’re there, and that’s why we’re going to continue to make progress on this relationship.” ...
Three administration officials separately expressed hope that they might be able to use the documents to gain leverage in efforts to get more help from Pakistan.
Two of them raised the possibility of warning the Pakistanis that Congressional anger might threaten American aid.
“This is now out in the open,” a senior administration official said. “It’s reality now. In some ways, it makes it easier for us to tell the Pakistanis that they have to help us.” ...
NYT 26 July 2010 AfghanistanA tale of three wars: Afghanistan, Iraq...Iran
The Afghanistan Protocol
Explosive Leaks Provide Image of War from Those Fighting It
Britain's Guardian newspaper, the New York Times and SPIEGEL have all vetted the material and compared the data with independent reports.
All three media sources have concluded that the documents are authentic and provide an unvarnished image of the war in Afghanistan -- from the perspective of the soldiers who are fighting it.
The reports, from troops engaged in the ongoing combat, were tersely summarized and quickly dispatched. For the most part, they originate from sergeants ...
Nearly nine years after the start of the war, they paint a gloomy picture ...Task Force 373: The Secret Hunters
A report on June 17, 2007, for example, includes a warning in the second sentence that this operation of the TF 373 must be "kept protected."
Details about the mission could not be provided to other countries contributing to the ISAF forces.
The aim was to kill prominent al-Qaida functionary Abu Layth Al Libi. The special forces suspected that the top terrorist and several of his followers were present at a Koran school the soldiers had been staking out for a number of days.
But after the impact of five American rockets, instead of finding Al Libi, the ground forces discovered six dead children in the rubble of the school.
A further seriously injured child was also found but could not be saved ...
Der SpiegelThe Flaws of the Silent Killer
... the secret memos reveal the drawbacks of a weapon that has been lauded by the US military as a panacea, a view shared by the president.
In his short time in office, Barack Obama has unleashed double the number of drone missions ordered by his seemingly trigger-happy predecessor, George W. Bush ...
Each crash costs the government between $3.7 million (€2.8 million) and $5 million.
The US Department of Defense accident reports show that system failures, computer glitches and human errors are common occurrences during drone missions.
It seems that serious problems were ignored because of the need for the drones to be deployed as quickly as possible ...
It is not just the costs incurred by these crashes that worry the US military.
Even the smaller reconnaissance drones are packed with complicated computer technology ... out of fear that important information could fall into the hands of the Taliban, each drone crash necessitates elaborate -- and dangerous -- salvage operations.
Der SpiegelDer Spiegel 25 July 2010 AfghanistanThe Secret Enemy in Pakistan
The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's secret service, originally helped to build up and deploy the Taliban after Afghanistan descended into a bitter and fratricidal civil war between the mujahedeen who had prevailed over the Soviets and forced their withdrawal.
Despite all of the reassurances from Pakistani politicians that the old ties are cut, the country is still pursuing an ambiguous policy in the region -- at once serving as both an ally to the US and as a helper to its enemy ...
The documents clearly show that the Pakistani intelligence agency is the most important accomplice the Taliban has outside of Afghanistan ...
The country is an important safe haven for enemy forces -- and serves as a base for issuing their deployment. New recruits to the Taliban stream across the Pakistan-Afghan border, including feared foreign fighters -- among them Arabs, Chechnyans, Uzbekis, Uighurs and even European Islamists.
According to the war logs, the ISI envoys are present when insurgent commanders hold war councils -- and even give specific orders to carry out murders ...
Der SpiegelIntelligence Agents Flooding in Data
How US marines sanitised record of bloodbath
Wikileaks reveals Afghan civilian deaths
Afghanistan war logs: the unvarnished picture
Combat Outpost Keating
Inside the Fog of War
Pakistan Aids Insurgency
Afghanistan war logs
Ex-MI5 boss says war raised terror threat
"Our involvement in Iraq radicalised a whole generation of young people, some of them British citizens"The invasion of Iraq "substantially" increased the terrorist threat to the UK, the former head of MI5 has said.
Giving evidence to the Iraq inquiry, Baroness Manningham-Buller said the action "radicalised" a generation of young people, including UK citizens.
As a result, she said she was not "surprised" that UK nationals were involved in the 7/7 bombings in London.
She said she believed the intelligence on Iraq's threat was not "substantial enough" to justify the action.
She said she had advised officials a year before the war that the threat posed by Iraq to the UK was "very limited" and believed that assessment "turned out to be the right judgement" ...
In a newly declassified document, published by the inquiry, Baroness Manningham-Buller told the senior civil servant at the Home Office in March 2002 that there was no evidence that Iraq had any involvement in the 9/11 attacks ...
BBC NEWS 20 July 2010 Chilcott InquiryEliza Manningham-Buller at the Iraq inquiry
Saddam terror threat limited says ex-spy chief
Iraq War Inquiry
Much of Pakistan’s capital city looks like a rich Los Angeles suburb. Shiny sport utility vehicles purr down gated driveways. Elegant multistory homes are tended by servants. Laundry is never hung out to dry ...Pakistan’s Elite Pay Few Taxes, Widening Gap
Looks like Pakistan has Washington over the proverbial barrel
But behind the opulence lurks a troubling fact. Very few of these households pay income tax.
That is mostly because the politicians who make the rules are also the country’s richest citizens, and are skilled at finding ways to exempt themselves.
That would be a problem in any country. But in Pakistan, the lack of a workable tax system feeds something more menacing: a festering inequality in Pakistani society, where the wealth of its most powerful members is never redistributed or put to use for public good.
That is creating conditions that have helped spread an insurgency that is tormenting the country and complicating American policy in the region.
It is also a sorry performance for a country that is among the largest recipients of American aid, payments of billions of dollars that prop up the country’s finances and are meant to help its leaders fight the insurgency ...
NYT 18 July 2010White House shifts Afghanistan strategy towards talks with Taliban
America: hooked on war and getting poorer
America: hooked on war and getting poorer
With record foreclosures and child poverty at a shameful level, can we really afford to stay in Afghanistan and Iraq for 10 years? ...
Why is nobody talking about the Afghanistan adventure as a cause of our plunging recession? Or at least citing the 30-year-old endless war as a major contributory factor in wasting our money to "nation-build" in the Hindu Kush while our own country falls to pieces on food stamps, foreclosures and child poverty – one in five kids – that would put the world's poorest nations to shame?
Iraq was George Bush's war. But, as Republican party chairman Michael Steele correctly says, "Afghanistan is Obama's war of choice", and a losing proposition ...
Our Afghanistan war, which began in 1980 under the Democrats (by weaponising Afghan resistance to the Soviets), and is now truly a bipartisan war, is as bankrupt as our economy. No connection? ...
... hardly anybody in public life dares to make a connection between teachers' pink slips, personal bankruptcies (6,000 a day now), our rotting infrastructure, lengthening queues at unemployment offices, child poverty ... and the war ...
Guardian 13 July 2010 Afghanistan A Violent Aggressive CultureAfghanistan UK soldier deaths
Afghan soldier murders British troops
UN may trim Taliban blacklist
David Cameron has said he wanted troops back home by 2015, the time of the next election, while Foreign Secretary William Hague has talked about 2014. The Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, initially stated they should be out as quickly as possible from what he described as a "13th-century state", but has since stressed they should stay for as long as it takes. Yesterday he announced that 300 extra troops, from a reserve battalion based in Cyprus, 2nd Battalion, the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment will be sent on a temporary basis.Afghanistan: Now it's America's war
Indpendent 08 July 2010Afghan Companies Say U.S. Did Not Pay Them
As Sangin shows, British troops were never geared up to make a lasting difference
America's Afghan dilemma
Corruption in Afghanistan
Billions of dollars are being secreted out of Kabul to help well-connected Afghans buy luxury villas in Dubai.
Amid concerns that the money could be the result of corruption, American politicians have temporarily cut off aid to the Afghan government.
Brigadier General Mohammed Asif Jabarkhel sits ... in his office, just a few steps away from the security checkpoint at Kabul International Airport.
"Of course I know what's going on here," the 59-year-old head of the airport's customs police grumbles ... "But, in this country, who's allowed to speak the truth?"
Jabarkhel is referring to the huge amounts of money regularly being secreted out of Afghanistan by plane in boxes and suitcases.
According to some estimates, since 2007, at least $3 billion (€2.4 billion) in cash has left the country in this way.
The preferred destination for these funds is Dubai, the tax haven in the Persian Gulf.
And, given the fact that Afghanistan's total GDP amounts to the equivalent of $13.5 billion, there is no way that the funds involved in this exodus are merely the proceeds of legal business transactions.
Jabarkhel complains that all of his many attempts to stop this hemorrhaging have failed.
"The central bank has reached an agreement with the government that makes these kinds of transfers supposedly legal," he says. "And whenever we try to look into where the money is coming from, pressure comes from the very top." ...
Der Spiegel 05 July 2010 AfghanistanIn Afghanistan, signs of crony capitalism
Nudge on Arms Further Divides the U.S. and Israel
It was only one paragraph buried deep in the most plain-vanilla kind of diplomatic document, 40 pages of dry language committing 189 nations to a world free of nuclear weapons. But it has become the latest source of friction between Israel and the United States ...
At a meeting to review the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in May, the United States yielded to demands by Arab nations that the final document urge Israel to sign the treaty — a way of spotlighting its historically undeclared nuclear weapons ...
In addition to singling out Israel, the document, which has captured relatively little public attention, calls for a regional conference in 2012 to lay the groundwork for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
Israel, whose nuclear arsenal is one of the world’s worst-kept secrets, would be on the hot seat at such a meeting ...
NYT 04 July 2010 Israel
War in Iraq Defies U.S. Timetable for End of Combat
The August deadline might be seen back home as a milestone in the fulfillment of President Obama’s promise to end the war in Iraq, but here it is more complex.
American soldiers still find and kill enemy fighters, on their own and in partnership with Iraqi security forces, and will continue to do so after the official end of combat operations. More Americans are certain to die, if significantly fewer than in the height of fighting here.
The withdrawal, which will reduce the number of American troops to 50,000 — from 112,000 earlier this year and close to 165,000 at the height of the surge — is a feat of logistics that has been called the biggest movement of matériel since World War II.
It is also an exercise in semantics.
What soldiers today would call combat operations — hunting insurgents, joint raids between Iraqi security forces and United States Special Forces to kill or arrest militants — will be called “stability operations.” ...
The complex and flexible mission of cutting down forces while simultaneously keeping up the fight with a festering insurgency could prove a model for Afghanistan, where withdrawal is scheduled to begin next year ...
NYT 02 July 2010
Why did Goldsmith change his mind?
Biggest new revelation is the publication of Lord Goldsmith's initial advice saying that invasion would be illegal.
Like so much else in this fascinating inquiry, the revelation is not new as such. Lord Goldsmith has already said that he changed his mind before giving his final advice in support of the war.
But it does raise all sorts of questions as to why the Attorney General underwent quite such a radical conversion. Whether the Chilcot committee ends up concluding that the war was illegal, I doubt.
But one wonders whether the Cabinet Secretary would have allowed publication if Chilcot was still sitting under Labour.
What sticks in my craw, however, is the inquiry's claim to be full and comprehensive. It spent, it boasts, part of the period during the election when it was in purdah visiting France and the US to find out recollections there.
The one place it didn't get to, of course, was Iraq itself and the one set of people it is not going to interview is the Iraqis themselves.
How a so-called independent committee, which includes two historians (admittedly neither of them known for expressing any sympathy with the Arab point of view) can claim to understand what went on without finding out the view from the other side beats me.
But until we do, we'll never learn the lessons of these conflicts, in Afghanistan no more than in Iraq.
Independent 01 July 2010 Chilcott InquiryHow Goldsmith changed advice on legality of war
The end of the Afghan venture
We're on our way out of Afghanistan. The politicians know it. The generals know it. The Afghans know it, as do their neighbours.
The only people who are apparently not meant to know it are the soldiers fighting this hard-slogging war and the public ...
David Cameron has now put the time frame at five years, which is at least some indication of allied thinking.
The Americans won't give any commitment – although there is the strong suspicion that Obama wants his forces out before his re-election campaign in 2012, which puts an even harder deadline on the nine-year-old venture.
It all depends on how the surge goes and how ready the Afghans are to take over. Announcing target dates would only encourage the "enemy" and make withdrawal more difficult ...
Every country is now rethinking its defence budgets and strategies. Before we get too carried away with the idea that old-fashioned Cold War armaments should be replaced by the fleet-footed forces for ventures abroad, we need to think whether we should embark on foreign interventions at all.
Independent 01 July 2010 AfghanistanNato's grand experiment
US to cut $4bn in Afghan aid
Pakistan Is Said to Pursue a Foothold in Afghanistan
Pakistan is exploiting the troubled United States military effort in Afghanistan to drive home a political settlement with Afghanistan that would give Pakistan important influence there but is likely to undermine United States interests ...
The dismissal of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal will almost certainly embolden the Pakistanis in their plan as they detect increasing American uncertainty, Pakistani officials said.
The Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, preferred General McChrystal to his successor, Gen. David H. Petraeus, whom he considers more of a politician than a military strategist ...
Pakistan is presenting itself as the new viable partner for Afghanistan to President Hamid Karzai, who has soured on the Americans.
Pakistani officials say they can deliver the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, an ally of Al Qaeda who runs a major part of the insurgency in Afghanistan, into a power-sharing arrangement.
In addition, Afghan officials say, the Pakistanis are pushing various other proxies, with General Kayani personally offering to broker a deal with the Taliban ...
NYT 24 June 2010 Afghanistan'Washington Can't Afford any More Failures in Afghanistan'
Central Asia: the erupting volcano
There is ... a potential for chaos and uncertainty on the very border with Afghanistan.
In ordinary circumstances this would be a situation which all interested parties and nearby powers would try to neutralise and bring under control.
However, the timing of the announcement of the “discovery” of “a trillion USD worth” of valuable minerals in the very regions of Afghanistan closest to this potential new area of conflict could bring about a change of attitude in all the parties concerned.
The existence of these mineral deposits have been an open secret, but the official disclosure - possibly decided for an eventual justification of a prolonged Western military presence in Afghanistan - means that, from now on, “the gloves are off”.
Even Iran, which has kept its distance from the Afghan conflict, could display an understandable interest.
Of course, no exploitation or even deeper exploration of the area will be possible unless the country and the region are pacified, and this could mean an intensification of the war effort by the sides engaged in the conflict, and a hand in muddying the waters on the part of those who would prefer not to see such riches fall exclusively into Western (i.e. American) hands.
The Russians, in spite of having been badly burned in Afghanistan, have always considered that country part of their sphere of influence (shades of the “Great Game”), and the Chinese have been quietly enhancing their presence in the area ...
openDemocracy 23 June 2010 AfghanistanNo, the U.S. Didn’t Just ‘Discover’ a $1T Afghan Motherlode
U.S. Identifies Vast Mineral Riches in Afghanistan
U.S. Said to Fund Afghan Warlords to Protect Convoys
American taxpayers have inadvertently created a network of warlords across Afghanistan who are making millions of dollars escorting NATO convoys and operating outside the control of either the Afghan government or the American and NATO militaries, according to the results of a Congressional investigation released Monday.
The investigation ... found that money given to these Afghan warlords often amounts to little more than mafia-style protection payments, with some NATO convoys that refused to pay the warlords coming under attack.
The subcommittee ... also uncovered evidence suggesting that American taxpayer money is making its way to the Taliban.
Several trucking company supervisors told investigators that they believed the gunmen they hired to escort their convoys bribed the Taliban not to attack.
The warlords who are paid with American money, the investigators said, are undermining the legitimate Afghan government that Americans soldiers and Marines are struggling to build, and will most likely threaten the government long after the Americans and NATO leave ...
NYT 21 June 2010 Afghanistan
Government officials sounded headily optimistic Monday as they fielded questions from local and international reporters about a new report on the extent of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth that suggests considerable potential for products other than opium, which until now has been the country’s most lucrative export.Afghan Officials Elated by Minerals Report
Sorry to be a party pooper, guys, but neoliberalism doeson't do fair shares for all.
The report, produced by the American military and the United States Geological Survey, found that Afghanistan had at least $1 trillion in mineral wealth ...
As they waited to hear Mr. Karzai’s spokesman, some Afghan reporters excitedly calculated among themselves how much each Afghan would theoretically get if the mineral treasure trove were divided equally.
Assuming the $1 trillion valuation and Afghanistan’s population of 29 million, that would give each Afghan man, woman and child $34,482.76 ...
NYT 14 June 1020 Afghanistan Eating the Future
The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe ...U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan
"Afganistan ... has little or no history of environmental protection ... "
Welcome to the world of Bhopal and Deepwater Horizon, guys!
An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys ...
The corruption that is already rampant in the Karzai government could also be amplified by the new wealth, particularly if a handful of well-connected oligarchs, some with personal ties to the president, gain control of the resources. Just last year, Afghanistan’s minister of mines was accused by American officials of accepting a $30 million bribe to award China the rights to develop its copper mine ...
Endless fights could erupt between the central government in Kabul and provincial and tribal leaders in mineral-rich districts.
Afghanistan has a national mining law, written with the help of advisers from the World Bank ...
At the same time, American officials fear resource-hungry China will try to dominate the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth ...
Another complication is that because Afghanistan has never had much heavy industry before, it has little or no history of environmental protection ...
NYT 13 June 2010 Afghanistan Corporate Sociopathy
Pakistani agents 'funding and training Afghan Taliban'
Links between the Taliban and Pakistan's intelligence service have long been suspected, but the report's author - Harvard analyst Matt Waldman - says there is real evidence of extensive co-operation between the two.
"This goes far beyond just limited, or occasional support," he said. "This is very significant levels of support being provided by the ISI.
"We're also saying this is official policy of that agency, and we're saying that it is very extensive. It is both at an operational level, and at a strategic level, right at the senior leadership of the Taliban movement."
Mr Waldman spoke to nine Taliban field commanders in Afghanistan earlier this year.
Some alleged that ISI agents had even attended meetings of the Taliban's top leadership council ...
BBC NEWS 13 May 2010 AfghanistanPakistan spy agency accused over Taliban
Karzai Is Said to Doubt West Can Defeat Taliban
Two senior Afghan officials were showing President Hamid Karzai the evidence of the spectacular rocket attack on a nationwide peace conference earlier this month when Mr. Karzai told them that he believed the Taliban were not responsible ...
... a prominent Afghan with knowledge of the meeting ... said that Mr. Karzai suggested in the meeting that it might have been the Americans who carried it out ...
Minutes after the exchange, Mr. Saleh and the interior minister, Hanif Atmar, resigned ...
... underlying the tensions, according to Mr. Saleh and Afghan and Western officials, was something more profound: That Mr. Karzai had lost faith in the Americans and NATO to prevail in Afghanistan.
For that reason, Mr. Saleh and other officials said, Mr. Karzai has been pressing to strike his own deal with the Taliban and the country’s archrival, Pakistan ...
A senior NATO official said the resignations of Mr. Atmar and Mr. Saleh, who had strong support from the NATO allies, were “extremely disruptive.” ...
NYT 11 June 2010 Afghanistan
Iran sanctions 'will not affect' Russia missile deal
Russia agreed to supply Iran with S-300 systems several years ago but has not delivered them.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed the missiles were not subject to the limits set by the UN on cooperation with Iran.
He said Moscow was in talks on building further nuclear reactors in Iran.
The US and Israel are concerned the S-300 missiles, designed to counter both aircraft and cruise missiles, might be used to protect Iran's nuclear facilities from possible attack ...
BBC NEWS 10 June 2010 F-35 Strike Fighter Iran
Officers’ mess: military chiefs blamed for blundering into Helmand with ‘eyes shut and fingers crossed’
... a two-month investigation by The Times, which includes interviews with 32 senior military, political and Civil Service figures, reveals that there was deep disquiet over the handling of the mission from the start.
Top ranks within the Ministry of Defence and other Whitehall departments are accused of:
* grossly underestimating the threat from the Taleban;
* ignoring warnings that planned troop numbers were inadequate;
* offering only the military advice they thought ministers wanted to hear;
* signing off on a confused command-and-control structure.
The allegations come as a critical defence review gets under way and David Cameron decides how to plot the way ahead in Afghanistan’s most dangerous province.
One senior serving officer who asked not to be named said of the planning stage: “There was institutional ignorance and denial. We who had bothered to put a bit of work in and had done the estimate realised that we needed much more than we were being given.” ...
Times 09 June 2010 Afghanistan
Gaza blockade: Iran offers escort to next aid convoy
• Aide threatens use of Revolutionary Guard
• Netanyahu warns of Jerusalem missile danger ...
The threat came as the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, dismissed a UN proposal for an international commission to investigate last week's commando assault on aid ships, in which nine people died.
Another aid ship, the Rachel Corrie, carrying Irish and other peace activists, was boarded peacefully by Israeli forces on Saturday, escorted to the port of Ashdod, and its passengers deported.
Netanyahu has defended Israel's right to maintain the blockade by arguing that without it Gaza would become an "Iranian port" and Hamas missiles would strike Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Israel's undeclared aim is to weaken or bring down the Hamas government.
Iran continued to exploit the "freedom flotilla" affair to lambast Israel. Its foreign minister, Manuchehr Mottaki, told the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Jeddah on Sunday that Israel's crime was "another instance of the Zionist regime's brazen and merciless treatment of Muslims, especially the oppressed Palestinian people." ...
Guardian 06 June 2010 Iran IsraelIsraeli navy kills four Palestinians off Gaza coast
U.S. Is Said to Expand Secret Military Acts in Mideast Region
The top American commander in the Middle East has ordered a broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region, according to defense officials and military documents.
The secret directive, signed in September by Gen. David H. Petraeus, authorizes the sending of American Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to gather intelligence and build ties with local forces.
Officials said the order also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions escalate ...
NYT 24 May 2010 Iran
Taliban insurgents attack Bagram airbase in Afghanistan
• American contractor killed and nine troops wounded
• Dozen suicide bombers dead in attack on military base
The fighting came the day after a suicide bomber attacked a military convoy in Kabul, killing 12 Afghan civilians and six foreign service personnel.
A spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) would not identify the American contractor until next of kin had been told ...
Guardian 19 May 2010 War on Terror LogToll in Kabul Suicide Attack
In Ambush, a Glimpse of a Long Afghan Summer
Iran faces fresh sanctions as Russia and China support UN resolution
Surprise move comes as security council was preparing for lengthy negotiations over Tehran's uranium programme ...
Guardian 18 May 2010Iran: blind man's bluff
Netanyahu pulls out of nuclear conference
Israel spurns nuclear watchdog's call to open atomic sites to inspection
Israel pressured on nuclear sites
Death tolls set to spiral as allied forces face 40 attacks every day
Attacks by the Taliban between September 2009 and March 2010 leapt by 83 per cent compared with the same period last year, according to a new report released this month by the US Government Accountability Office.
This in turn is greater than the 75 per cent increase between 2008 and 2009, when the Taliban launched 21,000 attacks. Worse, the violence is expected to grow even more ferocious in the coming months as US and British forces fight to retake Taliban-held territory in the south of the country.
Ineffective governance and money from the opium trade are cited as factors behind the continuing resilience of the insurgency ...
Independent 16 May 2010 Afghanistan'Nobody is winning,' admits McChrystal
Taliban: the indistinguishable enemy
MI5 faces allegations over torture of British man in Bangladesh
Security service accused of involvement in abuse of Birmingham businessman Gulam Mustafa, who was arrested in Dhaka ...
Mustafa appeared to have a swollen face when he was paraded before television cameras shortly after his arrest, according to his family.
When he appeared in court 11 days later, a journalist working for the Guardian could see that he was unable to stand throughout the proceedings, at one point sinking to his knees.
The businessman told a British consular official he had been forced to assume stressful positions for long periods during questioning at a detention centre known as the Taskforce for Interrogation Cell, where the use of torture is alleged to be common.
Lawyers for Mustafa's family said there were strong grounds to believe that British officials had been complicit in his mistreatment and they were considering bringing legal action against the government.
They were angry that the UK High Commission in Dhaka had failed to secure consular access to Mustafa for more than two weeks after his arrest or arrange for him to be seen by a doctor ...
Guardian 11 May 2010 Torture
US drone missiles kill nine ... in Pakistan
An American drone killed at least nine people in Pakistan's tribal belt this morning in the first such strike since a Pakistani-American man was linked to last weekend's failed Times Square bombing ...
The US has stepped up pressure on Pakistan to attack militant hideouts in the tribal belt in recent days, particularly North Waziristan. Using unusually belligerent language, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, warned of "very severe consequences" if a successful attack was linked to Pakistan.
... the US is already engaged in its most ferocious campaign on Pakistan soil for decades through the CIA drone strikes, which are currently averaging about two per week.
A senior Pakistani intelligence official said there had been 40 drone attacks so far this year, compared with 49 in the whole of 2009. Other tallies have counted just over 30 strikes in 2010.
The CIA has received permission to strike a much wider range of suspected militants than before, including those whose identities have not been established, the Los Angeles Times reported last week. Previously, the CIA could only attack individuals on a vetted list of Taliban and al-Qaida leaders ... the nature of any link between the Taliban and the Times Square attack remains unclear.
The crude nature of the bomb, the bungled nature of its execution and the fact that Shahzad so readily admitted his terrorist links suggest the Pakistani-American had little training ...
Guardian 09 May 2010Pakistan
Guantanamo damages claimants win secrecy ruling
Six former Guantanamo Bay detainees have overturned a ruling that allowed government use of secret evidence to defend itself against a damages claim.
The men had been told that parts of MI5 and MI6's defence could be kept secret.
The men are suing the UK government, saying their detention by the US could have been stopped.
But on Tuesday the Court of Appeal said it would "take a stand" against secrecy that would undermine the "most fundamental principles of common law" ...
BBC NEWS 04 May 2010 Torture
Accessing MI5 files on July 7 'impossible'
Revealing top secret MI5 files about the July 7 bombers to the families of those killed in the attacks would be "impossible", it was claimed today.
Investigating whether the security service could have prevented the atrocities would involve "handing over the keys" to MI5's Thames House headquarters in London, a hearing to decide the format of the inquests for the 2005 bombings was told.
Neil Garnham QC, counsel for the Home Secretary and MI5, argued that examining MI5's involvement was outside the scope of the inquests.
He said there would be no problem with providing highly sensitive intelligence material to the coroner and counsel to the inquests.
But any jurors could only see the material if they all underwent intrusive "developed vetting" and neither the bereaved families nor their lawyers would be allowed to see it, he said.
"It would be the security service's position that disclosure of sensitive information to a jury is simply not possible," he said.
"For the same reasons as for juries, disclosure to the families would be impossible." ...
Mr Garnham said there was "overwhelming" public interest in not having top secret MI5 documents revealed in the hearings ...
Independent 28 April 2010
The charity Reprieve is today launching a legal battle to force the British Government to name a suspected terrorist who is being held in AfghanistanCharity launches legal bid to name terror suspect
The man, who Reprieve today said is thought to be Yunus Rahmatullah, was one of two alleged terrorists captured by British soldiers in Iraq in February 2004.
They were handed to the US authorities, who flew them to Afghanistan where it is thought they are being held at Bagram Air Base.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the Data Protection Act prevents it from disclosing their names.
Former shadow home secretary and civil liberties campaigner David Davis said he believed the identities were being kept secret to avoid political embarrassment ...
Independent 15 Apr 2010 Torture
Last year a study by the National Association of Probation Officers estimated that the number of veterans in prison, or on probation or parole, was 20,000 – more than double the total British deployment in Afghanistan.MoD is failing its war veterans, leaving many to face jail terms, peer says
It concluded that 8,500 – 8% of the prison population – were in prison. Nearly half were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or depression as a result of their wartime experiences.
However, a study by the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Justice in January concluded that veterans make up 3%, of the prison population, 2,500 in number.
Ramsbotham, who believes the true figure lies somewhere in between, said the revelation should be a catalyst for positive action ...
Guardian 14 Apr 2010 Veterans' Care
Iraq has become a toxic issue that is avoided at all costs by the two largest parties in their election campaigns.Forgetting Iraq in the election
The Labour manifesto outlined that "there is no more important part of the world for global security than the Middle East", but the 76-page document only mentions Iraq once in passing, with reference to defence spending.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives, bound to Iraq by their support for the war, didn't mention it once in their 131-page manifesto ...
According to the UNHCR in January this year, there are still more than 1.3 million Iraqi refugees living across the region, including some 747,910 in Syria and 500,000 in Jordan ...
In October, the UNHCR expressed its concern over the British attempt to forcibly return 44 Iraqi men to Baghdad.
Here, responsibility towards Iraqi refugees clashes with the parties' policies towards immigration, an issue that both manifestos have plenty to say about ...
So what hope for is there for a British foreign policy that is fair for all, or one where we're all in it together?
To abandon those worst affected by a foreign policy failure is what the absence of Iraq from the party manifestos is committing ourselves towards.
Guardian 14 Apr 2010UNHCR - Iraq
Nato plans for a massive operation in southern Afghanistan suffered a setback yesterday when soldiers opened fire on a bus, killing four civilians including a woman and child, and wounding more than 12 others ...Nato Taleban blitz in jeopardy after troops shoot woman and child on bus
Elders in Kandahar — where the latest Nato operation will be focused — said that what little faith people still had in the coalition had evaporated ...
President Karzai — who has wept in public while demanding that Nato should stop killing innocent people — issued a statement condemning the attack ...
Soon after the incident, scores of protesters tried to block the road through Zhari, chanting “Death to America”, and “Death to Karzai” and burning tyres on the road ...
Times 13 Apr 2010 AfghanistanAfghanistan News
While the US and Britain slide towards oligarchy, the forced elections in Afghanistan and Iraq have brought no good ...As democracy unravels at home, the west thuggishly exports it elsewhere
The high-minded attacks on corruption in Muslim states from London and Washington is futile. In most countries corruption is the lubricant of power.
Nor is the west that clean. Britain showered corruption on the Saudis to obtain arms contracts. The activities of American firms in "rebuilding" Iraq were wholly corrupt ...
The Tories and Liberal Democrats are dishonest to say that the Afghan war is justified "provided" Karzai ends corruption, stops rigging elections, and trains his army and police.
None of this will happen, and is merely cover to avoid saying what these politicians know to be true – that British soldiers are dying for a dud hypothetical ...ConstituentGuardian 08 Apr 2010
8 Apr 2010, 9:26PM
To work, democracy needs to work from the bottom up.
People choose local representatives to represent them at higher levels. People turn up at local meetings and speek, and votes are counted.
Forget the press attacks and look how trade unions work. They are democratic.
All we do now is vote for dictators, or mouthpieces for the people really in charge.
Democracy also expects those voting to understand and accept the responsibility for their decisions.
The great thing about straightforward dictatorships is that the dictator isn't your fault. You can absolve yourself from responsibility.
Half of these places where we are trying to enforce democracy aren't natural countries, just lines on the map.
The parties represent different areas with nothing in common.
As long as the rich can buy political parties who select "representatives" there is no democracy.
US special forces soldiers dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath of a botched night raid, then washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened ...US special forces 'tried to cover-up' botched Khataba raid
Two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a police officer and his brother were shot on February 12 when US and Afghan special forces stormed their home in Khataba village, outside Gardez in eastern Afghanistan. The precise composition of the force has never been made public.
The claims were made as Nato admitted responsibility for all the deaths for the first time last night.
It had initially claimed that the women had been dead for several hours when the assault force discovered their bodies ...
In a statement yesterday, Brigadier-General Eric Tremblay, a Nato spokesman, said: “We deeply regret the outcome of this operation, accept responsibility for our actions that night, and know that this loss will be felt forever by the families.
“The force went to the compound based on reliable information in search of a Taleban insurgent, and believed that the two men posed a threat to their personal safety. We now understand that the men killed were only trying to protect their families.”
Times 05 April 2010 A violent aggressive cultureUN report criticises covert troops
The president's tone was stern, angry, and carried a veiled warning to the international community about its involvement here.Karzai accuses UN over election fraud
His foreign allies will reject his accusations, and raise questions about his motives and mindset. But they know it's a political reality they must deal with.
His closest aides say he is still bitter about last year's controversial presidential election. He believed then that key allies like the US and UK were determined to oust him - his suspicion hasn't completely gone away.
Efforts like Barack Obama's visit to Kabul help ease tension and underscore a realisation on both sides that this relationship must be repaired. Too much is at stake.
The president's sudden outburst may have been provoked by the Lower House of Parliament's rejection of his decree giving him the power to appoint all five members of the Electoral Complaints Commission - a move he said was necessary to let Afghanistan control this key process.
BBC NEWS 01 April 2010Karzai poll body power grab
Karzai blames west for Afghanistan election 'fraud'
'Ghost recruits' and widespread corruption are hampering the fight against the Taliban and delaying Britain's withdrawal plans ...Drugs and desertion: how the UK really rates Afghan police
A series of internal Foreign Office papers obtained by The Independent on Sunday ... warn that building an effective police force "will take many years", also reveal how non-existent "ghost recruits" may account for up to a quarter of the purported strength of the police force, often the front line against the Taliban insurgency.
The "attrition rate" among police officers – including losses caused by deaths, desertion and dismissals, often due to positive drug tests – is as high as 60 per cent in Helmand province ...
Independent 28 Mar 2010 Afghanistan
The government's assessment of the threat of terrorism in the UK is overstated and has undermined the case for imposing tough new anti-terror laws, an influential committee of MPs and peers has warned ...Ministers are exaggerating the terrorist threat, say MPs
The Committee ... criticised the head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, for his failure to appear before the committee.
"It is unacceptable that the Director General of the Security Service refuses to appear before it to give public evidence – despite giving public lectures and media interviews – that would allow the Committee to make judgements about the necessity and proportionality of counter-terrorism measures," the report said.
The committee also criticised the Government's narrow definition of complicity in torture as "significant and worrying".
It said that in light of details published in the case of Binyam Mohammed, the case for an urgent independent inquiry into the allegations of complicity in torture was now "irresistible".
Independent Mar 2010
David Miliband said today that there was "compelling evidence" that Israel was responsible for misuse of British passports as part of a plot to kill a prominent member of Hamas.'Compelling evidence' Israel was behind misuse of UK passports
The foreign secretary confirmed that Britain had demanded the withdrawal of an Israeli diplomat following the "intolerable" use of 12 forged British passports by a hit squad that killed the founder of Hamas's military wing in Dubai.
Miliband attacked the "profound disregard" for UK sovereignty and said the apparent involvement of a friendly nation "added insult to injury" ...
Guardian 23 Mar 2010 Israel
The United States is reportedly considering whether to detain international terrorist suspects at Bagram air base in Afghanistan after the closure of Guantanamo Bay ...Bagram air base in Afghanistan 'could be new Guantanamo'
Any decision to expand the existing detention facility at Bagram would be expected to draw heavy criticism from allies and human rights groups.
Bagram currently holds around 800 prisoners, the vast majority captured in Afghanistan.
Control of the prison is due to be handed over to the Afghan government in January, but that would have to be delayed if the US decided to use it to hold foreign terrorist suspects captured elsewhere ...
Telegraph 22 Mar 2010Bagram Air Base
Is The Bagram Air Base The New Guantanamo?
Afghan workers protest at Bagram base
Torture Allegations Re-surface
Guantanamo's evil twin
US envoy George Mitchell has postponed a visit to Israel amid a continuing row over Israel's decision to build more Jewish homes in Arab East Jerusalem ...US envoy George Mitchell postpones Israel visit
The renewal of talks had been agreed before Mr Biden's visit, but Israel's announcement that it planned to build 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem left it in tatters ..."His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."BBC NEWS 16 Mar 2010 Israel
Balfour Declaration 1917The real price of Israel's settlements
Ban Ki-moon demands Israel settlements halt
Netanyahu rebuffs Hillary Clinton demands
Jerusalem issue 'a red line', says Jordan's king
Under the cover of a benign government information-gathering program, a Defense Department official set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants ...Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants
While it has been widely reported that the C.I.A. and the military are attacking operatives of Al Qaeda and others through unmanned, remote-controlled drone strikes, some American officials say they became troubled that Mr. Furlong seemed to be running an off-the-books spy operation. The officials say they are not sure who condoned and supervised his work.
It is generally considered illegal for the military to hire contractors to act as covert spies. Officials said Mr. Furlong’s secret network might have been improperly financed by diverting money from a program designed to merely gather information about the region.
Moreover, in Pakistan, where Qaeda and Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding, the secret use of private contractors may be seen as an attempt to get around the Pakistani government’s prohibition of American military personnel’s operating in the country ...
NYT 14 Mar 2010 A Violent Aggressive CulturePrivatising war
With more than 300 Palestinian children being held in Israeli prisons, human rights groups and Palestinian officials are increasingly concerned about the actions of the Israeli military.Jail ordeal of hundreds of Palestinian children arrested for throwing stones
The Israeli group B'Tselem said that security forces had "severely violated" the rights of a number of children, aged between 12 and 15, who had been taken into custody in recent months.
The family of one 13-year-old boy from Hebron who was arrested on 27 February by a military patrol and detained for eight days have brought a legal case against the authorities. The teenager, Al-Hasan Muhtaseb, described how he had been interrogated without a lawyer late into the night, forced to confess to throwing stones, made to sign a confession in Hebrew that he couldn't read, jailed with adults and brought before a military court.
He was only released on bail eight days later, after considerable legal effort by several human rights groups. As he had signed a confession, he still faces a possible indictment for throwing stones – a charge that usually brings several months in jail but carries a maximum penalty of 20 years' jail ...
Observer 14 Mar 2010The best political weapon is the weapon of terror.
Cruelty commands respect.
Men may hate us.
But, we don't ask for their love; only for their fear.
Heinrich HimmlerB'Tselem
Scarred, trapped, vengeful
A BBC investigation in Iraq has confirmed a disturbingly high number of birth defects among children in the town of Falluja ...Birth defects 'have risen since US Falluja operation'
It was hard to find doctors at the brand-new, US-funded hospital in Falluja who were prepared to talk about the problem.
I was told they were scared to speak because the Iraqi government did not want to create trouble for the Americans.
The official line is that Falluja has only two or three cases of birth defects a year more than normal.
But, in the children's ward, I spoke to a paediatrician who told me he saw as many as two or three cases a day, mainly cardiac defects ...
BBC NEWS 04 Mar 2010 A Violent Aggressive Culture
Many Dubaians believe that the collapse of the emirate's economy last year was the revenge of Western banks – spurred on, of course, by the Americans – to punish them for allowing Iranian shell companies to use Dubai as a sanctions-busting base during the cold-hot war between the US-Israeli alliance and Iran.Passport to the truth in Dubai remains secret
Now the Americans (or the Israelis – you can take your pick) want to turn Dubai into the Beirut of the Gulf. That was actually a headline last week – in The Jerusalem Post, of course – which painted Dubai as dangerous as it was economically calamitous ...
According to a Dubai "source" of The Independent – readers will have to judge what this means – the security forces of the aforesaid emirate informed a "British diplomat" in Dubai ... of the UK passport details almost six days ago and "did not receive an appropriate reply".
If this is true – the Foreign Office will be wrathful in its denials – then why didn't the British immediately express their outrage at the use of forged British passports and cough up details of the equally outrageous frauds a week ago? ...
Far too many police forces are now sending their minions to Israel to learn about "terror".
The Canadians actually dispatched a team of cops to Tel Aviv who allowed themselves to wear "suicide vests" for publicity pictures.
Air France now hands the US details of all its passengers' profiles – which, of course, go straight to the Israelis – despite the fact that Israeli security officers (like hundreds of Arab security officers in the Middle East) may well be involved in war crimes ...
Independent 17 Feb 2010Britain's explanation is riddled with inconsistencies
Britain summons Israeli ambassador
Hallmarks of a classic Israeli operation
The moment Mossad agents got their man?
The United States plans to unveil later this decade a new conventional "Prompt Global Strike" (C-PGS) system. It will enable the US to instantly carry out a massive conventional attack anywhere in the world in an hour or less.US's strike threat catches China off guard
Research and development work by the US Department of Defense (DoD) on C-PGS began almost two decades ago, and this shifted into high gear in 2003.
Instead of delivering a nuclear warhead, a new US-based missile and/or some other unmanned delivery vehicle may carry a conventional warhead that is able to destroy a distant target in less than an hour.
"The US cannot take its current dominance for granted and needs to invest in the programs, platforms, and personnel that will ensure that dominance's persistence," wrote US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in a commentary accompanying the 2010 QDR entitled, "A Balanced Strategy: Reprogramming the Pentagon For a New Age".
"In the case of China, Beijing's investments in cyberwarfare, anti-satellite warfare, anti-aircraft and anti-ship weaponry, submarines, and ballistic missiles could threaten the United States' primary means to project its power and help its allies in the Pacific: bases, air and sea assets, and the networks that support them.
This will put a premium on the United States' ability to strike from over the horizon and employ missile defenses and will require shifts from short-range to longer-range systems, such as the next-generation bomber." ...
Asia Times 04 Feb 2010Dalai Lama to meet Barack Obama
The soldiers were among at least 60 to 100 members of a Special Operations team that trains Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps in counterinsurgency techniques, including intelligence gathering and development assistance ...Soldier Deaths Draw Focus to U.S. in Pakistan
At least 12 other American service members have been killed in Pakistan since Sept. 11, 2001, in hotel bombings and a plane crash ... but these were the first killed as part of the Special Operations training, which has been under way for 18 months.
That training has been acknowledged only gingerly by both the Americans and the Pakistanis, but has deliberately been kept low-key so as not to trespass onto Pakistani sensitivities about sovereignty, and not to further inflame high anti-American sentiment.
Even though the United States calls Pakistan an ally, the country ... has not allowed American combat forces to operate here, a point that is stressed by the Pentagon and the Pakistani Army ...
Instead, the Central Intelligence Agency operates what has become the main American weapon in Pakistan, the drones armed with missiles that have struck with increasing intensity against militants with the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the lawless tribal areas.
The American soldiers were probably made targets as a result of the drone strikes, said Syed Rifaat Hussain, professor of international relations at Islamabad University ...
NYT 03 Feb 2010Pakistan ... to Pursue Role in Afghan Talks ...
Obama's new 'AfPak' strategy – the view from Pakistan
From Pakistan To AfPak?
Deal with Taliban would not tackle terror's 'root source'
... Ahmed Davutoglu, the foreign minister of Turkey, said al-Qaeda's global operations would survive the end of conflict in Afghanistan and even a split in the radical Islam movement. A far reaching effort to eliminate the sources of popular Muslim grievance would still be needed to neutralise al-Qaeda ...
Mr Davutoglu said a much more comprehensive strategy was needed that must include a settlement of the Israeli-Arab conflict as well as other disputes that inflame Muslims. "If the situation in Palestine continues or if there is another [dispute] ... which provokes the feeling of Muslim communities left unresolved, then it will be difficult to contain this [terror] issue," he said.
"We think there should be a global vision of peace as well as regional perspectives and regional peace. If there is a just and sustainable peace many of these groups will not have a suitable atmosphere to get traction." ...
Telegraph 29 Jan 2010
Al-Qaida: the Yemen factor
Four elements of the Yemeni context are relevant in clarifying a complex situation:
* Many Yemenis fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s and were welcomed back afterwards. Osama bin Laden himself is half-Yemeni. More recently, a Saudi clampdown and conflict in western Pakistan have encouraged many more Yemeni paramilitaries to return home (see Ginny Hill, “Yemen: the weakest link”, 31 March 2009)
* The Yemeni state does not control much of its territory, and its capabilities are further limited by a rebellion in the north; the latter is being waged with Saudi aid, including cross-border bombing raids by Royal Saudi air force F-15 strike-aircraft (see Michael Horton, “Borderline Crisis”, Jane’s Intelligence Review, January 2010). A separatist movement in the south presents yet further problems to a beleaguered government
* The government lacks the resources to maintain security. Yemen faces severe economic difficulties, in part because its oil reserves are now severely depleted and because it has been badly affected by the international financial downturn (see Fred Halliday, “Yemen: travails of unity”, 3 July 2009)
* There has long been an Islamist paramilitary movement within the country; past attacks include the bombing of the USS Cole in Aden harbour in 2000 and the attack on the Limburg tanker in 2002 (see Fred Halliday, "Yemen: murder in Arabia Felix", 13 July 2007) ...
openDemocracy 02 Jan 2009Al-Qaeda group in Yemen gaining prominence
U.S. fears Yemen a safe haven for al Qaeda
Yemen: travails of unity
A historic day for Iraq
One hundred and seventy-nine dead soldiers. For what? 179,000 dead Iraqis? Or is the real figure closer to a million? We don't know. And we don't care. We never cared about the Iraqis. That's why we don't know the figure. That's why we left Basra yesterday.
I remember going to the famous Basra air base to ask how a poor Iraqi boy, a hotel receptionist called Bahr Moussa, had died. He was kicked to death in British military custody. His father was an Iraqi policeman. I talked to him in the company of a young Muslim woman. The British public relations man at the airport was laughing. "I don't believe this," my Muslim companion said. "He doesn't care." She did. So did I. I had reported from Northern Ireland. I had heard this laughter before. Which is why yesterday's departure should have been called the Day of Bahr Moussa. Yesterday, his country was set free from his murderer ...
The Independent 01 May 2009The hotel receptionist who was killed after a 'routine' raid
Lest we forget Baha Mousa
A cry for justice
Economists Debate Link Between War, Credit Crisis
Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who wrote the new book "The Three Trillion Dollar War," contends that the connection is real. Even with a growing energy demand from China, the United States and elsewhere, oil traders anticipated before the war that the price of oil would remain about $25 a barrel.
Instead, it has soared to more than $100 a barrel. Iraqi oil production has not risen with demand, in part because investment in the Middle East has been stunted by war-related unrest.
Those price increases are self-perpetuating, Stiglitz argues. Oil-rich Persian Gulf states are so awash in money that they are not sure what to do with it all. By holding back oil production, they make more off what they do produce and keep their greatest asset -- oil -- in the ground as they search for ways to spend their cash.
That cash, through state-owned sovereign wealth funds, has flowed into stocks, bonds and other investments, creating incentives for lenders to offer low-interest loans, many of which have now gone sour. But that is only one factor, by Stiglitz's accounting.
The federal government has sunk deeply into debt, first with tax cuts, then with accelerating war expenditures that have easily topped half a trillion dollars.
That limited the government's ability to keep the economy on track through tax cuts or domestic investments, so the Federal Reserve Board used low interest rates and the free flow of money to keep the economy growing.
Cheap credit sparked rash loans, a housing bubble and the current crisis. "The war played a very important role," Stiglitz said. ...Washginton Post 15 April 2008