In this issue: 1) Malaysia: OIC demands UN impose cease-fire in Lebanon 2) Majority of Voting Congressional Progressive Caucus Members now support Immediate Cease-Fire in Lebanon 3) Israel Extends Strikes North of Beirut 4) The Overview: Israel Renews Attack on Southern Lebanon 5) 100,000 March Against U.S. and Israel in Baghdad 6) Freeing Prisoners Key Goal in Fight Against Israel 7) Hezbollah's Prominence Has Many Sunnis Worried 8) Bridge Bombing Paralyses Lebanon Aid Pipeline 9) Op-Ed Contributor: Ground to a Halt 10) Israeli Soldier Incarcerated for Refusing to Fight 11) Au Revoir, Freedom Fries 12) The Sound of One Domino Falling 13) The Military: U.S. General Says Iraq Could Slide Into a Civil War 14) Intelligence: Senator Faults Bid to Classify Report on Iraq 15) Hezbollah Chief's Statement Clarifies Strategy 16) Protesters Attack Iran's British Embassy 17) Human Rights Watch Accuses Israel of War Crimes 18) U.S. to Supply Food with One Hand, Arms with Other 19) Officers Allegedly Pushed 'Kill Counts' 20) US Auditor Lists Failures in Rebuilding of Iraq
Contents: 1) Malaysia: OIC demands UN impose cease-fire in Lebanon BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific - Political August 4, 2006 Friday Leaders of 18 Muslim nations yesterday demanded the UN Security Council call for an immediate stop to Israeli military aggression in Lebanon, failing which they want all Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) member states to push for the convening of the meeting of the General Assembly under "Uniting for Peace." The leaders also want the peacekeeping operations in the Middle East to be led by Muslim forces. In a declaration on Lebanon issued at the end of the meeting of the OIC Executive Committee they strongly condemned the Israeli attacks. "We demand that the UN Security Council fulfils its responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security without any further delay by deciding on and enforcing an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire", said the declaration issued at the end of the meeting initiated by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is also OIC chairman. Besides Malaysia, other countries attending were Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. They also supported the Lebanese government's seven-point plan for the immediate and comprehensive ceasefire, which included an undertaking to release the Lebanese and Israeli prisoners and detainees through the International Community of Red Crescent (ICRC), the withdrawal of the Israeli army behind the Blue Line, and the return of the displaced to their villages.
Just Foreign Policy did another 3 radio interviews on the Uniting for Peace call today; one of them, with Stephen Zunes on KGNU Boulder, is on the web: http://kgnu.net/audio/Connections_2006-08-04.mp3.
Our petition in support of the call for a General Assembly meeting on Lebanon under "Uniting for Peace" is here: http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/justforeignpolicy.org/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=325.
2) Majority of Voting Congressional Progressive Caucus Members now support Immediate Cease-Fire in Lebanon 39 Members of Congress have publicly come out in support of an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon by cosponsoring resolutions introduced by Representative Kucinich and Representative Jackson-Lee. Of these 39, 30 are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a majority of the 59 voting members of the caucus. (Reps. Holmes-Norton of DC, Bordallo of Guam, and Christensen of the U.S. Virgin Islands have not yet cosponsored either resolution.) To ask your Representative to co-sponsor these resolutions, you can use this link: http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/justforeignpolicy.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=4697
3) Israel Extends Strikes North of Beirut John Kifner New York Times August 4, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/world/middleeast/04cnd-mideast.html Israel unleashed airstrikes across Lebanon Friday, severing the last major road link to the outside world and killing more than 30 people. The bombs destroyed four bridges along the main north-south highway in what had been the largely untouched Christian heartland north of Beirut and far from Hezbollah territory. With the road from Beirut to Damascus already cut at several points, this was the only practical way to bring in relief and other supplies from Syria, tightening the sense of siege here. At the steep gorge here cut by the Fidar River, dozens of Maronite Catholic residents gathered to stare in stunned silence at a 200-yard stretch of four-lane highway blasted into rubble. "Where are the Katushas of the Hezbollah here?" asked Joseph Abihana.
4) The Overview: Israel Renews Attack on Southern Lebanon Richard A. Oppel Jr. And Steven Erlanger New York Times August 4, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/world/middleeast/04mideast.html The Lebanese militia Hezbollah killed 12 Israelis — 8 civilians and 4 soldiers — on Thursday, making it Israel's deadliest day in more than three weeks of conflict. As Israeli troops tried to create a narrow buffer zone inside Lebanon and bombed southern Beirut, Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, warned that he would send his long-range missiles into Tel Aviv if the airstrikes continued. But he also offered to halt Hezbollah's missile barrage into Israel if it stopped bombing Lebanon. The Israeli defense minister, Amir Peretz, told the army to begin preparing to push to the Litani River, some 15 miles north of the border, a move that could mean a further call-up of military reservists. That would expand the security zone Israel is trying to create. But it is not clear whether he will receive government approval to do so.
5) 100,000 March Against U.S. and Israel in Baghdad Damien Cave And Kirk Semple New York Times August 4, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/world/middleeast/04cnd-iraq.html More than 100,000 followers of the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr marched today to show support for Hezbollah, denouncing Israel and the United States for the violence in Lebanon. The protesters filled 20 blocks of a wide boulevard and dozens of side streets in the Shiite-dominated Sadr City section of the capital. Waving Lebanese flags and posters of Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, the protesters chanted, "No, no, no, Israel, no, no, no, America,'' challenged Americans to fight them in their neighborhoods, and called on Hezbollah to strike at Tel Aviv. The fighting in Lebanon has caused a rift between the United States and the Shiite parties that lead Iraq's new government, which feel a strong solidarity with Hezbollah.
6) Freeing Prisoners Key Goal in Fight Against Israel Craig S. Smith New York Times August 4, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/world/middleeast/04prisoners.html
When Hezbollah guerrillas sneaked into Israel last month, killing and capturing Israeli soldiers and setting off the current crisis, their goal was to trade them for a Lebanese man held by Israel. The prisoner, Samir Kuntar, was part of a cell that in 1979 raided an apartment building in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, killing several members of the Haran family. After Hezbollah made off with two Israeli soldiers in the raid last month, Israel vowed that it would not negotiate for their release. But the question of prisoners held by Israel — nearly all of them Palestinians — is the subtext of this crisis and is likely to figure in its resolution. It is an issue that animates Hezbollah and the Palestinians as much as anything else in their fight with Israel. The prisoners now number about 9,700, about 100 of them women. About 300 are younger than 18, including two girls and a boy of 14, being held in juvenile detention facilities for acts against Israel. The Israelis say many of them are terrorists, and some clearly are. But the Palestinians say that others are wrongfully accused and that many have never committed a violent act.
7) Hezbollah's Prominence Has Many Sunnis Worried Neil MacFarquhar New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/world/middleeast/04muslims.html August 4, 2006 A Damascus University professor recoils at the destruction he across the border, but deeper down he worries that any Hezbollah triumph will come at the expense of his own Sunni branch of Islam. "Since the Americans invaded Iraq we have all become aware of the danger from the Shiites," said the professor. "Ordinary people only think of Hezbollah as fighting against Israeli aggression. But the educated classes think that if Hezbollah controls the region, then the Sunnis will be abused." Intensifying Sunni-Shiite violence in Iraq in the last couple of years has already raised sectarian awareness across the Middle East in ways not experienced since the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. The fighting in Lebanon promises to further increase Sunnis' unease.
8) Bridge Bombing Paralyses Lebanon Aid Pipeline Michael Winfrey Reuters Friday, August 4, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0804-08.htm Israel's bombing of key bridges in northern Lebanon and strikes at a Hizbollah stronghold in south Beirut paralysed United Nations aid convoys on Friday, but other aid continued to arrive by air and sea. Air strikes against four bridges on the main coastal highway linking Beirut to Syria stalled an eight-truck convoy carrying 150 tonnes of relief and cut what the UN called its "umbilical cord" for aid supplies. "The whole road is gone," said Astrid van Genderen Stort, senior information officer for the UNHCR refugee agency. "It's really a major setback because we used this highway to move staff and supplies into the country."
9) Op-Ed Contributor: Ground to a Halt Robert Pape, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, author of "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism." New York Times August 3, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/opinion/03pape.html Israel has finally conceded that air power alone will not defeat Hezbollah. Over the coming weeks, it will learn that ground power won't work either. The problem is not that the Israelis misunderstand the nature of the enemy. Hezbollah is principally neither a political party nor an Islamist militia, but a broad movement that evolved in reaction to Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. As more and more Lebanese came to resent Israel's occupation, Hezbollah expanded into an umbrella organization that tacitly coordinated the resistance operations of a loose collection of groups with a variety of religious and secular aims. In terms of structure and hierarchy, it is less comparable to a religious cult like the Taliban than to the multidimensional American civil-rights movement of the 1960's.
10) Israeli Soldier Incarcerated for Refusing to Fight Aaron Glantz OneWorld.net Friday, August 4, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0804-03.htm Israeli authorities have sentenced an army officer to 28 days in a military prison for refusing to serve in the Israeli campaign in Lebanon. Reserve Captain Amir Paster is the first Israeli soldier to be punished for refusing to serve in the current conflict and has received harsh criticism from the Israeli military for setting what it termed a bad example for his troops. According to the soldier support group Yesh Gvul ("There Is a Limit"), Paster refused to serve on the grounds that Israeli operations were harming civilians, declaring at his trial "taking part in this war runs contrary to the values upon which he was brought up." Supporters say Paster's act was courageous given that the vast majority of Jewish Israelis support the war.
11) Au Revoir, Freedom Fries Editorial, New York Times August 4, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/opinion/04fri4.html When Congress renamed the French fries sold in its cafeterias "freedom fries" before the Iraq war, Bob Ney, whose position as House Administration Committee chairman put him in charge of the cafeterias, said the change registered "the strong displeasure of many on Capitol Hill with the actions of our so-called ally, France." In the real world, it mainly allowed people to register their strong displeasure at how juvenile Congress was being. In the last few weeks, Congress has quietly changed the name back. "Freedom fries," like the "mission accomplished" banner that President Bush stood in front of a few months later, is now a stale relic of a naïve time, when the war's supporters were convinced that Iraqis would be free right after they finished greeting their liberators with rose petals.
12) The Sound of One Domino Falling Editorial New York Times August 4, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/opinion/04fri1.html It's been obvious for years that Donald Rumsfeld is in denial of reality, but the defense secretary now also seems stuck in a time warp. You could practically hear the dominoes falling as he told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday that it was dangerous for Americans to even talk about how to end the war in Iraq. "If we left Iraq prematurely," he said, "the enemy would tell us to leave Afghanistan and then withdraw from the Middle East. And if we left the Middle East, they'd order us and all those who don't share their militant ideology to leave what they call the occupied Muslim lands from Spain to the Philippines." And finally, he intoned, America will be forced "to make a stand nearer home." No one in charge of American foreign affairs has talked like that in decades. After Vietnam, of course, the communist empire did not swarm all over Asia as predicted; it tottered and collapsed. And the new "enemy" that Mr. Rumsfeld is worried about is not a worldwide conspiracy but a collection of disparate political and religious groups, now united mainly by American action in Iraq.
13) The Military: U.S. General Says Iraq Could Slide Into a Civil War Thom Shanker New York Times August 4, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/world/middleeast/04rumsfeld.html The commander of American forces in the Middle East bluntly warned a Senate committee on Thursday that sectarian violence in Iraq had grown so severe that the nation could slide toward civil war. The commander, Gen. John Abizaid, also acknowledged that since the security situation remained so unstable, significant reductions in American forces were unlikely before the end of this year. Asked by Senator Carl Levin of Michigan whether Iraq risked falling into civil war, General Abizaid replied, "I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I've seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war."
14) Intelligence: Senator Faults Bid to Classify Report on Iraq Mark Mazzetti New York Times August 4, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/world/middleeast/04intel.html The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee lashed out at the White House on Thursday, criticizing attempts by the Bush administration to keep secret parts of a report on the role Iraqi exiles played in building the case for war against Iraq. Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas chastised the White House for efforts to classify most of the part that examines intelligence provided to the Bush administration by the Iraqi National Congress.
15) Hezbollah Threatens Tel Aviv Chief's Statement Clarifies Strategy Edward Cody Washington Post Friday, August 4, 2006; Page A13 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080301435.html The leader of Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah, threatened Thursday night to fire rockets at Tel Aviv if Israel expands its bombing attacks against Beirut. Nasrallah declared that Hezbollah's missile attacks on Israel are calibrated in response to Israeli air attacks on Lebanon. While warning of attacks on Israel's most populous city, he also said that if Israeli airstrikes cease, so will the rocket launchings such as those that killed eight more Israeli civilians Thursday.
16) Protesters Attack Iran's British Embassy Associated Press August 4, 2006 Filed at 11:57 a.m. ET http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Mideast-Fighting-Iran.html About 100 demonstrators threw stones and firebombs at the British Embassy in Tehran on Friday, damaging the building but not harming anyone as they accused Britain and the United States of being accomplices in Israel's fight against Hezbollah. Demonstrators also smashed some of the building's windows as they called for its closure and the expulsion of the British ambassador. A British Foreign Office spokesman said nobody was harmed. ''Protesters were throwing bricks and at least one petrol bomb but everyone's OK,'' he said. ''There was just some damage to perimeter of the embassy.''
17) Human Rights Watch Accuses Israel of War Crimes Jim Lobe Inter Press Service Thursday, August 3, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0803-02.htm In systematically failing to distinguish between Hezbollah fighters and civilian population in its military campaign in Lebanon, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have committed war crimes, according to a report released by Human Rights Watch Wednesday. The 50-page report, "Fatal Strikes: Israel's Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon," detailed nearly two dozen cases of IDF attacks in which a total of 153 civilians, including 63 children, were killed in homes or motor vehicles. In none of the cases did HRW researchers find evidence that there was a significant enough military objective to justify the attack, given the risks to civilian lives, while, in many cases, there was no identifiable military target. In still other cases cited in the report, Israeli forces appear to have deliberately targeted civilians. "By consistently failing to distinguish between combatants and civilians, Israel has violated one of the most fundamental tenets of the laws of war: the duty to carry out attacks on only military targets," according to the report.
18) U.S. to Supply Food with One Hand, Arms with Other Thalif Deen Inter Press Service Thursday, August 3, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0803-01.htm As Israel's bombing of Lebanon continues, the US says it stands ready to provide food, medicine and humanitarian assistance to the thousands of internally displaced Lebanese caught in the crossfire. But Washington has also decided to accelerate the supply of lethal weapons to Israel -- ''perhaps intended to kill the very Lebanese the US is planning to feed and shelter,'' says one Arab diplomat at the United Nations. ''It is U.S. hypocrisy at its worst,'' he told IPS, speaking on condition of anonymity, because his country receives millions of dollars in U.S. economic aid. Irene Khan, secretary-general of Amnesty International, was equally critical. ''It is ridiculous to talk about providing humanitarian aid on the one hand, and to provide arms on the other,'' she says. ''It is imperative that all governments stop the supply of arms and weapons to both sides immediately.''
19) Officers Allegedly Pushed 'Kill Counts' Investigators believe the leaders of a unit accused in Iraq detainee deaths fueled a climate of hate. Borzou Daragahi and Julian E. Barnes Los Angeles Times Thursday, August 3, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0803-07.htm Military prosecutors and investigators probing the killing of three Iraqi detainees by U.S. troops in May believe the unit's commanders created an atmosphere of excessive violence by encouraging "kill counts" and possibly issuing an illegal order to shoot Iraqi men. At a military hearing Wednesday on the killing of the detainees near Samarra, witnesses painted a picture of a brigade that operated under loose rules allowing wanton killing and tolerating violent, anti-Arab racism. Some military officials believe that the shooting of the three detainees and the killing of 24 civilians in November in Haditha reveal failures in the military chain of command, in one case to establish proper rules of engagement and in the other to vigorously investigate incidents after the fact. "The bigger thing here is the failure of the chain of command," said a Defense Department official familiar with the investigations.
20) US Auditor Lists Failures in Rebuilding of Iraq Farah Stockman Boston Globe Thursday, August 3, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0803-06.htm The top auditor of the US reconstruction effort in Iraq yesterday detailed a series of failures, including a $218.5 million emergency radio network that doesn't work, a hospital that is turning out to be twice as expensive as planned, an oil pipeline that is spewing lakes of crude oil onto the ground, and a prison that was meant to hold 4,400 inmates but can house only about 800. Stuart Bowen Jr. , the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, cited multiple causes for the failures at a Senate hearing yesterday, among them the growth of the Iraqi insurgency, poor planning by the US government, and corruption in the Iraqi government. But he also took aim at the "cost-plus" contracts given to American construction firms, which guaranteed profits on top of the cost of the project, even with huge overruns.
-------- Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org