National Call-In to Congress, Monday, December 4 With Congressional Democrats meeting December 5 on Iraq and the Iraq Study Group report to be released the following day, peace groups are asking people to call their representatives in Congress on Monday, December 4. Ask your representative and senators to support a timetable for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops and bases from Iraq and to support US talks with Iran and Syria. The Congressional switchboard is 202-225-3121.
No War with Iran: Petition More than 25,800 people have signed the Peace Action/Just Foreign Policy petition. Please sign/circulate if you have yet to do so: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/iranpetition.html
Just Foreign Policy News daily podcast: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/podcasts/podcast_howto.html
Summary: U.S./Top News The AFL-CIO-affiliated San Francisco Labor Council, often a leading edge of labor movement activism for U.S. foreign policies in the interest of working people, has unanimously passed a resolution in opposition to U.S. military action against Iran and urging Congress to pursue diplomatic, non-military solutions to any disputes with Iran.
The Iraq Study Group has reached a consensus on a final report that will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal, the New York Times reports. The report leaves unstated whether the combat brigades would be brought home, or simply pulled back to bases in Iraq or in neighboring countries.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday at a conference that the war in Iraq "could be considered a civil war," AP reports.
Leading Senate Democrats called Wednesday for President Bush to appoint a special envoy to work with Iraqi leaders to bring increasing violence in Iraq under control, the New York Times reports. They said the current American ambassador to Iraq had too many other duties to give his full attention to such an initiative.
Former President Carter is accusing Israel of creating an apartheid system in the West Bank and Gaza, Democracy Now reports. The charge comes in his new book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid." The nation's newspapers have largely ignored Carter's book since its publication two weeks ago.
Experts say it would be difficult if not impossible to implement most of the key ideas for quelling the Iraqi civil war in a memo to President Bush from National Security Adviser Hadley, McClatchy News reports. Trying to push Muqtada al-Sadr out of the ruling coalition, for example, would almost certainly lead to the government's collapse and ignite a wave of violence aimed at US forces.
IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei says North Korea's testing of a nuclear device illustrates the need for a world ban on such tests, AP reports. He also said a world nonproliferation system would not endure without serious steps by weapons states toward disarmament.
Like the other branches of the military, the Army is seeing a marked increase in the number of troops stripped of their security clearances because they are so deep in debt, AP reports.
Iran Iran's president told the American people in a letter Wednesday he was certain they detested President Bush's policies and offered to work with them to reverse those policies, the New York Times reports.
Iran is strengthening economic ties with western Afghanistan that could undermine support for U.S. and NATO forces, AP reports. But Iranian officials and analysts say that Iran is simply trying to promote stability in Afghanistan. The article notes that thanks to Iranian aid, the Western Afghan city of Herat has 24-hour electricity, unlike the Afghan capital, Kabul.
Iraq Some Sunni Muslim clerics in Iraq are reaching out to Shiite clergy in an effort to pull Iraq back from the abyss, the Los Angeles Times reports. Sunni clerics in Basra, Nasiriya, Amarah and Samawah issued religious edicts Wednesday banning the killing of all Iraqis, supporting reconstruction of a revered Shiite shrine and disavowing "any terrorist organization targeting the innocent blood of our people."
The real power in Iraq rests with radical cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, the Washington Post reports. Sadr's popularity and confidence are rising.
South Korea's ruling party said Thursday that it wouldn't back government plans to extend the country's deployment in Iraq for another year without an agreement for the eventual withdrawal of all South Korean forces, AP reports.
Lebanon Hezbollah and its allies called for mass protests in Beirut Friday in an effort to bring down Lebanon's Western-backed government, AP reports. Opposition groups called on Lebanese "to gather peacefully and stage an open-ended sit-in to protest the absence of real political participation and to demand a national unity government." They called on supporters to carry only the Lebanese flag and to avoid displaying party banners or posters.
Ecuador Ecuador's new leader promised to end the U.S. military's counternarcotics operations in Ecuador, saying it targets rebels from neighboring Colombia, the Washington Times reports. Rafael Correa said shortly after Sunday's election he would not renew the agreement with the US which allows the program to operate out of the port city of Manta. Correa's distaste for the U.S. presence is not unfounded, said Just Foreign Policy board president Mark Weisbrot."I'm not sure it's in Ecuador's interest to continue to have a foreign military presence in their country," Weisbrot said.
IMF/World Bank Despite commitments to the contrary, the World Bank and IMF are still using loans, grants, and debt cancellation to make developing countries implement inappropriate economic policies, says Oxfam in a new report. If the world is to make poverty history, this practice must be stopped, Oxfam says. Aid must be conditional on being spent transparently and on reducing poverty, and nothing more. The European Commission and the British and Norwegian governments have developed policies to end the tying of their aid to privatization and liberalization conditions, says Oxfam. But a recent World Bank report reveals that one in four of World Bank policy conditions in 2006 push economic reforms. A 2006 study by the Norwegian government of IMF conditionality revealed that 26 out of 40 poor countries still have privatization and liberalization conditions attached to their IMF loans.
Contents: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/newsroom/blog/ - Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org