On the web: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/newsroom/index.html Subscribe: http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/justforeignpolicy.org/signUp.jsp?key=1271
Summary: U.S. Politics Americans' opinions about how to protect against future attacks have shifted, says a Pew Research poll. Far more Americans say reducing America's overseas military presence, rather than expanding it, will have a greater effect in reducing the threat of terrorism. In calling for public war-crime trials at Guantánamo Bay, President Bush is calculating that with a critical election just nine weeks away, neither angry Democrats nor nervous Republicans will dare deny him the power to detain, interrogate and try suspects his way, the New York Times reports, and he is trying to divert voters from the morass of Iraq and to revive the emotionally potent question of what powers the president should be able to use to defend the country. Lawmakers at the European Parliament demanded the U.S. reveal the locations of secret CIA detention facilities. The U.N. special investigator on torture has said the use of secret prisons violate anti-torture commitments because keeping detainees in such places is a form of enforced disappearance. A new Army manual bans torture and degrading treatment of prisoners, for the first time specifically mentioning forced nakedness, hooding and other infamous procedures. The new manual doesn't cover the CIA. On a 70-30 vote, the Senate Wednesday rejected a move by Democrats to stop the Pentagon from using cluster bombs near civilian targets and to cut off sales unless purchasers abide by the same rules. Senate Democrats failed Wednesday to force a vote on a resolution calling for the dismissal of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld after an extended debate that served as a proxy for a partisan clash over the war in Iraq. Bush continues to peddle the Abu Zubayda myth, Juan Cole writes. Bush has repeatedly characterized Abu Zubayda as a high-level al-Qaeda leader, but intelligence community sources say he was more like a low level travel agent. And he could barely pull off that basic job, since he was "insane, certifiable" in the words of a top FBI official. Public opinion in Europe and the US is converging against President Bush, according to the Transatlantic Trends released Wednesday. While 77 per cent of EU citizens disapprove of Bush's handling of international affairs, the figure in the US is now 58 per cent. Iran One of the reasons that "nobody knows the rules of the road" in this nuclear standoff is the Bush administration's incoherent and contradictory nuclear nonproliferation policies, write Kevin Martin and Gordon Clark of Peace Action in a letter to the Washington Post. Equally important is the fact that the administration has repeatedly upped the ante by threatening military action against Iran. Bush administration officials spoiling for an attack on Iran's nuclear sites must discredit the intelligence community's conclusions that Iran is still as many as 10 years away from being able to build a nuclear weapon and that such a weapon is not an inevitable consequence of its present uranium enrichment program, Gareth Porter notes. Iraq Coalition forces handed over control of Iraq's armed forces command to the government Thursday. However, it is still unclear how rapidly the Iraqi forces will be prepared to take over their own security, AP reports. Shiite lawmakers are pushing ahead with legislation that would provide a mechanism to carve Iraq into largely autonomous regions, angering some Sunni Arab lawmakers who say Shiites should first follow through on a promise to allow Parliament to re-examine the issue of federalism. The Iraqi government Thursday ordered Arabic satellite network Al-Arabiya to shut down its Baghdad operations for one month. Mexico Mexico's democratic crisis is only deepening, according to some Mexican online commentators, Jefferson Morley notes in his Washington Post blog. The possibility of a violent conclusion to the confrontation between the government and the demonstrators is now becoming part of the country's political discussion. A significant slice of the voting public still believes that the election was marred by fraud and that the country's electoral institutions are corrupt, the New York Times reports. A key reason is the history of fraud. But it is also because Mexicans have a very different notion of electoral fraud than voters in the US, a notion that goes beyond stuffing ballot boxes.
In this issue: U.S. Politics 1) A Diminished Public Appetite for Military Force and Mideast Oil 2) A Challenge From Bush to Congress 3) Use of Secret Jails Draws Mixed Reaction 4) Army Bans Some Interrogation Techniques 5) Senate Rejects Limits on Cluster Bombs 6) Democrats Force a Debate, but Can' t Get a Vote on Rumsfeld 7) Bush, Abu Zubayda and the End of Trust 8) Disapproval of Bush Nears European Levels Iran 9) It's Time to Talk to Iran 10) Intel Estimate on Iran Blocks Neo-Con Plans 11) Europe Warns Over Iran Nuclear Tactics Iraq 12) Iraq Takes Military Reins From Coalition 13) Shiites Push Laws to Define How to Divide Iraqi Regions 14) Iraq Closes Down Al-Arabiya in Baghdad Mexico 15) Mexico Worries About Violence 16) Long History of Vote Fraud Lingers in the Mexican Psyche
-------- Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org