Two Faced

In a surprising move after reports that Turkey’s offensive in northern Iraq would be sustained for the foreseeable future, Turkish forces began withdrawing yesterday in force. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the withdrawal occurred just after President Bush called on the Turkish government to end the offensive and a day after US Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited the Turkish capital to deliver Washington’s message that the incursion must not be open ended. Of course, the Turkish government and military is claiming that the withdrawal was preplanned and that it had nothing to do with US pressure, but that’s obviously transparent given the fact that the withdrawal itself began before any official Turkish statements were made regarding it.

Were I to venture a guess, I would say that behind closed doors Washington rubber stamped the Turkish invasion and then used condemnation of it to remove suspicions of complicity. And, of course, the Turks played along and got what they wanted out of it.

That would be my guess anyway.

Gaza

Here’s the back story via the BBC…

I want to state, for the record, that the use of violence by both sides in this matter is, in my opinion, unforgivable given the toll that it has taken on civilians, both at present and in years past.

That said; when one looks at this in a very hard, cold light, there are a few realities that must be addressed, though many of you might disagree.

The governing issue of Israel and Palestine as entities and the decades old arguments about how that region has found itself where it is now aside, there are a few truths that we should be willing to admit as members of a society that is primarily pro-Israeli.

The first is that Hamas is a terrorist organization, one that is supported by numerous benefactors throughout the Middle East. They fire homemade rockets into Israel from the slums of one of the world’s foremost ghettos where millions rely on international humanitarian aid to simply survive. That aid, by the way, is also one of the most outstanding examples of international blackmail in modern history.

Israel, on the other hand, is supported by the world’s foremost military super power and is the recipient of immense military aid. They possess a state of the art air force, replete with US made fighters, bombers, and attack helicopters. They possess state of the art armour and boast one of the best-trained and equipped armed forces in the world. They also possess a nuclear arsenal, a navy, and one of the world’s most feared covert intelligence outfits.

Were Palestinian militants to possess the same military capabilities as the Israelis, the need to lob homemade rockets and employ suicide bombers wouldn’t be required. In short, they would possess the same ‘honourable’ weapons of war as the Israelis and be in the position to employ them in the exact same fashion that the IDF does. That is, of course, not something that Israel, nor those that support it, would ever stand for. Thus, those who believe in the ridiculous use of violence as a measure with which to lash out against Israel wouldn’t be lobbing homemade rockets into Israel from Gaza and, in the process, endangering the lives of innocents that end up paying the price when Israeli forces retaliate – not to mention killing Israeli civilians.

That is, if you actually believe that a fair brawl between conventional forces doesn’t produce civilian deaths, which is, of course, a fallacy. In truth, they produce far more.

In this neck of the woods, the math is simple. A single Israeli life is equal to that of maybe 100 Palestinians. Let’s face it, they’re terrorists and extremists, or at least that’s what they’re painted as being by our media. The Israelis, on the other hand, are simply trying to defend themselves. Never mind the massive economic disparities between the two, never mind that Gaza is little more than a massive prison camp for all intents and purposes, which provides the sort of atmosphere in which those desperate enough are willing to focus their anger in ways that are unconscionable. If you cage an animal long enough it’s going to do one of two things. Wither away to nothing or start taking swipes through the bars at those on the other side.

Gaza is not internationally recognized as being a part of any sovereign entity, nor is it claimed by any, though it’s currency remains the Israeli Sheqel. After Hamas’ victory in Parliamentary elections in 2006, Israel, The United States, Canada, and the EU froze all funds to the Palestinian government, economically crippling it. Due to the fact that Hamas is considered a terrorist organization, it is not viewed as a legitimate governing body, even within the tenuous confines of a government that never really had any international recognition beyond that required to placate those responsible for providing it economic aid. Thus, as long as Hamas remains in power, their presence will be used as an excuse to continue to punish the people as a whole, despite the fact that it was democratically elected – a process that those who refuse to recognize it claim to champion the world over (that is, as long as it conforms to their ideology).

Now, let me state for the record that I am not defending Hamas. Obviously, the recognition of Israeli’s right to exist is something that must occur. After decades of the same tired argument, the time has come to consider the welfare of the Palestinian people as a whole, which, for some, is a bitter pill to swallow. That said; there is certainly a reason why Hamas was successful in the elections in 2006.

Gaza is 41 kilometers long and 12 kilometers wide; that’s 360 square kilometers. In that space there are 1.4 million people, 1 million of which are officially recognized by the United Nations as refugees. Some 18% of children in Gaza between the ages of 6 months and 5 years old suffer from chronic malnutrition. 53% of women of reproductive age and children are anemic. Given such facts, one can begin to see why support for an organization that undertakes initiatives within the community to secure popular support, not to mention striking at those they view as their oppressors, might attract the support of the suffering and the disenfranchised. In truth, it’s not a phenomenon that is, by any stretch of the imagination, limited to that area of the world. It is a phenomenon that has been quintessential in the birth of Western democracies and, if we’re going to be completely honest, Israel itself.

Now, you can rush out and get a copy of The National Post and succumb to the bias that we’re exposed to on a daily basis regarding this issue, or you can spend some time trying to look at it from the other side of the fence (literally). I’ll not condone the use of violence as a method with which to enact change, but I will also not condemn those that feel they have no way out of a situation that is, in truth, entirely comparable to an existence in prison. There are better ways to go about it, I will admit that freely, and also not hesitate to suggest that such methods be embraced, but I do not live in Gaza, nor do I have to endure its realities, so that position remains one of a lofty Western idealist.

The Iranian Laptop Nuke Data

Gareth Porter provides some valuable insight regarding this issue…

“The George W. Bush administration has long pushed the “laptop documents” – 1,000 pages of technical documents supposedly from a stolen Iranian laptop – as hard evidence of Iranian intentions to build a nuclear weapon. Now charges based on those documents pose the only remaining obstacles to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) declaring that Iran has resolved all unanswered questions about its nuclear program.

But those documents have long been regarded with great suspicion by US and foreign analysts. German officials have identified the source of the laptop documents in November 2004 as the Mujahideen e Khalq (MEK), which along with its political arm, the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI), is listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organization.

There are some indications, moreover, that the MEK obtained the documents not from an Iranian source but from Israel’s Mossad.

In its latest report on Iran, circulated Feb. 22, the IAEA, under strong pressure from the Bush administration, included descriptions of plans for a facility to produce “green salt,” technical specifications for high explosives testing and the schematic layout of a missile reentry vehicle that appears capable of holding a nuclear weapon. Iran has been asked to provide full explanations for these alleged activities.

Tehran has denounced the documents on which the charges are based as fabrications provided by the MEK, and has demanded copies of the documents to analyze, but the United States had refused to do so.

The Iranian assertion is supported by statements by German officials. A few days after then-Secretary of State Colin Powell announced the laptop documents, Karsten Voight, the coordinator for German-American relations in the German Foreign Ministry, was reported by the Wall Street Journal Nov. 22, 2004 as saying that the information had been provided by “an Iranian dissident group.”

A German official familiar with the issue confirmed to this writer that the NCRI had been the source of the laptop documents. “I can assure you that the documents came from the Iranian resistance organization.,” the source said.

The Germans have been deeply involved in intelligence collection and analysis regarding the Iranian nuclear program. According to a story by Washington Post reporter Dafna Linzer soon after the laptop documents were first mentioned publicly by Powell in late 2004, US officials said they had been stolen from an Iranian whom German intelligence had been trying to recruit, and had been given to intelligence officials of an unnamed country in Turkey.

The German account of the origins of the laptop documents contradicts the insistence by unnamed US intelligence officials who insisted to journalists William J. Broad and David Sanger in November 2005 that the laptop documents did not come from any Iranian resistance groups.

Despite the fact that it was listed as a terrorist organization., the MEK was a favorite of neoconservatives in the Pentagon, who were proposing in 2003-2004 to use it as part of a policy to destabilize Iran. The United States is known to have used intelligence from the MEK on Iranian military questions for years. It was considered a credible source of intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program. after 2002, mainly because of its identification of the facility in Natanz as a nuclear site.

The German source said he did not know whether the documents were authentic or not. However, CIA analysts, and European and IAEA officials who were given access to the laptop documents in 2005 were very skeptical about their authenticity.

The Guardian’s Julian Borger last February quoted an IAEA official as saying there is “doubt over the provenance of the computer.”

A senior European diplomat who had examined the documents was quoted by the New York Times in November 2005 as saying, “I can fabricate that data. It looks beautiful, but is open to doubt.”

Scott Ritter, the former US military intelligence officer who was chief United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998, noted in an interview that the CIA has the capability test the authenticity of laptop documents through forensic tests that would reveal when different versions of different documents were created.

The fact that the agency could not rule out the possibility of fabrication, according to Ritter, indicates that it had either chosen not to do such tests or that the tests had revealed fraud.”