The World Cup and Middle East Peace

Mon Dieu, Mondial!

The World Cup and Middle East Peace

By URI AVNERY

IF PRESIDENT Bush wanted to deal with Iran by "bombing them back into the stone age", (as an American general once put it during the Vietnam War), now would be the time. With everybody riveted to the World Cup, who would notice?

The Israeli government knows this well. In their fight against the Qassam rockets that are landing in the town of Sderot, the Air Force has been given free rein. Since the beginning of the 2006 World Cup, more than 20 Palestinians, including boys and girls, a pregnant woman, a doctor and several paramedics have been killed. It seems that nobody in the world is paying any attention. Why should they? After all, the World Cup is more important.

When I come back from Jerusalem to Tel-Aviv, I generally make a slight detour to Abu Gush, an Arab village with a unique oasis: a coffee shop where mixed groups of Jewish youngsters and Arab youngsters (male only), and sometimes groups of Border Guard soldiers, Jewish and Druze, sit together on couches and fauteuils, relaxed, smoking Nargilahs (water-pipes). They devour sugary Baklava, talk, laugh and listen to the Lebanese singer Fairuz and the Oriental Israeli singer Zahava Ben. An unusual phenomenon in Israel.

When I passed there this week, they were all sitting in great excitement before a large screen, fixated on the game between Argentina and the Netherlands. They got excited together, jumped up together, shouted together.

A few days before, I saw the same in Sarajevo. In the coffee shops in the center of the town, lots of local youngsters, Muslims, Croats and Serbs, were sitting together, staring together, getting excited together, jumping up together, shouting together.

The same is happening at the same time all over the world, from Canada to Cambodia, from South Africa to North Korea.

It that good? Is that bad?

I AM NOT a football fan. Like many people in the world who think of themselves as intellectuals (whatever that means), I usually dismiss this phenomenon with a condescending, slightly ironic smile, even if I catch myself nowadays looking for long minutes at the game. When I was a child, my father told me that sport was "Goyim Naches" (Yiddish from Hebrew, "pleasure of Gentiles"), and that the only Jewish sport was to ponder the philosophies of Spinoza and Schopenhauer, or, alternatively, the Talmud. Yeshayahu Leibovitch, an observant Orthodox Jew, described football teams as "eleven hooligans running after a ball." (Another Jew suggested, for the sake of peace: "Why quarrel? Give each team their own ball.")

From this point of view (too), Israel has long since ceased to be a Jewish state, in the spiritual sense. The Israeli Goy is like any other Goy on earth. The World Cup proves it.

A PHENOMENON that arouses such deep emotions in a billion human beings cannot be dismissed with a shrug. Here we have a profound human trait. What does it mean? Where does it come from?

Konrad Lorenz, one of the founders of the science of Ethology, which deals with the behavior of animals (including the human animal), maintained that human aggressiveness is an inborn trait, a product of millions of years of evolution. Cavemen lived in tribes, each of which depended for survival on a specific territory. The aggressiveness was needed to defend this territory and drive others away.

Predators in nature, which have natural weapons - such as teeth, claws or poison - are generally equipped with an inhibiting mechanism that prevents them from attacking their own kind. Otherwise they would not have survived until today. But humans have no effective natural weapon, and therefore nature has not equipped them with such a mechanism. That was a terrible mistake. True, humans have no dangerous teeth or claws, but they have something more effective than any natural weapon: the human brain which invents clubs, pikes, cannons and nuclear bombs. So human beings have a deadly combination of three attributes: inborn aggressiveness, murderous weapons and a lack of inhibitions concerning the killing of their own kind. The result: the human inclination for war.

How to overcome it? Lorenz pointed to a remedy: sport, and especially football. Football is the surrogate for war. It directs human aggressiveness into harmless channels. That's why it is so important - and so positive.

AGGRESSIVENESS AND nationalism go together. In this respect, too, football allows a glimpse into the recesses of the human soul.

The human animal has a profound need to identify itself with a collective. It lives in a group. Ancient man lived in a tribe. Since then, social forms have changed many times. The "We" changed from time to time with the change of social structures. People lived in religious and ethnic frameworks, in feudal society, in monarchies, etc. In the modern world, they live in nations.

Self-identification with a nation is an absolute necessity for modern man (with very few exceptions). Football gives expression to this identification in a way that outwardly resembles war. That's why the national flag and the national anthem play a central role in football. The masses wave flags, paint their faces with the national colors, shout nationalist slogans, give an emotional expression to this phenomenon.

Sometimes this becomes downright ridiculous, as happened to us last week. Israel has no part in the World Cup, having been knocked out before it really began. But a member of the Ghana team, who plays for Hapoel Tel-Aviv, for some reason waved the Israeli flag on the field - and the whole State of Israel erupted in an outburst of joy: We are there! We are at the World Cup!

A less ridiculous apparition: for the first time since the destruction of the Third Reich, masses of Germans have been waving their national flag with an enthusiasm that borders on ecstasy. Some observers speak of a rebirth of German nationalism and whatnot. Yet I believe that it is a positive thing. A nation cannot live a normal life when its citizens are ashamed of it. That can cause a collective mental disturbance and give birth to dangerous tendencies. Now, thanks to football, Germans can wave their flag.

The nationalism of football overcomes all other sentiments. A classic example: at the end of the 19th century, Vienna had a mayor, Karl Lueger, who was a rabid and outspoken anti-Semite. But when the Jewish "Hakoah Vienna" played against a Hungarian team, the mayor was observed cheering the local boys. When it was pointed out to him that they were Jews, he made the famous remark: "It is I who decide who is Jewish or not."

When a French-Algerian was the star of the French team, French racists cheered him on until they were hoarse. The same happened in Israel, when an Arab played on our national team.

RECENTLY, A European intellectual told me: There are jokes about a Pole, a German, a Frenchman and any other European nation. But he has never heard a joke about a European, which proves that a European does not yet exist.

I would apply a similar criterion to football. Every nation in Europe has a national team, but there is no European team. Until the team of Europe, under the European flag, plays against the team of Asia or Africa, there will be no popular European consciousness. (A utopian may well dream of a match between the team of Earth and the team of Mars or Planet X.)

My Palestinian friend, Issam Sartawi, who was murdered 23 years ago because of his contacts with us, once said: "There will be no peace until the team of Israel plays against the team of Palestine - and we win."

THERE IS, of course, a gender angle to it.

A brilliant advertising copywriter has plastered Tel-Aviv with posters of a woman's note to her husband: "Itzig, let the goalie of Brazil prepare coffee for you. I am off with the girls to the drugstore. Gali." In a cartoon, a woman asks her husband, who is riveted to the World Cup on TV: "Are you sure you don't want to come with me to the book fair?"

Football is a raucous guy thing, even if there are also women fans. In this respect, too, it is a substitute for war, and perhaps also for ancient man's lust for hunting. (In the United States, European football - called soccer- is preferred by women, because American football is far more violent.)

In football, men dare to do things that, in other surroundings, would be taboo: they embrace each other, kiss each other, lie on top of one another. This expresses, no doubt, deep needs, and does not harm anyone.

From all these perspectives, football is a positive thing that replaces many negative ones. Provided, of course, President Bush does not use the opportunity to attack Iran, and we don't use it to bomb children in Gaza.

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is one of the writers featured in The Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's hot new book The Politics of Anti-Semitism. He can be reached at: avnery@counterpunch.org.

Source: CounterPunch
http://www.counterpunch.com/avnery06272006.html

Iran's Jews learn to live with Ahmadinejad

Ewen MacAskill, Simon Tisdall and Robert Tait in Tehran
Tuesday June 27, 2006
The Guardian

Maurice Motamed has one of the loneliest jobs in the Middle East. When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his controversial Holocaust statements, the sole Jewish MP in Iran's 290-member Majlis (parliament) felt he had no option but to confront him.

"When our president spoke about the Holocaust, I considered it my duty as a Jew to speak about this issue," Mr Motamed said in his office in central Tehran. "The biggest disaster in human history is based on tens of thousands of films and documents. I said these remarks are a big insult to the whole Jewish society in Iran and the whole world."

Mr Ahmadinejad, president of an overwhelmingly Muslim nation, has not apologised. But Mr Motamed said the president had since qualified his statement by insisting that he had not denied the Holocaust and he was not an anti-semite.

Mr Motamed represents Iran's 25,000-strong Jewish community, the largest such group in the Middle East outside Israel. Since 1906, Iran's constitution has guaranteed the Jewish community one seat in the Majlis. The Armenian, Assyrian and Zoroastrian minorities together hold another four seats.

Although he took on Mr Ahmadinejad over the Holocaust, Mr Motamed supports the president on other issues, including the stand-off with the US, Europe and Israel over the country's nuclear programme. "I am an Iranian first and a Jew second," he said.

He acknowledged there were problems with being a Jew in Iran, as there were for the country's other minorities. But he said that Iran was relatively tolerant. "There is no pressure on the synagogues, no problems of desecration. I think the problem in Europe is worse than here. There is a lot of anti-semitism in other countries."

Most of his family, including his mother, father and sisters, left after the 1979 revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power, as did 75,000 other Jews, heading mainly for Israel, the US and Europe. But Mr Motamed, 61, an engineer, opted to remain. "I love my homeland."

Jews have been living in Iran in large numbers since Cyrus the Great freed them from slavery when he captured Babylon in 539BC. Members of the Jewish community in Iran today, for the most part, keep a low profile and many Iranians are unaware of their presence. Mr Motamed said there were about 14,000 Jews in Tehran, which has 20 active synagogues; 6,000-7,000 in Shiraz; 2,000 in Estafan and small groups scattered throughout the rest of the country.

He confirmed Jews and other minorities were all excluded from "sensitive" senior posts in the military and judiciary. And the authorities refuse to allow Jewish schools to close on the sabbath, a normal working day for the rest of Iran.

But Mr Motamed said there had been improvements in other areas. Legislation was introduced three years ago overturning a judicial practice of awarding more compensation to the families of Muslim accident victims than to those of Jews. And when he complained in the chamber about a TV soap opera regularly portraying rabbis as evil, he said the speaker of the Majlis expressed support for him.

Nasser Hadian-Jazy, associate professor of political science at Tehran University and a childhood friend of the president, said Mr Ahmadinejad was keen to put the Holocaust row behind him.

"I asked him, 'Are you anti-Jew?' He said, 'I am not.' I said, 'Why not go to a synagogue to express regret for what Iranians have done to Jews?' ... He said, 'I have another idea, a better idea.'

"He will do something to show he is not anti-Jewish. I hope he will do it soon. He will make a gesture to the Jews in Iran and that has implications for Jews elsewhere. What he will say is very important and will remove the idea that he is anti-semite."

Saeed Jalili, Iran's deputy foreign minister and another close friend of Mr Ahmadinejad, said the Jewish seat in the Majlis "tells you that we have no problems with Judaism" but he added that he had not heard of any planned gesture by Mr Ahmadinejad.

"The Jewish community in this country are very fairly treated ... Of course, a symbolic gesture is good and well, but we think that what we do is more than symbolic."

Source: The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1807160,00.html

Univision's Board OKs $12.3 Billion Sale

Univision Communications Inc.'s board agreed to sell the nation's largest Spanish-language broadcaster for $12.3 billion in cash to a consortium of investors, the parties involved in the sale announced Tuesday. The company's shares soared more than 7 percent.

The consortium, led by private equity firms Texas Pacific Group Inc. and Thomas H. Lee Partners, also includes Madison Dearborn Partners LLC, Providence Equity Partners Inc., and media mogul Haim Saban.

Mexican broadcaster Grupo Televisa SA, which led a rival consortium of investors, issued a statement Tuesday saying it was "disappointed" with the outcome of the Univision auction.

"Notwithstanding our repeated offers to discuss all aspects of our proposal, including price, Univision and its advisers refused to enter into any discussions with us after we submitted our initial bid," the company said. "Given this action by Univision's board, Televisa has a number of alternatives it is considering."

Univision's bylaws allow Televisa, which owns an 11 percent stake in Univision and supplies it with much of its programming, to veto a sale of the company, but such a move can be defeated by a 60 percent approval from Univision shareholders.

The Texas Pacific Group-led consortium initially bid $35.50 a share, or just under $11 billion total, last week. But Univision, which had reportedly been seeking an offer of $40 a share, rejected the group's initial bid as too low.

The investor group's offer remained on the table until Friday, when it expired. Both sides talked over the weekend and came to terms, a person familiar with the deal told The Associated Press.

Each of the private equity groups is expected to invest around $1 billion initially and Saban somewhat less, the person said.

The deal, if approved by Univision shareholders and regulators, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year or first quarter of 2007, according to the news release.

Univision dominates the U.S. Hispanic media market through its three television networks - Univision, TeleFutura and Galavision - more than two dozen television stations, a recorded music division, Internet portal and Spanish-language radio stations.

First, private equity firm Carlyle Investment Management LLC dropped out, followed by Blackstone Management Associates V LLC, and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.

On Friday, Televisa lost the investment arm of Venezuelan broadcaster Venevision, a unit of The Cisneros Group of Companies. Venevision owns a 14 percent stake in Univision and also supplies the U.S. network with programming.

Still, Televisa and its remaining partners, private equity firms Bain Capital Partners LLC and Cascade Investment LLC, which invests for billionaire Bill Gates, managed to submit an offer Friday that they claimed at the time exceeded the Texas Pacific Group's initial offer.

Full story: Forbes.com

US troops get murder charges in killing civilian

1 hour, 5 minutes ago

The U.S. military will charge seven Marines and a Navy corpsman with murder and other charges on Wednesday in the April 26 killing of an Iraqi civilian, a U.S. defense official said.

The charges include murder, kidnapping, conspiracy, making false official statements and larceny, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the charges have not yet been announced.

The incident took place in the town of Hamdania and is a separate case from the November 19 killing of 24 civilians in Haditha in which other Marines are suspected.

Military criminal investigators examined whether the servicemen fatally shot a 52-year-old disabled Iraqi man in the face, then planted a rifle and a shovel next to his body to make it appear he was an insurgent placing a roadside bomb.

The eight troops have been held in pretrial confinement at the Camp Pendleton prison in California since May 24. The Marines plan to hold a news conference at Camp Pendleton at 4 p.m. (1 p.m. PDT) to announce the charges.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service, responsible for criminal cases involving Marine and Navy personnel, conducted the investigation of the incident.

The military said in a statement announcing the investigation last month that "local Iraqis" brought the incident to the attention of Marine leadership at a meeting on May 1.

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060621/ts_nm/iraq_usa_marines_dc

Iraq war seen as biggest threat to peace

Read the full survey

Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor
Wednesday June 14, 2006


The greatest threat to peace? ... Marines check an Iraqi man's identity in Haditha. Photograph: James Razuri/Getty

The US occupation of Iraq presents a bigger danger to world peace than Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions, according to a worldwide survey published on Wednesday.

The annual survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Centre suggests that support for the US-led "war on terrorism" continues to be on the wane around the world, undermined by the Iraq conflict.

The Pew, which is widely respected and has been running since 2001, polled 17,000 people in 15 countries between March and May. In a press release, it says: "Despite growing concern over Iran's nuclear ambitions, the US presence in Iraq is cited at least as often as Iran - and in many countries much more often - as a danger to world peace."

Only in the US and Germany is Iran seen as presenting a greater danger than the US in Iraq. Public opinion in 12 of the other countries - Britain, France, Spain, Russia, Indonesia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan, Nigeria, India and China - cite the US presence in Iraq as being the greater danger. Opinion in Japan was evenly divided.

Throughout the period the poll was conducted the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme, intensified by hardline comments from its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was repeatedly in the news. Iraq, too, has been almost daily in the news, with the formation of a new Iraqi government being accompanied by fears of a civil war.

As well as Iraq and Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was also high on the list of issues that present a danger to world peace. Public opinion in about a third of the countries polled put it at the top of their list of threats.

The poll confirms the extent to which the well of international goodwill towards the US in the aftermath of 9/11 is being drained. Favourable opinions of the US have fallen in most of the countries.

One of the sharpest declines in support for the US has been in Spain. Only 23% of the Spaniards polled expressed positive views of the US, down from 41% last year. Even though Madrid suffered a large death toll from an al-Qaida attack two years ago, only about one in four supports the "war on terrorism".

Other countries where positive views dropped significantly include India (56%, down from 71%); Russia (43%, from 52%); and Indonesia (30%, from 38%). In Turkey only 12% said they held a favourable opinion, compared with 23% last year.

In the UK, the US's closest ally in Iraq and the second biggest contributor of troops, 60% said the Iraq war had made the world more dangerous. Only 30% said it had made the world safer.

Forty-one per cent of British people said the US presence in Iraq represented a great danger to world peace, with 34% citing Iran as a big threat.

By contrast, concern about Iran has almost doubled in the US over the past two years, according to the poll. Almost half of Americans, 46%, view Mr Ahmadinejad's government as "a great danger" to stability in the Middle East and world peace, up from 26% in 2003. The growing concern in the US is shared in Germany, where 51% of those polled see Iran as a great danger to world peace compared with just 18% three years ago.

Public opinion is overwhelming opposed to Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.

While the public in most Muslim countries have a high regard for Iran, little confidence was expressed in Mr Ahmadinejad. About two-thirds in Egypt and Jordan said they had little confidence he would "do the right thing" in world affairs.

Source: Guardian Unlimited
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,1797411,00.html

Islam Channel sponsors anti-Zionist debate in London

Jun. 19, 2006 22:49 | Updated Jun. 19, 2006 23:28
By JONNY PAUL

LONDON - Informed, honest debate on the Middle East has been stifled because of a fear of being accused of anti-Semitism, according to the participants in a discussion hosted by the Islam Channel in central London on Thursday. The broadcaster is the largest Islamic television outlet in Europe.

The discussion, titled: "Why anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism," was filmed against a backdrop reading "Zionism: The cancer at the heart of international affairs."

The discussion was chaired by Alan Hart, a former ITN and BBC correspondent whose latest book, "Zionism: The real enemy of the Jews" was recently published. He said, "The anti-Semitism card is something the Zionists have exploited to suppress debate."

He said the mainstream media had concealed "the truth of history" out of fear of offending Jews and thanked CEO Mohammed Ali of the Islam Channel for "his courage in widening the debate."

Hart said the assumption is that "Zionism and Judaism are same thing, therefore criticism of Zionism is anti-Semitism, but Zionism is the nationalism of some Jews, a tiny minority."

"The propaganda they use, the Melanie Phillips version [a Jewish journalist for The Daily Mail], is that Israel faces annihilation and fears being pushed into the sea," Hart said. He said this was a myth.

"The truth about 1967 was that [then-prime minister Levi] Eshkol and [chief of General Staff Yitzhak] Rabin didn't want war, the hawks pushed them into it as wanted to portray Eshkol as weak and [there] was unfinished business from 1948, which was to form a greater Israel," Hart said.

Three Jewish anti-Zionists sat on the panel, including a representative of the haredi Natorei Karta, along with Palestinian scholar Ghada Karmi.

Ilan Pappe of the University of Haifa's political science department, a revisionist historian at the forefront of calls for a boycott of Israel, said that to divorce Zionism from Judaism it was necessary to refrain from using Zionist terminology. For example, you should not talk about a Jewish Diaspora. "The only diaspora is the Palestinians, therefore there is a need to adopt new language," he said.

The Natorei Karta sect was represented by Rabbi Ahron Cohen, who was a member of the delegation that went to Iran to offer support to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in March following his comments that Israel should be wiped off the map.

Cohen said, "Zionists imposed a secular faith state on the Palestinians, this is immoral and the underlying cause of the strife. Zionism and Judaism are incompatible concepts. Many Jews do not approve of Zionism but they cannot say this publicly."

"In Judaism, the land of Palestine was given, but under certain conditions. There must be high moral, religious and ethical standards. These have not been met, so the divine decree is that Jews must live in other countries. We believe in the peaceful dismantling of the Zionist state," he said.

Karmi, a research fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at Exeter University and a former consultant to the Palestinian Authority, said the mistreatment of the Jews was a European affair that had nothing to do with Palestinians. "Why were we dumped with this problem?" she asked.

She offered her own interpretation of Zionism. "The Europeans did it to atone for their sins and guilt but the Jews who arrived in Palestine were not the Jews we knew, they were complicated and miserable and the problem is that they're still there."

"Israel has been a total disaster for the entire Arab world, nothing positive or beneficial has come from it," she said.

The last member of the panel was Hajo Meyer, a German-born scientist and Holocaust survivor. Now living in the Netherlands, Meyer is a member of the board of Another Jewish Voice, which is part of the European Jewish Alliance for a Just Peace. He has frequently said Israel was "treating the Palestinian people in the same way the Nazis treated Jews during the Second World War."

"Zionism is a child of nationalism and colonialism forced to be a cure for anti-Semitism, but [it] has become the main cause of anti-Semitism," he said.

Source: Jerusalem Post
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1150355528055&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

U.S. soldiers charged with murder in Iraq

Mon Jun 19, 2006 10:17 PM BST
By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three U.S. soldiers were charged with premeditated murder after being accused of shooting three detainees north of Baghdad on May 9 and then threatening to kill a fellow soldier if he told the truth about the incident, the U.S. military said on Monday.

The charges were brought against U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Raymond Girouard, Pfc. Corey Clagett and Spc. William Hunsaker, according to charge sheets provided by Army officials at the Pentagon. Premeditated murder charges can bring the death penalty under U.S. military law.

The three soldiers were members of 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, and were charged in the deaths of three male detainees whose identities remain unknown during an operation at a former chemical factory, the military said.

The charge sheet released by the Army said the dead men were "of apparent Middle Eastern descent whose names are unknown."

The charges also include attempted murder, conspiracy, communicating a threat and obstructing justice, the military said.

The deaths took place during a raid on a suspected insurgent training camp near Thar Thar Lake, southwest of Tikrit, on May 9, when, the military said at the time, more than 200 people were detained at a former chemical factory.

The case comes as the military is investigating other cases of alleged abuses by U.S. troops, including the killings of 24 unarmed civilians in the town of Haditha last November.

A military statement on Monday said the commander of the unit involved in the Thar Thar incident had ordered an inquiry on the day the three detainees died. The soldiers are in custody pending a hearing to determine whether they should face a court-martial.

Last month, the military issued a statement hailing the success of Operation Iron Triangle, a three-day raid launched on May 9 against the Muthana Chemical Complex near Thar Thar Lake, a sprawling plant closed after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Some 230 Americans from the 101st Airborne's 3rd Brigade Combat Team and nearly 200 Iraqi soldiers stormed the complex from helicopters, said a statement posted on a U.S. military Web site on May 18.

Source: Reuters UK
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID...RTRUKOC_0_UK-IRAQ-USA-PRISONERS.xml

Pentagon details abuse of Iraq detainees

By LOLITA C. BALDOR,
Associated Press Writer1 hour, 26 minutes ago

U.S. special operations forces fed some Iraqi detainees only bread and water for up to 17 days, used unapproved interrogation practices such as sleep deprivation and loud music and stripped at least one prisoner, according to a Pentagon report on incidents dating to 2003 and 2004.

The report concludes that the detainees' treatment was wrong but not illegal and reflected inadequate resources and lack of oversight and proper guidance rather than deliberate abuse. No military personnel were punished as a result of the investigation.

The findings were included in more than 1,000 pages of documents the Pentagon released to the American Civil Liberties Union on Friday under a Freedom of Information request. They included two major reports — one by Army Brig. Gen. Richard Formica on specials operations forces in Iraq and one by Brig. Gen. Charles Jacoby on Afghanistan detainees.

While some of the incidents have been reported previously and reviewed by members of Congress, this was the first time the documents were made public. Many portions of the report were blacked out, including specific names and locations such as the identities of the military units involved.

The report comes as the military is grappling with new allegations of war crimes in an increasingly unpopular conflict in Iraq. It could hamper the Bush administration's election-year effort to turn public opinion around with upbeat reports about the progress of the new government in Baghdad.

"Both the Formica and the Jacoby report demonstrate that the government is really not taking the investigation of detainee abuse seriously," said Amrit Singh, an ACLU attorney.

Singh called the reports "a whitewash" and questioned why they only focused on a limited number of incidents. In particular, she said there have been numerous documents showing that special operations forces abused detainees, and yet Formica only reviewed a few cases.

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros said, "We've undertaken significant steps to investigate, hold people accountable and change our operations as appropriate. This is all part of our effort to be transparent and show that we investigate all allegations thoroughly, and we take them seriously."

Less than a week ago, three detainees committed suicide at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, highlighting anew accusations of abuse. A little more than two years ago, the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq came to light, with its graphic photographs of detainees being sexually humiliated and threatened with dogs.

The Bush administration has been criticized internationally, including by U.S. allies, for abusive treatment of terror war detainees. Late last year, Congress forced Bush to accept a ban on the cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners by U.S. troops.

Administration officials have said the U.S. does not use torture but rather legal interrogation techniques to gain information that could head off terror attacks.

Ordered more than two years ago, the Formica review recommended changes including better training, new standards for detention centers and updated policies for detainee operations. His final report is dated November 2004 but was just released to the ACLU in its unclassified, censored form on Friday.

According to a senior defense official, all eight of Formica's recommendations for changes and improvements in detention policies were implemented shortly after he completed the report. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about it.

Formica reviewed three allegations of abuse by special operations forces who held detainees in temporary facilities, often hastily set up near where they were captured.

Formica found that overall conditions "did not comport with the spirit of the principles set forth in the Geneva Conventions," which require humane treatment of prisoners.

Formica said, for example, that the forces used five interrogation techniques that were allowed at one point but had been rescinded by then: sleep or food deprivation, yelling and loud music, forcing detainees to remain in stressful physical positions and changing environmental conditions — which could include making their locations too hot or too cold.

Formica also found that the nakedness "was unnecessary and inconsistent with the principles of dignity and respect" in the Geneva Conventions. And he said that while one of the prisoners fed just bread and water appeared to be in good condition, 17 days of that diet "is too long."

In his recommendations he said detainees should receive adequate bedding, food, water and holding areas, get systematic medical screenings and a clear record of their detention at every level.

He dismissed other specific allegations of more serious abuse in several earlier cases. He said that the allegations of rape, sodomy and beatings were not substantiated by medical examinations and that the accusers' stories changed over time and were not credible.

Jacoby was dispatched in May 2004 to examine the treatment of detainees at facilities in Afghanistan.

His report found "no systematic or widespread mistreatment of detainees," but concluded that the opportunities for mistreatment and the ever-changing battlefield there demanded changes in procedures.

He said that there was "a consistent lack of knowledge" regarding the capture, processing, detention and interrogation of detainees and that policies varied at facilities across the country. Jacoby also concluded that the lack of clear standards created opportunities for abuse and impeded efforts to gain timely intelligence and that interrogation standards were "inconsistent and unevenly applied."

To date, there have been about 600 investigations into detainee-related incidents of all kinds, including natural deaths and detainee assaults on other detainees, according to Army spokesman Paul Boyce. As a result, he said, 267 soldiers have received some type of punishment, including 85 courts-martial and 95 nonjudicial actions.

Source: AP via YahoO! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060616/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/detainee_abuse

Haditha: Massacre and cover-up?

By Martin Asser
BBC News

Haditha is an agricultural community of about 90,000 inhabitants on the banks of the Euphrates north-west of Baghdad.

It lies in the huge western province of Anbar, which has been the heartland of the insurgency since US troops led the invasion of Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein in 2003.

It is a dangerous place for the US marines who control this part of Iraq and for the inhabitants, caught between insurgents and American troops.

See differing accounts of Haditha deaths

On the morning of 19 November 2005, the Subhani neighbourhood was the scene of an event that has become like the pulse of the insurgency - a roadside bomb targeting a US military patrol.

It killed 20-year-old Lance Corp Miguel (TJ) Terrazas, driving one of four humvee vehicles in the patrol, and injured two other marines.

A simple US military statement hinted at the bloody chain of events which the attack started - though subsequent scrutiny showed it to be far from the truth.

It said: "A US marine and 15 civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha.

"Immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small arms fire. Iraqi army soldiers and marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another."

Video footage

The tragedy of Haditha may have been left at that - just another statistic of "war-torn" Iraq, a place too dangerous to be reported properly by journalists, where openness is not in the interests of political and military circles, and the sheer scale of death numbs the senses.

However, a day after the incident, local journalist Taher Thabet got his video camera out and filmed scenes that - whatever they were - were not the aftermath of a roadside bomb.

The bodies of women and children, still in their nightclothes; interior walls and ceilings peppered with bullet holes; bloodstains on the floor.

Mr Thabet's tape prompted an investigation by the Iraqi human rights group Hammurabi, which passed details onto the US weekly magazine Time in January.

Before publishing its account on 19 March, the magazine passed the tape to US military commanders in Baghdad, who initiated a preliminary investigation.

Following their findings, the official version was changed to say that, after the roadside bomb, the 15 civilians had been accidentally shot by marines during a firefight with insurgents.

Nevertheless, on 9 March the top commanders in Baghdad began a criminal investigation, led by the Naval Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS). Its report is expected within days.

On 7 April three officers in charge of troops in Haditha were also stripped of their command and reassigned.

Pretended to die

Eyewitness accounts suggest that comrades of Lance Corp Terrazas, far from coming under enemy fire, went on the rampage in Haditha after his death.

Twelve-year-old Safa Younis appears in a Hammurabi video saying she was in one of three houses where troops came in and indiscriminately killed family members.

"They knocked at our front door and my father went to open it. They shot him dead from behind the door and then they shot him again," she says in the video.

"Then one American soldier came in and shot at us all. I pretended to be dead and he didn't notice me."

Hammurabi says eight people died in the house, including Safa's five siblings, aged between 14 and two.

In another house seven people including a child and his 70-year-old grandfather were killed. Four brothers aged 41 to 24 died in a third house. Eyewitnesses said they were forced into a wardrobe and shot.

Outside in the street, US troops are said to have gunned down four students and a taxi driver they had stopped at a roadblock set up after the bombing.

Damage

The Pentagon has said little about the Haditha deaths publicly, and in Iraq the incident has caused little controversy - US troops there are already routinely viewed as trigger happy and indifferent to Iraqi casualties.

But politicians in Washington who have been briefed on the military investigation say it backs the story that marines killed civilians in cold blood.

The chairman of the Senate armed services committee, John Warner, says it will hold hearings into the incident and how it was handled.

Media commentators have spoken of it as "Iraq's My Lai" - a reference to the 1968 massacre of 500 villagers in Vietnam.

Democrat congressman John Murtha, a former marine and war veteran, has said the Haditha incident could turn out to be an even bigger scandal than the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.

The Marine Corps has responded to Mr Murtha by saying it would be inappropriate to comment on an ongoing investigation, but would do so "as soon as the facts are known and decisions on future actions are made".

1) Marine Lance Corp Miguel Terrazas dies in attack on US convoy. 2) US military initially says bomb also killed 15 Iraqi civilians. 3) Eight insurgents killed after attacking convoy. US later says the 15 civilians were not killed by bomb, but shot accidentally in battle.

1) Marine Lance Corp Miguel Terrazas dies in bomb attack on convoy of four Humvees. Troops then "go on rampage". 2) At roadblock, four students and taxi driver killed. 3) Eight people killed in one of three houses. 4) Seven killed in a second house. 5) Four brothers put in wardrobe and shot dead in a third house.

Source: BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5033648.stm

Marine sorry for song about killing Iraqi family

Wed Jun 14, 4:27 PM ET

A Marine seen in an Internet video singing about killing members of an Iraqi family says the song was a joke.

Cpl. Joshua Belile, 23, apologized and said the song was not tied in any way to allegations that Marines killed 24 unarmed civilians in Haditha last year.

"It's a song that I made up and it was nothing more than something supposed to be funny, based off a catchy line of a movie," he said in Wednesday's Daily News of Jacksonville.

In the four-minute video called "Hadji Girl," a singer who appears to be a Marine tells a cheering audience about gunning down members of an Iraqi woman's family after they confront him with automatic weapons.

Maj. Shawn Haney, a Marine spokeswoman, said Wednesday the Marine Corps was looking into the matter. "The video, which was posted anonymously, is clearly inappropriate and contrary to the high standards expected of all Marines," she said in a statement.

Belile did not return a call Wednesday from The Associated Press.

He said his buddies pushed him on stage with his guitar while he was in Iraq in September and someone posted it on the Internet. It has since been removed.

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the video should be investigated by the Pentagon and Congress.

"We welcome Cpl. Belile's apology," he said.

___

On the Net:

Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil

CAIR: http://www.cair.com

Related:
BBC News: Marine sorry for Iraq deaths song

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060614/ap_on_re_us/iraq_marine_video...

U.S.-trained expert says shell was Israeli

By LAURIE COPANS, Associated Press WriterWed Jun 14, 7:21 PM ET

A U.S.-trained military expert disputed on Wednesday an Israeli claim that it had nothing to do with an explosion that killed eight Palestinian beachgoers in the Gaza Strip last Friday, an incident that has turned a critical spotlight on Israel's military practices.

Israel released results of its own inquiry, which determined that the blast was not caused by a shell fired from Israeli artillery.

But Marc Garlasco, a military expert from New York-based Human Rights Watch, inspected the damage, the shrapnel and the wounds and came to a different conclusion.

"I'm convinced this was from an Israeli shell," Garlasco said Wednesday in a telephone interview. He said the main question still open is where it came from and when — was it fired by an Israeli artillery piece, as Palestinians charge, or was it buried in the sand, either on purpose by militants, as Israel alleges, or left over from an earlier attack?

Garlasco was the first independent expert to examine the scene, though Israel has doubts about his conclusions and about Human Rights Watch. He was in Gaza doing research for the human rights group when the explosion killed eight people on Friday afternoon, seven of them relatives.

Garlasco is a former intelligence specialist battle damage assessment officer for the Pentagon who has studied conflicts in Bosnia and Iraq. He rankled the Israeli government with a highly critical HRW report on destruction of houses in the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza in 2004. Israeli officials consider the human rights group biased in favor of the Palestinians.

Garlasco said he concluded the explosion was caused by a 155 mm shell of the type Israel uses. He viewed shrapnel collected from the scene by a Palestinian ordinance disposal unit, and in X-rays of Palestinians wounded in the blast.

Maj. Gen. Meir Klifi, who headed the Israeli investigation, said tests on the shrapnel removed from the body of a girl in an Israeli hospital proved it was not from a shell.

"I'm sure that all over that beach there is shrapnel," he told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "So no wonder that there is 155 mm shrapnel to be found."

Israeli army spokesman Capt. Jacob Dallal said Wednesday that the beach area is used by militants, so "this is also a battleground. This area is used for terror groups to launch (rockets) on Israel," noting that a rocket was fired from the area on Wednesday.

Garlasco said more work needs to be done before a solid conclusion can be drawn.

Israeli analyst Gerald Steinberg, who heads a watchdog group called NGO Monitor, charged that Garlasco is not a credible expert, and Human Rights Watch officials have "a long and carefully documented history of exploiting human rights claims to promote a clear anti-Israel political and ideological bias."

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060614/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_blast_probe...

Nine killed in Israeli air strike

Nine Palestinians, including two children, have been killed and up to 20 others hurt in an Israeli air strike in Gaza, witnesses and doctors say.

The Israeli army said it had targeted militants on their way to fire rockets at Israel, saying the vehicle was loaded with Katyusha rocket launchers.

The Islamic Jihad militant group said that some of its members had died in the blast.

The exchange of missile attacks between Gaza and Israel has escalated recently.

Scenes of anger

The BBC's Alan Johnston in Gaza says although Israeli strikes on vehicles travelling through the territory have become familiar, Tuesday's attack resulted in one of the heaviest death tolls.

A BBC reporter counted eight bodies being taken to a morgue, including that of a child. Palestinian sources said a second child was also killed.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of engaging in "state terrorism".

Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz said Israel had so far been showing restraint, but would no longer do so.

Israel says about 100 rockets have been fired from across the Gaza border in the past few days.

After Tuesday's strike a yellow van was left mangled on the main road through the north of Gaza, while pools of blood lay nearby.

Reports said the first strike was followed soon afterwards by another missile, which hit civilians who had gone to the scene of the first blast.

There were scenes of anger as bloodied civilians were taken to hospital.

At the hospital's morgue, angry women shouted: "Death to Israel, death to the occupation!"

An Israeli army statement said the attack was launched at "a vehicle loaded with rockets and carrying a terror cell en route to launch at Israel".

A spokeswoman said that the van was "loaded with Katyushas".

Katyushas have a longer range than the homemade rockets that are usually launched from Gaza.

Witnesses cited by the Reuters news agency said they saw rockets in the back of the yellow van.

Beach blast

The upsurge in violence follows the deaths of eight Palestinians on a beach in Gaza on Friday.

After those deaths, the militant group Hamas, which heads the Palestinian government, said it was breaking off its voluntary truce and launched rockets at Israel.

The beach explosion was initially blamed on Israeli shelling near the area where a family was enjoying a picnic.

However, an Israeli military inquiry is close to deciding Israel was not responsible, media reports say.

Source: BBC NEWS
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/5074798.stm

Islam doesn't preach terrorism

By Wade Hemsworth
The Hamilton Spectator(Jun 12, 2006)

Leaders in Hamilton's Muslim community say the kind of thinking that is alleged to have driven a terrorism plot in Toronto is both shocking and contrary to genuine Islamic ideology.

Although a McMaster University student was among the 17 Canadian Muslims arrested June 2 and 3, the concept of plotting violence against Canadian people and institutions is surprising and repugnant, say two key figures in the community.

Both men, who are well-connected to the community on several levels, say such thinking has not taken root in Hamilton's mosques, nor among more than 1,000 members of the McMaster Muslim Students' Association.

At the same time, they say, the recent developments reinforce the need to remain vigilant and firm, to make sure violent ideas do not find a home in smaller circles.

"I think we need to do a better job, even in Hamilton, to ensure that none of that takes root," said Hussein Hamdani, a lawyer representing the Muslim Association of Hamilton.

"It's a wake-up call to see that no one is immune to this -- to see how we can perhaps minimize such things in the future," said McMaster Muslim Students' Association representative Kareem Mirza.

While there is some significant opposition among Muslims to Canada's participation in Afghanistan and its friendly relations with the U.S. since its action in Iraq, that opposition is civil, when it is expressed at all, Mirza said.

"Nobody is particularly happy about the role that anybody, especially the U.S. or even Canada as a supporter, is playing in Afghanistan or Iraq, but we do recognize that Canada is a peacekeeping nation, and as Canadians we're all proud of that. We are Muslims, but we are Canadian Muslims. This is our home," he explained.

"This, honestly, comes as something that's shocking and surprising -- these allegations of hate literature, these allegations of terrorism pods, these allegations of beheading the prime minister."

Since 9/11, most Muslims are reluctant even to discuss international politics in public, Mirza said. They fear they will be misinterpreted or falsely accused of being unpatriotic.

"Especially post-9/11, if you look into the Muslim community itself, most people are scared to get involved politically," he said.

Hamdani said there needs to be two elements present for the kind of thinking that could generate a plot against Canadian people or institutions.

The first, he said, is psychological. It requires a victim mentality and a deep sense of disenfranchisement.

The second is theological. It's a literal, puritanical interpretation of Islam, an outlook that has developed only in the past 150 years, he said, and is most prevalent in the Arabian Peninsula.

"It's so foreign to Islamic history. This puritanical, literalist ideology is something that is new and foreign to Muslim societies," he said. "It's not something that's found in traditional Muslim societies."

While some Hamilton Muslims may take such an approach to Islam, they are not violent, nor do they support violence, Hamdani said.

"I do think there should be greater emphasis put on the historic, holistic teaching of Islam, which is much more spiritual, much more tolerant, much more merciful than what many of these people understand it to be," he said.

Hamdani said that danger arises if the puritanical thinking and the disenfranchisement are allowed to blend together and ferment.

"We need to look at what the root causes were for them to think this way, to ensure that this doesn't happen to other youths in the future, but let's not paint 750,000 Muslims in Canada, or 20,000 Muslims in Hamilton with the same brush. Let's not create more walls of intolerance and separation between ourselves."

Source: The Hamilton Spectator
http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/...rticle&cid=1150064107847&call_pageid

Beheaded man's father: Revenge breeds revenge

Michael Berg talks about the death of his son and al-Zarqawi

The U.S.-led coalition's No. 1 wanted man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- who conducted a campaign of insurgency bombings, beheadings and killings of Americans and Iraqi civilians -- was killed in a U.S. airstrike.

A gruesome video was posted on Islamic Web sites in May, 2004, depicting a man believed to be al-Zarqawi beheading Nicholas Berg, an American businessman who was working in Iraq.

CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien talks to Nicholas Berg's father, Michael Berg, by phone from Wilmington, Delaware, for his reaction to the news.

O'BRIEN: Mr. Berg, thank you for talking with us again. It's nice to have an opportunity to talk to you. Of course, I'm curious to know your reaction, as it is now confirmed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man who is widely credited and blamed for killing your son, Nicholas, is dead.

MICHAEL BERG: Well, my reaction is I'm sorry whenever any human being dies. Zarqawi is a human being. He has a family who are reacting just as my family reacted when Nick was killed, and I feel bad for that. (Watch Berg compare Zarqawi to President Bush -- 1:44)

I feel doubly bad, though, because Zarqawi is also a political figure, and his death will re-ignite yet another wave of revenge, and revenge is something that I do not follow, that I do want ask for, that I do not wish for against anybody. And it can't end the cycle. As long as people use violence to combat violence, we will always have violence.

O'BRIEN: I have to say, sir, I'm surprised. I know how devastated you and your family were, frankly, when Nick was killed in such a horrible, and brutal and public way.

BERG: Well, you shouldn't be surprised, because I have never indicated anything but forgiveness and peace in any interview on the air.

O'BRIEN: No, no. And we have spoken before, and I'm well aware of that. But at some point, one would think, is there a moment when you say, 'I'm glad he's dead, the man who killed my son'?

BERG: No. How can a human being be glad that another human being is dead?

O'BRIEN: There have been family members who have weighed in, victims, who've said that they don't think he's a martyr in heaven, that they think, frankly, he went straight to hell ...

You know, you talked about the fact that he's become a political figure. Are you concerned that he becomes a martyr and a hero and, in fact, invigorates the insurgency in Iraq?

BERG: Of course. When Nick was killed, I felt that I had nothing left to lose. I'm a pacifist, so I wasn't going out murdering people. But I am -- was not a risk-taking person, and yet now I've done things that have endangered me tremendously.

I've been shot at. I've been showed horrible pictures. I've been called all kinds of names and threatened by all kinds of people, and yet I feel that I have nothing left to lose, so I do those things.

Now, take someone who in 1991, who maybe had their family killed by an American bomb, their support system whisked away from them, someone who, instead of being 59, as I was when Nick died, was 5-years-old or 10-years-old. And then if I were that person, might I not learn how to fly a plane into a building or strap a bag of bombs to my back?

That's what is happening every time we kill an Iraqi, every time we kill anyone, we are creating a large number of people who are going to want vengeance. And, you know, when are we ever going to learn that that doesn't work?

O'BRIEN: There's an alternate reading, which would say at some point, Iraqis will say the insurgency is not OK -- that they'll be inspired by the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the sense of he was turned in, for example, we believe by his own No. 2, No. 3 leadership in his ranks.

And, that's actually them saying we do not want this kind of violence in our country. Experts whom we've spoken to this morning have said this is a critical moment where Iraqis need to figure out which direction the country is going to go. That would be an alternate reading to the scenario you're pointing to. (Watch how Iraqi leaders cheered after learning about al-Zarqawi's death -- 4:31)

BERG: Yes, well, I don't believe that scenario, because every time news of new atrocities committed by Americans in Iraq becomes public, more and more of the everyday Iraqi people who tried to hold out, who tried to be peaceful people lose it and join -- what we call the insurgency, and what I call the resistance, against the occupation of one sovereign nation.

O'BRIEN: There's a theory that a struggle for democracy, you know...

BERG: Democracy? Come on, you can't really believe that that's a democracy there when the people who are running the elections are holding guns. That's not democracy.

O'BRIEN: There's a theory that as they try to form some kind of government, that it's going to be brutal, it's going to be bloody, there's going to be loss, and that's the history of many countries -- and that's just what a lot of people pay for what they believe will be better than what they had under Saddam Hussein.

BERG: Well, you know, I'm not saying Saddam Hussein was a good man, but he's no worse than George Bush. Saddam Hussein didn't pull the trigger, didn't commit the rapes. Neither did George Bush. But both men are responsible for them under their reigns of terror.

I don't buy that. Iraq did not have al Qaeda in it. Al Qaeda supposedly killed my son.

Under Saddam Hussein, no al Qaeda. Under George Bush, al Qaeda.

Under Saddam Hussein, relative stability. Under George Bush, instability.

Under Saddam Hussein, about 30,000 deaths a year. Under George Bush, about 60,000 deaths a year. I don't get it. Why is it better to have George Bush the king of Iraq rather than Saddam Hussein?

O'BRIEN: Michael Berg is the father of Nicholas Berg, the young man, the young businessman who was beheaded so brutally in Iraq back in May of 2004.

Source: CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/08/berg.interview/

House Backs Telecom Bill Favoring Phone Companies

By STEPHEN LABATON

WASHINGTON, June 8 — The House of Representatives approved the most extensive telecommunications legislation in a decade on Thursday, largely ratifying the policy agenda of the nation's largest telephone companies.

The bill passed by a lopsided vote of 321 to 101.

Supporters of the legislation said it would promote competition and lower costs by enabling the telephone companies to offer bundled packages of video, telephone, broadband, wireless and mobile phone services in new markets. They said the legislation was an important antidote to rapidly rising cable television subscription rates.

But even as the House took up the measure on Thursday, the political action had already swung to the Senate, which has been peppered by lobbyists and executives from many major telecommunications companies in recent days as it prepares to draft its own version. The prospects there are uncertain.

The House bill, sponsored by Representative Joe L. Barton, the Texas Republican who heads the House Energy and Commerce Committee, would make it much easier and cheaper for the phone companies to offer video services across the country by pre-empting the regulatory authority of municipal franchise officials. The telephone companies have been waging an expensive and protracted town-by-town war with their cable rivals, to offer video services.

The legislation would replace the regulatory role of more than 30,000 local franchising authorities with a national system supervised by the Federal Communications Commission. The current process has significantly slowed the ability of companies like Verizon and AT&T (formerly SBC Communications) to challenge the cable and satellite television companies with their own version of video services.

In a concession to the telephone and cable companies, the legislation does nothing to prevent the phone and cable providers from charging Internet content providers a premium for carrying services like video offerings that could rival those of the telecom companies.

Representative Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and a group of other Democrats sought to amend the legislation to prohibit such practices and thereby, they said, ensure the Internet's vitality. Support for the provision, which backers call "Net neutrality," brought together such competitors as Google and Microsoft.

But the amendment failed by a vote of 269 to 152.

The largest telephone companies did not get everything they sought, however. The legislation threatens to delay any effort by the Federal Communications Commission to require Internet telephone providers to make the investments needed to connect customers to 911 services.

Still, the House bill reflected the considerable clout of the telephone industry in the House, and in particular its ties to the Republican leadership there. Rivals of the phone companies, particularly the cable industry, appear for now to have more important allies in the Senate. And the Senate's rules and customs, unlike those in the House, make it easier for a smaller number of lawmakers to influence and delay legislation.

In the meantime, the flurry of activity is proving to be lucrative on K Street, as every major lobbying firm has been enlisted and campaign coffers are filling with millions of dollars from the telephone, cable, software and high-tech industries trying to shape the legislation. In recent days the phone companies began to run attack ads on television and in local newspapers against Google over its "Net neutrality" stand.

The legislative calendar leaves little time for the two chambers of Congress to reach a final agreement on a telecommunications bill as ambitious as the one considered by the House. But some executives predicted a narrower one could stand a better chance of final passage.

The White House issued a statement on Thursday supporting the House legislation, saying it would "promote competition in both video and voice markets."

Representative Fred Upton, the Michigan Republican who heads a telecommunications and Internet subcommittee and is a co-sponsor of the measure, said it would bring "deregulatory parity" and that "for the consumers that have these services, it probably will mean a reduction of about $30 to $40 a month."

House Democrats raised several objections to the legislation. They said the new national franchise rules would sharply reduce the amount of money that cable companies now give towns and cities for public, educational and government programs. They said the failure to include build-out requirements for the telephone companies for their new video services would mean that people living in less affluent neighborhoods would be unlikely to see the benefits of any new competition for broadband and subscription television services.

But most of the criticism was over the bill's failure to include a provision that would prevent the cable and phone companies from charging the content providers for offering premium, or faster, Internet services.

The critics say that such a provision is vital to protect the free-wheeling architecture of the Internet. They also say it is necessary to prevent the telephone and cable companies, which are increasingly going into the content business, from favoring their own products over those of others. If the telephone companies can charge more to particular content providers, the critics say, the telephone and cable companies will ultimately offer broadband services that more closely resemble television services, with more limited choices than those now available on the Internet.

"The imposition of additional fees for Internet content providers would unduly burden Web-based small businesses and start-ups," said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader. "They would also hamper communications by noncommercial users, those using religious speech, promoting civic involvement and exercising First Amendment freedoms."

The legislation gives the Federal Communications Commission the authority to enforce a year-old broadband policy statement that provides consumers access to the lawful Internet content of their choice. Those favoring the Markey amendment said that the commission's antidiscrimination principle was inadequate to ensure that content providers would not, in effect, be blocked if the telephone companies begin to require companies like Google and their smaller rivals to pay for premium services.

The phone companies and their Congressional allies say that such restrictions are both unnecessary and would discourage investment in upgrading networks. They also say that the legislation goes far enough to protect consumers. And they say that as there is increasing competition for broadband services, it would be impossible for a phone or cable company to be competitive by blocking or limiting Internet choices.

"A free and open Internet is crucial to formulating an effective policy," said Representative Clifford B. Stearns, a Florida Republican who is a co-sponsor of the bill. "For now, strict strong enforcement provisions that are in the bill are a tough deterrent to discrimination."

Source: NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/09/washington/09telecom.html

Related: Democracry Now!
House Passes Controversial COPE Telecom Bill, Rejects Amendment to Protect Net Neutrality

Pakistan to restore ten gurdwaras

SHAHEEDI DIWAS Z 7,000 PILGRIMS ALLOWED FOR 400TH MARTYRDOM OF GURU ARJAN DEV

‘Pak PM Sahaukat Aziz will release a postal stamp marking the ‘Shaheedi Diwas’ on June 15’
Sanjeev Chopra

Patiala, June 2: Deciding to participate in a Sikh religious function for the first time ever by observing the 400th anniversary of the martyrdom of Guru Arjan Dev later this month, the Pakistan government has said that it would restore ten closed gurdwaras in Pakistan. These include Gurdwara Dera Sahib in Lahore, where Guru Arjan Dev gave his ‘shaheedi’.

The restoration would be done through the Pakistan Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. Disclosing this to chairman of the International Bhai Mardana Kirtan Darbar Society Harpal Singh Bhullar, PGPC president Bishan Singh said the Pakistan government would be releasing a postal stamp marking the ‘Shaheedi Diwas’ of Guru Arjan Dev on June 15. Pakistan PM Sahaukat Aziz would release the stamp.

PGPC president Sham Singh said the Pakistan government has allowed as many as 7,000 pilgrims from India to participate in the function in Lahore for which Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has also been invited.

Incidentally, the Pakistan government had earlier allowed 10,000 pilgrims, but later reduced the number to 5,000, which now been increased to 7,000.

Bhullar said the president of the reception committee of the PGPC, Sham Singh, who is organising the ‘Shaheedi Diwas’ with the help of the Pakistani government, disclosed that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz would also host a reception on June 15 evening for a select pilgrims.

The ‘Shaheedi Diwas’ would be spread over ten days— from June 13 to 22— as against a weeklong function proposed earlier.

A seminar on Sikh history and historical sites would also be held in Lahore on June 14, where 300 pilgrims from the Bhai Mardana Society would participate, along with hundreds of other pilgrims.

Source: Express India
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=185869

Israel building new illegal West Bank settlement

By LAURIE COPANS,
Associated Press Writer1 hour, 19 minutes ago

Israel has begun laying the foundations for a new Jewish settlement deep in the West Bank — breaking a promise to Washington while strengthening its hold on a stretch of desert it wants to keep as it draws its final borders.

The construction of Maskiot comes at a time when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seeks U.S. backing for eventually annexing parts of the West Bank as part of a plan to set Israel's eastern border with or without Palestinian consent.

The Palestinians and Israel's settlement watchdog group Peace Now say the Maskiot construction amounts to a new attempt to push Israel's future border deeper into the West Bank. "It's about grabbing land," said Yariv Oppenheimer of Peace Now.

Otniel Schneller, an Olmert adviser, confirmed Israel is building in additional West Bank areas to ensure they are not included in the lands given to the Palestinians. He said Israel needs to keep the Jordan Valley, where Maskiot is located, as a security buffer against Islamic militants based in Iraq, Iran and elsewhere.

Olmert has said that if efforts to resume peace talks fail, as expected, he would annex large Jewish settlement blocs in the West Bank and draw Israel's final borders by 2008. A separation barrier Israel is building in the West Bank is to serve as the basis for the future border.

In order to ensure a Jewish majority in lands it controls, Israel plans to evacuate as many as 70,000 West Bank settlers, relocating them to the western side of the separation barrier. Israel depicts the move as a major concession, but Palestinians fear Jewish footholds like Maskiot will prevent them from being able to build a contiguous state on the evacuated lands.

Maskiot would initially house 20 families, all former Gaza settlers forced out of their homes when Israel withdrew from the coastal strip last year. Israel has promised Washington it would not build new settlements in the West Bank.

The future residents of Maskiot say their homes are being financed by right-leaning Jewish donors and the Israeli government, and that they will be renting homes built by others.

Asked about Maskiot, Stewart Tuttle, the U.S. Embassy spokesman in Tel Aviv, said such settlement activity violates U.S. policy. "As a general principle, the U.S. government is opposed to settlement expansion," Tuttle said. "Ceasing settlement expansion is one of Israel's commitments under the road map."

At Maskiot, bulldozers have cleared the top of a hill and work crews have laid foundations for four houses. New trees have been planted on the edges of the settlement.

The first 20 families, all from the former Gaza settlement outpost of Shirat Hayam, are expected to move there in coming weeks, said regional settler leader Dubi Tal.

The Kinarti family from Shirat Hayam has moved into a temporary concrete block home in Maskiot. A knock on the door produced a man with a large skullcap who refused to comment on the construction of his new home but said he's originally from Shirat Hayam.

Another future Maskiot resident, Yossi Hazut, said he was settling in the Jordan Valley to help determine the borders of the state of Israel.

"I don't think there is even one Israeli who thinks that the Jordan Valley is not important," said Hazut, who is living in a nearby community until his house is ready. "God willing, many of us from Shirat Hayam will live in Maskiot."

Schneller, an architect of Olmert's West Bank plan, said Israel could move the separation barrier deeper into the West Bank to include Maskiot on the Israeli side.

Israel's Defense Ministry, which oversees settlement activity, confirmed it decided before Israel's March election to approve the construction of Maskiot.

The defense minister, Amir Peretz, has not tried to derail these plans, defense officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the press. Peretz, leader of the Labor Party, is seen as a leading opponent of settlement expansion, but apparently wants to avoid stirring up too many conflicts in Olmert's coalition government.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Israel will eventually have to decide whether it wants to build more settlements or reach a peace agreement. "Every settlement is meant to take Palestinian land and meant to undermine a two-state solution," he said.

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060602/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_new_settlement

US probe finds Haditha victims were shot: report

1 hour, 49 minutes ago

U.S. military officials say the killing of 24 civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha in November appears to have been an unprovoked attack by U.S. Marines, after an investigation found the victims died of gunshot wounds, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

The findings of the investigation contradicted Marines' claims that the civilians were victims of a roadside bomb, the newspaper said.

The Times report, citing an unidentified senior military official in Iraq, said the investigation in February and March led by Col. Gregory Watt, an Army officer in Baghdad, uncovered death certificates showing the Iraqis were shot mostly in the head and chest.

The three-week probe was the first official investigation into the killings.

"There were enough inconsistencies that things didn't add up," the senior official was quoted as saying by the Times.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, had been briefed on the conclusion of Watt's preliminary investigation, the newspaper said. The findings have not been made public.

In an interview with CNN, new Iraqi ambassador to the United States Samir al-Sumaidaie said there appeared to have been other killings of civilians by Marines in Haditha, where some of his family lives.

The ambassador said Marines shot and killed his cousin during a house-to-house search several months before the November incident.

"I believe he was killed intentionally. I believe that he was killed unnecessarily," al-Sumaidaie said.

He said three other unarmed youths were shot dead by Marines in a later incident in the area.

"They were in a car, they were unarmed, I believe, and they were shot."

Watt's investigation also reviewed cash payments totaling $38,000 made within weeks of the November shootings to families of victims, The New York Times said.

In an interview with the newspaper on Tuesday, Maj. Dana Hyatt said his superiors told him to compensate the relatives of 15 victims, but the other dead civilians had been determined to have committed hostile acts, leaving their families ineligible for compensation.

The U.S. military sometimes pays compensation to relatives of civilian victims.

Residents of Haditha, 200 km (125 miles) northwest of Baghdad in an area that has seen much activity by Sunni Arab insurgents, have told Reuters that U.S. Marines attacked houses after their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb.

On November 20, U.S. Marines spokesman Captain Jeffrey Pool issued a statement saying that, on the previous day, a roadside bomb had killed 15 civilians and a Marine. In a later gunbattle, U.S. and Iraqi troops had killed eight insurgents, he added.

U.S. military officials have since confirmed to Reuters that that version of the events of November 19 was wrong and that the 15 civilians were not killed by the blast but were shot dead.

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060531/ts_nm/iraq_usa_haditha_dc...

U.S. policy was to shoot Korean refugees

By CHARLES J. HANLEY and MARTHA MENDOZA,
Associated Press WritersMon May 29, 2:44 PM ET

More than a half-century after hostilities ended in Korea, a document from the war's chaotic early days has come to light — a letter from the U.S. ambassador to Seoul, informing the State Department that American soldiers would shoot refugees approaching their lines.

The letter — dated the day of the Army's mass killing of South Korean refugees at No Gun Ri in 1950 — is the strongest indication yet that such a policy existed for all U.S. forces in Korea, and the first evidence that that policy was known to upper ranks of the U.S. government.

"If refugees do appear from north of US lines they will receive warning shots, and if they then persist in advancing they will be shot," wrote Ambassador John J. Muccio, in his message to Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk.

The letter reported on decisions made at a high-level meeting in South Korea on July 25, 1950, the night before the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment shot the refugees at No Gun Ri.

Estimates vary on the number of dead at No Gun Ri. American soldiers' estimates ranged from under 100 to "hundreds" dead; Korean survivors say about 400, mostly women and children, were killed at the village 100 miles southeast of Seoul, the South Korean capital. Hundreds more refugees were killed in later, similar episodes, survivors say.

The No Gun Ri killings were documented in a Pulitzer Prize-winning story by The Associated Press in 1999, which prompted a 16-month Pentagon inquiry.

The Pentagon concluded that the No Gun Ri shootings, which lasted three days, were "an unfortunate tragedy" — "not a deliberate killing." It suggested panicky soldiers, acting without orders, opened fire because they feared that an approaching line of families, baggage and farm animals concealed enemy troops.

But Muccio's letter indicates the actions of the 7th Cavalry were consistent with policy, adopted because of concern that North Koreans would infiltrate via refugee columns. And in subsequent months, U.S. commanders repeatedly ordered refugees shot, documents show.

The Muccio letter, declassified in 1982, is discussed in a new book by American historian Sahr Conway-Lanz, who discovered the document at the U.S. National Archives, where the AP also has obtained a copy.

Conway-Lanz, a former Harvard historian and now an archivist of the National Archives' Nixon collection, was awarded the Stuart L. Bernath Award of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations for the article on which the book is based.

"With this additional piece of evidence, the Pentagon report's interpretation (of No Gun Ri) becomes difficult to sustain," Conway-Lanz argues in his book, "Collateral Damage," published this spring by Routledge.

The Army report's own list of sources for the 1999-2001 investigation shows its researchers reviewed the microfilm containing the Muccio letter. But the 300-page report did not mention it.

Asked about this, Pentagon spokeswoman Betsy Weiner would say only that the Army inspector general's report was "an accurate and objective portrayal of the available facts based on 13 months of work."

Said Louis Caldera, who was Army secretary in 2001 and is now University of New Mexico president, "Millions of pages of files were reviewed and it is certainly possible they may have simply missed it."

Ex-journalist Don Oberdorfer, a historian of Korea who served on a team of outside experts who reviewed the investigation, said he did not recall seeing the Muccio message. "I don't know why, since the military claimed to have combed all records from any source."

Muccio noted in his 1950 letter that U.S. commanders feared disguised North Korean soldiers were infiltrating American lines via refugee columns.

As a result, those meeting on the night of July 25, 1950 — top staff officers of the U.S. 8th Army, Muccio's representative Harold J. Noble and South Korean officials — decided on a policy of air-dropping leaflets telling South Korean civilians not to head south toward U.S. defense lines, and of shooting them if they did approach U.S. lines despite warning shots, the ambassador wrote to Rusk.

Rusk, Muccio and Noble, who was embassy first secretary, are all dead. It is not known what action, if any, Rusk and others in Washington may have taken as a result of the letter.

Muccio told Rusk, who later served as U.S. secretary of state during the Vietnam War, that he was writing him "in view of the possibility of repercussions in the United States" from such deadly U.S. tactics.

But the No Gun Ri killings — as well as others in the ensuing months — remained hidden from history until the AP report of 1999, in which ex-soldiers who were at No Gun Ri corroborated the Korean survivors' accounts.

Survivors said U.S. soldiers first forced them from nearby villages on July 25, 1950, and then stopped them in front of U.S. lines the next day, when they were attacked without warning by aircraft as hundreds sat atop a railroad embankment. Troops of the 7th Cavalry followed with ground fire as survivors took shelter under a railroad bridge.

The late Army Col. Robert M. Carroll, a lieutenant at No Gun Ri, said he remembered the order radioed across the warfront on the morning of July 26 to stop refugees from crossing battle lines. "What do you do when you're told nobody comes through?" he said in a 1998 interview. "We had to shoot them to hold them back."

Other soldier witnesses attested to radioed orders to open fire at No Gun Ri.

Since that episode was confirmed in 1999, South Koreans have lodged complaints with the Seoul government about more than 60 other alleged large-scale killings of refugees by the U.S. military in the 1950-53 war.

The Army report of 2001 acknowledged investigators learned of other, unspecified civilian killings, but said these would not be investigated.

Meanwhile, AP research uncovered at least 19 declassified U.S. military documents showing commanders ordered or authorized such killings in 1950-51.

In a statement issued Monday in Seoul, a No Gun Ri survivors group called that episode "a clear war crime," demanded an apology and compensation from the U.S. government, and said the U.S. Congress and the United Nations should conduct investigations. The survivors also said they would file a lawsuit against the Pentagon for alleged manipulation of the earlier probe.

The Army's denial that the killings were ordered is a "deception of No Gun Ri victims and of U.S. citizens who value human rights," said spokesman Chung Koo-do.

Even if infiltrators are present, soldiers need to take "due precautions" to protect civilian lives, said Francois Bugnion, director for international law for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, global authority on the laws of war.

After reviewing the 1950 letter, Bugnion said the standard on war crimes is clear.

"In the case of a deliberate attack directed against civilians identified as such, then this would amount to a violation of the law of armed conflict," he said.

Gary Solis, a West Point expert on war crimes, said the policy described by Muccio clearly "deviates from typical wartime procedures. It's an obvious violation of the bedrock core principle of the law of armed conflict — distinction."

Solis said soldiers always have the right to defend themselves. But "noncombatants are not to be purposely targeted."

But William Eckhardt, lead Army prosecutor in the My Lai atrocities case in Vietnam, sensed "angst, great angst" in the letter because officials worried about what might happen. "If a mob doesn't stop when they're coming at you, you fire over their heads and if they still don't stop you fire at them. Standard procedure," he said.

In South Korea, Yi Mahn-yol, head of the National Institute of Korean History and a member of a government panel on No Gun Ri, said the Muccio letter sheds an entirely new light on a case that "so far has been presented as an accidental incident that didn't involve the command system."

___

AP Investigative Researcher Randy Herschaft in New York and AP Writer Jae-soon Chang in Seoul contributed to this report.

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
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John Allen Muhammad jury to weigh conspiracy theory

By STEPHEN MANNING,
Associated Press WriterMon May 29, 5:26 PM ET

Early in his closing argument, John Allen Muhammad laid out the heart of his defense against six murder charges for the 2002 sniper shootings in the Washington area: He and accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo were framed.

"My case is based on one thing. It is very simple. They lied on two innocent men," Muhammad said Friday, before launching into a rambling speech in which he claimed that government agencies conspired to falsely imprison him and that most of the evidence against him was planted.

As jurors begin their deliberations Tuesday in Muhammad's second trial for the sniper attacks, they will have to weigh Muhammad's conspiracy theory — for which he offered little proof and no motive — against the four weeks of testimony and evidence presented by prosecutors.

Witnesses reported seeing Muhammad and his car near shooting scenes. Forensic experts said his DNA was on evidence that included the rifle found in the car when he and Malvo were arrested. Ballistics experts matched the .223-caliber bullets used in the murders to the rifle.

Jurors also heard dramatic testimony from Malvo, whom Muhammad still referred to as "my son" even though his former protege took the stand to say Muhammad planned and carried out most of the shootings.

Muhammad defended himself, showing that he has learned a lot about lawyering from his time in courts here and in Virginia. He appeared comfortable with courtroom procedure. He cross-examined prosecution witnesses, seizing on inconsistencies as he looked for holes to suggest he was set up.

Prosecutors urged jurors not to be fooled by Muhammad's courtroom demeanor. It was just a facade, an act to cover his murderous plans, Assistant State's Attorney Vivek Chopra said in his closing argument.

"Scrub away that veneer that covers this man and see him for what he is," Chopra said, labeling Muhammad "a heartless, soulless, manipulating murderer."

Ten people were killed and three were wounded during the three weeks of shootings in October 2002. Victims were shot at gas stations and in parking lots, and a 13-year-old boy was struck by a bullet outside a school. People were afraid to pump gas, go out in public or send their children to school.

A Virginia jury convicted Muhammad of one shooting in Manassas, Va., and Malvo was given a life term for another Virginia shooting. Maryland prosecutors say their case is insurance in case Muhammad's Virginia conviction is overturned.

Muhammad and Malvo also are suspected in shootings in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana and Washington state.

The most riveting witness was Malvo, who testified for two days last week. Malvo called Muhammad "a coward" as he confronted his former father figure, detailing each shooting and describing how Muhammad planned them. Muhammad was the shooter in five of the six Montgomery murders, he said.

Malvo detailed Muhammad's more sinister plans, saying he was about to launch "phase two" when the pair were arrested. Children were to be the principal target of that second phase.

Muhammad challenged Malvo's credibility, pointing out that Malvo first told investigators he was the shooter in each incident, then changed his story later. He suggested Malvo was prone to exaggeration, and noted Malvo had used an insanity defense in his first trial.

Muhammad pleaded with jurors Friday not to believe the case against him.

"These cases are not based on logic," he said, his voice rising. "I call these cases the cow jumping over the moon."

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060529/ap_on_re_us/sniper_tria...