WASHINGTON, May 26 (AP) Ñ In June 1972, when Henry Kissinger was secretary of state, he told Prime Minister Zhou Enlai of China that the United States, mired in Vietnam, probably could live with a Communist government in South Vietnam as long as it evolved peacefully, according to foreign policy papers released Friday.

The discussion is included in some 28,000 pages of Kissinger-era papers published online by George Washington University at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/. The National Security Archive released the collection, drawn from the National Archives and obtained through Freedom of Information requests.

“If we can live with a Communist government in China, we ought to be able to accept it in Indochina,” Mr. Kissinger said.

He also hinted that the United States, newly courting China, would consider a nuclear response if the Soviet Union were to overrun Asia with conventional forces. At the time, the United States was playing the Communist states against each other while seeking detente with Moscow.

The papers also indicate that the United States reached out to hostile Arabs three decades ago with an offer to work toward making Israel a “small friendly country” and with an assurance to Iraq that Washington had stopped backing Kurdish rebels.
nytimes.com

Papers Show U.S. Courted Arabs in Mid-70s
Kissinger pressed: “Our attitude is not unsympathetic to Iraq. Don’t believe; watch it.”

He said U.S. public opinion was turning more pro-Palestinian and U.S. aid to Israel could not be sustained for much longer at its massive levels. He predicted that in 10 or 15 years, “Israel will be like Lebanon – struggling for existence, with no influence in the Arab world.”

Mindful of Israel’s nuclear capability, a skeptical Hammadi peppered Kissinger with questions, including whether Washington would recognize Palestinian identity and even a Palestinian state. “Is it in your power to create such a thing?”

Kissinger said he could not make recognition of Palestinian identity happen right away but, “No solution is possible without it.”

“After a settlement, Israel will be a small friendly country,” he said.

When there is no solution, there is no problem, observed James Burnham, the former Trotskyite turned Cold War geostrategist.

Burnham’s insight came again to mind as President Bush ended his meeting with Ehud Olmert by announcing that the Israeli prime minister had brought with him some “bold ideas” for peace.

And what bold ideas might that be?

Olmert wants Bush to remain steadfast in refusing to talk to the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Authority. He wants U.S. support for Israel’s wall that is fencing in large slices of the West Bank and all of Jerusalem, forever denying the Palestinians a viable state. He wants U.S. recognition of Israeli-drawn lines as the final borders of Israel. And he wants America to remove the “existential threat” of Iran.

In the six months before he proceeds unilaterally with this Sharon-Olmert plan, he will be happy to talk with Mahmoud Abbas, the isolated Palestinian president he has called “powerless.”

What is the Bush plan to advance our interests in the Middle East? There is none. For five years, the Bush policy has been to sign off on whatever Sharon put in front of him. And now that Bush is weak, he is not going to pick a fight he cannot win and, in candor, he does not want.
theconservativevoice.com

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe looks set to win a new four-year mandate on Sunday to continue his security-minded policies that have brought some stability to the country despite controversy over his heavy-handed tactics.

Polls show Mr Uribe holds a comfortable margin over his closest rivals in this weekend’s presidential election and appears likely to avoid a second round vote that would be triggered if he fails to get more than 50% of the vote.

An Uribe win would be welcomed by the US as a counterbalance to the growing anti-American nationalism in the Andean region.
Mr Uribe remains a staunch ally of the US, which bankrolls the fight against the booming drugs trade that funds Colombia’s 40-year-old war, in which leftist rebels are pitted against government forces and rightwing paramilitary groups.
guardian.co.uk

Here’s the sort of ‘democracy’ the US can get behind.

For almost half a century now Cuba, the unapologetically communist nation led by Fidel Castro, has endured crippling economic and trade sanctions imposed by its next-door neighbour, the United States. But not only has this tiny Caribbean country survived, it’s achieved close to the unthinkable. Over the years of its isolation, Cuba has made major medical breakthroughs and now has a health system that’s the envy of most of its neighbours, including the mighty US.
informationclearinghouse.com

Palast makes a key point related to the price of crude. At $10 a barrel the supply is low because only the easy to extract and refine kind are economically feasible. But at $70 a barrel it’s a whole new oil market. The heavy stuff and tar sands then become economical to extract and refine, and a new far higher finite supply is realized almost magically. In short, it’s just a question of supply and demand and how the price of a commodity depends on how much of it consumers want. Too little demand and the price is low, but when it’s high like now and rising, then so does the price.
axisoflogic.com

“We are the product of 500 years of struggle . . . They don’t care that we have nothing, absolutely nothing, not even a roof over our heads, no land, no work, no health care, no food, no education, without the right to freely and democratically choose our authorities, without independence from foreigners, nor is there peace nor justice for ourselves and our children. But today, we say enough! (Ya Basta!)”
axisoflogic

…“We see how the United States defends its interests, we see what methods and means they use for this,” Putin said at a news conference following a summit meeting of Russia and the European Union in his most direct criticism of Cheney’s remarks.

In a speech earlier this month in Lithuania, Cheney accused the Kremlin of rolling back democracy and strong-arming its ex-Soviet neighbors.

“When we fight for our interests, we also look for the most acceptable methods to accomplish our national tasks, and I find it strange that this seems inexplicable to someone,” Putin said, replying to a reporter’s request for his reaction to the vice president’s remarks.
guardian.co.uk

The Respect MP George Galloway has said it would be morally justified for a suicide bomber to murder Tony Blair.

In an interview with GQ magazine, the reporter asked him: “Would the assassination of, say, Tony Blair by a suicide bomber – if there were no other casualties – be justified as revenge for the war on Iraq?”

Mr Galloway replied: “Yes, it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it – but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7. It would be entirely logical and explicable. And morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq – as Blair did.”
independent.co.uk

(CBS/AP) Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Thursday he will call a national referendum on accepting a Palestinian state alongside Israel if Hamas does not agree to the idea within 10 days.

Abbas’ surprise announcement was a political gamble that could either help resolve the Palestinians’ internal deadlock or lead them into a deeper crisis with the militant Hamas group.

Such a vote would effectively ask Palestinians to give implicit recognition to Israel by accepting a Palestinian state on land occupied by Israel in 1967. Approval of the 18-point plan would provide a way out of the impasse over acceptance of Israel, which has led to an international freeze on aid to the Hamas-led government.
cbsnews.com

Israelis kill 3 civilians, wound at least 50 more in Ramallah raid

In Afghanistan, more than 330 people have died over the past week in some of the heaviest fighting since the war began almost five years ago.

On Monday U.S. A-10 fighter jets and Apache helicopter gunships bombed homes in the village of Azizi, west of Kandahar.

The air strikes, which lasted for hours, killed about 100 people including as many as 30 civilians. U.S. officials said the raids targeted Taliban fighters who were involved in a series of deadly attacks last week.

The increase in fighting comes just two months before the United States is scheduled to hand over command of southern Afghanistan to NATO forces.

Fighting has greatly increased in Southern Afghanistan as the Taliban have moved out of the mountains and seized large areas of the region.

Last week the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Karl Eikenberry, admitted that the Taliban are now better trained, armed and organized than in the past. He said the Taliban has adopted tactics used in Iraq including suicide attacks and roadside bombs.

Meanwhile the Afghan government has accused Pakistan of recruiting, training and coordinating attack missions for the Taliban.

Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, said, “Pakistani intelligence gives military training to people and then sends them to Afghanistan with logistics.” The Pakistani government has rejected the charge.

For more we are joined by Habib Rahiab – he is an Afghan-born human rights activist. Up until two years ago he lived in Afghanistan where he helped “Human Rights Watch” document human rights abuses committed by U.S. forces — including some similar to those that later surfaced in the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq. He is now a fellow at Harvard Law School.
democracynow.org

About 3000 flee Afghan Fighting

Bin Laden on the Move; New Sightings in Pakistan
Pakistani government sources tell ABC News they have “credible reports” that Osama bin Laden and his entourage have moved down from high mountainous peaks along the Afghan border to a valley area 40 miles inside the Pakistan border.

The officials say the reports put bin Laden around Kohistan’s Kumrat Valley.

Officials said the reports were validated by the release of bin Laden’s audio tape yesterday, which appears to have been recorded only two weeks earlier.

Such a quick turn-around suggests, say the officials, that bin Laden is much closer to civilization than he had been previously.