02/19/06 “ICH” — — I’m going to tell you what the real Bush administration policy is. I have no take-it-to-court proof. No one does, because the administration doesn’t tell the truth and is very secretive.

But from conversations I’ve had with people from the Middle East and from extensive reading, I infer that the Bush administration’s policy encompasses three goals:

One of the goals is to replace the present Syrian government with one the administration hopes will be more pliable in its policy toward Israel. Another is to construct four permanent bases in Iraq, and that means the administration has no intention of ever withdrawing all U.S. forces. The third goal is to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities from the air. The propaganda campaign to justify this attack is already under way.
informationclearinghouse.info

US to finance Syrian opposition
THE United States will allocate $US5 million to finance the Syrian opposition, the State Department said overnight, two days after announcing a similar initiative for the Iranian opposition.

The State Department said in a statement that it will give the money “to accelerate the work of reformers in Syria.”
The money would come from the department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative, it said.

The grants “will build up Syrian civil society and support organizations promoting democratic practices such as the rule of law; government accountability; access to independent sources of information; freedom of association and speech; and free, fair and competitive elections,” the statement said.

The State Department announced on Wednesday that it would seek $US75 million dollars to step up efforts, through extra broadcasts and other activities, to influence democratic change in Iran.

Efforts to form a government of national unity in Iraq are floundering amid concerns from Kurds, Sunni Arabs and secularists at the “undue influence” within the ruling Shia alliance of the militant anti-western cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

The 33-year old firebrand – whose support was crucial to last week’s controversial re-nomination of the prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari – threw the nascent talks into disarray at the weekend, saying he opposed Iraq’s new federal constitution and repeating calls for the swift withdrawal of US and other foreign forces.

“I reject this constitution which calls for sectarianism and there is nothing good in this constitution at all,” he told al-Jazeera television in a rare interview, conducted in Jordan. He added that the withdrawal of foreign forces “should be the priority of the future Iraqi government.”

The tortuous negotiations over policies and posts in the new government begin in earnest this week, but most say it will take weeks if not months until Iraqis see the first full-term administration since the fall of Saddam. Mr Sadr’s supporters also ruled out the inclusion of the former prime minister Ayad Allawi in any future government.
guardian.co.uk

TEHRAN, Iran – An Iranian group that claims its members are dedicated to becoming suicide bombers warned the United States and Britain on Saturday that they will strike coalition military bases in Iraq if Tehran’s nuclear facilities are attacked.

Mohammad Ali Samadi, spokesman for Esteshadion, or Martyrdom Seekers, boasted of having hundreds of potential bombers in his talk at a seminar on suicide-bombings tactics at Tehran’s Khajeh Nasir University.

“With more than 1,000 trained martyrdom-seekers, we are ready to attack the American and British sensitive points if they attack Iran’s nuclear facilities,” Samadi said.
news.yahoo.com

Are these folks getting some of the U.S. infowar money? If not, they really should apply…

Stroking his long beard and flashing a smile, Mohammed Khwaja, a Taliban organiser in the lawless borderlands of Pakistan’s tribal areas, contemplated the imminent arrival of British troops in Helmand province.

“We thought that it would be between us and the US, but it looks like souls of the British buried in the Helmand after they were killed by the Afghan warriors in the 19th century may be feeling bored.

By the early summer, 3,300 troops will be based in Helmand
“Now they are calling their grandchildren to be reunited with them in hell,” he said.
telegraph.co.uk

Taliban raid Afghan police station, kill three
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Feb 19 (Reuters) – Taliban gunmen killed three policemen in a raid on a security post in a southern province where thousands of British troops will soon be based, police said on Sunday.

Violence has intensified in Afghanistan in recent months, particularly in the south and east, with a wave of raids, roadside and suicide bombings killing dozens of people as NATO members prepare to send peacekeepers.

Citing the “Prevention of Terrorism” act, British Police have arrested and interrogated three of the stars of the award-winning film “The Road to Guantanamo”, together with the three ex-Guantanomo detainees on whose story the film is based.

Acclaimed director Michael Winterbottom (“A Cock and Bull Story”, “24 Hour Party People”, “Welcome to Sarajevo”) had been showing the film at the Berlin Film Festival, where it has won a number of top awards.

“The Road to Guantanamo” traces the true story of Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Ruhal Ahmed, three Muslim friends from Birmingham who were picked up as aliens in Afghanistan by US forces and ended up in Guantanamo for three years, where they suffered brutal and humiliating treatment.

Extensive interrogation established that they had no connection with al-Qaida, and despite their plight being ignored by British authorities, eventually they were returned home. The UK media covered live the return of these “Suspected terrorists” and the massive police convoy that brought them in to Ventral London for questioning. Their release after the UK police also found they had no connection with terrorism was, naturally, hardly mentioned.
craigmurray.co.uk

‘The Road to Guantanamo’ Film Releasing Soon
…Winterbottom’s film tells the true life “horror story” of four young men of Pakistan origin — one of them now presumed dead — who travel to Karachi, then on to a village near Faisalabad in Punjab, where one of them, Asif Iqbal, is to marry a bride chosen for him by his mother.

The group gathers shortly before the wedding. Then on the spur of the moment they embark on a well-intentioned but unwise escapade into Afghanistan to help victims of the war — just days before American bombardments start in September 2001.

The three young men from Tipton, near Birmingham in England, soon recognise the folly of the venture but turning back proves impossible. Almost certainly betrayed by locals they are swept up by Coalition allies, and shunted into a container which ends up being machine-gunned by Northern Alliance troops led by General Dostum’s forces, killing many inside.

Taken into American custody, the three young men — Rhuhel Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul — get beaten up and abused before being dispatched to Guantanamo Bay for two years and finally being released without charge and flown home to Britain.

Winterbottom’s film, much of it skillfully shot at locations in Iran, weaves commentary from the three lads between credible re-enactments of their nightmare, and offers an astonishing indictment of Guantanamo, and the ruthless way it operates.

…Up until now, they only had to worry about DHS and the FBI, who fight like parents in front of the kids. (Can anybody forget that morning in 2004 when John Ashcroft was proclaiming a dire new al Qaeda threat and going Orange while Tom Ridge was on the Today Show pooh-poohing it?)

Now there’s a new Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Homeland Security and Law Enforcement to add to their speed dialers. Who gets top billing now between the DHS, DNI and FBI?

Let’s leave out the CIA, the National Counterterrorism Center, the 87 regional Joint Terrorism Task Forces, the new regional intelligence fusion centers, the Pentagon’s Northern Command and myriad military intelligence agencies, for now.

It’s a “three-way battle,” says an intelligence expert with intimate knowledge of the federal intelligence agencies involved, as well as with the thinking of state and local police.

“I detect a new tension,” says this person, whose views are shared by multiple congressional sources, “between the information sharing office at DNI, which has the responsibility for policy development and implementation, and . . . the intelligence shop of DHS.”

“So once again we have these new offices, new bureaus and new legislation, but also new layers. And they’re still kind of wondering, out in the homeland, who the hell’s in charge of what and who’s telling us what and when and are we speaking with one voice?”
cq.com

ST. LOUIS — David Baltimore, the Nobel Prize-winning biologist and president of the California Institute of Technology, is used to the Bush administration misrepresenting scientific findings to support its policy aims, he told an audience of fellow researchers Saturday. Each time it happens, he said, “I shrug and say, ‘What do you expect?’ “

But then, Dr. Baltimore went on, he began to read about the administration’s embrace of the theory of the unitary executive, the idea that the executive branch has the power or even the obligation to act without restraint from Congress. And he began to see in a new light widely reported episodes of government scientists being restricted in what they could say in public.

“It’s no accident that we are seeing such an extensive suppression of scientific freedom,” he said. “It’s part of the theory of government now, and it’s a theory we need to vociferously oppose.” Far from twisting science to suit its own goals, he said, the government should be “the guardian of intellectual freedom.”

Dr. Baltimore spoke at a session here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Though it was organized too late for inclusion in the overall meeting catalogue, the session drew hundreds of scientists who crowded a large meeting room and applauded enthusiastically as speakers denounced administration policies they said threatened not just sound science but also the nation’s research pre-eminence.
commondreams.org

There is an ongoing national emergency that demands our immediate attention.

In the absence of decisive Executive action, an under-funded FEMA made its own executive decision to shelter hundreds of thousands of survivors in hotels, paying in some cases rates in excess of $400 per night, resulting in a windfall for hotel chains during their slow season, but depleting FEMA’s budget. Now, with summer business coming, the hotels want the survivors out and FEMA is evicting tens of thousands of families from temporary housing.

As a result of the President’s failure to act, Secretary Chertoff’s failure to act, and the failure of Congress to act, it appears we are about to see a new underclass of “Katrina Homeless” in America, even as Halliburton and other contractors take fifty per cent off the top of their sweetheart, no-bid Katrina contracts before subcontracting the work out at rock bottom rates.

Given the vast amounts of money that has gone “missing”-billions of dollars-from this Administration’s Iraq misadventure, it is scandalous that we won’t provide housing to the survivors.

What Katrina survivors facing homelessness need is enough assistance to rebuild their lives. Why did we offer a Victims Compensation Fund to 9/11 families but not to Katrina survivors? And why hasn’t the Congress moved swiftly to pass or at least held hearings on HR 4197, the Hurricane Katrina Recovery, Reclamation, Restoration, Reconstruction and Reunion Act of 2005?
counterpunch.org

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti –Opponents of Haiti’s president-elect could use the country’s disputed election result to try and weaken his government “if he doesn’t perform,” the top American diplomat in Haiti said.

Rene Preval was declared the winner Thursday after electoral authorities decided to divide 85,000 blank votes among the candidates to avoid a runoff.

The move gave Preval the 51 percent of the vote he needed for outright victory, drawing angry complaints from his two nearest rivals, neither of who polled close to Preval’s numbers in the Feb. 7 vote.

Tim Carney, the acting U.S. ambassador in Haiti, said Preval clearly would have won the election but acknowledged the disputed outcome could hurt his government if he fails in office.

“If he doesn’t perform, yes it could weaken him,” Carney said during an interview with The Associated Press at his residence. “If he does perform, nobody will remember it.”
boston.com

This is a threat. Read “If he doesn’t perform”…to our satisfaction. And rest assured, this newest attempt to undermine Haiti will be remembered. The people of Haiti have a prodigious memory.

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) – The front-runner in Mexico’s election race pitched his message of leftist reform to roaring crowds in the conservative north on Saturday, an area where he needs to win support if he is to become president.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told followers in the industrial city of Monterrey he would transform Mexico after two decades of free-market reforms that moved it closer to the United States but widened the gap between rich and poor.

“This state is an example of hard work and development … and is the industrial center of our country,” the popular former mayor of Mexico City said to cheers from a crowd of about 10,000 mainly working-class supporters packed into a city square.

“Together we can transform Mexico,” he said to chants of “Long live Mexico.”

Monterrey is Mexico’s third-largest city and an economic powerhouse just a three-hour drive south of Texas. It is home to companies that include the world’s No. 3 cement maker, Cemex, and brewer and bottling giant Femsa.

While Lopez Obrador has won over many in central and southern Mexico with promises that include more social benefits for the poor, cash handouts to the elderly and an anti-corruption campaign, analysts say that convincing pragmatic, prosperous northerners will prove key to victory in the July 2 election.

“Monterrey is one place in Mexico where the U.S.-style free-market model has worked well for people, so it’s going to be a tough sell,” political consultant Pedro Gonzalez told Reuters.

“But while he’s not likely to win in the north, the votes he garners there could prove decisive in the election,” he added.

A poll this week showed Lopez Obrador had a lead of 4.6 points over his nearest rival, Felipe Calderon, of the ruling National Action Party. Roberto Madrazo of the once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party was 10 points off the lead.
boston.com