Hizbollah: Rebel Without A Cause?
International Crisis Group 8/4/2003
OVERVIEW: Few political actors in the Middle East have seen their environment as thoroughly affected by recent events in the region as Hizbollah, the Lebanese political-military organisation that first came on the scene in the mid-1980s. In U.S. political circles, calls for action against Hizbollah, which is accused of global terrorist activity, are heard increasingly. With the ouster of Saddam Hussein’s regime, the U.S. has upped its pressure on Syria and Iran – Hizbollah’s two most powerful patrons. Meanwhile, Israel has made clear it will not tolerate indefinitely the organisation’s armed presence on its northern border. Within Lebanon itself, weariness with Hizbollah and questions about its future role are being raised with surprising candour. One after another, its local and regional cards appear to have been lost: Israel’s May 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon deprived Hizbollah of its principal raison d’ętre; America’s swift military success reduced the immediate prospect of it being drawn into a costly confrontation in Iraq; and renewed international efforts to restore calm in the Israeli-Palestinian theatre combined with intense pressure on radical Palestinian Islamist groups have diminished its ability to invoke the Palestinian struggle as a justification for armed action. Today perhaps more than ever since its establishment in 1984, the organisation’s purpose and fate hang in the balance. Hizbollah is engaged in its own soul-searching. Pressured to undertake a strategic shift, it faces the decision whether its future is one among many Lebanese political parties or whether it will maintain the hybrid nature, half political party and half armed militia, part local organisation and part internationalist movement, that has defined it from the outset. [includes link to full report in Acrobat (PDF) format]

What Does Bush Have To Hide?
By Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com 8/1/2003
Censoring the 9/11 report: neocons project their fantasies onto blank pages -- The long-awaited congressional report on 9/11 came with a kicker: 28 redacted pages, deemed too sensitive for the unwashed masses, which have generated more discussion than all the other 800-plus pages put together. The censored section deals with "specific sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers while they were in the United States," as the non-redacted portion puts it. The blankness of these pages, however, hasn't stopped everyone from talking as if they can read the invisible ink detailing all sorts of accusations aimed squarely at the Saudi government. The Saudis responded, in the state-run Arab News, by calling for the release of the 28 pages:"It would be far better if the section were published. What has been produced is nothing less than a charter for Saudi-bashing, all the more so because of the 28 pages supposedly dealing with Saudi links to the hijackers, blocked on White House orders.""Anyone who thinks that President Bush is doing us a favor can forget it. Whatever the intention, this is an invitation to the U.S. and other media to speculate. ... This way, it will be open season on Saudi Arabia."...There is plenty of evidence pointing to some measure of foreign involvement in the events leading up to the 9/11 terror attacks, but none of it points to Saudi Arabia, or Pakistan. In December of 2001, Fox News reporter Carl Cameron, who did a four-part series exposing the enormity of Israel's spy apparatus in the U.S., flatly stated:"There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9-11 attacks, but investigators suspect that the Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A highly placed investigator said there are 'tie-ins.' But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying, 'evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information.'"

Israel, Yellowcake and the Media
By Jerry Kroth, CounterPunch 8/2/2003
Who Forged the Letters that Sucked Us into War? -- Can you name a country in the Middle East suspected of developing nuclear weapons, refusing to open itself to international inspection, and one that probably possesses chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction? Iraq, perhaps, Iran, maybe, but most definitely Israel. Indeed, while its official spokespersons still deny it, Israel is thought to possess as many as 240 nuclear weapons along with awesome biological weapons.During Bush's successful ejaculatory tweaking of American war hysteria over Iraq which aroused 73% of the American electorate to ignore world opinion, flout the UN, and support going off to war, not a single levelheaded American journalist seemed at all interested in this obvious oversight. It was as if Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction had nothing to do with Israel's arsenal. Gosh, what an irrelevancy!The left incriminated that the reason the Bush couldn't stop salivating over the prospect of invading Iraq was for its oil: ah yes, greedy Republicans, Texas oil magnates, Halliburton, insider wheeling and dealing. Sounds good, but was there anyone opining that the real reason we invaded Iraq was to keep Israel as the sole nuclear power in the Middle East? The discussion never moved in that direction. And it did not move there probably because the issue was never put on the table. George Will was too busy quarrying into somber ethical issues like whether "French" fries and kisses should be rethought, and Dianne Sawyer couldn't tear her investigative self away from the Dixie Chicks long enough to even think about it.

Abbas to Bush: "Israel is Blocking the Implementation of Road Map"
By Diana Buttu, Electronic Intifada 8/4/2003
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas came to his White House meeting with President George W. Bush carrying several messages, the most important being that the Palestinians have fulfilled the vast majority of their phase one road map obligation and that Israel was blocking further progress.Speaking at a 31 July 2003 Palestine Center briefing, Diana Buttu, a legal advisor to the Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) Negotiations Affairs Department, said Abbas emphasized to Bush three issues that were impeding progress on the road map: Israel's construction of an apartheid wall, Israel's continued settlement expansion, and the incarceration of several thousand Palestinian political prisoners. Abbas also raised the issue of Israel's confinement of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Yasser Arafat to his Ramallah headquarters.On the issue of the so-called Separation Wall, Buttu said Abbas told Bush that if Israel continues to build the Wall, which will enclose and isolate the Palestinians in cantons and enclaves, Bush's vision of two states, Palestine and Israel, will not be possible. On settlements, Abbas stressed the need for an immediate settlement freeze as stated in the road map. Buttu warned of a growing trend among U.S. officials including Bush, to link Jewish settlements with Palestinian violence. The United States has stated that it will enforce a settlement freeze only when violence decrease. Buttu pointed out that between 1997 and 2000, not one Israeli was killed by a suicide bomber however, settlement construction was the most active during that period.

Do it right: Indict
By Yoel Marcus, Ha'aretz 8/5/2003
As the Sharon family's silence gets uglier, we are beginning to see a growing resemblance between the Watergate scandal in America and the sorry business that can be fittingly called Sharongate. These two affairs began with a seemingly negligible incident. In America, the headquarters of the Democratic Party were broken into on the eve of the elections to bug a phone and do some political spying. Around here, the trouble started when money raised for the primaries found its way into the coffers of Sharon's election campaign for prime minister, which is not strictlylegal. In both cases, the damage could have been minimized as soon as the truth came out. President Nixon could have expressed regret over the affair and promised that it wouldn't happen again. Instead, he got himself mixed up in a web of lies and cover-ups that ended in his impeachment. Something similar is happening to Sharon. Rather than pay the fine imposed on him by the state comptroller, he promised to return the money to the donors. This led to the family being suspected of shady business deals and bribe-taking. Gilad Sharon's silence, compounded by the silence of brother Omri Sharon and Papa Sharon, is steering them down the same path taken by Nixon: obstruction of justice.According to Israeli law, parents and children are not allowed to testify against one another in criminal proceedings. In a police inquiry, the suspect has the right to remain silent in order not to incriminate himself. But only himself - not his father, or his brother or anyone else who might be involved behind the scenes. The moment Gilad answers questions about how and why he received astronomical sums as a "consultant" in the so-called Greek island affair, or gives us the lowdown on the $1.5 million transferred from Cyril Kern, including how the money was repaid and into whose pocket, he may end up incriminating his father, even if by law he cannot testify against him in court. In other words, if Sharon had not declared that he would return the money, there would have been no reason to take a cent from Cyril Kern or whoever is hiding behind him. There would have been no need to falsely assure the state comptroller that the money had been repaid. And an offense punishable by a fine would not have turned into suspicions of bribery.

Candidate Dean: A True Regressive
By Josh Frank, Dissident Voice 8/4/2003
Media pundits have been rattling their cages over Howard Dean’s so-called progressive agenda, but how wrong they’ve been. Dean’s back seat criticism of the Bush Administration’s case for war should enlighten us to the fact that this ex-Vermont Governor’s leadership skills are lacking. Prior to the dubious war on Iraq, Dean exclaimed he supported a multi-lateral invasion, but hardly questioned the disinformation spewed from the White House about Iraq’s threat to our national security. And to top it off, Dean may well be a Zionist. His unwavering support for the Sharon regime in Israel calls into question his motives for the Arab world. Dean’s alignment with the pro-Sharon lobbying firm, American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is a stark indicator that this Presidential hopeful’s view of “peace” is glaringly similar to that of King Bush. Some Democrats have even been comparing Dean to George McGovern -- who back in 1972 lost the Presidential race by a landslide to incumbent Richard Nixon. McGovern was a true liberal Democrat, and many claim that his progressive policies cost him the election. But what progressive policies could cost Dean the 2004 election? Could it be his support for the racist death penalty? Maybe it will be his praise of the outlandish Welfare Reform program Clinton and Gore mustered through Congress. Or perhaps it’ll have to do with his idea that Iraq simply needs more troops for the ongoing occupation to succeed. He sounds a lot like some prominent Republican apologists on that one. Somebody should ask Howard if he remembers a little country called Vietnam. How in the heck did he get labeled a progressive anyway? What radical changes is he even proposing? His rhetoric is simplistic, and his populist mantra is reminiscent of Gore in 2000 ­ passionate, but toothless. For example, he’ll say he’s for “grassroots democracy,” but won’t support campaign finance reform. He will also beat his chest over “universal healthcare,” but he won’t back any “sweeping reforms.” How can we have universal healthcare without drastically changing our for-profit medical industry? Who is he kidding? As for his Israel position, his own website exclaims that the United States should “maintain its historic special relationship with the state of Israel, providing a guarantee of its long-term defense and security.” Not only has this centrist politician forgotten the Vietnam monstrosity, he blatantly ignores the thousands of Palestinians that have perished at the hands of the brutal Israeli military machine.

Stealing The Internet
By Jeff Chester and Steven Rosenfeld, Dissident Voice 8/5/2003
Ever stop to wonder what is really happening to the Internet these days? The crackdown by the music industry on illegal downloading tells just part of the story. Even with the dot-com bust, the digital boom is here, as high-speed connections, faster processors and new wireless devices increasingly become part of life. But the thousands of lawsuits are not just about ensuring record companies and artists get the royalties they deserve. They're part of a larger plan to fundamentally change the way the Internet works. From Congress to Silicon Valley, the nation's largest communication and entertainment conglomerates -- and software firms that want their business -- are seeking to restructure the Internet, to charge people for high-speed uses that are now free and to monitor content in an unprecedented manner. This is not just to see if users are swapping copyrighted CDs or DVDs, but to create digital dossiers for their own marketing purposes. All told, this is the business plan of America's handful of telecom giants -- the phone, cable, satellite, wireless and entertainment companies that now bring high-speed Internet access to most Americans. Their ability to meter Internet use, monitor Internet content and charge according to those metrics is how they are positioning themselves for the evolving Internet revolution. The Internet's early promise as a medium where text, audio, video and data can be freely exchanged and the public interest can be served is increasingly being relegated to history's dustbin. Today, the part of the Net that is public and accessible is shrinking, while the part of the Net tied to round-the-clock billing is poised to grow exponentially.

Attack on al-Jazeera Threatens America’s Most Fundamental Principals
By Ramzy Baroud, Palestine Chronicle 8/5/2003
For a while, Qatar-based al-Jazeera satellite television was dubbed the “CNN of the Arab world.” While the name often evoked pride in the hearts of many Arabs, who are often accused of never being democratic enough, now, the term does al-Jazeera no justice. Al-Jazeera possesses much more courage than CNN ever did. No wonder the U.S. administration is furious. -- The first amendment of the U.S. Constitution – the Bill of Rights, is clearly set to protect the freedom of speech and the press. But past American administrations have always known how to cleverly find their way around this seemingly rigid document. The Republican administration of President George Bush is the shrewdest of the bunch. In an interview, published by the online site of the German weekly magazine, Der Spiegel on Tuesday, 29 July, American Nobel Prize laureate for Economics George A. Akerlof knew something of which more Americans are aware everyday. The 2001 Nobel Prize laureate, who teaches economics at the University of California in Berkeley, lashed out at Bush and his cabal, describing it as “the worst government the US has ever had in its more than 200 years of history. It has engaged in extraordinarily irresponsible policies not only in foreign policy and economics, but also in social and environmental policy.” The sentiment echoing in the remarks of the American scholar is felt by many Americans, but sadly, muted to a great extent in the public debate. It’s interesting that a German publication carried the troubled words of one of America’s leading thinkers. America is experiencing an alarming level of self-censorship when it comes to the U.S. assault on Iraq, and the botched pretexts, which justified the war in the minds of millions of Americans. Respected American news companies, especially the once, somewhat bold CNN, turned the Iraq war into an exciting sports event, as commentators, analysts and government officials helped us understand, step by step, how buildings can be turned into rubble in a split second.

The Prisoner of Ramallah
By Uri Avnery, Palestine Chronicle 8/5/2003
Every television viewer recognizes the bridge between the last two buildings left standing among the ruins of the Mukata’ah (compound) in Ramallah. During one of my last visits, a Palestinian officer pointed to a simple table and chair near one of the windows of this bridge. Through this window a stretch of the Palestinian landscape beyond the town is visible. “Here Abu-Amar likes to sit between meetings and look out,” he explained. Abu-Amar is the affectionate name for Yasser Arafat. 21 years ago, when I went to Beirut and met him for the first time, he was one of the most mobile leaders in the world, if not the most mobile of all. Once he told me that during the last five days he had visited seven countries, sleeping on the plane between destinations. At the time, his neck was in a surgical collar. Now he has been imprisoned in the compound for more than two years. For some of the time, the conditions were worse than in an ordinary prison: he lived in a closed room without fresh air and almost without water, with the sewage blocked. He knew that at any moment Sharon’s soldiers could storm in and kill him. In a few days, he will be 74 years old. He will spend his birthday in his prison. This is a good opportunity to take stock of the man and his work.

The 'wall' and the 'messiah'
By Robert Novak, TownHall.com 8/4/2003
WASHINGTON -- One of Washington's leading private power brokers, with intimate contacts inside the Bush administration, suggested a meaningful line for the president of the United States when he met the prime minister of Israel at the White House last Tuesday: "Mr. Sharon, tear down this wall!" In fact, President Bush did not come close.A self-confident Prime Minister Ariel Sharon encountered no resistance from the president when he made clear he would continue building the "security fence" as a physical barrier between Palestinians and Israelis. Bush's passivity was underscored by a remarkable performance inside Israel at the same time by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. The powerful Republican leader, addressing members of the Knesset, did not mention the "wall" in an unqualified call to arms for Israel.This combination of events was profoundly depressing for those Republicans, in the administration and Congress, who have prayed that George W. Bush would capitalize on the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by insisting on a Middle East settlement including a Palestinian state. They feel that the president's intent is pure, but that he is overpowered by the combination of Sharon and DeLay.Nobody can quite recall anything to match the four-day reception afforded DeLay in Israel. The former pest exterminator from Sugarland, Texas, has been derisively dubbed the "Messiah" by a Democratic political operative active in Jewish affairs for the past generation. Sharon delayed his eighth visit to Washington to confer with Bush for a private session with DeLay.

The rich wreckers of world trade round
By Kevin Watkins, Financial Times 8/4/2003
The Luddites are at it again. As ministers prepare to descend next month on Cancún to launch the Doha "development round" of trade negotiations, the World Trade Organisation is under concerted attack. Small groups of dedicated, well organised and ruthless activists are plotting to sink the round, striking at the heart of the rules-based trading system. The wreckers in question are not balaclava-clad representatives of the anti-globalisation movement but men in suits representing the governments of the world's richest countries. Thanks to their efforts, almost all the deadlines set for reaching agreement on issues of concern to developing countries have been missed. There is now a real danger of collapse.Such an outcome would be a tragedy on two counts. First, the new WTO round is an opportunity to reform the unfair trade rules that systematically disadvantage the world's poorest countries. Second, failure at Cancún would accelerate the trend towards regionalism, bilateralism and unilateral power politics, triggering a protectionist backlash in the process.When they signed up for a new trade round in Doha in 2001, northern governments promised concrete action to open their markets, cut agricultural subsidies and deal with the concerns of developing countries over the public health implications of WTO rules on intellectual property rights (Trips). No progress has been achieved in any of these areas. Instead, rich countries appear bent on using the round to advance aggressive liberalisation in areas primarily of interest to corporate constituencies at home.