THE HORN OF AFRICA WAR DRAWS CLOSER

ETHIOPIAN JETS HIT TARGETS IN SOMALIA AS THOUSANDS OF FOREIGN JIHADISTS POUR IN

ETHIOPIA'S PRIME MINISTER DECLARES WAR ON SOMALI ISLAMISTS

Less than two weeks ago, the prime minister of Ethiopia declared that his country had finished preparations for war with the Islamic Courts now controlling most of neighbouring Somalia.

This followed the meteoric rise of the Islamist movement in Somalia, where in less than eight months they have seized control of the Somali capital Mogadishu, taken control of key port cities and facilities and have surrounded the small town where the US-backed interim government is biding its time, protected by troops from Ethiopia.

Where this has the looming potential for all out war across the Horn of Africa is that Somali neighbour Eritrea has sent its own troops in to back the Islamists. Eritrea and Ethiopia have long regarded each other as hostile enemies.

Ethiopia, meanwhile, regards the presence of the Islamic Courts in Somalia as a "clear and present danger" and they fear not moving fast enough to stop the spread of the Islamists control and influence.

Ethiopia is a majority Christian country, but there are still millions of Muslims living peacefully, for the most part, as a quiet minority. Ethiopia fears what may happen if the Islamists can rally support amongst Ethiopian Muslims. Ironically, that will be far easier to do if Ethiopia launches a full-scale war against Muslims in Somalia.

The United States, meanwhile, backs Ethiopia, claims the Islamic Courts are actually Al Qaeda, and is preparing to deploy an African force, as well as establishing an Africa Command.

Yesterday and today, Ethopia launched jet fighter attacks against what it said were Islamist positions. Ethiopians tanks and attack helicopters have now entered Somalia.

From news.com.au :

Ethiopian forces defending Somalia's weak interim government have launched airstrikes against Islamist fighters in an escalation of a conflict that threatens to engulf the Horn of Africa.

Ethiopian Information Minister Berhan Hailu said the operation targeted several fronts including Dinsoor, Bandiradley and Baladwayne and the town of Buur Hakaba - close to the administration's encircled south-central base Baidoa.

It was the first use of airstrikes and Ethiopia's first public admission of its military involvement in Somalia, whose government is surrounded by fighters of the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC) backed by mortars and machineguns.

"After too much patience, the Ethiopian government has taken self-defensive measures and started counter-attacking the aggressive extremist forces of the Islamic Courts and foreign terrorist groups," Berhan told Reuters, saying "anti-Ethiopian" elements had massed along the border.

Both sides have rained rockets, mortars and machinegun fire across several parts of a slim frontline near Baidoa.

Amid the explosions, pick-up trucks armed with heavy weapons have ferried supplies forward and collected the injured.

In the Islamist port city of Kismayu, hundreds of women and children waved goodbye to 1,000 men who had volunteered for the frontline.

Dressed in a ragtag of fatigues, the men sped off in camouflage-painted trucks to the chants of "Victory is ours".

Further north in Mogadishu, scores of women and children gathered in one of the main markets to badger men walking along the streets to join the war.

"They told me to wear their clothes if I will not go to war," said Abdi Rashid. "They said I'm not a man, because all men are on the frontline, so I should wear women's clothes."

Military experts estimate Ethiopia has 15,000-20,000 troops in Somalia, while Eritrea has about 2,000 behind the Islamists.

The conflict kicked into a higher, more deadlier, gear less than two weeks ago, when the Ethiopian prime minister declared that his nation was preparing for a full-blown war with Somalia's Union of Islamic Courts. The Islamists, for now, control the Somali capital Mogadishu, key port cities and most of the southern and central regions of the country.

The US-backed Somali transitional government is now holed up the small town of Baidoa, where they beg for help from Ethiopia and the West, while Islamists train mortars and machine guns on the government compound.

The United States quickly announced it would support a deployment of African troops into Somalia to protect the government from Islamists. The US accuses the Islamic Courts of being in league with Al Qaeda, a charge the Islamists regard as a fiction, and more US propaganda.

Some background on the conflict, and how it became a reality of 'The Fourth World War.'

From Shabelle.net :

Somalia lost its central government in 1991 when tribal warlords toppled former president Mohammed Siad Barre. Peace talks in the Sudanese capital Khartoum have ended in failure early this month after Islamic Courts demanded that all Ethiopian forces in the country leave.

The major problem for the United States and Ethiopia right now is that the Islamic Courts are not altogether unpopular with Somalis, who utterly despised the warlords that ruled and destroyed their nation for more than a decade.

The Islamists have chased out most of these warlords, and the locals are happy. They're not so happy about the introduction of Islamist Sharia Law, but from the wealth of media coming out of Somalia and Ethiopia, it appears just how hardcore the Sharia Law in use depends on where you live in Somalia.

In some towns the local clerics don't allow music and dancing or uncovered women, but in other villages the rules are far more lax.

That the United States ended up backing Somali warlords against the Islamists is yet another ironic shock, considering it was some of these very same warlords who killed, or helped to kill, almost two dozen American special forces officers during the infamous 'Black Hawk Down' raids on Mogadishu in the early 1990s.

Why does this conflict between Ethiopia and the Islamists in Somalia have such potential to become a full-blown war stretching across the Horn of Africa?

From the London Times :

The Horn of Africa, one of the world’s most volatile regions, edged closer to war today after Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian Prime Minister, said that his country had completed preparations to take on a powerful Islamic alliance in neighbouring Somalia.

Mr Zenawi told the Ethiopian parliament that the Islamists presented a "clear and present danger" to Ethiopia, whose main regional foe — Eritrea — was arming them.

He said that attempts to settle the crisis through dialogue and negotiation had proved fruitless.

The Islamists, who now control most of Somalia, later met in emergency session in the capital, Mogadishu, and vowed to defend the country against a "reckless and war-thirsty" Ethiopia.

However, at the same time the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia, a coalition of 11 Islamic organisations that wrested power earlier this year from local warlords, invited Washington to send an official delegation to Mogadishu for talks.

Council spokesman Abdurahim Muddey said: "We are inviting the United States to send a delegation to see what is happening in Somalia... The US delegation will be received by our foreign relations chief, Ibrahim Hassan Addow, who is himself an American citizen."

The United States has accused the Islamists of links to al-Qaeda and encouraged Ethiopia to send 5,000 troops to support a rump government based in the border town of Baidoa.

The Islamists’ supreme leader, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, has been designated a "terrorist" by the US, which earlier this month warned that Somali extremists may be plotting suicide attacks in Kenya and Ethiopia.

Intelligence sources say Washington has indicated to Ethiopia that it would not oppose a military operation to remove the Islamists, but regional experts say such an action would ignite the entire region.

Eritrea and Ethiopia fought a devastating border war in 1998-2000 and have several unresolved border disputes.

It is feared both would soon be directly embroiled in any fresh conflict.

Washington previously ran a covert operation to support Somali warlords fighting the Islamists for control of Mogadishu that collapsed in June when the city fell.

The warlords carved up Somalia in 1991 after the Cold War dictator, Mohamed Siad Barre, was overthrown and since then has known nothing but anarchy.

The following story, from the Washington Post is a few weeks old, but it hits some of the same key points about why this conflict has the potential to spill out across the Horn of Africa :

Ethiopia acknowledges sending military advisers to Somalia, although Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has threatened to send tens of thousands of troops across the border if the Council of Islamic Courts attacks.

Experts have warned that Somalia has become a proxy battleground for Somalia's neighbors, Eritrea and Ethiopia. A recent confidential U.N. report said 6,000 to 8,000 Ethiopian troops were inside Somalia or near its border with Ethiopia, backing the interim government. The report also said 2,000 troops from Eritrea were inside Somalia supporting the Islamic militia.

Somalia has not had an effective government since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other. The current administration was formed with the help of the United Nations two years ago, but it has failed to assert any control outside the town of Baidoa.

The Council of Islamic Courts, meanwhile, has steadily gained ground since taking over Mogadishu in June and now controls much of southern Somalia.

The United States has accused the Islamic group of sheltering suspects in the 1998 al-Qaeda bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

And so, then, how to avoid such a war becoming a reality?

From the Toronto Star :

If a full-scale war in Somalia is to be averted, the international community must first look to its meddling neighbours and help Ethiopia and Eritrea resolve their unresolved tension, argues Terrence Lyons, an associate professor at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution in his paper "Avoiding Conflict in the Horn of Africa."

Lyons says the 2000 peace process that ended the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea is falling apart – in particular, failing to demarcate a new border between the countries – and only by ending this stalemate can regional war be averted.

International involvement is now key – both in helping facilitate peace talks and avoiding strong-arm tactics that could draw foreign fighters and incite the wider war that Osama bin Laden called for during his last taped message

United States Turns To Uganda To Help Ease Somali Crisis

Across Africa, A Growing Sense That The United States' Power Really Isn't So Super

Ethiopia Moves Attack Helicopters And Tanks Into War Zone

Eritrea Urges Ethiopia To Begin Withdrawing Troops From Somalia

Experts Claim US Policy In Horn Of Africa May Be Aiding Islamists' Cause

Ethiopia Claims Thousands Of Jihadists From Pakistan, Egypt Pouring Into Somalia

Ethiopian Jets Bomb Somalia - Dead Lie In The Streets

Trial Militias Seize Police Station In Central Somalia

US Government Approves Deployment Of Peacekeepers

Ethiopia Confirms Counterattack On Somali Islamists

The Allure Of Africa's Oil

IRAQ INSURGENCY LEADER GIVES UNITED STATES 30 DAYS TO LEAVE IRAQ

DEMANDS US LEAVE BEHIND "HEAVY WEAPONRY" AND BASES

THE WORLD'S FASTEST GROWING REFUGEE CRISIS

Bush Co. and the American military has been negotiating with insurgency and resistance groups in Iraq since shortly after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

As we know now, the insurgency became a self-fulfilling prophecy when the US sacked hundreds of thousands of Iraqi army and police officers and sent them home with their guns, ammo and looted explosives in May-July, 2006.

It's never been entirely clear from the American side just how successful these negotiations with those Bush-branded "terrorists" have been. They're barely mentioned in the US media.

In the Arab world, Gulf media regularly reports on these meetings, discussions and negotiations. The Americans are portrayed as being hard bargainers who want the resistance to lay down their arms. Something the resistance simply will not do, when there are Army uniformed death squads roaming the cities and villages slaughtering whole families.

In short, the insurgency and resistance groups claim they are fighting the American occupation, but they are also protecting themselves, their families and their communities from the Shiite avengers once kept in check by Saddam Hussein's insanely brutal security forces.

All the while, terrorist attacks by Sunnis, Shia and the always-mysterious 'foreign fighters' result in dozens of dead and injured, most of whom require vengeance on their behalf by their brothers, fathers, uncles, neighbours, co-workers.

And on and on the circles of death and bloodshed turn and twist. The hurricane of violence that never really fades away.

For the Americans, the War On Iraq can barely get any worse.

Millions of Iraqis blame the US not only for occupying their country and letting these forces of death loose amongst them all, but they also blame Americans for actually playing a part in the major terrorist attacks, be it via the CIA, private security forces or the ubiquitous Mossad counter-terror operatives.

The Iraqis were liberated and they were given the chance to vote in democratic elections, but those now in government simply cannot supply the security that Iraqis are demanding, be they Shiite, Sunni, Kurd or Christian. If a government can't protect its own people from dozens of major terrorist attacks each and every week, then what good are they?

Amongst all this terror and horror and paranoia, insurgency leaders have appeared now and then to proclaim an offer of a 'truce' with the Americans.

What makes today's announcement so unusual, then, is that it comes with clear, heavy demands.


From CNN.com :

The leader of an umbrella organization for Iraqi insurgent groups is offering the United States a one-month truce to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq and turn over its military bases "to the mujahedeen of the Islamic state."

...Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Mujahideen Shura Council, said that if U.S. forces begin withdrawing from Iraq immediately and leave their heavy weaponry behind, "we will allow your withdrawal to complete without anyone targeting you with any explosive or anything else."

"We say to Bush not to waste this historic opportunity that will guarantee you a safe withdrawal," al-Baghdadi said on the audiotape.

The United States was given two weeks to respond to the offer.

The Mujahideen Shura Council is an umbrella group formed in late 2005 that includes several terrorist and insurgent groups, including al Qaeda in Iraq.

Obviously, the United States is not going to agree to such a truce, or withdrawal, but it shows just how powerful the forces of the resistance and the insurgency now view themselves. They know they may be the last chance the United States has of stopping Iraq from being consumed by Iran's Shia.

And then, inside this sectarian war, the superhuman savagery of the revenge attacks and death-inducing torture, Sunnis and Shia are talking to each other, about how they are going to get rid of the Americans once and for all from their lands.


From Dahr Jamail :

The displacement of Iraqis from Iraq is currently the world's fastest-growing refugee crisis, according to the Washington-based group Refugees International which works towards providing humanitarian assistance and protection for displaced people.

The United Nations estimates that at least 2.3 million Iraqis have fled the growing violence in their country. They estimate that 1.8 million Iraqis have fled to surrounding countries, while another half million have vacated their homes for safer areas within Iraq. An estimated 40,000 people are leaving Iraq every month for Syria alone, according to the UN.

Dahr Jamail was one of the only Western reporters inside Fallujah during the US devastating assault in 2004 that killed dozens of American troops and thousands of Iraqis.

He provides a concise explanation for the growth of sectarian violence in Iraq during the past twelve months :

Sectarian violence increased in Iraq after the bombing last February of an important Shia shrine located in Samarra, 60 km north of Baghdad. Shia death squads started appearing in massive numbers afterwards to carry out mass killings of Sunnis, and setting fire to their mosques.

U.S. forces failed to provide protection for civilians on either side. Meanwhile, armed Iraqi resistance to the U.S. occupation increased rapidly during 2006.

"Resistance fighters are Iraqis who are trying to put an end to this vicious occupation," a senior political analyst at Baghdad University told IPS on condition of anonymity. "The Americans ignited sectarian war so that they reduce the action of national resistance, but the result came to be the opposite, and they are being hit harder and more often."

The Sunni-dominated areas of Baghdad and western Iraq faced the worst U.S. military operations during 2006. The policy of siege, raids and large-scale detentions led to massive killing of civilians in cities like Haditha, Karma and Ramadi. "Those Americans take us all for terrorists," the manager of a human rights NGO in Ramadi to the west of Baghdad told IPS.

************************

"We cannot go to work, cannot go to pray in our mosques, and cannot send our children to schools," young mother Um Rheem from the Shaab quarter in Baghdad told IPS.

"Many Sunni men have been killed by Shia death squads who have the full support of the government and Americans." Such fears are common in many areas in Baghdad where the Sunnis are a minority.

Other areas have other problems to live with. "In areas where Sunnis are a majority, death squads attack in hundreds, taking advantage of curfews and using government police cars," Mahmood Abdulla from the predominantly Sunni Jihad quarter of Baghdad told IPS.

"When we defend ourselves and our homes, they shell us with mortars and Kaytousha missiles. All of this takes place under the eyes of Americans and Iraqi government officials."

Shia Iraqis complain that they cannot go to Sunni dominated areas for work, and they cannot travel on the highway that leads to Syria and Jordan for fear of Sunni militias looking for revenge.

"Sunnis who lost family members would kill any Shia they find, and so we cannot go through their areas," Sa'arat Hassan, a vegetable merchant at the Jameela wholesale vegetable market in Baghdad told IPS.

250 Political Assassinations In One Week : Five Tribal Chiefs Taken Out, Hundreds Of Prominent Iraqs Shot, Stabbed, Tortured To Death, Blown Up In Bombings

Another US Plan For Iraqi Peace Dashed : Shiite Leadership Refuse To Isolate Or Cut Ties With Shiite Powerhouse Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr

Iraqis Suffer Through The Worst Year Yet Of American Occupation - Millions Have Fled Their Homeland, Millions More Face Starvation

US Tries To Force Isolation On Moqtada al-Sadr, But Fails

US Spends $120 Billion On Iraq War In 2006, Projections For 2007 Hit $170 Billion

INSIDE INDIA'S 'WAR ON TERROR'

Arubdhati Roy supplies a detailed and troubling look inside the 'War On Terror' now being waged by India. Once again, close examination of a country's use of the 'War On Terror' to fight other battles also reveals how the cover of the terror war can be exploited.

It also gets into what hapens once the headlines of 'Terrorists Caught' fade and the court cases begin. Like in the United States, the UK and Australia, what appears to be the 'official story' is anything but when it is taken apart in a court room

The whole story is definitely worth a read.

From the UK Guardian (exccrpts) :

Five years ago this week, on December 13 2001, the Indian parliament was in its winter session. The government was under attack for yet another corruption scandal.

At 11.30 in the morning, five armed men in a white Ambassador car fitted out with an improvised explosive device drove through the gates of Parliament House.

When they were challenged, they jumped out of the car and opened fire. In the gun battle that followed, all the attackers were killed. Eight security personnel and a gardener were killed too.

The dead terrorists, the police said, had enough explosives to blow up the parliament building, and enough ammunition to take on a whole battalion of soldiers. Unlike most terrorists, these five left behind a thick trail of evidence - weapons, mobile phones, phone numbers, ID cards, photographs, packets of dried fruit and even a love letter.

Not surprisingly, prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee seized the opportunity to compare the assault to the September 11 attacks in the US only three months previously.

On December 14 2001, the day after the attack on parliament, the Special Cell (anti-terrorist squad) of the Delhi police claimed it had tracked down several people suspected of being involved in the conspiracy.

The next day, it announced that it had "cracked the case": the attack, the police said, was a joint operation carried out by two Pakistan-based terrorist groups, Lashkar- e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad. Three Kashmiri men, Syed Abdul Rahman Geelani, Shaukat Hussain Guru and Mohammad Afzal, and Shaukat's wife, Afsan Guru, were arrested.

In the tense days that followed, parliament was adjourned. The Indian government declared that Pakistan - America's closest ally in the "war on terror" - was a terrorist state.

On December 21, India recalled its high commissioner from Pakistan, suspended air, rail and bus communications and banned air traffic with Pakistan. It put into motion a massive mobilisation of its war machinery, and moved more than half a million troops to the Pakistan border.

Foreign embassies evacuated their staff and citizens, and tourists travelling to India were issued cautionary travel advisories. The world watched with bated breath as the subcontinent was taken to the brink of nuclear war. All this cost India an estimated pounds 1.1bn of public money. About 800 soldiers died in the panicky process of mobilisation alone.

For all these reasons it is critical that we consider carefully the strange, sad and utterly sinister story of the December 13 attack. It tells us a great deal about the way the world's largest "democracy" really works.

If you follow the story carefully, you will encounter two sets of masks. First, the mask of consummate competence (accused arrested, "case cracked" in two days flat), and then, when things began to come undone, the benign mask of shambling incompetence (shoddy evidence, procedural flaws, material contradictions).

But underneath all of this - as several lawyers, academics and journalists who have studied the case in detail have shown - is something more sinister, more worrying. Over the past few years the worries have grown into a mountain of misgivings, impossible to ignore.

Through the fissures, those who have come under scrutiny - shadowy individuals, counter-intelligence and security agencies, political parties - are beginning to surface. They wave flags, hurl abuse, issue hot denials and cover their tracks with more and more untruths.
Thus they reveal themselves.

The official version of the story of the parliament attack is very quickly coming apart at the seams. Even the supreme court judgment, with all its flaws of logic and leaps of faith, does not accuse Afzal of being the mastermind of the attack.

So who was the mastermind?

A genuine inquiry would have to mean far more than just a political witch-hunt. It would have to look into the part played by intelligence, counter-insurgency and security agencies as well.

Offences such as the fabrication of evidence and the blatant violation of procedural norms have already become established in the courts, but they look very much like just the tip of the iceberg.

Bush Makes Up The Rules As He Goes Along - Signs 'Friendly' Nuclear Energy Deal With India

Despite Deal With US, India Keeps Options Open For Further Nuclear Weapons Tests

US Defence Contractors See Wealthy New Markets In India

BAGHDAD UNDER ELECTRICITY SIEGE BY INSURGENTS

TOWERS BLOWN UP, DAILY SUPPLY ALL BUT GONE

"AMERICAN FORCES ARE INCAPABLE OF FACING THE MILITIAS"

Where do you begin trying to update on events in Iraq in the past two weeks alone?

Iraqis are dying at an average closing in on 100 per day. Shiite and Sunni neighbourhoods are mortaring each other across the Euphrates River. American forces on the ground are running out of equipment, vehicles and after the recent successful strike by insurgents on the US Army's biggest ammo dump in Iraq, Marines and soldiers are short on bullets.

The Saudis have more than hinted they will deploy their own forces into Iraq to protect vulnerable Sunnis if the ethnic cleansing continues. The American-backed Iraqi president and prime minister are losing their grip on power, as more and more Shiites in Baghdad turn to Moqtada al-Sadr's 50,000 strong mix of army and militia for protection.

American forces have been all but defeated in any traditional sense of historical warfare. The most high-tech, best-funded, most capable Army in the world has been done over by the Ba'athist resistance Saddam Hussein helped organise before the war began in March, 2003.

Departed US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld talked in early 2003 about how they had to do everything they could to stop Americans from getting caught up in an urban warfare zone. It is ironic, then, that it was decisions made, or in some cases ignored, by Rumsfeld that allowed the resistance to become what it is today.

Until only last week, US President Bush was proclaiming they would have Victory In Iraq and stay "until the job is done".

But President Bush is now the most unpopular American president fighting the most unpopular war in American history.

However, Americans are being prepared by the media for the next stage in the Iraq War.

US President Bush wants to send some 30,000 more troops into Baghdad.

Moqtada al-Sadr's army and militias are said to total 50,000, with hundreds of thousands of supporters to provide cover, supplies and hiding places.

Barely two out of ten Americans support sending more troops.

The troops being sent are not battle-hardened killers, for the most part. But they will be facing brutal death squad assassins, who have beheaded their own countrymen, drilled into living skulls and blown up women and children.

Americans now there will be a slaughter, of Americans. But as Bush would say, "further sacrifices will be made."

But Bush is facing vast opposition for his plan. His last shot at whatever Victory in Iraq is supposed to be.

The Joints Chiefs of Staff, for starters, don't like the idea. Neither do a lot of generals, in the US and on the ground in Iraq. The American people clearly hate the idea, and the quietening right wing media can't sell it to their own hardcore audiences.

Everyone understands what tens of thousands of National Guard and Army Reserves sent into the hellstorm of death that is now Baghdad will mean. Mass casualties of US troops, if they are forced to face off against the Shiite militias.

There is a rising, chilling, reality dawning in the United States.

Bush is really going to do this.

He is going to send hundreds of more kids, maybe thousands more, to their deaths, to try and get a win in this war.

Bush is set to go against his allies, friends, parents, military advisers and the wishes of most Americans. But perhaps most importantly, he wants to deploy more troops against the wishes of the US Army, and the National Guard.

Expect more key resignations in the senior ranks of the US military if the 'Bush Baghdad Or Bust' urban massacre goes ahead. And expect more near-or-active mutinies amongst un-armoured, ill-equipped US troops in Iraq.

From the New York Times :

Over the past six months, Baghdad has been all but isolated electrically, Iraqi officials say, as insurgents have effectively won their battle to bring down critical high-voltage lines and cut off the capital from the major power plants to the north, south and west.

The battle has been waged in the remotest parts of the open desert, where the great towers that support thousands of miles of exposed lines are frequently felled with explosive charges in increasingly determined and sophisticated attacks, generally at night. Crews that arrive to repair the damage are often attacked and sometimes killed, ensuring that the government falls further and further behind as it attempts to repair the lines.

And in a measure of the deep disunity and dysfunction of this nation, when the repair crews and security forces are slow to respond, skilled looters often arrive with heavy trucks that pull down more of the towers to steal as much of the valuable aluminum conducting material in the lines as possible. The aluminum is melted into ingots and sold.

What amounts to an electrical siege of Baghdad is reflected in constant power failures and disastrously poor service in the capital, with severe consequences for security, governance, health care and the mood of an already weary and angry populace.

There's a plan to bring in 100 diesel generators for some of the suburbs, before the ultra-heat hits again next summer. Nobody is expecting a steady flowing electricity supply, like a major European city would expect, anytime in the next four to six years.

Iraqis can only be expected to be so patient. With the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq approaching, the least they could have expected from the occupation was a functioning electricity system.


IRAQ'S FIVE ENEMIES OF AMERICA

From the IraqSlogger.com :

Az-Zaman daily headlined: “The American forces are incapable of facing the militias”.

...the US is not simply facing a ‘bunch of suicide bombers and insurgents’, but that in fact, the American army in Iraq is facing five enemies at once: al-qa`ida, the loyalists to the ex-president, the criminals, the sectarian militias and the domestic insurgents.

...the report claims that the Badr militia has over 25 000 armed men and that the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq has over 3 million supporters, while the Mahdi army has 10 thousand fighters and 1.5 million supporters.

The daily headlined, in its international edition, “Tehran uses the Islamist Kurds as mediators to negotiate with the Sunnis of Iraq”.

Resistance TV : Insurgents' Pirate TV Station Broadcasts American Soldiers Dying, Insurgent Attacks, Night And Day

Only 11% Of Americans Back The 'Bush Push' For More Troops Into Iraq

Iraq Nears Failed State Chaos, United Nations Security Council Needed To Stop Explosion Of Regional Sunni Vs Shiite War

British Forces In Iraq : Dying For A Lack Of Body Armour, Shortage Of Vehicles, Doubts About Weapons

US Joint Chiefs Of Staff Said To Believe Bush Doesn't Have "A Defined Mission" For Iraq War

Washington Post : "What Could Be More Immoral Than Sacrificing American Blood And Treasure To Save Face In A Lost War?"

Pentagon Report Discusses Civil War, Iraqi Police & Army Death Squads, Ethnic Cleansing : Acknowledges Success Of Anti-US Resistance

Are We Winning In Iraq ? White House Spokesman : "I'm Not Playing The Game Anymore"

Missing In Action : Iraq As A Functional State Which The US Can Negotiate With

The Other Part Of 'Getting The Job Done' : Do America And Israel Want The Middle East To Be Engulfed By Civil War?

THE WORLD NEWS IN BRIEF

CHINA : The Pentagon is growing increasingly concerned about what they claim is a strategic build-up by China of new missiles and naval weapons designed to take out US aircraft carriers and block American forces out of the Asia-Pacific region. This strategic build-up is also said to include weapons that will ""deny the United States the use of the commons -- the sea, the air, cyber and space."


IRAQ : Claims are emerging that Saudi civilians are privately finding the Sunni insurgency.
The sums involved are said to be in the millions of dollars and the money is being used to buy weapons like shoulder launched anti-aicraft missiles. The claims have been made by "key Iraqi officials". Saudi government officials have denied the reports, naturally, even though in recent days Saudi government officials have said they would send in operatives to protect Sunnis in the event of a US pullout. The controversial Iraq Study Group report also noted that Sunni Arab insurgents are scoring funds from private civilians living in Saudi Arabia. The cash is boxed up and trucked into Iraq.

Also in Iraq, 32 American Marines and soldiers have been killed since the start of December. 18 of those fatalities occured in the Anbar province. So much for the fighting being contained with a short radius of Baghdad, as the American spin machine claims....1000 British and Danish soldiers staged a massive raid in Basra, the largest raid in the city since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Shiite tribal leaders were rounded up and detained, infuriating locals. More dead women and children...More than 30 civilians were killed by US troops during raids north-west of Baghdad...

And here's something barely mentioned at all during the extensive coverage of reaction to the controversial report from the Iraq Study Group : the reactions from Iraqis.


CENTRAL ASIA : The Shanghai CoOperation Organisation (SCO), for those of us in the West at least, is the power bloc we never hear about. Non-aggressive, barely focusing on military, but instead working together on financial, developmental and cultural agreements, programs and exchanges, the SCO causes the United States (and its allies) far more worry than it should.

By the combined land mass and populations of the countries involved - China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, India, Pakistan, Mongolia and Iran - the SCO is the largest regional group in the world. But the United States, England, Israel and Australia do not get a look in, and they are rarely, if ever, invited to sit in on meetings as observers.

So why is the US worried about the SCO? Yo Bin in the Asia Times gives some concise background here.


RUSSIA : Vladimir Putin is beginning to express concerns over the nuclear program in Iran, after refusing to back US/Israel-backed UN sanctions, as did China. Putin said there are valid concerns not only about Iran's current nuclear research, but unanswered questions remain about its past experimental nuclear energy program....Russia claims it will sell some $6 billion worth of military arms in the 2006 period, including sales to China worth $1.5 billion...


ISRAEL : The Israeli government has flatout refused to enter into "peace talks" with Syria, despite the recommendations of a key US report, and offers of "open talks" from Syria. The chief point of contention remains the Golan Heights, which Syria has demanded Israel must hand back....Israel has decided to keep pretending it doesn't have hundreds of nuclear weapons
...Olmert says that Israel-Syria should not be linked to Iraq War....Hamas has announced it will never recognise Israel


SOMALIA : The United Nations has voted to send 8000 peacekeepers to the troubled state in the Horn Of Africa. The Council of Islamic Courts has vowed to fight "the invaders"....."Heavy fighting" is being reported between Somalian government troops, backed by Ethiopian fighters, and Islamist fighters. The involvement of Ethopia could unleash a broader, more brutal war in the region....

AFHGANISTAN : Talks between Afghanistan and Pakistan over insurgent attacks that Afghanistan claim are originating inside their neighbour's territory are on the verge of breaking down. Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai is "loosing patience"....Suicide bombings continue to kill civilians and NATO troops in Kandahar...Public optimism is starting to fade as Taliban continue to hit raid towns and villages and kill civilians and NATO troops...

IRAQ STUDY GROUP REPORT DEALS BUSH A HARSH DOSE OF REALITY

RECOMMENDS MAJOR COMBAT TROOPS OUT IN EARLY 2008

REPORT ECHOES SAUDIS WISH FOR PALESTINIANS "RIGHT OF RETURN"

The new US Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates, said yesterday that the United States is not winning the 'War On Iraq'. A new report released today confirms this fact, but also says that there is no action the US military can take that will the war in any way approaching a clear and decisive victory.

Even though much detail from the Iraq Study Group's report 'The Way Forward' was leaked to the media in the past two weeks, the impact of its release has been substantial in the US, in Iraq, and in Coalition of the Willing countries like Australia and the UK.

From recommending directly that negotiations begin with Iran and Syria to help end the war, to recognising the true cost of the war on the civilians of Iraq, from revealing that ethnic cleansing is a savage reality, to recognising that one of the chief causes of Muslim anger towards US policy is its tireless support of Israel's low-boil war against the Palestinians, from boldy stating just how much American money has been wasted on the war, to admitting that many American soldiers' lives were wasted on pointless missions, from detailing the murderous sprees undertaken by some members of the Iraqi Army and police force, to recognising the true number and power of the biggest Shiite militia force (60,000 strong) the Iraq Study Report is going to shock both supporters of the war and also its harshest critics.

While President Bush had weeks to prepare for the report, and no doubt was briefed extensively before he even thought about fronting the media, he still looked wiped out, knocked about and clearly shocked by the contents of the report.

Critics have accused Bush of being locked inside a bubble of No Bad News, a characteristic that has been widely reported where he has reacted almost violently to briefers, advisors and administration officials who tried to tell him since early 2004 that the situation on the ground in Iraq was far worse than he thought, or knew.

It is clear now that President Bush didn't want to know the reality, and allowed his inner circle to filter the news he recieved, or at least, the news he chose to believe.

Perhaps he actually read the report from cover to cover. Even for someone like myself who has spent two to four hours most days reading media coverage, unclassified reports and milblogs on the Iraq War, 'The Way Forward' report hits right between the eyes.

It is that so much of the bad news, the truth, has been gathered together in this way that shocks you. You can read fragments every day for three years, but to cop the full load in one read, well, you can understand why President Bush is so clearly devastated.

There's already an enormous amount of coverage on the report's contents, and we've linked to some key summaries and 'what happens next' articles below, but for today we'll just directly quote the parts of the report that leapt out on a first reading :

"The situation in Iraq is grave and deteriorating . . . [Maliki's government] is not adequately advancing national reconciliation, providing basic security, or delivering essential services."

"There is no guarantee for success in Iraq . . . There is great suffering, and the daily lives of many Iraqis show little or no improvement. Pessimism is pervasive . . . the ability of the United States to influence events (has been diminished and continues to be so)"

"Iraqis have not been convinced that they must take responsibility for their own future."

"U.S. forces seem to be caught in a mission that has no foreseeable end."

"The Iraqi government cannot now govern, sustain, and defend itself without the support of the United States."

"A collapse of Iraq's government and economy would further cripple a country already unable to meet its people's needs. Iraq's security forces could split along sectarian lines. A humanitarian catastrophe could follow..."

"(In the event of the government and ecomony collapsing)...ethnic cleansing could escalate. The Iraqi people could be subjected to another strongman who flexes the political and military muscle required to impose order amid anarchy."

"The United Nations estimates that 1.6 million are displaced within Iraq, and up to 1.8 million Iraqis have fled the country."

"The United States should embark on a robust diplomatic effort to establish an international support structure intended to stabilize Iraq and ease tensions in other countries in the region. This support structure should include every country that has an interest in averting a chaotic Iraq, including all of Iraq's neighbors--Iran and Syria among them."

"There is no action the American military can take that, by itself, can bring about success in Iraq."

"Because events in Iraq have been set in motion by American decisions and actions, the United States has both a national and a moral interest in doing what it can to give Iraqis an opportunity to avert anarchy."

"Many military units are under significant strain . . . many units do not have fully functional equipment for training when they redeploy to the United States."

"Given the ability of Iran and Syria to influence events within Iraq and their interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq, the United States should try to engage them constructively."

"Iran appears content for the U.S. military to be tied down in Iraq, a position that limits U.S. options in addressing Iran's nuclear program ad allows Iran leverage over stability in Iraq."

"Iraq is a major test of, and strain on, U.S. military, diplomatic, and financial capacities. Perceived failure there could diminish America's credibility and influence in a region that is the center of the Islamic world and vital to the world's energy supply."

"[T]he Syrians look the other way as arms and foreign fighters flow across their border into Iraq, and former Baathist leaders find a safe haven within Syria."

"Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states . . . for the most part have been passive and disengaged. They have declined to provide debt relief or substantial economic assistance to the Iraqi government."

"The United States cannot achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict and regional instability. There must be a renewed and sustained commitment by the United States to a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace on all fronts . . . [including] direct talks with, by, and between Israel, Lebanon, Palestinians...and Syria."

"Significant questions remain about the ethnic composition and loyalties of some Iraqi units--specifically, whether they will carry out missions on behalf of national goals instead of a sectarian agenda ."

"If the Iraqi government does not make substantial progress toward the achievement of milestones on national reconciliation, security, and governance, the United States should reduce its political, military, or economic support for the Iraqi government."

"The problems in the Iraqi police and criminal justice system are profound."

"Terrorism could grow. As one Iraqi official told us, 'Al-Qaeda is now a franchise in Iraq, like McDonald's.'"

"Al Qaeda is responsible for a small portion of the violence in Iraq, but that includes some of the more spectacular acts . . . Al Qaeda in Iraq is now largely Iraqi-run and composed of Sunni Arabs. Foreign fighters--numbering an estimated 1,300--play a supporting role or carry out suicide operations."

The Shiite militias that both defending territory inside Baghdad and executing Sunnis in revenge attacks "are fragmenting, with an increasing breakdown in command structure . . . The prevalence of militias sends a powerful message: political leaders can preserve and expand their power only if backed by armed force. The Mahdi Army . . . may number as many as 60,000 fighters."

"Sunni Arabs feel displaced because of the loss of their traditional position of power in Iraq."

"The Shia, the majority of Iraq's population, have gained power for the first time in more than 1,300 years."

It is well worth reading the entire report if you want to get a preview of how the 'War On Iraq' is unlikely to unfold in the next 12 to 24 months. It remains to be seen, however, whether or not Bush Co. will act on the key recommendations.

Should they fail to act, however, and should the ready-to-fire Democrat majority in the US Senate keep its pre-election promises, Bush Co. may find themselves in a civil war of their own, right in the heart of Washington DC.

Go Here To Read The Full Report 'The Way Forward' By The Iraq Study Group

Iraq Panel Calls Conditions "Grave" "Deteriorating"

Iraq Report Set To Reshape US National Debate About The War

Haditha Massacre : 5 Marines To Be Charged With Murder, Homocide For Slaughter Of 24 Unarmed Iraqi Men, Women, Children

Iraqi Firefighters Bear The Heat Of Horrific Terror Attacks

New US Defence Secretary Says America Is Not Winning The War On Iraq

US Ambassador To Australia Says Iraq Is North Korea All Over Again

MIDEAST ALLIES PANIC OVER IRAQ, LEBANON, PALESTINE

From the LATimes :

President Bush and his top advisors fanned out across the troubled Middle East over the last week to showcase their diplomatic initiatives to restore strained relationships with traditional allies and forge new ones with leaders in Iraq.

But instead of flaunting stronger ties and steadfast American influence, the president's journey found friends both old and new near a state of panic. Mideast leaders expressed soaring concern over upheavals across the region that the United States helped ignite through its invasion of Iraq and push for democracy — and fear that the Bush administration may make things worse.

President Bush's summit in Jordan with the Iraqi prime minister proved an awkward encounter that deepened doubts about the relationship. Vice President Dick Cheney's stop in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, yielded a blunt warning from the kingdom's leaders. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's swing through the West Bank and Israel, intended to build Arab support by showing a new U.S. push for peace, found little to work with.

In all, visits designed to show the American team in charge ended instead in diplomatic embarrassment and disappointment, with U.S. leaders rebuked and lectured by Arab counterparts. The trips demonstrated that U.S. allies in the region were struggling to understand what to make of the difficult relationship, and to figure whether, with a new Democratic majority taking over Congress, Bush even had control over his nation's Mideast policy.

Arabs are "trying to figure out what the Americans are going to do, and trying develop their own plans," said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), one of his party's point men on Iraq. "They're trying to figure out their Plan B."

The allies' predicament was described by Jordan's King Abdullah II last week, before Bush arrived in Amman, the capital. Abdullah, one of America's steadiest friends in the region, warned that the Mideast faced the threat of three simultaneous civil wars — in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. And he made clear that the burden of dealing with it rested largely with the United States.

"Something dramatic" needed to come out of Bush's meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to defuse the three-way threat, Abdullah said, because "I don't think we're in a position where we can come back and visit the problem in early 2007."

The only regional leader to voice unqualified support for the Bush administration has been Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has gone so far as to say that the Iraq invasion contributed to regional stability.

To Middle East observers, Bush can no longer speak for the United States as he did before because of the domestic pressure for a change of course in Iraq, said Nathan Brown, a specialist on Arab politics at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"He can talk all he wants about 'staying until the job is done,' but these leaders can read about the American political scene and see that he may not be able to deliver that," Brown said.

The Bush-Maliki meeting Thursday, closely watched around the world in anticipation of a possible change in U.S. strategy, produced no shift in declared aims. Rather, it resulted in diplomatic stumbles that seemed to belie the leaders' claims that their relationship was intact.

On the eve of the summit, a leaked memo written by Bush's national security advisor, Stephen Hadley, showed that U.S. officials questioned Maliki's abilities. But the memo also was a reminder of dwindling U.S. influence over Iraq. Some of the steps that Hadley said the Iraqis should take, such as providing public services to Sunni Arabs as well as Shiites, were moves that the Americans had demanded for many months, without success.

The leak of the memo cast a shadow over the summit, and Maliki abruptly canceled the first scheduled meeting, a conversation among Bush, Maliki and Abdullah. White House aides insisted that the cancellation was not a snub.

During the trip, Bush was unable to distance himself from the fierce debate about Iraq policy back home. The president felt the need to respond to news accounts saying that an advisory panel on Iraq would urge a gradual withdrawal of combat troops from the region. He insisted that suggestions for such a "graceful exit" were not realistic.

Cheney's trip to talk to Saudi King Abdullah was far less visible than Bush's mission, but helped to make painfully clear the gap between U.S. goals and those of its Arab allies.

U.S. officials said Cheney initiated the trip. But foreign diplomats said that Saudi leaders sought the visit to express their concern about the region, including fears of a U.S. departure and what they see as excessive American support for the Shiite faction in Iraq.

After the meeting with Cheney, Saudi officials released an unusual statement pointedly highlighting American responsibility for deterioration of stability in the region.

Expressing deeper unhappiness with the United States, leaders from Jordan, Egypt and Persian Gulf countries told Rice during her trip to an economic development conference in Jordan on Friday that the U.S. had a responsibility to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which they and many analysts viewed as the key to regional stability.

Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, urged greater U.S. action, warning that the Middle East was becoming "an abyss…. The region is facing real failure."

From the UK Telegraph :

The gulf's two military powers, Sunni-Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, are lining up behind their warring religious brethren in Iraq in a potentially explosive showdown, as expectations grow in both countries that America is preparing a pull-out of its troops.

The Saudis are understood to be considering providing Sunni military leaders with funding, logistical support and even arms, as Iran already does for Shia militia in Iraq.

The strategy — outlined in an article last week by Nawaf Obaid, a senior security adviser to the kingdom's government — risks spiralling into a proxy war between Saudi and Iranian-backed factions in the next development in Iraq's vicious sectarian conflict.

Saudi Arabia, America's closest ally in the Arab world, is considering backing anti-US insurgents because it is so alarmed that Sunnis in Iraq will be left to their fate — military and political — at the hands of the Shia majority.

Saudi fears were strengthened as it emerged that some senior US intelligence officials are urging the Bush administration to abandon stalled attempts to reach a compromise with Sunni dissidents and adopt a controversial "pick a winner" strategy instead, giving priority to Shia and Kurd political factions.

The proposal is also known as the "80 per cent solution" since the Sunnis, who ruled the country under Saddam Hussein, comprise just 20 per cent of Iraq's 26 million population. It has been put forward as part of a crash White House review of Iraq strategy. Its backers claim that ambitious attempts to woo anti-US Sunni insurgents have failed, and now risk alienating Shia leaders as well, leaving the US without strong political allies in Iraq.

From the Khaleej Times :

French President Jacques Chirac’s warnings in 2003 that a US invasion of Iraq would set the Mideast on fire, encouraging terrorism and producing a disaster have been tragically borne out by events.

Iraq is falling ever deeper into chaos and sectarian conflict. Lebanon teeters on the brink of civil war.

The agonies of Palestine — now the world’s largest outdoor prison — continue without relent.

Iran’s power and influence are surging.

For the latter, thank Washington, which overthrew two of Iran’s bitterest enemies, Taliban and Saddam Hussein, then stuck US ground forces in the $250 million per day Iraq quagmire.

As Iraq turns into a nightmare of carnage and hate, President Bush and mentor Dick Cheney rushed to the Mideast last week to urge their local allies to pull America’s bacon out of the fire.

But Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Al Maliki, governs only over Baghdad’s US-protected Green Zone. The US controls what passes for Iraq’s police and armed forces. Maliki has no army of his own; his Shia supporters are divided and feuding. How can Bush expect a powerless prime minister to do what the mighty US cannot?

At least, Maliki had the pluck to make a symbolic protest by refusing to meet with Bush for dinner in Amman after humiliating reports leaked in Washington the US intended to dump him.

So much for Iraq ‘democracy.’

Washington may be headed towards installing a ruthless Saddam clone, either a former CIA ‘asset’ or some iron-fisted general. What western reporters term the Iraqi Army is really a collection of Shia militias, death squads and mercenaries, many former convicts. The US occupation’s extensive use of Shia death squads to fight the Sunni resistance has played a key role in igniting Iraq’s current sectarian bloodbath.

This little-known story is a major scandal. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and Jordan warn they may send troops into Iraq to protect its Sunni minority from ethnic cleansing by the Shia majority.

Such a move could provoke the powerful Turkish Army to invade independence-seeking Kurdish regions of northern Iraq. Iran would be quickly drawn into the melee. Iraq’s neighbours deeply fear its chaos will spread across their borders, with dangerous, unpredictable consequences for all concerned.

Once Washington utters the dreaded ‘W’ word — withdrawal’ — Iraqis working for the US occupation will flee to the Sunni or Shia opposition. Iran’s influence in Iraq will soar. America’s Arab allies will be left facing severe external and internal dangers. But President Bush keeps insisting ‘no retreat.’ He still seems unable to see the writing on the wall in Babylon.

THE WORLD NEWS IN BRIEF


LEBANON : Saudi King Abdullah has denounced the 800,000 people strong protest against the US-backed government of Lebanon, calling the massive rally a "siege" and pledging the "full backing" of the Saudi kingdom to Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.

The pro-Syrian protestors are demanding that Siniora quit, claiming that he failed to confront the US over its backing of Israel's blood-soaked military strikes during the recent war concentrated in Southern Lebanon.

Across the Middle East, Sunni dominated governments and royalty are lining up against the spreading dominance of Shiite dominated governments, such as that of Iraq.

In Bahrain, long regarded as one of the most stable, and liberal, of all Middle East nations, Shiites are poised to gain greater control of the government in run-off elections, bringing a new Islamic conservatism to the US ally, and in turn deepening sectarian divides.


IRAQ : Black marketry surrounding the Iraqi oil industry forms the greater part of an estimated $4billion in annual corruption now referred to as "the second insurgency".

A US government report claims that some $US100 million from the black market oil trade has already found its way into the hands of various insurgency groups. Oil pipelines are bombed forcing the oil to be transported by road where it can more easily stolen.

The corruption is so rife that $US9 billion of Iraqi oil revenue cannot be accounted for. One-third of all the rebuilding contracts issued since 2003 are now under criminal investigation.

More than 1850 civilians were killed in Iraq in November, an estimated 40% rise on the civilian deaths of October. November also saw the deadliest terrorist strike in the entire war, with more than 200 killed when at least five car bombings hit a crowded market in Sadr City, Baghdad.

The Bush administration is now asking Congress to approve a further $100 billion in "emergency funds" to continue fighting the war, the largest demand for supplementary funding made so far. The US government's total defence bill for 2007 is set to reach $US500 billion.

More than $US2 billion worth of US Army and Marine Corpsy equipment and gear is either wearing out or being destroyed in Iraq or Afghanistan each month.

The United States has spent an estimated $350 billion fighting the Iraq War since 2003.

Car bombs killed more than 40 people in a Baghdad market today, leaving more than 80 wounded.


CHAD : Saudi Arabia has been accused by the Chad mission to the UN of supplying "Al Qaeda" mercenaries to fight in the eastern territories of the country. In the past few months, Chad has also accused Sudan of sending mercenaries into its region, and "exporting the ethnic fighting in Darfur".

The confrontations in Darfur see the Janjaweed (Arab militias) in pitched battles against African rebel groups, leading to the deaths of more than 300,000 civilians since 2003 and the flight of two million refugees.


IRAN : The Iranian president has announced that Iran and Iraq have reached a wide ranging '"security agreement", covering oil, the economy and industries of Iraq. The agreement was reached without consultation with the Bush administration. The Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeated his demands that the United States withdraw military forces from Iraq, based around a negotiated timetable.

The Iranian president said unnamed countries should stop sending militants to fight in Iraq.

"Supporting terrorists is the ugliest act that they can do," he said "...Enemies of Iraq are trying to create differences and extend hostility among the Iraqi people."

The United States, the UK, Australia and Israel regularly accuse Iran of sending militants into Iraq, however the Iraqi prime minister and president recently announced there was no evidence to back up these accusations.

The United States is now signalling it may push ahead with sanctions against Iran, despite the lack of support from China and Russia in the United Nations Security Council.


AFGHANISTAN : Interesting background and fallout here from the truce agreement reached between Afghan fighters and NATO troops from the United Kingdom in the Helmud province last month.

The 'truce' has ended most of the fighting in the province that saw British troops virtually locked down in their operations base for almost three months, and has seen calm return to the streets of local villages and towns. The 'truce' agreement was brokered after Pakistan reached a similar peace with Taliban-aligned fighters on its border.

Some members of the Afghanistan government regard the 'truce' as a silent defeat for NATO against the Taliban.

Pakistani officials, meanwhile, have insisted that NATO must accept defeat by the Taliban, at least according to the UK Telegraph.


VENEZUELA : Russia has begun shipping the first of more than 24 jet fighters and 30 helicopters to Venezeula in a deal worth an estimated $US1 billion.

The Russian built jet fighters will replace American and French jets currently used by the Chavez government. The United States strongly opposed the deal, claiming the Chavez government could not be trusted, but they could not stop the shipments without triggering an international incident.


SOMALIA : The United States is pushing for a 1992-installed arms ban to be lifted, and peacekeeping teams to be deployed.

More than 8000 Ethiopian fighters are estimated to be inside Somalia, or on its borders, in support of the transitional government. Some 2000 soldiers from Eritrea are believed to be fighting in support of the Islamic courts now controlling the central and southern regions of the country.

Three car bombs exploded today in Mogadishu, outside the headquarters of the faltering government. A link to Al Qaeda is being pushed by government ministers.

The Islamic courts are claiming they have "peacefully" captured a second town in the Bay area of Somalia, where they intend to enforce Sharia law with "an iron fist".

On November 23, the Ethiopian prime ministe revealed his government was gearing up for all out war with Somalia's Union of Islamic Courts.

UNITED STATES MISSILE DEFENCE SYSTEM "ON ICE"

SAY HELLO TO THE BUSH CO. 'ORBITAL BATTLE STATION'

The fight between the world powers to control outer space, or near-Earth space, will likely become the most decisive battle of the first half of the 21st century if the plans for a United States controlled 'orbital battle station' moves beyond the conceptual stage and becomes a reality.

In the early 1980s, US president Ronald Reagan unrolled the Strategic Defence Initiative, also known as 'Star Wars', which was supposed to use ground-based missiles, or lasers, to intercept incoming ballistic missiles. 'Star Wars' faded under repeated failures of the defence system, despite chewing up, literally, tens of billions of dollars in research and conceptual funding.

Now this concept is more commonly known as the Missile Defence System, and some in Bush Co. believe the defence system belongs in orbit around the earth, instead of on Terra. Thus is born the 'Orbital Battle Station'.

Earth based lasers to blind communications and military satellites, 'death rays' strapped to the underbellies of C-130s to fry tanks and town centres from 20,000 feet, raw sunlight reflected and concentrated in out space and beamed in heat rays directly into battle zones and now the Orbital Battle Station...all used to be the domain of science fiction, yet all are increasingly being dicussed and research-financed by the world's major defence contractors urgently searching for the ultimate weapons of future wars.

The concept of a harmonious world, where fair trade and dignified relations exist between all nations of the Earth is obviously beyond the grasp of any current group-think still obsessed with high-kill factor defence/offence weapons.

From Pajamas Media :

...the Bush administration is going to ask Congress for funding to begin development of an “orbital battle station” that will be able to attack enemy missiles in their vulnerable boost phase.

Each Battle Station would be a fairly large satellite that carried a number, perhaps 40 to 50 infrared guided “kill vehicles.”

On orders from the ground, the battle station would launch these kill vehicles, roughly about the size of a loaf of bread, at incoming missiles.

Professor Everett Dolman of the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama and the author 'Astropolitik - Classical Geopolitics in The Space Age' says that space based systems are “the only viable option for global defense against the most likely threats, such as an attack by Iran against Israel or by Pakistan against India.”

“The technology,” Dolman said, “for a basic orbital interceptor that could hit an ICBM in mid flight has been available to the U.S. for at least two decades. Indeed should the U.S. dedicate itself to a fast track development and deployment of several dozen networked anti-missile satellites, it could have a baseline capability in place within two years.”

The key issue ignored in all these discussions and debates is a simple one : Who exactly is going to launch a nuclear missile against the United States for no apparent reason? Knowing full well of the apocalyptic destruction they would bring upon themselves, their citizens and their neighbours and allies?

Osama Bin Laden?

Iran?

North Korea?

France?

This is another exercise aimed squarely at stealing hundreds of bilions of dollars from Americans, and their allies, for a weapons system that will never be needed as long as the United States handles its relations with all the countries of the world with respect, and dignity.

This is not the 1940s, nor is it the Cold War inflicted 1950s. Neither Russia, China, Iran or Venezeuala have acted in any way, beyond mouthing rhetoric that pleases the locals, that would even suggest they intend to destroy American cities.

Why would they want to kill American consumers of their oil, energy, food and entertainment products? They wouldn't, of course, and they don't want to.

But Americans aren't buying the hype of a mega-billion dollar missile defence system, it's a hard sell, because it doesn't yet work, and a missile defence system would have not stopped the attacks on September 11, 2001.

Missile defence is a dead concept to most Americans, so instead the Republicans controlled by the defence industries will mouthpiece Bush Co.'s 'Orbital Battle Station' not only as a priority, but a terrifying necessity.

Ironically, shoving a mothership full of mini-interceptors, or eventually mini-nuclear drones, into orbit is exactly the kind of space weaponisation that Russia and China have warned they will not tolerate.

So the overwhelming need for 'OBS' is created by the actual deployment of the weapons system that will counter the threat conjured up by the deployment of the weapons system in the first place.

It's a major achievement in the shaping of opinion and the blinding of rational thought that money is actually poured into the conceptualisation and development of such weapons systems.