Biden: Israel ‘Entitled’ to Attack Iran

Europe

U.S. bonds worth an astounding $134.5 billion were seized by Italian police from two Japanese as they attempted to cross the border into Switzerland earlier this month, Italian media reported last week. Authorities have not indicated if they are real or fake, but either way it could have implications for the U.S. bond market and the value of the dollar. If the bonds are authentic, it probably means that some government is trying to sell a huge chunk of its dollar holdings, with Japan being the prime suspect. If they’re fake, then this is by far the biggest counterfeiting operation ever. Either way, it is not good for the dollar.

“Gold to go” machines will soon be unveiled across Germany as firm TG-Gold-Super-Markt tries to take advantage of widespread uncertainty in the economic downturn. “Gold is an economic canary,” wrote theTrumpet.com columnist Robert Morley last year. “Historically, when the price of gold goes up, it is an indicator of probable economic trouble” (“Gold Price Warning Signs,” Jan. 22, 2008). Gold becoming so popular that people can buy it from vending machines is a big warning sign.

According to figures released by Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics office, on June 12, industrial production in the 16-nation eurozone fell by 21.6 percent from April 2008 to April 2009. Germany was one of the hardest hit countries, with a 23.2 percent annual fall. As the largest economy in Europe and the world’s biggest exporter, Germany is the main driver of economic activity in Europe. The new statistics indicate the European economy is not close to a recovery.

Asia

China’s new economic stimulus program has ratcheted up trade tensions. Following on the heels of President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan that favors U.S. supply chains, Beijing has issued its own “buy Chinese” policy. Nine Chinese government departments have jointly released an edict that all government stimulus projects must use only Chinese-made products or services, unless such products or services are not available within the country. The official Chinese order was dated June 1, but reported only this week by state media. To use foreign goods, special permission will be required. Government officials also said they were beginning to investigate complaints that local governments have been favoring foreign suppliers in procurement related to the country’s $585 billion stimulus plan. Is the world verging on a new era of protectionism, or trade war? Read our February 2008 Trumpet article “First Shots of Trade War?” for more.

Russia and China have agreed to increase the use of their national currencies—the ruble and the yuan—in bilateral trade, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said at a joint news conference with Chinese President Hu Jintao on Wednesday. The day before, Medvedev repeated his call for new reserve currencies in addition to the dollar. The Associated Press reported that “It reflects both the Kremlin’s push for greater international clout and a concern shared by other countries that soaring U.S. budget deficits could spur inflation and weaken the dollar.” Watch for other nations to look for alternatives to the dollar.

At Wednesday’s conference, Medvedev also announced that Russia and China had agreed to a record $100 billion worth of energy deals—though some of this figure may represent previously announced agreements. Earlier in the day, Hu praised the cooperation between the two countries, saying, “We have enacted effective strategic cooperation, which allows us … to assert our joint forces and provide the necessary contribution to achieving peace and stability in the world.” Watch for Russia and China to cooperate even more; see our July Trumpet article “The Giants of the East” for details.

Middle East Results from Iran’s June 12 presidential election showed a landslide victory for hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Supporters of the president’s main challenger, former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, have taken to the streets in massive protests over the past week. To date, they are surviving a brutal security crackdown. Mousavi is calling for a new vote, saying the elections were fraudulent. It is likely, however, that Iranian discontent with Ahmadinejad is highly exaggerated in Western media. The president remains very popular throughout most of the country. Despite what the media may portray, this is not the herald of a new age of moderation in Iran. The election—like all Iranian elections—was a charade. This isn’t merely a question of whether or not votes were counted correctly. Iran is not a democracy—it is a theocratic republic. The religious leaders decide who can run for office and who can’t. Even Mousavi—now considered a reformist—has a history as a hardliner from the days when he was prime minister under the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Whatever happens in Iran in the short term, biblical prophecy tells us that it will continue to seek undisputed leadership of the radical Islamic camp. In a speech at the Bar-Ilan University on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued that Israeli settlements on the West Bank were not the cause of the lack of peace between Jews and Palestinians, as U.S. President Barack Obama implied in his Cairo speech, but rather the fact that the Palestinians want to destroy Israel. Netanyahu outlined conditions for a peaceful two-state solution: The Palestinians must recognize the right of Israel to exist, and solve the refugee problem outside of Israel’s borders; the Palestinian state must be demilitarized, and Jerusalem must remain the unified capital of Israel. The Arab world’s reaction to Netanyahu’s offer proves what the fundamental problem is with the peace process. “Netanyahu’s demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state is ruining the chance for peace,” said Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, for example. “Not Egypt, nor any other Arab country would support Netanyahu’s approach.” If one side refuses to recognize the right of the other to exist, then no amount of haggling over settlements will help. It appears Netanyahu recognizes this and is rejecting the land-for-peace formula. It seems reconciliation with Hezbollah is the aim of Lebanon’s ruling March 14 alliance as it forms a new government following the country’s parliamentary elections on June 7. The ruling party knows that the Iran-sponsored Hezbollah terrorist group will retain its grip of the country one way or another—which is why it is accommodating Hezbollah rather than standing up to it. While Saad Hariri, leader of the ruling alliance, is resisting granting Hezbollah formal veto power, Stratfor reports that he and his Saudi patrons are “formulating a new working relationship with the Shiite militant group that protects and pays tribute to the ‘Resistance’” (June 16). Fearing Hezbollah would take matters into its own hands, violently, Hariri has set out to appease the group by giving it security guarantees, meaning Hezbollah will not be called upon to disarm.

We tortured to justify war Looking back, we now know that coerced confessions -- and in particular the questionable assertions by al-Libi -- were highlighted by administration officials promoting the case for war with Iraq, in the landmark Cincinnati speech by President Bush in October 2002 and in Colin Powell’s crucial presentation to the U.N. Security Council in February 2003, the eve of the war.

Whether Bush, Cheney and their associates were seeking real or fabricated intelligence, they knowingly employed methods that were certain to produce the latter -- as American officials well knew because those same techniques, especially water torture, had been used to elicit false confessions from captured Americans as long ago as World War II and the Korean conflict.

 Cheney now claims that he preserved the country from terrorism and saved thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives. We need a serious investigation, with witnesses including the former vice-president under oath, to determine what he and his associates actually did with the brutal powers they arrogated to themselves -- because instead their actions cost thousands upon thousands of American and Iraqi lives, all in the service of a political lie.

We tortured to justify war

Dick Cheney keeps saying "enhanced interrogation" was used to stop imminent attacks, but evidence is mounting that the real reason was to invent evidence linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida.

By Joe Conason

The single most pertinent question that Dick Cheney is never asked -- at least not by the admiring interviewers he has encountered so far -- is whether he, Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush used torture to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq. As he tours television studios, radio stations and conservative think tanks, the former vice-president hopes to persuade America that only waterboarding kept us safe for seven years.

 Yet evidence is mounting that under Cheney’s direction, "enhanced interrogation" was not used exclusively to prevent imminent acts of terror or collect actionable intelligence -- the aims that he constantly emphasizes -- but to invent evidence that would link al-Qaida with Saddam Hussein and connect the late Iraqi dictator to the 9/11 attacks.

 In one report after another, from journalists, former administration officials and Senate investigators, the same theme continues to emerge: Whenever a prisoner believed to possess any knowledge of al-Qaida’s operations or Iraqi intelligence came into American custody, CIA interrogators felt intense pressure from the Bush White House to produce evidence of an Iraq-Qaida relationship (which contradicted everything that U.S. intelligence and other experts knew about the enmity between Saddam’s Baath Party and Osama bin Laden’s jihadists). Indeed, the futile quest for proof of that connection is the common thread running through the gruesome stories of torture from the Guantánamo detainee camp to Egyptian prisons to the CIA's black sites in Thailand and elsewhere.

 Perhaps the sharpest rebuke to Cheney's assertions has come from Lawrence Wilkerson, the retired Army colonel and former senior State Department aide to Colin Powell, who says bluntly that when the administration first authorized "harsh interrogation" during the spring of 2002, "its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qaida."

In an essay that first appeared on the Washington Note blog, Wilkerson says that even when the interrogators of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the Libyan al-Qaida operative, reported that he had become “compliant” -- in other words, cooperative after sufficient abuse -- the vice-president’s office ordered further torture of the Libyan by his hosts at an Egyptian prison because he had not yet implicated Saddam with al-Qaida. So his interrogators put al-Libi into a tiny coffin until he said what Cheney wanted to hear. Nobody in the U.S. intelligence community actually believed this nonsense. But now, al-Libi has reportedly and very conveniently "committed suicide" in a prison cell in Libya, where he was dispatched to the tender mercies of the Bush administration's newfound friends in the Qaddafi regime several years ago. So the deceased man won't be able to discuss what actually happened to him and why.

Wilkerson's essay was followed swiftly by an investigative report in the Daily Beast, authored by former NBC News producer Robert Windrem, who interviewed two former senior intelligence officers who told him a similar story about a different prisoner. In April 2003, U.S. forces captured an Iraqi official named Muhammed Khudayr al-Dulaymi, who had served in Saddam's secret police, the Mukhabarat. Those unnamed officials said that upon learning of Dulaymi's capture, the vice-president's office proposed that CIA agents in Baghdad commence waterboarding him, in order to elicit information about a link between al-Qaida and Saddam. Evidently that suggestion was not enforced by Charles Duelfer, the head of the Iraq Study Group who controlled Dulaymi's interrogation.

The same kind of demands were directed toward interrogators in Guantánamo, according to the testimony of former Army psychiatrist Charles Burney, who testified that he and his colleagues interrogating prisoners at the detention camp felt "pressure" to produce proof of the mythical link.

"While we were there, a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al Qaida and Iraq and we were not successful in establishing a link between al Qaida and Iraq," he told the Army inspector general. "The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link ... there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results." In other words, they were instructed to use abusive techniques, as recounted in the investigation of torture by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In Mexico, which was identified by the WHO as the original source of the virus, a high incidence of swine flu was recorded in La Gloria, Perote Municipality, Veracruz State.

“Sources characterized the event as a ‘strange’ outbreak of acute respiratory infection, which led to bronchial pneumonia in some pediatric cases. According to a local resident, symptoms included fever, severe cough, and large amounts of phlegm. Health officials recorded 400 cases that sought medical treatment in the last week in La Gloria, which has a population of 3,000; officials indicated that 60% of the town’s population (approximately 1,800 cases) has been affected. No precise timeframe was provided, but sources reported that a local official had been seeking health assistance for the town since February.” (quoted in F. William Engdahl, Flying Pigs, Tamiflu and Factory Farms, Global Research, April 2009)

La Gloria is a company town, which houses pig farms and surrounding toxic hog manures. Granjas Carroll  de Mexico (GCM) is among the world’s largest hog factories, producing almost one million factory hogs per annum. (Ibid)  “GCM is a joint venture operation owned 50% by the world’s largest pig producing industrial company, Smithfield Foods of Virginia. (Ibid). Smithfield Foods (SFD) is the world’s largest hog producer and slaughterhouse. With over 14 million hogs per annum, the Mexican plant of La Gloria represents over 7 % of its Worldwide production.

Who is Infecting Whom?

The Alberta incident where a Mexican farm worker allegedly infected 220 pigs, out of a herd of 2200 (exactly ten percent, which suggests an approximation rather than a precise estimate), is crucial to the understanding of the transmission process.

The historical evidence suggests that transmission has, despite precautions, occurred from pigs to humans in giant hog factories.

There is reason to believe that hog factories in North America could potentially be the source of transmission.  In the US since 2005, 12 reported cases of swine flu among humans were recorded, all of which were related to direct contact or proximity to pigs, according the the Centre for Disease Control (CDC). These figures do not included unreported cases.

What is the underlying causality. The fundamental question with regard to Alberta and other hog producing regions in North America is: Who is infecting whom?

Did a farm worker returning from Mexico infect the pigs?

Or did the Canadian pigs, confined to an unsanitary, polluted and confined environment, transmit the disease, initially within the 2200 herd, which then led to the infection of humans, namely people working in the hog factory in proximity of the pigs?

If this is the case, the origins and causes of the pandemic are dramatically different to those presented by the WHO and the Obama Administration. We would no longer be dealing with the “Mexican Flu”, transmitted from Mexico, but with a disease which originates in North America’s hog factory farms.

One would at least expect in an investigation that all the facts and causalities underlying the transmission of the virus be carefully examined. The name of the farm in central Alberta has not been released. No press interview or reports have been conducted at the farm on location. The identity of the Mexican worker who allegedly infected the pigs has not been made public. An aura of secrecy prevails: From the available information, the official story that the pigs were infected by a farm worker, who contracted the swine flu in Mexico cannot be corroborated.

In recent developments, six more infections were reported in Alberta (Total 24, May 4, 2009). A young Alberta girl has been hospitalized “with a serious case of human swine flu”

“Alberta Health announced Monday an Edmonton girl is in stable condition in hospital after contracting the disease, although it is not clear where she picked it up since she wasn’t travelling.”

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20090504&articleId=13492

Canadian Pigs Infected by Mexicans

The media has the distinct ability of turning realities upside down. Canada’s print media, radio and network TV, in chorus, point to a Mexican worker on a hog farm in Alberta, identified as being responsible for having infected 220 pigs out of a herd of 2200 in an unnamed central Alberta hog factory farm.

“The bans came quickly after authorities revealed Saturday that a central Alberta pig farm is quarantined under suspicion that a farm worker returning from Mexico spread the “swine flu” to hogs.” (Calgary Herald, May 4, 2009, emphasis added)

Some ten percent of the herd is said to be “recovering”, according to federal officials. A quarantine has been placed on the farm.

“Public-health officials said yesterday they were watching closely for movement of the swine-flu virus between people and pigs after a Canadian herd became infected, but took pains to counter a growing fear around the world of pork products.

As a quarantine was imposed on an unnamed Alberta hog farm where 220 of the herd contracted the novel flu” (National Post, May 4, 2009, emphasis added)

“Pig flu” is not a “novel” phenomenon as suggested by the media, neither is the H1N1 strain. Known and documented pigs are the original source of transmission: from pigs to humans and from humans to humans.

The official story, however, is that the Canadian pigs in the province of Alberta had been infected with swine flu by a Mexican farm worker, namely human to pig transmission. Conversely, these same officials deny the transmission from pigs to humans. The official reports are unequivocal: Canadian  pigs could not have infected people working in the hog factory including the Mexican farm worker:

“It was the first time the Canadian Food Inspection Agency had reported a case of the virus being transmitted from a human to a pig in Canada, although this has been known to happen elsewhere.

The agency said the infected herd was quarantined pending more testing “but that the chances the pigs could transfer the virus to humans was remote.” (Reuters, May 2, 2009)

Dr. Brian Evans, a veterinarian with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), stated that  “it’s common to see influenza in pigs and human transmission to pigs is known to occur.”

Dead Pigs from Hog Factory Farms

The WHO announced on May 1st that it will be dropping the designation of “swine flu”. The flu will henceforth be designated A H1N1, to be known more broadly as “the Mexican Flu”, intimating that the disease originated in Mexico through human to human transmission.

Swine influenza refers to “strains of influenza virus, that usually infect pigs”. The terminology, therefore, is important, because if the pandemic is labelled “Mexican flu”, the presumption is that Mexicans, namely humans, are the source of the disease.

The term “Swine Flu’, on the contrary, suggests that the pigs, at least initially, transmit the virus to humans, and, therefore, the issue of animal health must also be addressed.

The news reports have largely focussed on the transmission from humans to humans. They have failed to address the abysmal environmental and health conditions affecting the hog population in factory farms, which are central to an understanding of two fundamental processes:

a) the proliferation of the disease within the hog factory farms.

b) the process of transmission of the virus from pigs to humans.

The swine flu can be transmitted from pigs to humans under very specific circumstances, invariably to people working in hog farms who are exposed on a daily basis to the pigs.  Scientists are unequivocal: “People who work with pigs, especially people with intense exposures, are at risk of catching swine flu.”

Swine influenza is an acute, highly contagious, respiratory disease that results from infection with type A influenza virus. Field isolates of variable virulence exist, and clinical manifestation may be determined by secondary organisms. Pigs are the principal hosts of classic swine influenza virus. (Human infections have been reported, but porcine strains of influenza A do not appear to easily spread in the human population. … The disease in swine occurs commonly in the Midwestern USA (and occasionally in other states), Mexico, Canada, South America, Europe (including the UK, Sweden, and Italy), Kenya, China, Japan, Taiwan, and other parts of eastern Asia.(The Merck Veterinarian Manual)

 

 

The words of one pirate from that lost age - a young British man called William Scott - should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: “What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirating to live.” In 1991, the government of Somalia - in the Horn of Africa - collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since - and many of the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country’s food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: “Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it.” Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to “dispose” of cheaply. When I asked Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: “Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention.” (empasis added)

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia’s seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish-stocks by over-exploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m worth of tuna, shrimp, lobster and other sea-life is being stolen every year by vast trawlers illegally sailing into Somalia’s unprotected seas. The local fishermen have suddenly lost their livelihoods, and they are starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: “If nothing is done, there soon won’t be much fish left in our coastal waters.”

This is the context in which the men we are calling &ldquoirates” have emerged. Everyone agrees they were ordinary Somalian fishermen who at first took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a ‘tax’ on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia - and it’s not hard to see why. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was “to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters… We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits to be those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas.” William Scott would understand those words.

No, this doesn’t make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters - especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But the &ldquoirates” have the overwhelming support of the local population for a reason. The independent Somalian news-site WardherNews conducted the best research we have into what ordinary Somalis are thinking - and it found 70 percent “strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence of the country’s territorial waters.” During the revolutionary war in America, George Washington and America’s founding fathers paid pirates to protect America’s territorial waters, because they had no navy or coastguard of their own. Most Americans supported them. Is this so different?

Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We didn’t act on those crimes - but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply, we begin to shriek about “evil.” If we really want to deal with piracy, we need to stop its root cause - our crimes - before we send in the gun-boats to root out Somalia’s criminals.

The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarised by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know “what he meant by keeping possession of the sea.” The pirate smiled, and responded: “What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor.” Once again, our great imperial fleets sail in today - but who is the robber?

Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent newspaper.

Somalia: You Are Being Lied to About Pirates

by Johann Hari

The Independent

Who imagined that in 2009, the world’s governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy - backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China - is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labeling as “one of the great menace of our times” have an extraordinary story to tell — and some justice on their side.

Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the “golden age of piracy” - from 1650 to 1730 - the idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage thief that lingers today was created by the British government in a great propaganda-heave. Many ordinary people believed it was false: pirates were often rescued from the gallows by supportive crowds. Why? What did they see that we can’t? In his book Villains of All nations, the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the evidence to find out. If you became a merchant or navy sailor then - plucked from the docks of London’s East End, young and hungry - you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you slacked off for a second, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O’ Nine Tails. If you slacked consistently, you could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages.

Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied against their tyrannical captains - and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls “one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century.” They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed “quite clearly - and subversively - that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal navy.” This is why they were popular, despite being unproductive thieves.

Chavez tells why Obama will fail with Iran

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez explains why the Obama administration will likely be unable to improve US relations with Iran.

“I don’t have much hope, because there is an empire behind him. He’s the president of an empire,” Chavez explained in Tehran when asked whether President Barack Obama really seeks better days with Tehran.

Latin American countries use the term ‘empire’ to describe the US policy of policing the world and its decades of interference in the internal affairs of nations worldwide.

Washington in 1953 staged a coup against the democratically elected Iranian prime minister of the time, Mohammed Mosaddeq, who sought to nationalize the country’s oil industry.

As the first successful Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) overthrow of a foreign government in history, operation TP-AJAX became the US blueprint for further coups and destabilization operations against governments during the Cold War.

Such operations have led to long-term animosities toward the United States — such is the case of the majority of Latin American countries.

President Obama has nevertheless promised to bring change in the US foreign policy and on March 20 offered to turn back the tide on three decades of mutual animosity with Tehran.

Iran reacted by saying it would respond to the US offer only when it sees “real change” in US policies toward the country.

“Did you lift the sanctions? Did you stop supporting the Zionist regime? Tell us what you have changed. Change only in words is not enough,” said Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.

“If you change your attitude, we will change our attitude,” Ayatollah Khamenei affirmed.

The prospects of Iran-US reconciliation have been welcomed in the West. Chavez said in his opinion although the possibility of an American president being able to implement change is low, it would be only fair to give Obama a chance.

“I hope President Obama is the last president of the Yankee empire, and the first president of a truly democratic republic, the United States,” he said Thursday.

While various US officials contend America is the leading democracy in the world, critics in the eastern world and in Latin America believe lobby groups and interest groups are the ones who dictate US policies and not the American public.

“I feel that his (US President Barack Obama’s) hands are tied,” former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad told Press TV in an exclusive interview.

According to the celebrated Malaysian politician, lobby groups determine who is who in US politics.

Chavez is now in Tehran for a four-day official visit.

The Venezuelan president flew to Tehran from Qatar, where he attended a summit of Latin American and Arab countries. He will leave Tehran for Tokyo after meeting with Iranian officials.

video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swVjzIVqRUA

"My family is originally from Talbiyeh," she said, referring to what has become today one of the wealthiest districts of West Jerusalem. "I am not allowed to go back to the property that is rightfully mine, but these settlers are given my home, which never belonged to them."

Turkey's Fallout With Israel Deals Blow to Settlers 
Ottoman archives show land deeds forged  by Jonathan Cook

Serbia's anniversary is a timely reminder

Nato's intervention over Kosovo in 1999 was an important precursor to the invasion of Iraq four years later

Canada lets Bush in, but keeps Galloway out! Bush kills over a MILLION Iraqis!!! Galloway takes medicines to Palestinians and speaks out AGAINST war… Canada is definitely “Lost in the Woods!”.

British lawmaker George Galloway has been banned from visiting Canada to deliver an anti-war speech over his support for blockaded Gaza.

Canada’s immigration service says the outspoken anti-war legislator was denied entry on national security grounds.

Calling the ban “idiotic”, Galloway vowed to use all means at his disposal to overturn the ruling.

“The outrageous decision is not something I’m prepared to accept,” Galloway said Friday.

Meanwhile, the Canadian immigration ministry said the decision would not be overturned since it was designed to &ldquorotect Canadians from people who fund, support or engage in terrorism”.

Galloway violated EU sanctions on Gaza earlier in March by handing over more than 1.5 million pounds of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian government in the Gaza Strip.

Canada considers Hamas, the democratically-elected Palestinian government confined to the territory, as a terrorist group.

“I’m sure Galloway has a large Rolodex of friends in regimes elsewhere in the world willing to roll out the red carpet for him. Canada, however, won’t be one of them,” said Alykhan Velshi, the spokesman for the Canadian immigration minister.

Earlier in the day, The Sun had reported that Canadian border security officials had not allowed Galloway, 54, into the country because of his views on Afghanistan and the presence of Canadian troops in the war-ravaged country.

Velshi, however, said that the decision was made on a number of factors in accordance with section 34(1) of the country’s immigration act.

Galloway, who has severely criticized Israel for its three-week offensive against Gaza, had been due to deliver a speech in Toronto on March 30 at the Resisting War from Gaza to Kandahar public forum.

Galloway is the main organizer of the ‘Viva Palestina’ movement which broke the Israeli siege on Gaza earlier this month.

They either walk out or someone pays a bribe for them to be released,” according to Roger Middleton, expert on Somali piracy at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House. The French Navy has caught 57 pirates, and 45 went to Puntland. The U.S. Navy sent nine pirates to Puntland at the beginning of March. For more on why the U.S. can’t solve the piracy problem, read “Pirates Expose America’s Broken Will.”

President Obama has begun the process of lifting restrictions on Cuba, perhaps only a footnote amid the sweeping changes enacted in his first 100 days in office. The initial changes do not remove the travel embargo—they are instead geared toward things like allowing Cuban-Americans to send money home and make annual visits—but the direction is clear. Cuba’s government has been the sworn enemy of the U.S. for 50 years despite military threats, embargos, sanctions and general opposition around the world. For more on how the relationship developed and where it is headed, read “What’s Ahead for Cuba?”

Anglo-America

The Bank of England is creating £75 billion out of thin air. The bank announced March 5 it would cut its interest rate to 0.5 percent and buy £75 billion (us$106 billion) of government and corporate debt, 5.4 percent of Britain’s entire gross domestic product. That proportion of gdp is even greater than what the American Federal Reserve has artificially injected into the U.S. economy. Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling has authorized up to £150 billion in “quantitative easing,” printing money to stanch financial hemorrhaging. But printing money to stave off debts just a little longer does not solve problems.

In British-American news, the British administration continues to suffer slights from the White House. After removing a special bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office and not holding a joint press conference with Prime Minister Gordon Brown during his visit to the United States, Barack Obama gave Brown a gift of 25 dvd movies, including Star Wars. Coming from the executive of the most powerful nation in the world, the gift is seen as a snub, especially since Brown is blind in one eye and American dvds often do not work in British players. This week, the Obama staff has been incredibly difficult to get a hold of by Downing Street to plan the coming G-20 summit in England, according to the head of Britain’s civil service. “There is nobody there,” Gus O’Donnell said. “You cannot believe how difficult it is.” The ongoing indifference toward Britain reveals a crack in the American-British alliance that the Trumpet believes will widen drastically.

One month after spending more money than anyone in history with a $787 billion spending bill, President Obama is due to sign another bill for $410 billion of spending. Critics of the 1,132-page bill point out that politicians from both parties have inserted 7,991 earmarks, politically selfish spending initiatives the Obama campaign vowed to cleanse from Washington. The Trumpet does not take sides politically, but notes that just as in the case of every other politician, the stratospheric hopes generated during the Obama campaign are now crashing back to Earth.

The U.S. is losing even its notional status as a religious country. Although Americans generally identify the nation and its values as Christian, believing and obeying God long ago evolved into simply claiming Christ. Now, the number of Americans who even identify with Christianity has dropped. The recently released “American Religious Identification Survey” found that from 1990 to 2008, the number of professing Christians in the U.S. dropped 10 percent. The report also found that the number of Americans who claim no religious identity rose from 8 percent to 15 percent. •

EUROPE

Vice President Joseph Biden once again asked Europe for help in Afghanistan on Tuesday. This time, he emphasized the need for civilian assistance more than troops. “I know the people of Europe, like the people of my country, are tired of war, and they are tired of this war,” said Biden during a press conference after his meeting with nato ambassadors. “But we know that it was from the space that joins Afghanistan and Pakistan that the attacks of 9/11 occurred. We know that it was from the very same area that extremists planned virtually every major terrorist attack on Europe since 9/11, and the attack on Mumbai.” Biden also clarified his earlier statement that nato “is not winning” in Afghanistan, saying, “We are not winning the war, but the war is not lost.” America is going begging to foreign governments. Its constant encouragement for Europe to assist in military conflicts is prophesied in the Bible to bite it in the end. For more information, see our Feb. 14, 2008, article “Germany vs. NATO: Playing Hard to Get.”

Romania may soon be the third EU country to go to the International Monetary Fund (imf) for a loan. “Romania needs a safety belt, meaning a foreign loan,” said Romanian President Traian Basescu to parliament on Monday. He urged the parliament to cut spending, warning that any loan from the European Union or imf would force Romania to adopt tough conditions on public spending and impose structural reforms. Romania’s main problem is with private-sector loans that firms obtained from overseas. If it defaults on these loans, this will spread the problem to other countries also. Watch for the global economic crisis to increasingly affect all of Europe over the short term.

Asia

The biggest challenge currently facing China is not slowing economic growth, but increasing unemployment. The current unemployment rate in China stands at around 4 percent, yet analysts are predicting this figure could rise to 14 percent before the economic crisis subsides. This means the number of unemployed Chinese could rise to 170 million in the coming years. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said last week that if the Chinese economy does not grow by at least 8 percent this year, the country risks political destabilization and social unrest.

In the midst of this economic downturn, the Chinese government is increasing military spending by 14.9 percent. In the near future, China may seek to avert social catastrophe and alleviate its unemployment problems through massive military conscription. The Bible foretells of a time when an Asian military alliance will amass an army of 200 million men. For more information on China’s future role on the world scene, read our free booklet Russia and China in Prophecy.

Africa, Latin America

Morgan Tsvangirai became prime minister on February 11 after a violent election process that yielded him only minimal power; on March 6, he was injured and his wife was killed in a car accident. Tsvangirai himself said the chances the crash was intentional were only “1 in 1,000.” Zimbabwe’s minister of defense, a member of the opposition party, blamed the usual culprit: America and Britain. President Mugabe blamed the “hand of God.” Simple timing, of course, is not enough to suggest foul play, but two facts remain: 1) Tsvangirai was targeted for assassination multiple times during the election process; and 2) Zimbabwe has a history of suspicious car accidents where President Mugabe’s opponents are concerned: “I’m skeptical about any motor vehicle accident in Zimbabwe involving an opposition figure,” said Tom McDonald, the U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe from 1997 to 2001. “President Mugabe has a history of strange car accidents when someone lo and behold dies—it’s sort of his M.O. of how they get rid of people they don’t like.”

The U.S. Navy has released official figures on efforts to prosecute pirates, and the results are discouraging. Of 238 suspected pirates investigated, about half were prosecuted. Many of those prosecuted were sent to prison in Puntland, a northeastern region of Somalia, where pirates seldom stay long: “They either walk out or someone pays a bribe for them to be released,” according to Roger Middleton,

Obama Caves to Israel Lobby by Ray McGovern

Obama Caves to Israel Lobby by Ray McGovern

Obama Caves to Israel Lobby by Ray McGovern

 Thousands of Sudanese on Wednesday held a rally at the capital’s Council of Ministers in response to the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) to President Omar al-Bashir earlier in the day.

The majority of the rally are the country’s civil servants, an organizer at the scene told Xinhua. Full story

Arab FMs hold emergency meeting on ICC arrest warrant against Sudanese president

CAIRO, March 4 (Xinhua) — Arab foreign ministers started here on Wednesday afternoon an emergency meeting on the issue of an arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

The ministers are expected to discuss the negative impact of the ICC decision on Sudan and the Arab stance on this issue.

UNITED NATIONS, March 4 (Xinhua) — UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recognizes the authority of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as an independent judicial institution and he trusts the Sudanese government will address the issues of peace and justice in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1593, a UN statement said here on Wednesday.

The statement, issued here by Ban’s spokesperson, said, “The secretary-general recognizes the authority of the International Criminal Court as an independent judicial institution.”

 The arrest warrant, issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, could impede the peace process in Sudan, said the African Union (AU) on Wednesday evening.

In a statement, AU Commission Chairperson Jean Ping said “the search for justice should be pursued in a way that does not impede or jeopardize the promotion of peace.” Full story

U.S. calls for restraint following international court measures against Sudanese president

WASHINGTON, March 4 (Xinhua) — The United States on Wednesday urged all parties to the Darfur conflict to exercise restraint after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

“The White House believes that those that have committed atrocities should be held accountable. As this process moves forward, that we would urge restraint on the part of all parties, including the government of Sudan,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.

The European Union (EU) on Wednesday asked the Sudanese government and all other parties to the Darfur conflict to fully cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has just issued an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

“The European Union has taken note of the decision of the International Criminal Court’s Pre-Trial Chamber to issue an arrest warrant against Sudan’s President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir in connection with alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur,” said the Czech Republic, which holds the rotating EU presidency, in a statement.

The embattled president made the remarks at a massive rally in Sudan’s capital city Khartoum.
“I thank the ICC’s decision, for it can do nothing but help unify the Sudanese people,” Bashir added.
The Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Thursday lashed out at the International Criminal Court(ICC) for its ignorance over Iraq and Gaza at a massive rally in Sudan’s capital city Khartoum.
“The ICC ignores the criminal acts in Iraq and Gaza,” the president said, referring to two war-torn territories where large numbers of civilians have been killed in the past few years.

The embattled president made the remarks at a massive rally on an avenue outside the Council of Ministers, where tens of thousands of people attended, meant to express Sudanese support for the president in face of the ICC’s arrest warrant issued Wednesday.

Earlier, Bashir said at a special session of the Council of Ministers that the government has decided to expel 10 foreign NGOs, including Oxfam, Medical Sans Frontier, and two domestic organizations for their violation of the law and cooperation with the ICC.

“I thank the ICC’s decision, for it can do nothing but help unify the Sudanese people,” Bashir added, calling on all parties to establish a comprehensive coalition to cope with “colonialism and hegemony.”

Wielding his trademark stick and chanting slogans, Bashir’s rhetoric was hailed by the crowd who raised flags, banners, portraits of the president and a forest of arms.

“We will get rid of the disruptions and implement development schemes…to forge a great nation.” he added.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Hague-based ICC issued an arrest warrant against Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the country’s restive western region of Darfur between 2003 and2008.

However, the genocide accusation, filed by the ICC’s prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo in July, was not included in the final decision, according to the court’s statement.

Sudan rejects ICC arrest warrant against president

Sudan on Wednesday rejected an arrest warrant issued by the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) that charged its President Omar al-Bashir with war crimes and crimes against humanity.

China says regretful, worried about Sudan president arrest warrant

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) — China said it felt regretful and worried about the decision by the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on war crimes charges.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang made the remarks here on Thursday in response to a question on the matter. Full story

ICC announces arrest warrant for Sudanese president

THE HAGUE, March 4 (Xinhua) — The International Criminal Court(ICC) on Wednesday issued an international arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.

This is the first time the court has decided to issue an arrest warrant for a sitting head of state since it was established in July 2002.

Pro-Kremlin party wins majority in Russian regional polls

By Catherine Belton in Moscow

Russia’s dominant United Russia party won its first electoral test during the economic crisis, according to provisional results for regional assemblies issued on Monday.

The poll, already condemned for manipulation by opposition parties, marks the Kremlin’s first electoral test since the economic crisis hit Russia last year.

United Russia, headed by Putin, polled between 49 percent and 79 percent in the nine local assemblies contested, with a large majority of ballots counted, the Central Electoral Commission press service told Reuters.

The opposition Communist Party came in a distant second place. The pro-Kremlin Liberal Democrats and Fair Russia were also set to win seats in assemblies, though it was not immediately clear who came in third place.

Opposition politicians said the elections were marred by dirty tricks by pro-Kremlin groups.

Since the economic crisis hit the Russian economy unemployment has soared to levels last seen in the socially unstable 1990s as demand for commodities plummeted.

A record drop in gross domestic product of 8.8 per cent year on year in January has increased Kremlin uneasiness about the potential for protest to spread. Thousands of Russians have already taken to the streets since the new year to criticise the government’s response to the crisis.

Popularity ratings for the ruling tandem of Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin are still sky high, but have started to slip as the economic crisis bites. A recent poll by the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre said support for Mr Medvedev slipped from 72 per cent in December to 69 per cent last month, while Mr Putin’s fell from 77 per cent to 74 per cent.

Early indications of turnout suggested it was up to 10 per cent lower than usual in many regions in the far east and Siberia, in a sign of potential discontent.

Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist party, accused United Russia of mounting an unprecedented campaign of dirty tricks ahead of the election to make sure the protest vote was kept to a minimum, and to ensure United Russia boosted its showing to 60 to 70 per cent of the vote for regional parliaments. “There have never been such dirty and unforgivable elections,” he told Ekho Mosvky radio ahead of the vote. “These elections are taking place against the background of crisis. We see how the situation is getting worse.

Mr Zyuganov claimed that authorities in Kazan in Tatarstan had pulled Communist party political broadcasts, and Communist MPs had been followed and intimidated in Bryansk, an industrial region close to Ukraine and Belarus where his party was building a strong challenge for the regional parliament. He said he had been shut out of a meeting hall.

Russia’s central election commission however said on Sunday there had been no irregularities or violations of electoral law during campaigning or during the vote. The Communist party was beginning to file complaints on Sunday night.

Many analysts dismissed the outcome of the elections as a foregone conclusion in favour of the Kremlin and said they had even stopped bothering to monitor the campaigns. Local governors who have failed to win a good showing for United Russia in local elections have been fired from their posts in the past.

"That is one of Israel's great strengths. We talk a lot about beacons in the Middle East – and one of them undoubtedly is Israeli openness. Israelis are fantastic debaters and those who've been through its system are remarkably willing and happy to talk about it and debate it publicly."

Drilling into the Jordanian regime – and then into Hamas headquarters in Damascus – was a far greater challenge. After repeated entreaties to Mishal, McGeough was able to spend 50 hours of interview time inside the notorious Hamas leader's concrete vault in Damascus. There were no pre-conditions. McGeough was allowed to ask anything, and Mishal was denied the opportunity to vet the manuscript.

What McGeough encountered was a remarkably savvy militant boss. Mishal put up a wall against the most difficult questions. "If you came at him from six or seven ways, as a journalist is trained to do, he would block you at every turn."

On Mishal's bedside table was the memoir of former CIA director George Tenet a tome from former U.S. president Jimmy Carter.

"I was struck by how precisely attuned Mishal was to the reality of his situation. He was reading Carter, but at the same time he knew Carter's book would not be highly regarded by the people that make the key decisions on Middle East diplomacy.

"You talk to people at think tanks who have met Mishal and they say similar things. They are surprised they can sit with him repeatedly and he never once mentions the Qur'an. He does not indulge in the flowery, poetic rhetoric that often confuses Westerners when they come in contact with Arab society. He is very clear and precise in his view of the world and of Israel."

Clear and unbending. And having now emerged as the overall leader of Hamas in the years since Mishal's near-death experience from Israeli nerve gas, there is an even greater irony approaching in the weeks ahead – Mishal's arch-nemesis, Benjamin Netanyahu, is about to again become Israel's leader.

The hawkish Netanyahu was a largely unrepentant prime minister after Mossad blew the killing in Jordan 12 years ago. Only once since then has he stood in proximity to Mishal – the two men both attended King Hussein's funeral in what McGeough calls "a significant accomplishment on the part of Jordanian security to keep them apart."

Whatever stock some may place in U.S. President Barack Obama's plans for the Middle East, McGeough says the "combination of Mishal and Netanyahu leading the two sides fills me with dread."

But, McGeough adds candidly, "I came to the conclusion some time ago that both sides are incapable of achieving a peace on their own. The only peace I can see for Palestinians and Israelis is one that somehow or other is imposed externally. I'd love to see it become a United Nations protectorate. It's probably the only way to resolve the crisis – but I don't see it happening soon."

Returning to the Canadian threads in the 1997 affair, McGeough said he is "staggered that there was no real response from Ottawa to what Israel did.

"The thought that Israel could just manufacture Canadian passports and use them in the most horrendous of circumstances was bizarre. But the limp-wristed Canadian response was equally bizarre.

"The ambassador was brought home for a few days – big deal. As one of the diplomats I spoke to said: What Mossad was doing in Jordan could have resulted in someone in Winnipeg opening their door and being shot – just because they had the same name as appeared on one of these passports."

There is no evidence Mossad has used Canada as a false flag for operations in the decade since this saga exploded. New Zealand, on the other hand, has had diplomatic spats with Israel over passport issues.

None of which surprises McGeough, who said his eyes were opened wider by the experience of putting the botched assassination in its larger context.

"It was a spectacular failure and a riveting espionage drama. But what really drew me to this story is that it encapsulates how broad the Middle East crisis really is – how it seeps over borders and through barricades and just grips the entire region. It didn't have to be this way. But it is."

But could author Paul McGeough penetrate the layers of secrecy in Ottawa to get the rest of his riveting inside story of global espionage involving fake Canadian passports?

Yes, but it was difficult – more difficult even than unearthing all that he found in the Middle East itself.

"Canada, I discovered, is a place where information held by the government appears to be deemed the property of the government, rather than the property of the people," McGeough, one of Australia's most respected journalists, told the Toronto Star.

"Even 10 years after the fact, trying to glean answers to the most basic questions from the Canadian foreign ministry, it was like throwing a bomb. There was a lot of anxiety. But ultimately I managed to get the inside Canadian account from, well, some very good sources."

The result – excerpted exclusively in today's Star – is the newly published Kill Khalid: The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas, an unsurpassed telling of how Israeli spies masquerading as Canadian tourists all but ignited a Mideast war in 1997.

The audacious Israeli plan was to spray deadly nerve gas into the ear of the then-middling Hamas operative. This, they managed – but as the stricken Mishal took ill in the Jordanian capital of Amman, the "Canadians" were captured. And that is when all hell broke loose.

McGeough's gripping account spares no detail, providing a fly-on-the-wall vantage of the rising diplomatic panic that sent shudders through world capitals.

In a span of hours, the story went from empathy – one Canadian diplomat went so far as to fetch one of her husband's shirts for the battered "tourists" – to outright fury, as Jordan's King Hussein ordered his troops to rotate the guns defending the Israeli embassy, putting the Israelis in the crosshairs.

Kill Khalid also provides startling new detail on the anxieties in Jean Chrétien's Ottawa, where government mandarins were in a frenzy to get their hands on the forged passports. McGeough takes us inside the king's palace for the clandestine handover of the crucial documents to Canadian officials – and how Canadian intelligence officials mounted a near-military operation to get them home to Ottawa, braced for counterattack at every stage of the journey.

Hold that thought, because McGeough has more to say on the Canadian dimensions of this saga. But for now, let us proceed to the larger, arguably more provocative, theme of the book – that Israel's botched assassination was the best, but by no means the only, example of how Hamas owes its success to a succession of errors by both Israel and the United States.

"If you stand back and look at these last 10 years, circumstances have been created again and again, by the Israelis and by Washington, to make Hamas a fait accompli," said McGeough. "Hamas has survived and thrived on the mistakes and the bad reasoning – principally of the Israelis but also of Washington. When Hamas wasn't being directly encouraged, the other Palestinian movement (the late Yasser Arafat's) Fatah, was being propped up, even though it was a corrupt and venal regime – snout-in-trough at its worst."

The masterstroke for Hamas, said McGeough, was wholly Washington's fault – the Bush administration's permission, against Israeli objections, to allow Hamas to stand for election in the Palestinian territories in 2006.

"Suddenly you had an armed resistance movement standing for election in an occupied territory. It was quite spectacular, and it again locked Hamas into the centre of the crisis at a time when it could have been pushed to the fringe."

McGeough, former managing editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and author of three books on the Mideast, is braced for heavy debate when Kill Khalid hits the stands.

"I expect the Israeli view will want to challenge elements of what I've written. But if you go through the footnotes you will notice a lot of sourcing for the entire story is Israeli," he said.

"That is one of Israel's great strengths. We talk a lot about beacons in the Middle East – and one of them undoubtedly is Israeli openness. Israelis are fantastic debaters and those who've been through its system are remarkably willing and happy to talk about it and debate it publicly."

Bulgaria and Romania, now full NATO members for almost five years, have deployed military contingents to the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq and have lost troops in the last two nations.

While neither hosted Soviet forces or Warsaw Pact bases during the Cold War, both are on the front line of future wars in the Black Sea region like that of last August between Georgia and Russia, one which might easily have drawn in Ukraine and in alleged defense of Ukraine NATO and the US directly.

As Romanian President Traian Basescu was quoted in a feature of last August titled “Romania is responsible for EU, NATO borders protection,” “The Romanian navy is responsible in the name of the EU and allied countries.” (Focus News Agency, August 15, 2008)

Romania and Bulgaria will both be held to that pledge. That is one of the crucial reasons they were absorbed into the Alliance.

Both will be ordered to intervene in former Yugoslavia - Kosovo and Bosnia - if their masters in Washington and Brussels will it.

They are both involved in the transit of troops and materiel for the war in Afghanistan and the occupation of Iraq.

For two years now it has been repeatedly mentioned that Bulgarian, now joint Bulgarian-US, air bases may be used for attacks against Iran, most recently by Russian envoy Dmitry Rogozin last September.

The US and allied NATO military expansion into the Black Sea is aimed at all four compass points.

A proponent of this dangerous strategy, Vakhtang Maisaia, Chairman of the Foreign Policy Association of Georgia, offered this terse yet comprehensive summary of what is involved in the Georgian Times of April 2, 2008:

“The Black Sea is a vital geo-strategic area for the Alliance in conjunction with the Alliance’s ISAF mission in Afghanistan, logistic operations in Darfur, the NATO training mission in Iraq, and peacekeeping operations in Kosovo. “Currently, some clear signs of the new interest of NATO in the Black Sea region comprised of the South Caucasus and the South-East Europe sub-regions and Black Sea area itself, can be seen by looking at the geo-economics (including the Caspian energy reserves)….

“With the inclusion of Romania and Bulgaria into the Alliance, the Black Sea has been incorporated into NATO’s Article 5 (collective defense) operational zone where activation of the Combined Joint Task Force (a deployable, multinational, multi-service force with a land component and comparable air and naval components) is possible.

“‘In the event of crises which jeopardize Euro-Atlantic stability and could affect the security of Alliance members, the Alliance’s military forces may be called upon to conduct crises response operations.’ (1999 NATO Washington Summit).”

The same news source elaborated:

“American and Romanian military forces marked the start of a historic, two-month exercise on Friday that will serve as a trial run for thousands of U.S. troops expected to rotate in and out of Romania and Bulgaria for years to come.” (Stars and Stripes, August 18, 2007)

Two months afterward the US held the Rodopi Javelin 2007 air warfare exercise in Bulgaria at the Graf Ignatevio air base where US F-16s were able to practice against Russian-made Bulgarian MiG-29s for future purposes.

Earlier in the year a US destroyer, the San Jacinto, had docked in the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Varna.

In April of last year the US reprised the earlier joint air exercise, also at the Graf Ignatevio air base. Similar aerial combat drills have been conducted in Romania and in both countries US warplanes are provided the opportunity of test their abilities against Russian-made aircraft.

A month afterward the US embassy announced that “a deal to re-fit a Bulgarian military base, one of four due to be used…in autumn 2008. “The Novo Selo camp in eastern Bulgaria will undergo a $6.5 million refurbishment by the German-based company Field Camp Services (FC. “The Pentagon has also set aside some $60 million for the construction of a permanent base at Novo Selo.” (Agence France-Presse, May 14, 2008)

In June a Bulgarian news source, in an article titled “US Army Town to be Built near Novo Selo,” wrote:

“Five hundred soldiers and officers will settle in Bulgaria permanently, the other 2,500 will live in the bases of Bezmer, Novo Selo, Graf Ignatievo and Aitos on a rotation principle. “It means that up to 5,000 troops may be using the bases when need arises….The first US servicemen will arrive in Bulgaria this August. “Over 1,200 soldiers will take part in a three-month exercise called ‘The Bulgarian Panther.’” (Standart News, June 23, 2008)

The following day another Bulgarian report appeared on the expansion of US military sites in the nation:

“{T]he US military base to be built near Novo Selo…is expected to be of the size of an average Bulgarian town….500 US rangers and their entire families would arrive at the base then to live permanently there while deployed to Bulgaria. “Another 2,500 US soldiers would use on rotation bases the military facilities in Bezmer, Graf Ignatievo and Aitos….The military airport in Bezmer…is slated to become one of the 6 strategic military airport bases outside the US….” (Sofia News Agency, June 24, 2008)

Events proceeded similarly in Romania.

“Construction of a permanent U.S. base in Romania to house 1,700 personnel is well under way, with work on a similar facility for up to 2,500 personnel due to start in Bulgaria this winter, according to a U.S. official.” (Stars and Stripes, July 27, 2008)

In August of 2008 the Deputy of the Office for Defense Cooperation with the US embassy in the Bulgarian capital Jake Daystar held an interview with a Bulgarian news agency in which he said of one of the new US bases in the nation, “The main purpose of the base is to improve abilities through training – both of NATO troops and divisions of the US Army….The imperatives are hidden in the location of the state “with its geographic location Bulgaria has always been a strategically important country, as it stands on the crossroad between Asia and Europe.” (Focus News Agency, August 14, 2008)

If Daystar was quoted accurately, his comments contain an amazing admission. US army divisions range in size from 10,000 to 30,000 troops. Though perhaps he intended divisions as in various units rather than in the formal designation.

By September of last year Russian concerns over the escalating US military buildup in the Black Sea had not abated and in citing the Pentagon’s new bases in Bulgaria and Romania as well as its missile shield plans and ongoing NATO expansion to its borders, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, “Parity as the basis of the strategic balance in the world has been violated.”(Itar-Tass, September 29, 2008)

Nothing loath, within days of Lavrov’s dire warning it was reported that “U.S. warships will call at the Bulgarian ports of Varna and Burgas, and drills involving the U.S. and Bulgarian air forces are also scheduled for next month….” (Sofia News Agency, October 15, 2008)

While that dispatch was being filed US and Bulgarian troops were engaged in a joint military drill at the Novo Selo Training Area and “Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov and Commander of the U.S. Army in Europe Gen. Carter Ham…watched the drill….”.

The news story added, “More than 62 million dollars will be spent on the training area’s permanent facilities and equipment in the next two years, and construction is expected to be completed by then conflict zones in the Middle East and beyond.” (Ibid)

Slightly over a year after the US-Bulgarian bases accord had been inked it was announced that US troops were heading there and Romania and “The bases are part of an ambitious plan to shift EUCOM’s the Pentagon’s European Command’s fighting brigades from western Europe - mostly Germany - to forward bases closer to the Caucasus, the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa, for a quicker strike capability.” (United Press International, May 18, 2007)

The same report added:

“‘When this rebasing process is complete, two-thirds of USAREUR’s United States Army Europe and Seventh Army’s maneuver forces will be positioned in southern and eastern Europe,’ EUCOM and NATO’s top commander John Craddock told the U.S. Senate in written testimony. “USEUCOM has requested $73.6 million to build out Mikhail Kogalniceanu Air Base, Romania, and to establish a forward operating station in Bulgaria.” (Ibid)

The Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base received the first US troops deployed to Romania in 2007 and has hosted the US European Command’s newly formed Joint Task Force East, formerly the Eastern Europe Task Force.

The title of that unit alone reveals volumes.

As soon as the Bulgarian and Romanian “full spectrum” air, land and sea bases were acquired, the Pentagon moved to expand and integrate them with its other Black Sea military partners, Georgia and Ukraine.

Referring specifically to the Romanian bases, it was reported that “It is also possible that troops from others nations would go to the sites to train, and that U.S. forces based there would, as part of their six-month tour, travel to nearby nations such as Georgia and Ukraine for shorter training missions.” (Stars and Stripes, July 8, 2007)

In May of 2007 the commander of US Air Forces in Europe, Gen. Tom Hobbins, “visited with defense and air force leaders in Bulgaria and Georgia May 14-16 to discuss air force capabilities, modernization and future goals.” (U.S. Air Forces in Europe, May 18, 2007)

The same commander the following month, described as looking “eastward to the Black Sea and southward into Africa,” said: “Both Bulgaria and Romania have over a dozen projects where runways are being enhanced, facilities and buildings are being built. So we’re actually taking advantage of the fact that there’s a lot of NATO money being spent….” (Air Force Magazine, June 2007)

To make maximal use of the runways Hobbins mentioned, in February of 2007 Reuters reported that the US was selling Romania 48 new fighter jets and recalled that “The Romanian facilities and bases in Bulgaria will be the first U.S. military installations in the former Soviet bloc.” (Reuters, February 22, 2007)

In August the US launched war games in Romania to inaugurate its new forward sites and break in its new Joint Task Force East, a process accompanied by no little fanfare:

“About 1,000 mostly Europe-based military personnel and civilians will have a ceremony today to commence the United States’ first deployment to Joint Task Force East.” (MakFax Macedonia, August 17, 2007)

The significance of the exercise, named Proof of Principle, was highlighted as being a watershed, that “The U.S. military’s new era in Eastern Europe has begun.”

“NATO asked if the former buildings of a tank brigade in the town of Aitos could be turned into a reserve storage base. “NATO planned to store here the equipment for one or two battalions, which would be based in the military bases of Novo Selo and Bezmer.” (Sofia Echo, January 3, 2008)

In fact what NATO achieved was securing a base of its own.

“NATO will pay 150 million US dollars to the Municipality of Sungurlare (central Bulgaria) in exchange for a plot of municipal land for the construction of a military base.” (Standart News, December 2, 2007)

The comparison between the Bulgarian Bezmer air base and the US’s and NATO’s main strategic air (bombing) bases in Aviano, Italy and Incirlik, Turkey was established earlier and this report later confirmed the analogy’s accuracy, though immediately in reference to another air base.

“NATO will move aircraft from the US air base in Aviano, northeastern Italy, to Bulgaria’s Graf Ignatievo air base near Plovdiv.” (Sofia News Agency, October 6, 2007)

The above news item described the transfer as temporary, but it may have been a portent of what is planned for the future.

Aviano was the main base used by the US and NATO in their joint Operation Deliberate Force bombing of the Bosnian Serb Republic in 1995 and in the 78-day terror bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999.

To leave no further doubt as to under whose auspices the Pentagon was able to secure its seven new bases for attacks to the east and south, in the autumn of 2007, “A top general from the NATO’s Southern Command in Naples will inspect the two-week military exercises of army units from Bulgaria, the USA and Romania which will be held near the town of Sliven, in southern Bulgaria.” (Standart News, September 3, 2007)

And to dispel any misconceptions as to who the main target of the US- and NATO-acquired bases was, in June of that year Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing the emerging and unmistakable pattern of “a new base in Bulgaria, another in Romania, a site in Poland, radar in the Czech Republic,” rhetorically queried “What are we supposed to do? We cannot just observe all this.” (New Europe Belgium, Week of June 2, 2007)

The severity and urgency of the threat perceived by Russia was such that General Vladimir Shamanov, adviser to Russia’s Defense Minister, was quoted as saying “We will point our missiles at the US military facilities in Bulgaria and Romania.” (Standart News, June 6, 2007)

This concern was echoed by the Russian foreign ministry:

“Russia once again voiced her concern with the deployment of US military facilities in Bulgaria and Romania. “‘We are deeply concerned, because such a move entails an expansion of the US forces in countries, which not long ago were allies of Russia,’ Anatoly Antonov, Head of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Security and Disarmament Department, said at an extraordinary conference on the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (DOVSE,) held in Vienna.” (Standart News, June 13, 2007)

The Russian military, most directly alert to and aware of the repercussions of the deployments, voiced its alarm in the person of Maj. Gen. Vladimir Nikishin, a representative of the Defense Ministry’s Main International Military Cooperation Department, who said, “The location of NATO bases in Bulgaria and Romania actually means that the Alliance is creating bases for building up it forces in Eastern Europe, which is at variance with the adapted Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty.” (Interfax-Military, September 19, 2007)

Two months afterward Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would add, “Russia finds it hard to understand some decisions of the NATO like, for example, the deployment of US military facilities in Bulgaria and Romania.” (Standart News, December 7, 2007)

Lastly, the then chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, Yuri Baluevsky, voiced concern that “Plans are…afoot to set up new US military bases in Bulgaria and Romania, and unlike Russia, no NATO country has so far raised a finger to ratify the modified CFE treaty.” (Voice of Russia, December 17, 2007)

The above apprehensions could not have been assuaged by comments that year from Solomon Passy, former Bulgarian foreign minister, advocating that US infantry, air and naval forces be followed by missile deployments.

“Following the NATO treaty and the agreement for joint military bases in Bulgaria I think this will be the next strategic step that would enhance the security of the country, the region and the whole of Europe….This shield should be placed above all member states of NATO and the EU.” (Focus News Agency, June 10, 2007)

The seven sites in both countries will be the first US military bases in former Warsaw Pact territory.

The Bezmer air base in Bulgaria is a major facility, similar in scope to Romania’s Mihail Kogalniceanu, and its scale and purpose for current and futures campaigns in the east and south are indicated by this Bulgarian description:

“The airbase…according to the US-Bulgarian agreement…will acquire the status of a strategic military facility in two years, like the Incirlik airbase in Turkey and Aviano in Italy.” (Standart News, June 10, 2007)

The same newspaper added that, “The Bezmer military airport near the town of Yambol (southeastern Bulgaria) will be transformed into one of the six new strategic airbases outside US borders.” (Standart News, June 6, 2007)

Britain’s Jane’s Defence Weekly in late 2006 informed its readers of the strategic sweep of the Pentagon’s move into the Black Sea:

“The new land, sea and airbases along the Black Sea will provide much improved contingency access for deployments into Central Asia, parts of the Middle East and Southwest Asia. “Perhaps just as significantly, the new land, sea and airbases along the Black Sea will provide much improved contingency access for deployments into Central Asia, parts of the Middle East and Southwest Asia.” (Sofia Echo, November 17, 2006)

From the other end of the planet Lin Zhiyuan, deputy office director of the World Military Affairs Research Department of the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, saw the developments through the same lens but with trepidation:

“New military bases, airports and training bases will be built in Hungary, Romania, Poland, Bulgaria and other nations to ensure ‘gangways’ to some areas in the Middle East, African and Asia in possible military actions in the years ahead.” (People’s Daily, December 5, 2006)

Both preceding analyses were confirmed by the US military itself the following year when Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, the U.S. Army Europe operations chief and deputy chief of staff, spoke of Romania to an armed forces publication:

“It’s in a critical location with emerging partners, at a location which is really a place that has been a historical transit route for bad guys.”

The interview added “The bases would house rotating U.S. troops that would train under the command of Joint Task Force East, headquartered at Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base. “The U.S. signed a Defense Cooperation Agreement with Romania in December 2005 to allow U.S. forces to use the former communist nation for training, pre-positioning of equipment and, if necessary, staging and deploying troops into war zones.” (Stars and Stripes, May 4, 2007)

Two months after the US-Bulgarian agreement the US led joint military training exercises in Bulgaria in which the head of local troops involved effused, “We want to be certified as part of NATO forces. We want to conduct expeditionary exercises as part of NATO.” (Stars and Stripes, July 22, 2006)

The war games, named Immediate Response 2006, were designated to break in the new bases in Bulgaria and Romania and to implement the Rumsfeld era Pentagon’s plans for military ‘lily pads’ from which to spring into action to points east and south.

In reporting on the exercise the main newspaper of the US armed forces provided this background perspective:

“According to the agreements, the U.S. would be able to use the Romanian and Bulgarian bases for pre-positioning of equipment, and to send U.S. troops and equipment into war if necessary. The “forward operating sites,” as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld calls them, would be in Romania at the Smardan Training Range, Babadag Training Area and Rail Head, Mihail Kogalniceanu air base, and Cincu Training Range.” (Stars and Stripes, July 5, 2006)

A Bulgarian civilian cited by the same source said, “Every day we can see them (U.S. troops) in the cities and villages.” (Stars and Stripes, July 24, 2006)

By September of the same year, “Sofia and Washington are to sign about 13 additional agreements to regulate the joint usage of several military bases in Bulgaria. “Defence Minister Veselin Bliznakov has announced that next week US European Command (EUCOM) experts will arrive in Bulgaria to draw a draft document.” (Sofia News Agency, September 21, 2006)

The pacts with Bulgaria and Romania are, as usual in such instances, to be jointly used by NATO as all three signatories are members of the bloc.

In a US armed forces dispatch titled “England-based airmen head to NATO exercise in Bulgaria” it was reported that a British “squadron plans to test-fire laser-guided and general-purpose weapons at a Bulgarian range, as well as conduct air-to-air training with the Bulgarian MiG-29 and -21 aircraft” in war games coded Exercise Immediate Response. (Stars and Stripes, July 13, 2006)

Later NATO continued its leapfrogging over the Pentagon into Bulgaria as detailed in an article called “NATO bases may be set up near Bulgaria’s Sungulare” which included this report:

“The Kerch Strait at the center of Russia’s dispute with Ukraine controls access to the Azov Sea, which is reputed to have largely untapped hydrocarbon reserves. “Ownership rights to potential oil and gas resources have not been decided between the two countries, despite years of negotiations to delimit the seabed. “Although unlikely to be a second Caspian, geologists believe the Azov Sea is likely part of the same seam of hydrocarbon deposits that stretches from southern Ukraine and Russia through the Black Sea to the Caspian and beyond.” (Moscow Times, October 24, 2003)

The US’s Stratfor augmented the above with this brief analysis:

“The Kerch Strait is a 25-mile-long channel that is no wider than 9 miles, linking the critically important Black Sea to the Sea of Azov off of Russia’s Northern Caucasus border. It has served as a key location for some strategic battles in the past from the Crimean wars to a Nazi-Soviet naval clash. To Russia, the Kerch Strait is a continuation of the Northern Caucasus into Ukraineâ’s Crimea regions, which is one of the country’s most pro-Russian regions and home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet located at Sevastopol.” (November 10, 2008)

More concisely and even more to the point, a few weeks ago this quote appeared in a Ukrainian press wire report:

“Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations require that it solves all its problems, including border disputes. They need a border in the Kerch Strait for just one reason: to be able to join NATO as soon as possible.” (Interfax-Ukraine, January 31, 2009)

Bulgaria and Romania

The US has signed Strategic Partnership Charters with both Georgia and Ukraine over the past two months and the two nations are the centerpieces for Washington’s takeover of the Black Sea and indeed the former Soviet Union as a whole.

They are the main fulcra for the US-created GUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova) bloc originally set up in 1997 as the main transit route for 21st century Eurasian energy wars and for undermining and undoing the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States. They are also the foundation stones of the European Union’s Eastern Partnership.

But to date the main emphasis of the Pentagon’s campaign to conquer the Black Sea region, and arguably the major focal point for its international shift to the east and the south, is with Bulgaria and Romania.

Both nations were formally brought into NATO at the 2004 Istanbul summit of the Alliance and since became the last - perhaps in both senses of the word, most recent and final - members of the European Union.

Earlier, Bulgaria and Romania both denied Russia use of their airspace to transport supplies to troops they had moved into Kosovo in June of 1999.

Russia was acting within its rights under the terms of UN Resolution 1244 to protect ethnic minority communities in the Serbian province, but clearly Bulgaria and Romania were following US and NATO orders in blocking the flights.

Whether, if Russia had persisted in its intent, the two nations would have grounded the Russian aircraft or even shot them down is a matter of conjecture, though perhaps not much.

Later Romania allowed the US to use its Mikhail Kogalniceanu Air Base in 2002 for the buildup to the following March’s invasion of Iraq.

In December of 2005 US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to the Romanian capital to sign an accord to use - take control of - four military bases, the aforementioned Mihail Kogalniceanu Air Base and training and firing grounds in Babadag, Cincu and Smardan.

The US’s explanation at the time was that it was to employ the four bases for training, including joint and multilateral exercises, provision of supplies and transit for the downrange wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And Romanian territory has served those purposes ever since.

In April of the following year, 2006, the US signed a comparable agreement with neighboring Bulgaria for the use of three of its major military bases - the Bezmer air base, the Novo Selo army training range and the Graf Ignatievo airfield.

Both pacts were signed for an initial ten year duration.

The US was allowed to station troops - estimates vary from 5,000-10,000 - on a rotating or permanent basis in both countries.

In the case of Bulgaria it will be the first time foreign troops have been stationed on its soil since Nazi Wehrmacht forces were driven out in 1944 and with Romania since Soviet troops withdrew in 1958.

Georgia

Since 1991 but especially since the December 2003 “Rose Revolution” the United States has transformed Georgia on the Black Sea’s eastern border into a private military preserve, first dispatching Green Berets, then Marines to train, equip and transform the nation’s armed forces for wars abroad and at home.

The revamped Georgian army was first tried out in Iraq, where with a 2,000-troop contingent it had the third largest foreign force in Iraq until last August when the US military, whose creation it was, flew the soldiers home for the war with Russia.

Before the echoes of last August’s gunfire and artillery rounds had died down the US sent its warship the USS McFaul to the Georgian port city of Batumi and the flagship of its Sixth Fleet, the USS Mount Whitney, to Poti whose mission was announced to the chronically credulous as delivering “juice, powdered milk and hygiene products.”

Batumi is the capital of Ajaria, a former autonomous region subjugated by the then newborn ‘Rose’ regime in April of 2004 after its US-trained army staged Georgia’s largest-ever military exercises in nearby Poti and threatened invasion, lies just south of the Abkhazian capital of Sukhumi, where Russian ships were then stationed. Warships of the world’s two major nuclear powers faced off against each other off the Black Sea coast just 75 kilometers apart.

At the same time NATO deployed a naval strike group to the Black Sea consisting of three US warships, a Polish frigate, a German frigate and a Spanish guided missile frigate as well as four Turkish vessels with eight more warships planning to join the flotilla.

The NATO warships were only 150 kilometers from Russian counterparts then docked in Abkhazia.

Ukraine

On the north end of the Black Sea the US has led annual Sea Breeze NATO exercises in Ukraine’s Crimea, evoking mass outrage and spirited protests from the Crimeans themselves whose parliament three days ago voted against a proposed US representative office being set up, one which no doubt would oversee both the suppression of increased autonomy demands and anti-NATO actions in Crimea and prepare the groundwork for the eviction of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet from Sevastopol.

Regarding the second point, a Russian news site offered these insights:

“Analysts speak about Ukrainian plans to kick out Russia and turn over the Crimean bases to NATO and the United States, as both salivate for a military presence in the Black Sea Basin.” (Voice of Russia, May 28, 2008)

“One of the conditions for NATO membership is absence of foreign bases on the country’s territory….Ukraine’s ‘orange’ authorities do what they can to drive away the Russian Black Sea Fleet from the Crimea. In such a way Kiev signals to Brussels that it is preparing a base for NATO naval ships in the Black Sea.” (Voice of Russia, May 22, 2008

Georgia’s and Ukraine’s next, complete, phase of integration as Pentagon’s military outposts was announced last December and January, respectively, when Washington signed Strategic Partnership Charters with first Kiev and then Tbilisi. Months before that and only days after Georgia launched its attack on South Ossetia and Russian peacekeepers there, triggering last August’s war, all 26 NATO members sent representatives as part of a delegation to the Georgian capital to establish a new NATO-Georgia Commission.

At the same time the regime of Ukraine’s Viktor Yushschenko, who rode to power on the US-financed and -directed ‘orange revolution’ of December 2004, and whose wife Kathy is a Chicago-born and -raised former official in the Reagan State Department and the George H. W. Bush Treasury Department and was once described by a fawning admirer as “a Reaganite’s Reaganite,” used the deployment of Russian ships to the Black Sea during the war with Georgia to apply pressure on the Black Sea Fleet, at one point implying the ships might not be permitted to return to Sevastopol.

Several weeks after the Caucasus war ended, Washington sent an intelligence gathering ship, U.S. Pathfinder, to Sevastopol harbor.

The Yushchenko junta renewed its accusations against the Russian fleet late last month on another score, slightly over a month after the Charter on Strategic Cooperation was signed with Washington.

The Black Sea connects with the Sea of Azov, surrounded almost entirely by Russia, at the Kerch Strait, the scene of a confrontation between Russia and Ukraine in 2003.

A Russian newspaper at the time explained what was at stake in the dispute:

“The Kerch Strait at the center of Russia’s dispute with Ukraine controls access to the Azov Sea, which is reputed to have largely untapped hydrocarbon reserves. “Ownership rights to potential oil and gas resources have not been decided between the two countries, despite years of negotiations to delimit the seabed. “Although unlikely to be a second Caspian, geologists believe the Azov Sea is likely part of the same seam of hydrocarbon deposits that stretches from southern Ukraine and Russia through the Black Sea to the Caspian and beyo

Black Sea: Pentagon’s Gateway to Three Continents and the Middle East

 by Rick Rozoff

The Black Sea region connects Europe with Asia and the Eurasian land mass to the Middle East through Turkey on its southern rim, which borders Syria, Iraq and Iran. Global Research, Stop NATO The northern Balkans lie on its western shores and the Caucasus on its eastern end, the latter a land bridge to the Caspian Sea and Central Asia. Ukraine, Russia and the strategic Sea of Azov are on its northern perimeter. Given its central location, the Black Sea has been coveted for millennia by major powers: The Persian and Roman empires, Greeks and Hittites, Byzantines and Huns, Ottoman Turkey and Czarist Russia, even by Napoleon’s France and Hitler’s Germany in their wars to unite Europe to Asia and the Middle East. The famed Trojan War was fought for control of Troy/Dardania/Ilium, the entrance to the Sea of Marmara which connects the Mediterranean to the Black Sea. The strait connecting the two is still called the Dardanelles after ancient Dardania. Going back to Antiquity a third continent has also been involved, Africa; the Greek historian Herodotus claimed that the Black Sea city of Colchis, now in modern Georgia, was founded by Egyptians and in Virgil’s if not Homer’s account of the siege of Troy Memnon, king of Abyssinia (Ethiopia), is slain by Achilles fighting in defense of Troy. A Romanian news source recently reiterated the importance of the region for the modern era: “Through the Black Sea, the European area strategically meets Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East, hydrocarbon production and transit areas.” (Nine O’Clock News, May 14, 2008) Allusions to the Black Sea’s importance for not only energy and transit but for world military purposes will occur frequently in citations to follow. Prior to the breakup of the Warsaw Pact in 1989 and the Soviet Union two years later the Black Sea was mainly off limits to the West in general and to the Pentagon and NATO in particular. Until 1991 only four states bordered the sea, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and the Soviet Union. Turkey as a key NATO member state was the West’s sole beachhead in the region with Bulgaria and Romania, the second more nominally than in fact, members of the Eastern bloc and the Warsaw Pact. In the intervening eighteen years the situation in this region, like so many others, has been transformed and a new battle for control of it has emerged. There have arisen two new littoral states, Georgia and Ukraine, with Abkhazia added last August, and every past Warsaw Pact nation outside the former Soviet Union is currently a full member of both NATO and the European Union - Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, the former German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia - with three former Soviet republics on the Baltic Sea - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - also dual members. As an Indian commentator, Premen Addy, described it last summer: “NATO’s noose is drawn ever tighter round the Russian neck. American military and missile bases are already ensconced in Romania and Bulgaria - two states once in harness with Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich and the invading Nazi legions into the USSR - in a bid to strangle the possible emergence of a rival centre of power in the Black Sea….” (Daily Pioneer, August 16, 2008) A year earlier the online intelligence site The Power and Interest News Report in an analysis called “Bulgaria, U.S. Bases and Black Sea Geopolitics” summarized the situation regarding one key Black Sea state in the following words: “Geographically speaking, Bulgaria provides the U.S. (and N.A.T.O.) a greater presence in the Black Sea, through which there are plans to build oil and gas pipelines. “Also, it is close to the former Yugoslavia, a place of constant tensions, particularly in the last decade. “The new Pentagon bases allow the U.S. to keep increased control of the country and the Greater Middle East region, as Washington now has a military presence in the south (America’s 5th fleet is based in Bahrain) and will have a presence in the north through nearby Bulgaria.” (August 29, 2007)

FBI turns to fraud after focus on terror By Lucile Malandain

Over the past few years, the FBI has been steadily beefing up its teams fighting white collar crime

WASHINGTON: With the economic crisis unrelenting, the United States is stepping up its fight against white collar crime, which has been trumped by the fight on terror.

“Let’s give our law enforcement agencies the tools and resources they need,” said Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, at a hearing on Wednesday.

“All the ordinary Americans who have suffered the brunt of this (economic crisis) want to know that we’re doing everything possible” to combat white collar crime, he added.

In the most sensational case of its kind in years, former Nasdaq stock exchange chairman Bernard Madoff was arrested in early December after allegedly confessing to his two sons and to the FBI that he had run a 50-billion-dollar pyramid fraud known as a Ponzi scheme.

Investors caught in Madoff’s alleged fraud include Hollywood celebrities, charities, universities, and major financial institutions, including UBS, HSBC, JP Morgan Chase, BNP Paribas and Citigroup. Over the past few years, the FBI has been steadily beefing up its teams fighting white collar crime – fraud and corruption that has had disastrous consequences for families and the balance of the financial system.

“After 9/11, we moved almost 2,000 criminal investigative resources over to national security matters, particularly counterterrorism,” FBI Deputy Director John Pistole told Leahy’s committee.

“We have been gradually moving those back. And have done that in terms of priority areas, such as this mortgage fraud and the corporate fraud area which is potentially as significant in terms of long-term complex investigations.”

But since 2005, investigations by the federal law enforcement agency on real estate fraud has almost tripled, from 721 cases in 2005 to 1,800 cases currently being investigated, according to Pistole. “And of course, we expect an upward trend to continue,” he warned. Corporate fraud and corruption cases number 530, 38 of which are directly tied to the mortgage industry, such as US mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

A surge in foreclosures took place following the collapse of the housing market in 2006 and the related subprime mortgage crisis that triggered the financial crisis in August 2007.

Leahy, a Democrat, has introduced legislation with Republican Senator Charles Grassley and Democratic Senator Ted Kaufman to assist the federal government in investigating and prosecuting financial fraud.

“I want to make sure that we’re able to go after them. And I want to make sure that we can recover whatever assets we can. But I want to see people prosecuted,” Leahy said. But the challenge is mostly tied to available resources – in terms of staff and finances – with financial investigations as complex as those involving organized crime or drug trafficking.

“The primary near-term security concern of the United States is the global economic crisis and its geopolitical implications,” National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair told a Senate panel on Thursday.

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, terrorism had been cited as the top US security concern.

The FBI now has 240 agents assigned to mortgage fraud and related investigations, with over 100 more agents working on corporate fraud matters, Pistole said. The agency also sponsors 55 mortgage fraud task forces or working groups across the country. But some lawmakers expressed concern that more still needs to be done to address the rising problem of mortgage and corporate fraud.

“Mr Pistole, clearly, you don’t have enough FBI agents,” Kaufman said.

“Now, we’ve done a scrub of all our criminal investigative resources,” Pistole acknowledged.

Between 1986 and 1995, during the savings and loans crisis, the FBI assigned some 1,000 agents, in addition to financial and other analysts, through a series of 27 strike forces across the United States, Pistole said. Dozens of federal prosecutors were also engaged in legal proceedings.

Eat through the war

As the ongoing American military operation in Iraq is ready to celebrate its 6th anniversary, the Pentagon reports that the number of obese U.S. servicemen has doubled since the years of the Second Gulf War.

Nothing can stop purposeful men from getting what they want. The stress of deployment, the horrors of war and fatigue caused by everyday tensions and, as a result, overwrought nerves; you name it, but the fact is that American soldiers are getting fat.

In general, statistics are as follows. The number of servicemen with an obese diagnose stood at 25.652, or 1.6% of the entire armed forces in 1998. By 2003 it increased to 34,333 (2.1%), and by 2008 the number doubled to 68,786 (4.4%).

Yes, that is America’s national trend, but soldiers just have to do things civilians do not necessarily have to do like saving his own ass on an everyday basis, not to mention special ops and negligible trifles like fitting into uniforms.

There are a lot of factors that make civilian Americans gain weight with fast food and passive leisure time just tops the iceberg which consists mostly of GM products and gluttony – we know very well that a good old hamburger cannot do you wrong – being eaten one at a time.

Still, according to the U.S. Surgeon General, more than 60% of American citizens suffer from adiposity. But why do GIs follow the trend? Or has the U.S. Defence Department awarded a contract to McDonalds to feed American soldiers in Iraq?

Nothing doing. Mess food is still the basics of the American army in Afghanistan and Iraq. A 2005 poll of GIs who served in Iraq shows that most of them place blame on stress and exhaustion. Which means that after being stressed in the battle zone soldiers return from deployment cherishing just one thought: to eat to repletion.

American Federal guidelines classify an individual as being overweight if they have a body mass index (BMI) of more than 25, regardless of age or gender. A BMI is calculated by dividing weight in kilograms by height in metres squared. Someone 1.8 m and weighing 81.6 kg, for example, has a BMI of just over 25.

But military standards differ from civilian and in the American army it is possible to have a BMI of more than 27 and still be considered in good enough shape. As a result, official military health statistics show that only 20% of all American military personnel are overweight.

"In the past decade among active military members in general, the percent of military members who experienced medical encounters for overweight/obesity has steadily increased; and since 2003, rates of increase have generally accelerated," said the report published in January.

But situation is not that desperate. The Afghan skies are already swarming with unmanned drones guided by operators resting leisurely in comfortable armchairs on the other side of the globe. Experts say future wars will be conducted by autonomous robots that never get fat.

By Matthew Cassel

We walked through an area of Jabaliya today that was completely destroyed by Israel. How, F-16? No. Tanks? No. Apache? No. Unmanned drones? No. So then how were dozens of homes destroyed and thousands made homeless in one area?
 
Dynamite.
 
This is a country that world leaders have the audacity to say is acting in "self-defense" and goes and puts bombs inside civilian homes and blows them up.
 
Why? Who really cares? How can such an act ever be justified? As one boy responded when I asked him, "They didn't destroy this because there was resistance here, and not because they want the land. They destroyed it because we are Palestinian!"
 
So true. Why even ask for the logic behind what Israel does? They do it and get away with it, and they don't have to explain themselves to anyone.
 
I was walking with my friend when I saw a young girl sitting atop her flattened home. The home was three floors before it was destroyed, now its height was probably equal to that of one of the floors. The rubble provided a perfect inclined surface for climbing up on top of the building.
 
I approached the young smiley girl and shouted out, "how can I come up into your home?"

She pointed to the staircase lying parallel with the earth and said, "the stairs!"
 
As I laughed at her my friend followed and asked her, "What are you doing sitting here on top of the rubble, aren't you scared there might be explosives left and you could be hurt?"

I was expecting an answer that had something to do with her feeling sad about what happened and wanting to be close to where she had lived her entire life.
 
Instead she replied, "I wanted him to take my picture." I couldn't believe it. This girl, 7 maybe, knew I would stop and go take her picture if she was sitting on top of her destroyed home.

By now, Palestinians in Gaza are used to the routine. Israel destroys. Journalists come. Nothing changes, in fact it seems to only get worse.

Every older person who I've talked to has made it a point to tell me that these latest attacks by Israel have by far been the worst they've ever witnessed. Some of them have lived for more than six decades of war. Never have Palestinians seen or heard a non-stop Israeli bombardment like the one that lasted for three weeks just last month.

It's quite incredible, the amount of destruction in the aftermath of these attacks. And it's even more incredible that a population -- that is already mostly refugees of countless Israeli wars -- has the will to keep living their lives, resisting the massive force that is trying so hard to keep them down.

I don't like to generalize, but a broad statement can be made for the 1.5 million people across the Gaza Strip. Regardless of their class or where they come from, their religious or political affiliation, all are living in the open-air prison that is Gaza. And all are subject to Israel's indiscriminate attacks across the territory. There is nowhere to go, nowhere to run.

Even now Israeli planes continue to fly overhead bombing targets across Gaza. Each time a jet is heard everyone stops ... and listens, closely, quietly, shhhh ... as it passes with no sounds of earth rattling explosions you can finally exhale, relax. No one died that time, thank God. But it will return again and again, and if not next time then the time after, or the time after that the sound of the jet will not fade in and out with no interruptions in between.

So, you wait. You sit knowing that you are alone. You, sitting in your home watching television are the "terrorist" committing the wrong in the eyes of the world.

What was that? Shhhh... listen.... is it? No, it's nothing. A car off in the distance, thank God. Sit back, relax... and smile to yourself when you realize how silly you were to think that doing so might actually be possible. There is no chance to relax when you're constantly waiting for something to happen.

Like I've heard many times in English from the hundreds of people who I've met in the past two days, "Welcome to Gaza."

- Matthew Cassel is a photographer and journalist based in the Middle East.

Britain has supported the initiative, but military commanders and diplomats fear many of the Nato contributors will steer clear of drugs operations, just as they have avoided frontline action. The already stretched British force could have to carry out more than its share of counter-narcotics missions.

But the arrival of American reinforcements in southern Afghanistan is likely to mean that, as in Iraq, the British will play a more subordinate role. Since they arrived three years ago in Helmand, the country’s largest province and main heroin producer, British troops have never been deployed in sufficient numbers to gain control of more than a small central area around the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah. Now the main British base, Camp Bastion, is preparing to receive an influx of US troops.

Command of Afghanistan’s southern military region used to rotate among Britain, Canada and the Netherlands. But with the arrival of some 20,000 US troops, doubling the present international deployment, an American major-general will take over a tighter command structure. US officers regard the current situation as a stalemate, with Nato forces until now having been too thinly spread to do more than hold their ground. They expect that to change once the reinforcements are in place.

Mr Langton of the IISS said some British officers welcomed a more unified command structure, in which they would work more closely with American commanders, but it could appear to the public at home that the British force had not succeeded in its mission. This he blamed on the Ministry of Defence, which he said had made no effort to explain what British troops were doing in Afghanistan, “when in fact this is a positive development which could have a dramatic effect on the counter-insurgency campaign”.

Rusi’s Mr Smyth, who is preparing a study of the Taliban’s progress in 2008, said its greatest success had been in “creating the impression it did well”. Despite a high rate of attacks, he said it was not “a homogenous, unified group whose ability to cause violence extends across the country”.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/is-afghanistan-going-to-be-obamas-iraq-1515332.html

Is Afghanistan going to be Obama’s Iraq?

The US could find itself isolated as the conflict goes on

By Kim Sengupta and Raymond Whitaker

President Barack Obama is facing warnings that the US risks repeating some of its errors in Iraq as the new administration turns its focus to Afghanistan, where Nato forces are engaged in a conflict which has already lasted longer than the Second World War.

Having received a briefing on his first day in office from General David Petraeus, the top US commander in the region, Mr Obama is preparing to meet his military chiefs to decide on the size and shape of the Afghanistan reinforcements he promised during his election campaign. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, said just before Christmas that up to 30,000 more troops could be sent by summer, nearly doubling the size of the US force in the country. Britain, the next largest contributor in the 41-nation international force, has fewer than 9,000 troops in Afghanistan, which means American dominance of the campaign against the Taliban is set to increase.

“There are fears that this could become a US war rather than a Nato one,” said Christopher Langton, senior fellow for conflict at the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IIS in London. “With other Nato members already planning to scale back, the US could find itself isolated. Rather than being an international operation, it would become another ‘coalition of the willing’, as in Iraq – though with the crucial difference that the Afghan mission has had a United Nations mandate throughout.”

Paul Smyth, head of the operational studies programme at London’s Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), pointed out that several Nato countries, including Canada, Germany and France, had significantly increased their troop commitments in percentage terms during 2008. But in the past week the French Defence Minister, Hervé Morin, said considering further reinforcements was “out of the question for now”. And Jan Peter Balkenende, Prime Minister of the Netherlands, another important contributor of troops, indicated that it would reduce its force by the end of next year.

Mr Smyth said the international coalition in Afghanistan was wider and more committed than that in Iraq, but in some ways faced a tougher task. Although improved security in Iraq would benefit the Afghan mission, Iraqi insurgents had never had as much of a “safe haven” across the border in Iran as the Taliban enjoyed in the lawless frontier areas of Pakistan. “The scale is entirely different,” Mr Smyth said.

Emphasising that the Obama administration was not simply planning a military “surge”, one American official said: “We have to come up with fresh, innovative ideas on counter-insurgency, counter-narcotics, governance, development.” But many of the proposals are already mired in controversy and confusion, particularly the plan to form local militias on the pattern of Iraq, where Gen Petraeus armed Sunni groups against the al-Qa’ida-linked insurgency.

In Afghanistan, where warlords were enlisted to overthrow the Taliban and still control large parts of the country, it is feared that creating yet more private armies would simply worsen chronic lawlessness. Two years ago, a similar scheme to form an “auxiliary” police force had to be shelved. As soon as they were issued a uniform and a weapon, many recruits began preying on local people. A pilot scheme in Wardak province, south of Kabul, has become bogged down in arguments over who will control the militias, who will pay them and how they should be armed. William Wood, the US ambassador, is adamant that Washington will provide training and uniforms, but not arms. The Interior Ministry suggested that the men might be issued with repaired “old and broken guns”, while Mohammed Masoom Stanekazi, vice-chairman of the country’s official disarmament organisation, has argued that the militias should provide their own weapons.

“None of this,” said Robert Emerson, a security analyst who is producing an academic paper on the Petraeus campaign in Iraq, “suggests fighting units to take on insurgents, like the Anbar Awakening in Iraq, but armed men who have the scope to get up to mischief if they get authority.”

Combating Afghanistan’s drugs trade, which supplies 93 per cent of the world’s heroin, is another likely source of discord, both with President Hamid Karzai’s government and among Nato members. Under American pressure, Nato recently decided to play a much more direct role in counter-narcotics operations. But reservations among some of the 26 Nato countries contributing troops led to the insertion of a caveat allowing dissenting nations to opt out of operations.

Sacrificing Iraqis for the Greater Good
by Jacob G. Hornberger

It seems that Barack Obama is going to take his time withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. Actually this shouldn’t surprise anyone, given that Obama is as much a welfare-state man as George W. Bush.

Welfare state, you ask? What does devotion to the welfare state have to do with Iraq?

Most Americans exuberantly supported the invasion of Iraq based on a theory of self-defense. Through a clever use of propaganda, innuendo, and implication, the president, vice president, and other high U.S. officials led Americans into believing that Saddam Hussein was about to unleash weapons of mass destruction, including mushroom clouds, on the United States. Thus, while Americans knew that the invasion would kill and maim countless Iraqis, they justified such killings as a necessary thing to do to defend the United States from an imminent WMD attack by Iraq.

However, when it became clear that the WMD threat was bogus, many Americans remained exuberant supporters of the invasion and occupation. What they did is simply shift the principal rationale for killing Iraqis from one of self-defense to one of welfare — that is, helping the Iraqi people to establish democracy, something that they were having trouble doing on their own.

Thus, once it became clear that the WMD threat had been baseless, there was no remorse over the killing, maiming, and torture of Iraqis up to that point. Instead, Americans quickly accepted the president’s alternative justification for invading Iraq: We’re doing it to bring democracy to Iraq and, therefore, it’s okay to continue killing Iraqis in the pursuit of that goal.

Through it all, there was never an upper limit to the number of Iraqis who could be killed in the attempt to bring democracy to their country. All that mattered was the greater good of Iraqi society. The sacrifices that had to be made by the Iraqi people to achieve that goal were only of secondary concern.

Hardly a week goes by without some newspaper article or speech referring to the 4,000 American soldiers who have lost their lives in Iraq. Every Sunday in churches across America, ministers exhort their congregations to pray for the troops in Iraq. The troops are considered to be heroes for risking their lives in the attempt to bring democracy to Iraq.

Yet, when do you ever hear any laments for the millions of Iraqi victims of the invasion and occupation — that is, those who have been killed, maimed, tortured, and exiled? Hardly ever. They are simply considered the necessary costs of bringing democracy to their country. And no price is too high to pay in terms of Iraqi deaths and injuries to achieve that goal.

As we witness President Obama dragging his feet on ordering an immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Iraq, we shouldn’t forget that the principal justification that President Clinton relied upon for the brutal sanctions imposed on the Iraqi people during his term in office was the same welfare-state function that Bush ultimately relied upon to justify his invasion. When asked by “Sixty Minutes” whether the deaths of half-a-million children from the sanctions had been worth it, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright provided the Clinton’s administration’s welfare-state position:: “We think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it.” She was referring to the price that Iraqi children had to pay in the U.S. attempt to bring regime change to Iraq.

That’s what passes for morality in the mind of the welfare-statist — the propriety of sacrificing some for the greater good of all. It’s that perverse “morality” that has been used to justify more than 15 years of death, maiming, torture, and destruction in Iraq. 

The Crippling Arab Cold War

 
Arabs have failed to make use of the many cards they possess -- their great numbers, their oil and gas assets, their financial clout, their international friendships. Still, the cost to Israel of its insane war will be immense, says Patrick Seale.

The total inability of the Arabs to respond effectively -- in word or deed, whether diplomatically or militarily -- to Israel’s devastating war on Gaza has revealed what was known but rarely admitted, namely that Arab leaders hate and fear each other more than they hate and fear Israel.

In these terrible weeks of carnage, the world has witnessed the crippling effects of the Arab Cold War. Gaza has burned, but Arab leaders, so deep are their mutual antagonisms, have been incapable even of convening an official summit meeting.

Arab diplomats, interviewed for this article, speak despairingly of the “end of the Arab regional order.” Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the so-called ‘moderates’, find it more urgent to fight their ‘radical’ rivals for regional leadership, than to join forces with them in confronting Israel.

Even when their vital interests are at stake -- even when Israel slaughters Palestinians to the outrage of Arab and Muslim opinion -- Arab leaders have proved unable to deliver a common message, let alone resort to the kind of aggressive international diplomacy which the situation so obviously calls for.

Under the leadership of the Emir of Qatar, the so-called ‘radicals’ -- the leaders of Syria, Algeria, Sudan and Oman among others -- held a meeting in Doha, attended by Iran’s President Ahmadinejad and by Khaled Mishaal, the exiled Hamas leader who lives in Damascus. This meeting gave Hamas formal and public consecration as the Arab force -- the only one -- confronting Israel with armed resistance.

Qatar severed its trade ties with Israel; Mauretania broke off its diplomatic relations; Syria declared that its tentative peace talks with Israel were now at an end, and called for Arab states to cut all ties with Israel. It demanded that the Arab Peace Plan of 2002 be withdrawn. This plan offered Israel peace and normal relations with all 22 Arab states, if it withdrew to its 1967 borders. Israel dismissed it.

The President of Egypt and the King of Saudi Arabia stayed away from the Doha meeting, as did Mahmud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority. The fault lines are thus drawn between those countries hostile to Iran and close to the United States -- and, in the case of Egypt and Jordan, linked by peace treaty to Israel -- and a rival group comprising Iran and Syria, together with Hizbullah and Hamas, supported by Qatar among others, and enjoying important backing from Turkey.

Turkey has had close ties with Israel for many years. But Turks have taken to the streets in the tens of thousands to denounce Israel’s war. Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan warned Israel that a ‘curse’ would fall on it for the children it had killed. History, he said, would judge Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defence Minister Ehud Barak “for the black stain they are leaving on humanity.”

The Arabs’ fatal impotence was first revealed in 1948 when, weak and divided, they failed to prevent the nascent Israeli state from seizing more than three-quarters of historic Palestine. In 1967, Israel again trounced the squabbling and mutually suspicious Arabs, conquering what was left of Palestine, as well as large tracts of Egypt and Syria, and thus demonstrating that it had become the regional superpower.

Israel has now done it again in Gaza. It has inflicted another strategic defeat on the Arab world. The Arab League, which was meant to defend common Arab interests, has been exposed as toothless and wholly ineffectual, to the great shame of its secretary-general, Amr Moussa. The Arabs have failed to make use of the many cards they possess -- their great numbers, their oil and gas assets, their financial clout, their international friendships.

The cost to Israel of its insane war has been immense. It has aroused tremendous hate. More than ever, it is now a pariah. Its rash and blood-thirsty leaders risk facing sanctions and boycotts. They could be indicted for war crimes. The whole region has been radicalised. This is the ground from which terrorism springs. Rather than improving Israel’s security, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his principal colleagues, Barak and Livni, have exposed their compatriots -- and Jews everywhere -- to revenge attacks. Arabs have long memories.

In addition, Israel has lost all hope of peaceful integration into the region for the foreseeable future. It may not care. By its pitiless war, it has demonstrated yet again that, rather than wanting to coexist in peace with its neighbours, it prefers to assert its military supremacy in the harshest possible way. Its evident intention is to push Gaza into Egypt’s lap, while extending its control and absorption of the occupied West Bank.

The essential aim of Israel’s war in Gaza has been to impose a crushing defeat on the Palestinians and thus prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. But the means it has chosen are so outrageous -- and have so shocked international opinion -- that the outcome might be the very opposite.

Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East, and the author of The Struggle for Syria; also, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East; and Abu Nidal: A Gun for Hire.