Ross Colvin | Washington | Nov 21

Reuters - The CIA obstructed inquiries into its role in the shooting down of an aircraft carrying a family of U.S. missionaries in Peru in 2001, the agency's inspector general has concluded.

The inspector-general's report said a CIA-backed program in Peru targeting drug runners was so poorly run that many suspect aircraft were shot down by Peruvian air force jets without proper checks being made first.

Unclassified portions of the report were made public for the first time on Thursday by U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, who criticized the CIA for the "needless" deaths.

If you haven't read Hannes important essay about Dennis Ross and the Obama transition, please do so now.

And then spread the word.

He's right: we cannot afford to have Ross running our Iran policy. He's simply not trustworthy and I seriously doubt he would act in good faith on Obama's behalf. And yes, I realize that is a really serious thing to say. But the bottom line is rapprochment with Iran is utterly essential if we are to disengage rapidly from Iraq. So, if you are like me and want to see us get out as soon as possible then read the essay and heed Hannes' call to action.

By Hannes Artens

Dennis Ross, AIPAC's mouthpiece, to become Obama's Special Envoy for Iran? (Source: Time)

This article concludes with an appeal to all Agonistas, I kindly ask you to consider!

When I talked on speakerphone to a class of extraordinarily bright Cornell undergrads the week before the election I was, and still am, of the opinion that on November 4 actually two elections were decided: the one whose formidable outcome we're still celebrating, but also the presidential - ok, not quite so, but for the sake of universal détente and in the absence of a single word to better describe its complexity, let's call it - election in Iran in March. Here at The Agonist I have argued that the single most important signal heralding change and a new approach to the Middle East Barack Obama can send to Tehran, is to actually get elected. He did with flying colors, and heads are already spinning in Tehran how to react to this game changer of all changers.

Let me get this straight, I believe that if President Obama still has to deal with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad past March 2009, it is the clearest sign you can get that Iran is not interested in serious and honest negotiations but is on self-destruction mode. The hand Iran claims to be waiting for has been reached out. Now it's up to Tehran to react. If they reject it, continue to play for time, or mandate a team for negotiations that cannot be understood but an overt provocation, we at least know where we are. Faced with the choice to either lead the Islamic Republic across into a multi-polar world, in which it could become a regional power, respected and dealt with at eye level by its peers, or go first into the abyss, I believe Iran will decide for a pragmatic opening. Theoretically, there is reason for optimism that the Supreme Leader will back a more moderate candidate for president in March (see Hossein Askari in Asia Times for an analysis and list of hopefuls), and that defusing the Iranian powder keg will rank among Barack Obama's major historic accomplishments.

There, however, is one player with the potential to spoil things for us all, to rain on President Obama's parade, and still make the horror scenario of The Writing on the Wall come true: AIPAC and its mouthpiece, Dennis Ross.

Mark Mazetti | Washington | Nov 14

NYT - Even as Al Qaeda strengthens its hub in the Pakistani mountains, its leaders are building closer ties to regional militant groups in order to launch attacks in Africa and Europe and on the Arabian Peninsula, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency said Thursday.

The director, Michael V. Hayden, identified North Africa and Somalia as places where Qaeda leaders were using partnerships to establish new bases. Elsewhere, Mr. Hayden said, Al Qaeda was “strengthening” in Yemen, and he added that veterans of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan had moved there, possibly to stage attacks against the government of Saudi Arabia.

translation: we don't know jack shit

New York | Nov 14

DPA - US President George W Bush urged governments at the United Nations on Thursday to include religion in their work and help spread democracy around the world.

In his final days as the top but not the most admired US leader, Bush remains true to his belief to bring democracy to other countries, including using military force to invade Iraq in March, 2003, to make that country a democracy.

Bush told the UN General Assembly that the United States, represented by former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, led the discussion that resulted in the adoption of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights 60 years ago.

'Today, the United States is carrying on that noble tradition by making religious liberty a central element of our foreign policy,' he said in an address to the UN assembly session on the Culture of Peace.

'We strongly encourage nations to understand that religious freedom is the foundation of a healthy and hopeful society,' he said. 'We are not afraid to stand with religious dissidents and believers who practice their faith even where it is unwelcome.

Doesn't it just make you want to puke? I can only believe there is a special spot in hell for him and that is faith based.

A year ago, the war in Iraq was raging and seemed certain to figure highly in the presidential election. It didn’t. Over the last year and a half, US casualties had declined about 80%. Dire economic matters came to the fore and are not likely to recede in the next year or so, though of course foreign dynamics are even more unpredictable than domestic ones.

Nonetheless, the war in Iraq is still a significant issue for the new administration, as Iraq drains resources better allocated elsewhere and policies there will demonstrate resolve to bring change. How will President Obama handle it? Three forces have opportunely come together and the new administration could take advantage of them to arrange an exit in a manner that benefits both American national security and the new president’s prestige in the foreign policy realm.

Gareth Porter | Nov 11

Raw Story - The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has obtained evidence suggesting that documents which have been described as technical studies for a secret Iranian nuclear weapons-related research program may have been fabricated.

The documents in question were acquired by U.S. intelligence in 2004 from a still unknown source -- most of them in the form of electronic files allegedly stolen from a laptop computer belonging to an Iranian researcher. The US has based much of its push for sanctions against Iran on these documents.

The new evidence of possible fraud has increased pressure within the IAEA secretariat to distance the agency from the laptop documents, according to a Vienna-based diplomatic source close to the IAEA, who spoke to RAW STORY on condition of anonymity.

I am sooo shocked! not

Washington | Nov 11

AFP - The US Embassy in Tokyo expressed regret over a delay in informing the Japanese government that a US nuclear submarine would call at one of its ports on Monday, the State Department said.

"The USS Providence, a nuclear-powered submarine, made a brief visit to Okinawa on November 10," the State Department said in a statement.

"The (Japanese) Ministry of Foreign Affairs raised their concern about a delay in standard notification procedures, and the US Embassy in Tokyo has expressed regret over the delay," it added.

The Japanese foreign ministry said the USS Providence called at the White Beach Naval Facility in southern Okinawa prefecture from around 10.00 am until just before noon Monday without properly notifying Japan in advance.

"The United States must notify our government at least 24 hours before its nuclear submarines come to our ports," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

By Hannes Artens

The goodwill for a fresh start is there (Source: Der Standard)

Notwithstanding the volatile prehistory of ups and downs in what is often invoked "the indispensable partnership," the unprecedented hubris of the neocons unbound, as in so many other corners of the world, has to solely account for EU-US relations having reached their absolute nadir and for having brought us close to a second Cold War this summer. As in the Middle East, the legacy of the Bush administration with Europe and Russia could not be more devastating. A majority of Europeans perceive America as a greater threat to world peace than Iran, and instead of winning Russia as an equal partner on issues from nuclear non-proliferation to fighting Islamist fundamentalism, Russian and American warships faced each other off in the Black Sea just weeks ago. This rock bottom of the "the indispensable partnership" comes at a time when unrestricted transatlantic cooperation would be the need of the hour more than ever before. With NATO about to suffer a ruinous defeat in Afghanistan, Russia re-emerging as a regional power, Iran soon to go nuclear if not shown its limits, a lasting peace in Israel/Palestine, as usual, on life-support, global warming so real that even Republicans have taken up the cause of fighting it, China already dictating the terms of trade and financing our decadent extravaganzas, our economies hit by the worst crisis since the Great Depression, in fact our whole economic and social order put to the test of survival, the West as a whole is threatened by collective downfall. It's five minutes to midnight. We either get our act together now or the EU will brake apart, the lights in the shining city upon a hill will go out forever, and Paul Kennedy will have to write a new epilog to his The Rise and the Fall of the Great Powers.

November 4, 2008 has the potential to go down in history as either: the day our last hopes for a better world were dashed by hot air without substance or the true birth hour of the twenty-first century, of a post-modern age being heralded. For the latter to materialize at least to some extent it requires two fundamental cognitions: for America to recognize the limits of her power in a 19th century world system, and for the other major powers - the EU at the forefront - the willingness to raise it from the 19th to 21st and to shoulder the burdens and responsibilities that come with such a feat.
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Mexico City | Nov 10

CSM -

Bolivia has given US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officers three months to leave the country – claiming that agents were stirring up political strife in the deeply divided nation.

This fall, Ecuadorians voted yes to a new Constitution that calls for the closure by next year of one of the most important US operations in its war against drugs.

And for the fourth year in a row, Venezuela was singled out by President Bush – as was Bolivia for the first time – for having "failed demonstrably" in antidrug cooperation.

The US has long had a presence in Latin America to stem the northward drug flow; Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia are the world's largest cocaine producers. The US still boasts strong partnerships with many countries, such as Colombia and Mexico. But in others, particularly those led by leftists who have risen in collective condemnation of Washington, leaders are increasingly severing ties.

Their push for more self-determination could represent an opportunity to improve a strategy seen by many as a failure, says Kathryn Ledebur, director of the Andean Information Network in Bolivia.

But Roger Noriega, a former assistant secretary of State for western hemisphere affairs, takes a dimmer view. Moves like Bolivia's expulsion of DEA agents could have an impact on US intelligence-gathering capabilities, he says, but they also appear to weaken some countries' commitment to fighting drug production. "Drug cartels and all the illicit behavior – even the damage done to the environment by drug production – is a transnational challenge that requires international cooperation," he says.

Eric Schmitt $ Mark Mazzzetti | Washington | Nov 10

NYT - The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.

These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President Bush, the officials said. The secret order gave the military new authority to attack the Qaeda terrorist network anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the United States.

Washington | Nov 9

WaPo - The State Department is asking officials at the Venezuelan consulate in Houston to leave the country after the South American government moved its offices in that city before receiving permission.

The Venezuelan officials were being asked to depart because the unauthorized move violated international protocol, Nicole Thompson, a State Department spokeswoman, said Saturday. She said one consular officer was being allowed to remain temporarily in Houston so that Venezuela can continue to operate a consulate until a permanent location is approved.

The dispute stems from the Venezuelan Consulate's request in August to move to another Houston location. Before the State Department issued its approval, U.S. officials learned the consulate had already leased space and began operations at the new location. The State Department ordered Venezuela on Oct. 2 to cease operations, and when it hadn't, the U.S. revoked their privileges on Oct. 31.
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Consulate staff and officials were then "invited to depart the United States," Thompson said.

By Hannes Artens

Enchanting the world for one day will not be enough (Source: Der Spiegel)

"America has elected her future," "Hello world! America's back!," "Obama, President of the Global Village," and "Baracking the world" were just a few of the headlines around the globe frenetically celebrating the election of Barack Obama as the US' 44th president. And rightly so. The historic dimension of this victory is impossible to underestimate. Every comparison to the great eras of transition heralded at the polls in 1964 and 1980, arguably even to the end of apartheid in South Africa, seems appropriate. The fundamental difference this year, however, is that the phenomenon Barack Obama is not limited to one single country, to one people making history by ushering in change, but that the Democratic presidential candidate has been adopted by the whole world as its savior, as its hope for a better future, for a more just and egalitarian society. Obama has become the personification of the America we want to see, the antipode of all we came to see for far too long.

Smiling faces and beaming eyes from Calcutta to Caracas prayed for him to not only let America be again the dream it used to be, pictured by Langston Hughes, the mighty, benevolent Miss Liberty lifting her lamp beside the golden door, Emma Lazarus idolized, but to reach out a helping hand to those left behind, in fact being doomed to obliviousness or even abused by the compassionate conservatism and American exceptionalism of the past eight years. It takes me a while and quite a mental effort to recall the Stars and Stripes being waved in ecstatic buzz in the streets of foreign lands instead of being soaked in gasoline and torched. On Tuesday night it happened, in the tens of thousands. And rightly so.
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Nov 7

AFP - The United States has set up new barriers to Iran's access to the US financial system by banning certain types of fund transfers, the Treasury Department said Thursday.

The Treasury said it would prevent so-called "U-turn" transfers to Iran as part of efforts "to expose Iranian banks' involvement in the Iranian regime's support of terrorist groups and nuclear and missile proliferation."

The action prevents fund transfers made on behalf of Iranian banks, persons or the Iranian government that are initiated offshore by non-Iranian banks or financial institutions and passed through the US financial system en route to other offshore, non-Iranian, non-US financial institutions, the Treasury said in a statement.

Prior to the ban, US financial institutions were authorized to process U-turn transfers for the direct or indirect benefit of some Iranian banks, persons Iran or the government.

Bogota | Nov 6

NYT - The nearly $5 billion American aid package known as Plan Colombia failed to meet its goal of halving illegal narcotics production, says an American report released Wednesday.

The Government Accountability Office report does, however, find that the mostly military assistance helped Colombia markedly improve security, with kidnapping and murder rates falling and the armed forces greatly diminishing the leftist rebel threat.

The report’s release came as American officials were making clear that aid for Colombia, about $660 million in the 2008 fiscal year, would be trimmed because of the financial crisis.

In addition, a widening scandal over Colombian Army killings of civilians to increase body counts could affect American aid.

** U.S. suspends some military aid to Colombia

Helga Serrano | November 5

Translated from: Coalición No Bases logra la salida de Base Militar de EEUU de Ecuador
Translated by: Annette Ramos
Americas Policy Program, Center for International Policy (CIP)

The following is Helga Serrano's report about the case of Ecuador presented at the Second Encounter for the Demilitarization of the Americas on Oct. 4, 2008 in La Esperanza, Honduras. It is of interest because it describes the grassroots organizational process that led to President Rafael Correa's decision to announce that the U.S. military must leave the base at Manta as of 2009. The president's decision was important, but it was the constant pressure from grassroots networks that led to this triumph for all who seek a demilitarized continent, with peace and full respect for sovereignty.

The achievements of the peace and anti-bases movements in the country also are revealed in Article 5 of the new Constitution of Ecuador which prohibits locating foreign military bases on Ecuadorean soil, to wit: "Ecuador is a peaceful territory. The establishment of foreign military bases and foreign facilities with military purposes is not allowed." Following is the system by which this experience came about, providing an example for the whole continent.

I've been giving a lot of thought lately to the Georgian war earlier this year and what it means for Russia's future as a great power. Now, it's undeniable that Russia has a massive nuclear arsenal. That alone qualifies a nation as a great power in my book. If you have nukes no matter how big or small of a nation you are, in boxing terms, you have the capability to punch above your weight.

A couple of things happened as a result of the Georgian war. One, in the aftermath of the war Poland very quickly inked a missile shield deal with the US. (This is one of those coincidences that leads me to believe the US had ulterior motives in allowing the Georgians to provoke the fight.) Second, Russia made it very clear that NATO expansion was at an end. German Chancellor Angela Merkel quickly made this more than clear when she went to Saint Petersburg and essentially agreed with the Russians. (The French quietly agree with the Germans on this too.) No MAP will be offered to the Ukraine and Georgia. The Euros are have dug their heels in on this one and since NATO decisions are based on consensus this fight is over.

Those are two pretty concrete results of the war, not to mention that Georgia was humiliated and will need to find a way to deal with the Russians in the future, much as Mexico deals with the United States. Look, international relations aren't pretty but that's reality. If you have the misfortune (or good fortune, depends on where you're standing I suppose) to live next to a great power you simply have to adjust your foreign policy accordingly or suffer the consequences. As Georgia has no doubt seen, they can be ugly.

More after the jump.
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Dmitry Solovyov | Nov 5

Reuters - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev slammed the United States on Wednesday for using the conflict in Georgia as a pretext for NATO encroachment on Russia's borders and said Moscow would take retaliatory measures.

"The conflict in the Caucasus was used as a pretext for sending NATO warships to the Black Sea and then for the forceful foisting on Europe of America's anti-missile systems, which in its turn will entail retaliatory measures by Russia," Medvedev said in his state of the nation speech.

"Tskhinvali's tragedy was a consequence of the U.S. administration's policy which is selfish, cannot stand criticism and prefers unilateral decision," he said, referring to the local capital of South Ossetia.

Ellen Barry | Moscow | Nov 3

NYT -

Thousands of Russians from the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi gathered in front of the United States Embassy here on Sunday night carrying jack-o’-lanterns inked with the names of war victims and charging that the war in Georgia was part of an American plot to improve Senator John McCain’s electoral prospects.

As music by Johnny Cash and the Allman Brothers played from loudspeakers, a stream of young people climbed off buses that had carried them to Moscow from far-flung provincial capitals. They held the pumpkins aloft for a moment of silence as a deep bass thumped and carnival-style lights played on the embassy’s facade.

In a film projected on several large screens, an actor playing President Bush (though with a heavy Russian accent) delivered a speech in which he gloated over the United States’ control over world affairs. The film asserted that the United States orchestrated World Wars I and II so that the American economy could overtake Europe’s, carried out the Sept. 11 attacks to broaden government powers and planned to brand every person on the planet with the “mark of the beast,” as referred to in the Bible.

“When that will happen, we will totally control all humanity,” said the actor playing Mr. Bush, swigging a beer, as a picture of the globe in chains glowed behind him.

Quito | Oct 31

LA Times - An Ecuadorean presidential commission has concluded that U.S. intelligence services infiltrated the Andean nation's military and police and supported a cross-border incursion by Colombian troops that killed a top rebel commander.

Following the attack on a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia camp inside Ecuador on March 1, President Rafael Correa accused the CIA of infiltrating his nation's intelligence services and appointed a commission to investigate.

The body alleged in its report, made public Thursday, that the CIA bought information from Ecuador's military and had prior knowledge of the raid, said Defense Minister Javier Ponce, who read highlights of the findings to reporters.

Warsaw | Oct 31

DPA - General Henry Obering said the United States wants an anti-missile base in Poland by 2012, and would ratify the deal even this year, Polish local media reported on Wednesday.

Obering, who is director of the US Missile Defence Agency, was visiting northern Poland on Wednesday to tour the future site of the missile base and meet with local officials. He said the 400-million dollar investment would boost the region's economy.

Polish vice-minister of Defence Stanislaw Jerzy Komorowski said that Poland also wants a quick ratification of the deal, reported the Polish Press Agency, but had doubts it could be done by the end of 2008.

Robert Verkaik | Oct 31

The Independent - Senior CIA officers could be put on trial in Britain after it emerged last night that the Attorney General is to investigate allegations that a British resident held in Guantanamo Bay was brutally tortured, after being arrested and questioned by American forces following the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in 2001.

The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has asked Baroness Scotland to consider bringing criminal proceedings against Americans allegedly responsible for the rendition and abuse of Binyam Mohamed, when he was held in prisons in Morocco and Afghanistan.

The development follows criticism of US prosecutors by British judges who have seen secret evidence of torture committed against Mr Mohamed, including allegations his torturers used a razor blade to repeatedly cut his penis. The Attorney's investigation is expected to include allegations that MI5 colluded in Mr Mohamed's rendition. Mr Mohamed, 30, an Ethiopian national and British resident, was arrested in Pakistan in 2002, when he was questioned by an MI5 officer.

Robert Dreyfuss | Oct 29 | The Nation

A parallel new Bush doctrine is emerging, in the last days of the soon-to-be-ancien regime, and it needs to be strangled in its crib. Like the original Bush doctrine -- the one that Sarah Palin couldn't name, which called for preventive military action against emerging threats -- this one also casts international law aside by insisting that the United States has an inherent right to cross international borders in "hot pursuit" of anyone it doesn't like.

They're already applying it to Pakistan, and this week Syria was the target. Is Iran next?

Let's take Pakistan first. Though a nominal ally, Pakistan has been the subject of at least nineteen aerial attacks by CIA-controlled drone aircraft, killing scores of Pakistanis and some Afghans in tribal areas controlled by pro-Taliban forces. The New York Times listed, and mapped, all nineteen such attacks in a recent piece describing Predator attacks across the Afghan border, all since August. The Times notes that inside the government, the U.S.Special Operations command and other advocates are pushing for a more aggressive use of such units, including efforts to kidnap and interrogate suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders. Though President Bush signed an order in July allowing U.S. commando teams to move into Pakistan itself, with or without Islamabad's permission, such raids have occurred only once, on September 3.

The U.S. raid into Syria on October 26 similarly trampled on Syria's sovereignty without so much as a fare-thee-well. Though the Pentagon initially denied that the raid involved helicopters and on-the-ground commando presence, that's exactly what happened. The attack reportedly killed Badran Turki Hishan al-Mazidih, an Iraqi facilitator who smuggled foreign fighters into Iraq through Syria. The Washington Post was ecstatic, writing in an editorial: more

Andrew J. Bacevich | Oct 26 | LA Times

Americans are no longer in the mood to chase after distant evildoers.

All but lost amid the hullabaloo of the presidential campaign, the State Department recently dropped North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. Kim Jong Il pocketed a concession that even a year ago would have seemed unimaginable. The American people -- feeling more threatened by Wall Street than by Pyongyang -- managed barely a shrug.

Seldom has a historic turning point received such little notice. By cutting a deal with a charter member of the "axis of evil," President Bush has definitively abandoned the principles that he staked out in the wake of 9/11. The president who once defined America's purpose as "ending tyranny" is now accommodating the world's last authentically Stalinist regime. Although Bush still inhabits the White House, the Bush era has effectively ended.

Of greater significance, so too has the latest in a series of American psychodramas. In the last year or so, the nation's collective mind-set has shifted, and with that shift have come dramatic changes in the way we see ourselves and the world beyond our borders.

The American preference for packaging history as a sequence of great events directed by great men tends to overlook the role played by mass psychology and by the powerful impulses contained within what we commonly call public opinion. The reality is that when it comes to statecraft, policies devised in Washington frequently express not so much the carefully calculated intentions of the nation's leaders as the people's frame of mind. more at link

Tracy McVeigh | Oct 26

The Observer - Naval historian says a Cuba-bound ship with British buses aboard was rammed in 1964 in an American plot

On a chilly October night in 1964, the shipping forecast warned of fog on the Thames. Just after midnight, an East German freighter, the MV Magdeburg, slipped out of her Dagenham dock and headed slowly down river. On deck were 42 Leyland buses bound for Cuba.

Coming the other way was the Yamashiro Maru, a Japanese ship, sailing empty. The ships met at 1.52am. The Magdeburg was making the tight turn around Broadness Point when the Yamashiro Maru ploughed into her starboard side at more than 10 knots, holing her below the waterline and pushing her across the river.

'It was an accident, an act of God,' insisted Keith Toms, a tug crewman on the Thames that night. And that was the conclusion. No one was killed, there was no inquiry, no one was accountable and only Leyland Motors, forced to replace the buses, suffered.

Now a historian has found documents that add weight to the suspicions of academics that the ship was rammed at the behest of the CIA - as part of an effort to sabotage anyone breaking the US embargo on Fidel Castro's Cuba.