Compensation For Men FBI Let Be Framed

Taken from The Guardian, UK, Friday July 27, 2007
By Ewen MacAskill

A federal judge yesterday ordered the US government to pay more than $100m (£50m) in compensation to men jailed for decades after being framed by a Mafia hitman with the complicity of the FBI. The FBI knew the men were innocent but did not inform state prosecutors at the time.

Lost Time - Pictures from Boston.com

The men, two of whom died in prison, were set up by a Mob hitman, Joseph "The Animal" Barboza. A former boxer from East Boston, Barboza worked for the Patriarcas, a New England Mafia family. He turned FBI informant while in jail for murder and was shot dead by the Mafia in San Francisco in 1976.

The government argued that the FBI, which knew the wrong men were being accused, had no obligation to share its information.

The district judge, Nancy Gertner, said: "It took 30 years to uncover this injustice, and the government's position is, in a word, absurd. No lost liberty is dispensable. We have fought wars over this principle. We are still fighting these wars."

Peter Limone, Joseph Salvati and the families of the two who died in prison, Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco, had sued the federal government for malicious prosecution. Mr Salvati and Mr Limone were exonerated in 2001 after FBI memos surfaced showing the men had been framed.

The lawyers for the men said Boston FBI agents knew Barboza lied when he named them as the killer of Edward Deegan in 1965. They said the FBI was protecting one of its informants.

The lawyers said the FBI treated the four as "acceptable collateral damage".

Victor Garo, one of the lawyers for the men, said: "It was more important for the FBI to protect their informants than to protect innocent people who had families."

How MI5 Had Me Kidnapped And Thrown Into CIA's Dark Prison

Taken from The Daily Mail, UK, 28th July 2007
By DAVID ROSE

James Bond interviewed informants in nightclubs and luxury hotels.

Le Carré's George Smiley preferred park benches or safe houses in Belgravia. But when Bisher Al-Rawi met the men from MI5, they chose somewhere more prosaic: a table in the basement section of McDonald's in Kensington, West London.

"I always had a Filet-O-Fish," Al-Rawi says drily. "They would only drink. One supposes they didn't like the food."


In the clear: Bisher Al-Rawi has been deemed to pose no threat to America or its allies

It wasn't the only difference between Britain's real and fictional spies. Having risked his life and reputation to inform MI5 about Islamic radicalism in London in the months after 9/11, Al-Rawi was betrayed.

The reward for his unpaid help was a secret emailed "telegram" from the British Security Service to the CIA, in which they told the Americans that Al-Rawi was carrying a timing device for a bomb – in reality, an innocuous battery-charger bought from Argos – on a business trip to Gambia.

Al-Rawi, the telegram added, was an "Iraqi extremist" associate of the London-based preacher Abu Qatada, who was regarded by the Security Services as Osama Bin Laden's "Ambassador" in Europe. The telegram did not, however, mention the crucial fact that he had been seeing Abu Qatada at MI5's behest.

A few months earlier, in the spring of 2002, Abu Qatada was wanted under the Government's 2001 Terrorism Act, which allowed foreign nationals believed to be involved in terrorism to be detained without charge, and had supposedly gone into hiding.

At this time Al-Rawi visited Abu Qatada numerous times with the knowledge of his MI5 handlers, in the hope of arranging a meeting between them. In addition, Al-Rawi had told MI5 all about his own life and his other activities and tried to provide an insight into Britain's Islamic scene.

All of it was thrown in his face. Arrested and interrogated on his arrival in Gambia in 2002, a month later Al-Rawi was flown on an illegal CIA "rendition" flight halfway across the world and spent four-and-a-half years detained without charge in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

From the beginning, he says, the main basis of his hundreds of interrogations was the information he had already freely given to MI5.


Terror suspects on an American flight from Kabul to Cuba

Last week, in two days of interviews, Al-Rawi told his story for the first time, almost four months after his release. He is the first man to describe in detail the CIA's rendition flights, but he also gives a powerful insight into the regime at America's prison at Guantanamo Bay.

He was speaking out for one reason – to help his friend, Jamil el-Banna, who was arrested in Gambia with him and shared his ordeal. Like Al-Rawi, he has now been deemed to pose no threat by the Americans. But el-Banna, a Jordanian who settled in Britain and who has five British children, is still in his cell in Guantanamo because the Government has refused to allow his return.

Al-Rawi looks older than his 39 years and thinner than in photos from before his arrest. Clean-shaven, in designer jeans and a sweatshirt, he remains animated and articulate, punctuating even the grimmest episodes with an expansive, mischievous laugh.

His family came to Britain when Al-Rawi was 16 after his father, a wealthy businessman, was tortured by Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

For a time he went to top public school Millfield and later studied engineering at London's Queen Mary and Westfield College. After his father died in 1992 his mother, brother and sister acquired UK citizenship, but Al-Rawi remained an Iraqi, hoping that this would one day make it easier to retrieve property the family had left behind.

Passionate about outdoor activities such as rock-climbing, parachuting and scuba-diving, during the Nineties he ran his own engineering business and learned to fly helicopters.
It was through his business that Al-Rawi got to know Jamil el-Banna.


MI5 target: Abu Qatada

Al-Rawi thinks he met Abu Qatada through a mosque and gradually the friendship progressed as Al-Rawi attended the preacher's prayer meetings in Acton, West London. "I got to know his kids," he says. "My relationship with Abu Qatada wasn't much different from with a lot of people in the community."

Years later, after 9/11, officials would claim that Abu Qatada had been "Osama Bin Laden's ambassador in Europe".

But Al-Rawi insists that although Abu Qatada supported Muslim causes in places such as Chechnya and Kashmir, he never heard him advocate attacks against the West, and that when he was asked whether Muslims in Britain should emulate 9/11, "he went purple with rage, saying, 'That's the last thing we should do.' He said if anyone had asked him, he would have advised against 9/11."

Several times before 9/11 Al-Rawi was asked to be an interpreter at meetings between MI5 officers and Arabic speakers, including Abu Qatada.

Al-Rawi claims MI5 were on cordial terms with Abu Qatada long before 9/11 and had been cultivating him as a useful source on general matters affecting the Muslim community.

"On two occasions I asked the officers in private, 'Is it OK to have a relationship with Abu Qatada? Is this a problem?' They always said it's fine, it's OK."

Several weeks after the Twin Towers attacks, two MI5 men, who called themselves Alex and Matt, came to his home.

"The family was freaking out so I took them to sit in the conservatory and closed the door. They'd done their homework very well – they knew a lot about me. It was like an interview."

They came back a week later but because his family felt uncomfortable, Al-Rawi says they began to meet at a pub in Victoria, and later at McDonald's. "In those early days they were always offering me money. I was clear with them. I told them I wasn't going to be paid. I agreed to talk to MI5 because I believed it would do some good."

But Al-Rawi was concerned lest he might somehow incriminate himself, by speaking of people who – unbeknown to him – really might have links with terrorism. He also sought assurances that everything he said was in confidence.

Soon afterwards, he was asked to meet an MI5 lawyer called Simon. "He gave me very solid assurances about confidentiality," Al-Rawi says. "He promised they would even protect my family if they had to. He said that if I were ever arrested, I should co-operate with the police and if ever a matter got to court he would come as a witness and tell the truth."

Last night, MI5 declined to comment on this or other aspects of the case. Despite repeated and detailed requests, a spokesman did not return calls.

Under the Government's 2001 Terrorism Act, foreign nationals such as Abu Qatada were allowed to be detained without charge. Shortly before the law was passed, Abu Qatada disappeared. Like most of his associates, Al-Rawi had no idea of his whereabouts. But one day in early spring, a stranger phoned and asked to meet him at a London mosque. He took him to a house where Abu Qatada was staying. "He asked me if I could help him find somewhere new."

Through a friend, Al-Rawi found him a flat. "Less than a week later I saw Alex in McDonald's.

He asked me, 'Bisher, do you know where Abu Qatada is?' I thought to myself, if I was going to tell a lie, now was the time to do it. But I didn't. I said, 'Yes, I do.'"

A few days later, they met again, this time with Alex's boss, Martin. "He seemed excited. Until then British authorities had no idea where Abu Qatada was."

Soon afterwards Al-Rawi told Abu Qatada that he had informed MI5 he knew where he was.

"He looked at me in amazement. He didn't like it, yet at the same time he tolerated it. I really thought I could bring them together."

So began the crazy weeks when Al-Rawi acted as go-between, taking messages between the preacher and MI5. "The balancing act was extreme. Yet I really believe that if they had met, history might have been different. Maybe if Abu Qatada could have talked to MI5 he would have stayed out of jail, and the young hotheads would have listened to him. Who knows? Perhaps there would have been no 7/7."


Free: Bisher Al-Rawi in London with Anas el-Banna, the ten-year-old son of his friend who is still in Guantanamo

Finally, in early summer 2002, Al-Rawi says, he was sure that Abu Qatada was ready to meet MI5 officers, but quickly changed his mind. Soon afterwards Al-Rawi had a final phone call from Alex. "It was a brief conversation terminating our relationship. It was very tense, like breaking off with a girlfriend. But I was also relieved – it was a huge load off my shoulders."

Eventually, in October 2002, Abu Qatada was arrested under the 2001 Terrorism Act. Later MI5 claimed in court they were unaware of his whereabouts for almost a year. Al-Rawi finds this implausible. "As I told Abu Qatada at the time, all they had to do was follow me on my motorbike. I am certain that they did."

It was Al-Rawi's brother, Wahhab, who had the idea of setting up a business in Gambia. A family friend told them that peanut-processing plants – where nuts are shelled in situ and turned into oil – could be lucrative.

Wahhab travelled ahead to Gambia and on November 1, 2002, Al-Rawi, el-Banna and another friend, Abdullah el-Janoudi, tried to board a flight from Gatwick to Banjul, Gambia's capital.

The previous evening, MI5 and the police visited el-Banna and, according to an MI5 memo disclosed to his lawyers, tried to recruit him. El-Banna refused but officers promised he could travel to Gambia 'without a problem' and later return to the UK.

It was not to be. The three men were stopped at Gatwick airport, searched and detained for five days at Paddington Green police station. Among a number of 'suspicious' items found in Al-Rawi's luggage were a $24 battery-charger, drill bits, a gas cylinder and a bundle of electrical wires wrapped around set of tweezers.

Al-Rawi insisted they were tools and parts he needed for the peanut-processing plant.

Two days after their release, the three men went ahead with their plans and flew to Gambia.

But by now the damage had been done. On the day of the arrests, MI5 sent its first telegram to the CIA, describing the charger as "a timing device [that] could possibly be used as some part of a car-based IED [improvised explosive device]". A second telegram three days later failed to correct this, repeating the claim that Al-Rawi was "an Islamic extremist" and saying the men would soon be on their way.

In a report last week on the case, the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee cited testimony it was given in secret from MI5, claiming that the service had sent 'caveats' with the telegrams asking for no action to be taken. These, it was clear, were ignored.

"This case shows a lack of regard on the part of the US for UK concerns," said the committee.

"This has serious implications for the working of the relationship between the US and UK intelligence and security agencies."

It added that MI5 "could not have foreseen" that the US would disregard the caveats and that both Al-Rawi and el-Banna had been formally "cleared for release" by the Guantanamo authorities. The committee said MI5 "should have told Ministers about the case at the time" and were concerned it took several years and a court case by the two men's lawyers to bring it to their attention.

Surprisingly, perhaps, the committee concluded that the false information about the battery-charger was not the main reason for the men's arrest. In any event, all three were held when they arrived in Banjul, together with Wahhab and his local agent, who had come to the airport to meet them.

The following morning, Al-Rawi was confronted by his interrogators, led by an American called Lee. "From the beginning, the questions made it plain that the Americans had been given the contents of my own MI5 file which was supposed to be confidential," says Al-Rawi.

"Lee even told me the British were giving him information. I had agreed to help MI5 because I wanted to prevent terrorism, and now the information I had freely given them was being used against me in an attempt to prove that I myself was some kind of terrorist."

He was also accused of having planned to start a Gambian terrorist training camp. During his last week there, one of the Americans came to Al-Rawi's cell. "He told me, 'We know you were working for MI5.' He said I was going to Afghanistan but if I told the truth, I would get out. He said he would go to the media if I didn't [get out]. Needless to say, he never did."

Days before the men's illegal rendition, MI5 told the parliamentary committee, the Americans informed them it was going to happen. Nevertheless, the British said they would not attempt to extend consular protection to Al-Rawi and el-Banna but only to Wahhab and el-Janoudi – the UK citizens – who were promptly released. El-Banna and Al-Rawi were shackled, blindfolded and hooded, then taken to a car.

"My hands were cuffed behind my back," says Al-Rawi. "It was incredibly uncomfortable. I could barely breathe through the hood.

"At last we got to the airport – I knew because I could hear jet engines. I had to sit for a while in some kind of waiting room, with two Gambian guards either side of me. They were nice, they could see I was in pain and one of them started to massage my feet. They stood me up and walked me a few paces, then let go. Two other guys grabbed me really hard and started dragging me. I thought, 'Ah-ha, these are the Americans.'"

Then, he says, six or seven Americans, dressed in black and wearing balaclavas, cut off his clothes and removed his hood. "They dressed me in two layers of nappies and tracksuit bottoms and a top. There was no light in the room. One of them shone a torch in my eye. He was trying to blind me, make it impossible to see. I was so angry and despairing but I tried to be witty. I told him, 'Excuse me, but I think your torch needs a new battery.'"

Al-Rawi says that over his clothes "they put a harness, and shackled and cuffed me again, fixing the chains through the harness. They dragged me forcefully up the stairs and into the plane.

They forced me on to a stretcher and tied me to it so tightly I could hardly move at all.

"I felt trussed like an animal, lying on my back. There were belts restraining my feet, legs and my body. They covered my eyes with a blindfold and then goggles, and put something over my ears. I could still hear the plane's engines. I knew we were about to take off.

"To say it was extremely stressful is a real understatement. All the way through that flight I was on the verge of screaming. But somehow you just hold on.

"At last we landed, I thought, thank God it's over. But it wasn't – it was just a refuelling stop in Cairo. There were hours still to go.

"They hadn't told me I was wearing nappies and I was desperate to urinate. I was fighting not to soil myself, and it was adding to the pain. I asked three times to go to the toilet, and still they would not let me. My back was so painful, the handcuffs were so tight. All the time they kept me on my back.

"Once, I managed to wriggle a tiny bit, just shifted my weight to one side. Then I felt someone hit my hand. Even this was forbidden."

At last, Al-Rawi says, he felt the plane descending. He had landed in Kabul. Released from the stretcher and thrown forcefully into a truck, he was driven to the most notorious of the CIA's "black sites" – the Afghan Dark Prison.

Al-Rawi's blindfold had been removed, but the darkness was absolute. The unheated cell was so cold he could feel ice crystals on the water he was occasionally given to drink. "For three days or so I just sat in the corner, shivering. The only time there was light was when a guard came to check on me with a dim torch – as soon as he'd detect movement, he would leave.

"I tried to do a few push-ups and jogged on the spot to keep warm. There was no toilet-paper but I tore off my nappies and tried to use them to clean myself. I kept telling myself, 'They haven't killed me yet, this is good.'"

After about a fortnight, he and el-Banna were taken to Bagram, where interrogations began again. On the way, "they really beat me up. Of course I was hooded, so I couldn't see anything. But you know how in cartoons when people get hit on the head they see stars? I thought, ah, now I know what those cartoons mean. I saw stars".

He and el-Banna came under pressure to incriminate Abu Qatada, who was by now being held at the high-security Belmarsh prison. He was later transferred to Long Martin where he is still fighting deportation from the UK – where he faces no criminal charge. However, he has been convicted in absentia of terrorist offences in Jordan on the evidence of co-defendants who had been tortured.

This, says Gareth Peirce, the solicitor who represents Al-Rawi, el-Banna and Abu Qatada, is the real reason why el-Banna is still in Guantanamo. The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, says she is considering whether to rescind his status as a refugee.

If so, he would be taken to Jordan – and there, perhaps, finally tortured into giving evidence.
Al-Rawi and el-Banna were taken to Guantanamo in March 2003 – a regime of isolation and casual brutality. Until his release on March 31 this year, Al-Rawi was held in Camp 5, where communication between inmates is impossible.

During his years in prison, Al-Rawi sank into depression. "One tried hard to be normal, to maintain balance. The thing was, the people around me were suffering so much and in the end you can't help feeling pretty bad yourself. Jamil knew his mother wasn't well and he begged to be allowed to phone her, to speak to her before she died. They refused and she passed away last year."

Only his lawyers, including Peirce, Clive Stafford Smith and Zachary Katznelson from the campaign group Reprieve, and the letters from wellwishers kept him going. "The first lawyer I met was an American, Brent Mickum. I felt like a drowning man in the ocean who had suddenly been given a lifeline."

MI5, it was evident, had not fulfilled its promise to help Al-Rawi if he ever got into trouble. But after he had been in Guantanamo for about six months, an officer came to see him. "It was someone I hadn't seen before. He asked me, 'Do you feel betrayed?'"

Later, his former handler Alex paid a visit. "He was nice enough. He asked if I wanted anything. I asked for a book. He never came back and I never got the book."

His last and strangest visit came from MI5 officers Matt and Martin. Al-Rawi says they tried to recruit him again, saying: "You know, Bisher, if you agree to work for us when you get back to Britain, we'll get you out." There was to be yet another broken promise. When Al-Rawi came before a Guantanamo tribunal supposed to assess whether his detention was justified, he asked for Matt, Alex and Simon to corroborate his story as witnesses.

The British refused to identify them, and the Americans said that because he did not know their full, real names, they could not be traced.

Al-Rawi has now been cleared by the Americans of being involved in terrorism and deemed to pose no threat to America or its allies.

Perhaps surprisingly, he says he feels no bitterness towards America or Americans in general. MI5, however, has left him deeply disappointed. "I used to think of them as cool, tough, as gentlemen. I used to speak about them in the Muslim community, saying they had a level of dignity and that we could trust them.

"When I got back home, one of the first messages I got was from a friend who said, 'Bisher, they weren't very honourable, were they?' I suppose he was right. All the credit for what I went through goes to them."

Prisoner 'Fears Leaving' Guantanamo

Taken from Al-Jezeera News Agency, JULY 28, 2007

The lawyer of an Algerian man held in Guantanamo Bay has said his client faces persecution if he is returned home and at least two dozen Guantanamo detainees have expressed similar fears.

But a US federal judge on Friday rejected an emergency motion to prevent Ahmed Bel Bacha, the Algerian detainee, from being repatriated.


Many have protested against the US prison

Lawyers filed the motion because they believe the US will soon repatriate Bel Bacha and six other Algerians.

Zachary Katznelson, a lawyer for Bel Bacha, said he feared the Algerian government would mistreat his client because he had been "unjustly branded" a "terrorist".

He also said Bel Bacha, an Algerian army veteran, feared he would be hunted by al-Qaeda's North African affiliate because he worked for a government-owned oil company and had been called for another term of military service.

Katznelson said his client would rather stay in Guantanamo than return to Algeria.

Rights abuses
Navy Commander Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, said: "Detainees are not repatriated to countries where credible assurances of humane treatment cannot be guaranteed."

He declined to comment specifically on Bel Bacha's case.

But the US state department has noted, in a 2006 report that cites international and local rights groups, that Algeria's security forces have been accused of torturing suspects.

Stuffing a rag into a suspect's mouth while forcing contaminated liquids into the stomach until the person vomited was the preferred method because it left no traces of assault, the report said.

A US military spokesman said the US requires pledges that countries receiving detainees from Guantanamo will treat them humanely.

Human rights groups have dismissed such assurances as worthless.

Solitary confinement
The Pentagon alleges Bel Bacha had weapons training in Afghanistan and twice met Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader.

A recent military review process, though, determined Bel Bacha did not pose a threat and found him eligible for transfer.

Bel Bacha had lived briefly in the UK, where he worked as a waiter before his capture in Pakistan.


More than 300 people remain incarcerated at the US's Guantanamo Bay prison

Lawyers have lobbied the British government to accept him, along with other British residents held at Guantanamo, but the UK has refused because the detainees do not have British citizenship.

Bel Bacha was taken to Guantanamo more than five years ago and is held in a solid-wall cell by himself for up to 22-hours a day.

About 80 detainees at Guantanamo are currently awaiting transfer, but another 360 remain incarcerated at Guantanamo, where most are in their sixth year of detention without charges.

Study criticised
A US military study that says the majority of Guantanamo detainees are a "demonstrated threat" was criticised on Thursday.

The study, commissioned by the Pentagon, reviewed unclassified summaries of evidence against 516 detainees who were processed by tribunals at Guantanamo Bay in 2004 and 2005.

Based on this evidence, the study found that 73 per cent of the detainees were a "demonstrated threat", but six posed no threat and the others were either "potential threats" or "associated threats".

But Mark Denbeaux, a professor at Seton Hall University Law School in New Jersey and the leader of another report on Guantanamo detainees, called the assessment "reverse engineering".

"What they've done is attempt to create a new category called 'dangerous people'. And they have a hierarchy - tier one, tier two, tier three dangerousness," he said.

"It's really reverse engineering. They looked at the data, tried to find facts and created categories."

Al-Qaeda fighters
Denbeaux's report found that only eight per cent of detainees had been described by the US military as al-Qaeda fighters and that 55 per cent had not committed any hostile acts against the US.

Denbeaux said: "They want to shift the debate from whether they are enemy combatants - and the fact that they are not enemy combatants by a definition everybody accepts - to a new category ... which is that they are dangerous."

But the military report said Denbeaux's team had used too narrow a set of criteria in evaluating the evidence against the detainees.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, defended its report: "The department is confident that the CSRT (Combatant Status Review Tribunal) process as it is designed to determine enemy combatant status is sound and working effectively."

He said that the military has declared detainees "no longer enemy combatants" after annual reviews and transferred them to their home countries.

The variables used in the Pentagon's study to classify a detainee as a "demonstrated threat" included whether he had been identified as a fighter, had trained at an al-Qaeda or Taliban camp or had received weapons training beyond small arms.

At the other end of the scale, those deemed an "associated threat" had a "connection" to a member of al-Qaeda or other group, had stayed at a "suspect" guest house, had travelled to three or more countries, or were carrying large amounts of foreign currency.

United States: Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Taken from the Jerusalem Post, Jul. 26, 2007
By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER

Lt-Col. Stephen Abraham walked into the middle of a brewing storm when he took his place among a three-person panel of military officers in November 2004 to review whether the US had sufficient evidence to hold a foreign national as an unlawful enemy combatant at the notorious Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention facility.

The key factor which accounted for the prisoner's incarceration was a specific piece of information allegedly found in his pocket, Abraham recounts, not willing to give more details because of the confidential nature of the proceedings.

That information was incriminating, but also could have had an innocent origin entirely unrelated to terrorist intentions. So Abraham and the rest of the Combatant Status Review Tribunal asked the "recorder" - the officer who presents the government's case to the board - some questions about how the material got there. Finally, getting no satisfactory answers, they asked if the American investigators had asked the detainee where the information came from and why he had it.

"They hadn't even asked any of those questions - fundamental questions," he recalls. "It makes it preposterous that you would draw any conclusions."

With such little information to go on, Abraham and the rest of the panel recommended the detainee be let go. But their superiors pressured them to keep the case open, during which time the captive would continue to be held, according to Abraham. "We said [he was] not an enemy combatant. We were told to leave it open."

All of which led Abraham, an Intelligence Corps reservist, to conclude that the process was "fundamentally flawed" and "created in a way that could only lead to an incomplete picture."

He said as much in an affidavit submitted last month to the US Supreme Court, which is considering the case of detainees who maintain that they're entitled to a trial. An earlier court decision compelled the Pentagon to set up the CSRTs to review the grounds on which more than 500 individuals were being held (now that number hovers around 350).

Abraham took the extraordinary step - becoming the first member of a CSRT to speak out against the tribunal procedures - after his commander endorsed the process in a statement to a lower court.

"It was a very incomplete picture and one that could tend to lead a court to believe that the actual fulfilling of those functions was done adequately," charges Abraham, who found himself at the center of the international controversy over the operations at Guantanamo, which have seen the US deluged with criticism.

Abraham's actions have since been backed up by a federal court, which ruled last week that the government must turn over all of the evidence collected against the detainees who are suing, not just that information the recorder has presented. And on July 26, he further testified before a House committee.

When Abraham decided to speak up, breaking a code of silence that has surrounded these deliberations, it was a dangerous move, according to many observers. The 46-year-old attorney dismisses such talk. While the military has kept the names of those who serve on the CSRT secret, Abraham says he was never told not to talk about his experiences. And, he notes, "I still remain a member of the reserves… nothing has changed in my status."

But there is undeniably a certain amount of risk in saying what others aren't on a highly contentious and politically divisive issue. Abraham credits his Jewish heritage in large part for compelling him to take such as step.

"My nice Jewish mom, she's torn between being proud and already tearing the cloth," he quips.

While his mother might be the one with Jewish angst about the course Abraham has chosen, it's his father who inspired him to join the military in the first place. Unlike most of his family, Claude Kurt Abraham survived the Holocaust and made his way from Germany to America - "He came to the United States just in time to graduate high school and get drafted for Korea," as Abraham puts it.

The experience of America affected both elder and younger Abrahams. "My roots led me to join the military, they led me to reaffirm my love of this country and love of its ideals," Abraham explains. "I joined the military as a way of thanking the country for what we have and mindful of the fact that free is not a part of freedoms - there's a cost for it."

In his case, he paid with five years of active duty as an intelligence officer and 21 years - and counting - as a reservist. When September 11 hit, he found himself called up for a year of active duty as the senior terrorism analyst for the Pacific theater. He had only returned to his California law firm, where he practices small business and real-estate law, for some six months when he was informed that the army wanted him for another tour, a half-year stint connected to the boards reviewing detainees at Guantanamo.

During the time between Abraham's first and second post-9/11 tours, the story of America's War on Terror had become as much about US actions as those of its enemies. Particular scrutiny had been and continues to be paid to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, which is being used to hold men accused of belonging to al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Though Abraham spent most of his second tour in Washington, he visited Guantanamo on one occasion and found it "spartan" and "isolated." "I would not like to spend a year or two in Guantanamo," he says. "It's not a fun place."

At the same time, he notes that even within the continental United States worse holding facilities exist, and "you have the worst of the worst. How do you hold these people?"

The unique difficulties in housing an enemy that represents no country and ferreting out information that could be crucial to preventing mass casualties at the press of a button were among the reasons the US government cited for creating the facility after the hostilities in Afghanistan began. This holding ground for alleged terrorists quickly drew fire for failing to grant the detainees prisoner-of-war status, which carries certain protections under the Geneva Conventions. At the same time, indefinitely held detainees haven't been granted trials or systematic access to lawyers able to review the evidence being used to hold them. In a growing number of cases, the US has had to release prisoners held for years after it became apparent they were being detained mistakenly.

Detractors, many of them in the Middle East, have accused America of hypocrisy by such practices, as well as interrogation techniques they term torture. Abraham says that the US was too quick to suspend "fundamental" constitutional rights, such as the habeas corpus right to know why you are being held.

"I as much as anyone appreciate the consequences of acts of terror," he says. "It's a very serious issue. But also a serious issue is how we and other democracies respond to it. Because there are people who are looking at terrorist acts and there are people that are looking at us as we respond to it. And so many people are looking for the opportunities for us to descend or separate ourselves from the principles of democracy, from our constitutional principles. And I think the moment that we do that, they perceive us as having inflicted a greater harm upon ourselves than could any terrorist."

Recently, the administration - nudged by a series of court verdicts questioning aspects of its Guantanamo policy - has acknowledged problems in running the detention camp, including public relations ones, and has begun to look at ways to close it down while still holding many of the prisoners somewhere else.

At a recent press briefing in Washington, Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes was questioned about Guantanamo, which was described by an Arab journalist as "destroying all these efforts" by America at winning over Muslim countries. She responded that "we are working to close Guantanamo... It's something that I would very much like and President [George W.] Bush would very much like to see - Guantanamo be able to be closed - because we recognize that it has become a negative symbol."

Abraham know that he was walking into a potential minefield when he was asked to help pass judgment on cases so scrutinized by the three branches of government. But he didn't know he would be pressured by superiors to find that those being held should be kept in custody, that lack of evidence meant the record should be culled once again for scraps of illegal activity. The mind-set, according to the lawyer, was one of guilty until proven innocent.

Once Abraham's affidavit entered the public sphere, the military initially argued that he hadn't seen enough of the proceedings to be able to speak authoritatively on what was going on, according to The Washington Post. In comments to the Associated Press, Pentagon spokesman, navy Lt.-Cmdr. Chito Peppler, said that "Lt.-Col. Abraham was not in a position to have a complete view of the CSRT."

Abraham acknowledges that he only sat on one CSRT, but suspects that's because his commanding officer didn't like his finding that the detainee should be let go. But he says another function was putting in order the records of all the detainees, so he was able to see all of the cases - and virtually every one suffered from the same flawed standards.

When The Jerusalem Post called Peppler and asked whether he could comment on issues connected to Abraham's statements, he said, "Not at this time" and hung up. He told other media, however, that military officials "disagree with [Abraham's] characterizations" and called the review process "fair, rigorous and robust." Pentagon officials have also been widely quoted as saying that the CSRTS "afford greater protections for wartime detainees than any nation has ever provided."

Defense sources also told The Washington Post that Abraham never reported his concerns to his superior, Rear-Adm. James McGarrah.

But Abraham says he repeatedly brought up his concerns - and that it was McGarrah who prompted him to speak out by offering his own affidavit that the procedures were carefully conceived.

Despite that impetus, Abraham got involved in the first place because his sister, also an attorney and an army reservist, happened to mention that her brother had served on a CSRT after the counsel for detainee Khaled al-Odah made a presentation at her law firm. They asked if he would submit an affidavit on their behalf, which he agreed to do.

He said that the principles he was raised with - both Jewish and American - convinced him it was the right thing to do. "I was raised with a fundamental appreciation of our rights and our liberties and the fact... you know, the Pledge of Allegiance, 'with liberty and justice for all,' no limitations there - it didn't say all citizens, or all men and women, or all people over a certain age."

He also reflects on the Constitution - its words and its connection to a heritage in line with Jewish values. "You think back to the Constitution and they're talking about 'secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.' I mean, it really is a heritage that we pass on and, as a Jew, I feel that so strongly because World War II deprived me of the opportunity to know half of my grandparents, to know so many members of my family. [It was] such an effort to extinguish that heritage." Fighting against that, he says, motivates much of what he does.

"The Constitution was written more than 200 years ago. They didn't write it for a generation. They didn't write it for a time. They assumed that in each generation there would be so much of merit in it, that each person would not only embrace it for themselves but for their posterity," he notes. "These are very Jewish ideals in the Constitution. I don't know how well that plays, but it is - it is the way that we are, it is the way that we treat others even if we are not treated that way."

Jews, he says, need to "appreciate these things in the context of very specific points in history when we were deprived of those rights and other rights, as in the expulsion of the Jews 400 years ago, our expulsion from Spain, our expulsion from England, our expulsion from every country.

"We cannot separate ourselves from this history. We shouldn't want to separate it ourselves from this history. I think it makes us appreciate it. I think it makes 'in our posterity,' that part of the preamble, really some of the most important words in the Constitution. That is what my parents instilled in me. I hope I have done and continue to do them credit by those lessons."

Gorbachev Says U.S. Is Sowing World ‘Disorder’

Ex-Soviet premier blasts Bush as helping create ‘very dangerous’ situation

Taken from MSNBC
By Reuters, 27.07.07

Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev criticized the United States, and President Bush in particular, on Friday for sowing disorder across the world by seeking to build an empire.

Gorbachev, who presided over the break-up of the Soviet Union, said Washington had sought to build an empire after the Cold War ended but had failed to understand the changing world.

“The Americans then gave birth to the idea of a new empire, world leadership by a single power, and what followed?” Gorbachev asked reporters at a news conference in Moscow.



“What has followed are unilateral actions, what has followed are wars, what has followed is ignoring the U.N. Security Council, ignoring international law and ignoring the will of the people, even the American people,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Bush say they are friends but ties have been strained by U.S. plans for a missile defense shield in Europe, disagreements over Kosovo and the war in Iraq, and competition for allies in the former Soviet Union.

Rival and enemy?
Many Russians view the United States as a rival and enemy.

Gorbachev, 76, who left politics after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, is deeply unpopular in Russia. Though feted abroad, he is blamed in Russia for sinking the Soviet empire and plunging millions into poverty.

“When I look at today’s world I have a worrying feeling about the growth of world disorder,” he said.

“I don’t think the current president of the United States and his administration will be able to change the situation as it is developing now — it is very dangerous,” he said.

‘Massive strategic mistake’Gorbachev said Russia’s hopes of building stronger ties with Washington had waned in the face of a series of U.S. administrations interested in building an empire.

“It is a massive strategic mistake: no single center can command the entire world, no one,” he said. “Current America has made so many mistakes.”

He said the U.S. administration was apparently unable to adapt to a swiftly changing world and had ignored — or was unable to see — the rise of Brazil, Russia, India and China as economic heavyweights.

Treaties limiting the number of nuclear weapons should be observed, he said, adding that officials in Washington should be wary of sparking a new arms race.

Gorbachev, who became Soviet leader in 1985, battled against the conservative wing of the Communist Party to push through reforms that dismantled the one-party system, freed the press and ended restrictions on religion.

The father of “glasnost” (openness) said he supported Putin’s policies but that the pro-Kremlin United Russia party had eroded democratic rights.

He said Putin’s “seriousness” as a leader would be assured if he left office according to the constitution. Putin says he will leave office in 2008 after two terms in office.

New U.S. Embassy Rises In Iraq

What's the largest project, well actually the only project in Iraq, that is on budget & on schedule to finish? - You guessed it - Here's an update as published by the LA Times.

Conspicuously huge and self-contained but deemed inadequate for a disaster scenario, the compound is already taking fire

Taken from the LA Times, 24/07/2007
By Alexandra Zavis

BAGHDAD — Huge, expensive and dogged by controversy, the new U.S. Embassy compound nearing completion here epitomizes to many Iraqis the worst of the U.S. tenure in Iraq.

"It's all for them, all of Iraq's resources, water, electricity, security," said Raid Kadhim Kareem, who has watched the buildings go up at a floodlighted site bristling with construction cranes from his post guarding an abandoned home on the other side of the Tigris River. "It's as if it's their country, and we are guests staying here."

Despite its brash scale and nearly $600-million cost, the compound designed to accommodate more than 1,000 people is not big enough, and may not be safe enough if a major military pullout leaves the country engulfed in a heightened civil war, U.S. planners now say.

Militants have fired shells into the compound in the fortified Green Zone, where more than 85 rocket and mortar strikes have killed at least 16 people since February, according to a United Nations report last month. Five more people died in fierce barrages this month.

"Having the 'heavily fortified Green Zone' doesn't matter one iota" when it comes to rocket and mortar attacks, said one senior military officer.

Like much U.S. planning in Iraq, the embassy was conceived nearly three years ago on rosy assumptions that stability was around the corner, and that the military effort would gradually draw down, leaving behind a vast array of civilian experts who would remain intimately engaged in Iraqi state-building. The result is what some analysts are describing as a $592-million anachronism.

"It really is sort of betwixt and between," said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations who advises the Defense Department. "It's bigger than it should be if you really expect Iraq to stabilize. It's not as big as it needs to be to be the nerve center of an ongoing war effort."


Map of Baghdad


HIGH SECURITY: An artist’s rendering of the U.S. Embassy. Architectural plans were leaked on the Internet in May.


When the compound is completed in September, the compound will have the amenities of a small town, including six apartment buildings, a palm-fringed swimming pool, a gym, fast-food outlets and a barbershop.


The embassy is designed to be entirely self-sufficient, boasting its own power plant, wells and wastewater treatment system, according to a December 2005 report for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.


Despite its and nearly $600-million price tag, the embassy is not big enough, and may not be safe enough in case of a heightened civil war, U.S. planners now say about the compound.


According to U.S. officials, the facility was built on the assumption the military presence in Iraq would have diminished by now, so little room was included for military personnel.

In a stunning security breach, architectural plans for the compound were briefly posted on the Internet in May.

"If the government of Iraq collapses and becomes transparently just one party in a civil war, you've got Ft. Apache in the middle of Indian country, but the Indians have mortars now," Biddle said.

When completed in September, the compound will have the amenities of a small town, with six apartment buildings, a palm-fringed swimming pool, a gym, fast-food outlets, a barbershop and beauty salon, and a commissary stocked with the comforts of home. It is designed to be entirely self-sufficient, boasting its own power plant, wells and wastewater treatment system, according to a December 2005 report for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Plans are also being drawn up to build short-term housing for several hundred additional people on a currently unused portion of the site, said Patrick F. Kennedy, the State Department's management policy chief, who traveled to Iraq in May to review embassy staffing. How much the housing will add to the price tag has not been determined.

The project echoes another mega-embassy where diplomats, spies and army brass met for drinks and golf dates in a slice of America amid the escalating chaos in Somalia. That compound, which dwarfed even the Baghdad facility, was dismantled by looters after the overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

The magnitude of the new compound, with nearly the same acreage as Vatican City, has convinced many Iraqis that the United States harbors long-term ambitions here, even as domestic pressure mounts to start bringing the troops home.

"They're not leaving Iraq for a long time," said Hashim Hamad Ali, another guard, who called the compound "a symbol of oppression and injustice."

The compound was designed to accommodate career diplomats, representatives of almost every major U.S. government agency and their security personnel. But U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it had been assumed that the military presence would have diminished by now, so little room was included for them, which could make coordination between the civilian and military aspects of the U.S. mission difficult.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, and hundreds of headquarters staff work out of the current embassy.

Adding pressure on the available space is the unusually high number of non-Iraqi workers doing temporary jobs that would be handled by local nationals at other embassies, officials here said. All of those workers need to be housed.

"Just as the military is surging, the State Department is surging too," said Kennedy of the State Department. Although he declined to discuss precise figures, he said space would be made available in the new compound for some, though not all, of the military headquarters staff. Most temporary foreign hires would also live and work there, though some would be assigned to other facilities depending on their functions.

"Now we do end up short on some housing," he said.

The U.S. Embassy is currently housed in Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace, also inside the 5-square-mile Green Zone. Employees work inside plywood cubicles in the cavernous marble halls and typically share digs in a vast trailer park that offers little protection against the near-daily assault of rockets and mortar rounds.

The decision to occupy what had been the center of Hussein's oppressive rule was criticized at the time for the message it might convey about U.S. intentions in Iraq. In October 2004, the U.S.-appointed interim government transferred to the United States 104 acres of riverfront parkland for a new embassy with "hardened" accommodation.

The deal was part of a land swap in which the United States agreed to hand back three properties, including the palace, to the Iraqi government in return for the use of the new site and two properties in other cities, Kennedy said.

The Bush administration asked for more than $1 billion to build the new facility, which it said could be completed in two years. But Congress shaved the price tag by nearly half.

The lead builder is Kuwait-based First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting Co., which has been beset by accusations of deceptive and abusive labor practices on the project. The company denies the charges. Investigations by the State Department's inspector general and his counterpart in the U.S. military in Iraq found no evidence of wrongdoing. The Justice Department refused to confirm or deny reports that it too was investigating the allegations.

The embassy has also complained about shoddy workmanship at a facility to house security guards, an issue that the State Department says it has raised with the builders and that should not delay completion of the project.

The deadline for completion, originally set for June, was delayed three months due to the complications of building in a war zone, Kennedy said.

"Convoys have been delayed from time to time. There have been some rockets that have fallen in the compound," he said, without elaborating. "But we have every anticipation that come Sept. 1, the construction will be complete."

Embassy staff will move into the compound after an inspection and certification process that is expected to take weeks.

Kennedy said that it made financial sense to combine living and working quarters.

Security measures will be extraordinary, even by standards imposed since the Al Qaeda terrorist network bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. Structures will be reinforced to 2 1/2 times the standard with additional setbacks and perimeter clearance areas, five high-security entrances plus an emergency exit, according to the Senate report.

But in May, detailed architectural plans were briefly posted on the website of Berger Devine Yaeger Inc., an American firm contracted to design the facility. The company promptly removed the plans when contacted by the State Department on May 31. By then, the plans had been picked up by numerous other websites.

The walled site in the middle of Baghdad is also within easy range of Sunni and Shiite Muslim militants, whose attacks on the Green Zone are becoming more frequent and deadly. The U.S. military refuses to provide figures on the strikes, saying it would aid the assailants.

The American Foreign Service Assn., the professional body representing State Department employees, questions why the Bush administration is sending more civilians into a deteriorating war zone, when they are only rarely permitted to interact with Iraqis outside the Green Zone — an essential part of their job.

"The general risk is in an order of magnitude greater than it would take to close any other embassy in the world," said Ambassador J. Anthony Holmes, a former president of the association.

Afghanistan's 'Last King' Dies (Was He Good Or Bad?)

Mohammed Zahir Shah, the former Afghan king, had died aged 92. Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president (also a distant relative of the late King), speaking from the presidential palace, said: "With paramount grief, I would like to inform my countrymen that ... Mohammad Zahir Shah has bid farewell to this mortal world." The former king's reign is remembered as one of the most peaceful periods of Afghanistan's history - but what is the real story? Robert Frisk of the Independent newspaper in the UK offers a different prospective of the late king to those found in other medias...

Zahir Shah: The last king of Afghanistan (Taken from The Independent, UK, 24.07.07)

He was King of a nation that, in the minds of many, does not really exist. He was a feudal master who believed in liberating women. He was a figurehead who lived a life of luxury in exile while his people suffered the agonies of war and occupation.

The story of Zahir Shah is the story of Western arrogance and Eastern impotence, argues Robert Fisk

When I arrived in Afghanistan to cover the 1979 Soviet invasion, I mischeviously purchased a huge tin of talcum powder, produced by a German factory in Kabul and called – for local consumption – " Buzkashi". The front of the tin was illustrated with a portrait of a massive Afghan warrior in long red robes, riding towards the purchaser upon a fiery steed and with an expression of utmost ferocity on his bearded face.

What puzzled me was why a talcum manufacturer would name his product after one of the bloodiest of Asian sports: a mounted version of rugby football played with a decapitated goat – riders were supposed to tug the bloodied corpse of the wretched creature from each other, often ripping the beast apart in the process. Of course, someone German had concluded that this manly sport emphasised the romantic warrior of the desert, the spirit of Afghan individuality amid the rugged landscape – Afghan landscapes were always "rugged" or "forbidding" – although I noticed that the only buyers of Buzkashi were foreigners. Afghans had no interest in this exotic talcum powder.

Zahir Shah was much the same. We in the West loved him. He was a king. He was a unifying figure in a country that many people suspect does not really exist – it was the country's first king, Ahmed Khan, who created Afghanistan in the 18th century – or so we thought. In reality, Zahir was never a really a king. Like the Buzkashi talcum powder, Afghans did not greet his accession in 1933 with roses and song – any more than they did when the Americans freighted the old man back from his Roman exile after the overthrow of the Taliban government. His supporters – those who could remember his calls for democracy, the "free" period as Afghans called it – approved of his written constitution, his enthusiasm for a free press and for the spread of legal political parties. But Zahir was essentially disinterested in this much-trumpeted democracy and the moment that his courtiers warned him that a party system would prove a threat to the monarchy, he refused to sign the new party legislation into law – even though it had been passed by the new parliament. Parties were closed down. So were the newspapers. He created democracy – and then he destroyed it.

Afghanistan has proved a mirage to every foreigner, a land whose images and history – however ferocious – draw back the doomed armies of countries that have already been humiliated over two centuries. The British suffered their greatest pre-Boer War loss of arms in the Victorian age when an entire army was massacred in the Kabul Gorge in 1842. We lost again in the Second Afghan War when the British were defeated at the Battle of Maiwand; young, black-turbaned Afghan students would choose a grenadier and hurl themselves towards this one man, drag him from the ranks of his comrades and cut his throat. They were called "Talibs" or "Taliban". Many of the Afghan warriors were led by a girl called Malalei – she later fell victim to British bullets – who tore off her veil to use as a flag. The young Zahir Shah, when he ascended the throne at the age of 19, would have approved. He was, after all, a man who believed in modernisation and women's rights and the unveiling of women. The Russians, after a century of diplomatic humiliation in Afghanistan, spent 10 years in occupation, only to leave in further humiliation – a frustration that they finally vented on the equally innocent Muslims of Chechnya.

But there was another Zahir Shah, who liked to "unveil" women in a far less liberating way. In his early years as king – when he was a mere boy by Asian standards – his two uncles, who effectively ruled the country, supplied him with a driver and a black Chevrolet. The job of "the man in the black Chevrolet" – as he was known in the streets of Kabul – was to tour the colleges of Kabul and choose the most desirable girls for the king's bed. The Afghans has a word for their pleasure-loving king – " ayoshi" – which roughly translates as "having a good time" . "Ayoshi" is not a polite word. Even so, in a country whose kings were alost all cruel – Amanullah, the reformist Shah was an exception – Zahir was a peaceful man. He did not want to involve himself in politics; indeed, he had no interest in political life. He was an artist who loved paintings and books. He was actually taking a mud bath in Italy when his cousin Daoud – a highly ambitious prime minister who adored politics – staged his bloodless coup d'etat in 1973.

And what did our favourite Afghan king do as his country descended into foreign invasion, occupation, mass murder, civil war and Islamic puritanism of the least educated kind? He enjoyed Rome. Just as he ignored the possibility of war with Pakistan when he was King, so he largely ignored the catastrophe of his country when he was enjoying his long years of exile. His life in Rome, his visitors reported back to Kabul, was very much like the life he had lived in his royal palace at home. He was happy with his art and archaeology books and sport, and with his friends among the Italian upper classes. True, he occasionally – very occasionally – expressed his sorrow at the chaos of Afghanistan. But he was a man of the past, a victim of politics rather than a leader, a long-forgotten figurehead – until the Americans rediscovered him – for whom the dramas of his homeland were like the shadows in Plato's cave, mere ghosts of the titanic tragedy played out 2,000 miles from Rome.

His life, of course, encompassed a familiar narrative of the 20th and early 21st centuries; exile amid the ambitions of others and then the resmption of colonial rule, first under the Russians and then – after the overthrow of Mullah Omar (a man who at least understood the history of Afghanistan and acted a role in it, however perverse) – under the Americans and British. As the poppy crop was reborn under Nato's gaze, the British found themselves fighting for their lives in Helmand and on the very site – did they realise this? – of the Battle of Maiwand. The Taliban know their history even if the British do not.

And yet, it was to the ageing king that the Bushes and the Blairs turned when they needed a "unifying" figure to reunite the Afghans. In reality, it was folly to think that the old man culd be taken from his Saturnalian life of ease in Rome to play the one game in which he was never interested: politics. Yes, he was exotic. He was, after all, a king, even if he had no robes to match those of Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's impotent President. But he was attractive to us in the same way that all monarchs appear useful in the West. He was educated, pro-Western, pro-democracy (up to a point) and, though a Pashtun, a supposedly popular figure across all Afghanistan's tribes. He was not. But we like to promote these people because we feel they are "safe". We understand monarchies, and Zahir, though he was closer to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in his desire to " secularise" his country (why must we always expect Muslim countries to be "secularised"?), was a king and we are familiar with kings and queens. We liked King Idris of Libya and King Farouk of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan, just as – after we were forced to dispense with Idris and Farouk and replace them with supposedly pro-Western colonels and generals – we continue to love King Abdullah of Jordan and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and all the other princes and emirs of the Gulf.

That is why the Americans – and, to a lesser extent, the British – thought that they could return Zahir to create a land of peace. His welcome was supposed to be as glorious as that which was supposed to be accorded the Americans and the British in Iraq. It was a dream; it was our Orientalist view of how the Afghans should behave. We thought the natives would admire this symbol of old-world élitism because – and here's the rub – old Zahir Shah was more like "us" than "them", more European than Afghan, more secularist than Muslim. If he was trained as a soldier in Afghanistan, he was educated in France. "I wish just to do things for my country and serve it," he said pitifully when he returned to Kabul, to be proclaimed by Karzai and the Americans – but few others – as "Father of the Nation". When he ascended the throne in 1933, he was hailed as a new star in the Afghan firmament, a foreign-educated man who could modernise his country, govern during a period of rapid transition to " modern political institutions". I'm quoting from a US history book published the year before Zahir's overthrow by Daoud. The same words were pulled out of the drawer for reuse in 2002. Will we ever learn?

Afghanistan: a history soaked in blood
Compiled by Simon Usborne

1919 - Afghanistan gains independence after a third war against British forces, which for decades have sought to annex the country from India. Amir Amanullah Khan appoints himself king in 1926 but flees two years later after his campaign of social and economic reform leads to civil unrest.

1933 - Zahir Shah becomes king. Afghanistan would remain a relatively stable and progressive monarchy for the next 40 years. The US recognises the state in 1934; in the 1950s the Soviet Union becomes a strong ally.

1973 - Mohammed Daoud Khan overthrows Shah in a military coup. He abolishes the monarchy and establishes the Republic of Afghanistan, with firm ties to the USSR.

1978 - Khan is killed in a Communist coup led by Noor Mohammad Taraki who becomes President and bases his policies on Islamic principles. Conservative Islamic leaders begin an armed revolt and the mujahedin guerrilla movement is created to fight the Soviet-backed government.

1979 - The USSR invades to support the faltering Communist regime. Britain, the US, Pakistan, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia supply money and arms to various mujahedin groups fighting Soviet forces. Osama bin Laden visits in 1984. By 1985 half the population is displaced and Gorbachev vows to withdraw Soviet forces.

1988 - As Soviet troops pull out, Osama bin Laden forms al-Qa'ida. The group claims victory over the Soviet Union and shifts its focus to the US as the main obstacle to the establishment of a pure Islamic state.

1992 - After rival militias vie to topple the Soviet-backed government led by Mohammad Najibullah (below left), the mujahedin forms an Islamic state, installing Burhanuddin Rabbani as President.

1995 - The Taliban militia seizes Kabul and establishes an ultra-conservative regime. Women cannot work and Islamic law is enforced via public executions. Ethnic groups, including those under the Northern Alliance, fight back.

1998 - After al-Qa'ida bombs American embassies in Africa, President Clinton orders missile attacks against bin Laden's Afghan training camps. The Taliban rejects US attempts to have bin Laden extradited. The UN imposes sanctions in 2000.

2001 - US and British forces launch airstrikes on Taliban and al-Qa'ida targets following the September 11 attacks. By December, the Northern Alliance has ousted the Taliban and US-backed Hamid Karzai (above) is sworn in as leader.

2004 - As violence increases and Nato takes control of Kabul, the Grand Council adopts a new constitution and Karzai is elected President. Parliamentary elections follow a year later. But violence builds as Taliban fighters reorganise, especially in the south. In 2006, Nato takes control of security.

2007 - Coalition and Afghan forces launch Operation Achilles as the Taliban continues to engage in heavy fighting in the south. Former king Zahir Shah dies aged 92 after a long illness.

Israeli Education Ministry Okays New Textbook Featuring Nakba

Ministry gives go-ahead for use of book acknowledging Nakba in Arab schools. 'Book offers Arab pupils a balanced picture' says Minister Yuli Tamir

Taken from Ynet News, Israel, 22.07.07
By Moran Zelikovich

The Education Ministry has authorized Arab schools to use a history book featuring the establishment of the State of Israel as being disastrous for the Palestinians, Israel Radio reported Sunday.



The third-grade book, Living together in Israel, states that some Arab residents were driven out of their homes and became refugees and that Israel confiscated much of their land.



The book's authors made a point of stating that it was the Arabs who refused the United Nations offer to divide the land between the Palestinian and the Jews (UN resolution 181), while the Jews accepted it.

"When the war ended, the Jews prevailed and Israel and its neighbors signed a truce… the Arabs call the war the 'Nakba', meaning the war of disaster and destruction. The Jews call it the War of Independence."

A balanced picture
Education Minister Yuli Tamir told Ynet Sunday that the ministry's decision was "part of a new curriculum, which has been in the works for a number of years and includes mentioning the Nakba.

"The book underwent an evaluation by a professional viewing board and was sent to dozens of readers prior to being approved for distribution," said Tamir.

"The book offers the Arab pupils a balanced picture, so that they may put what they exposed to in their home environment in the proper context," she added.

The national board of education geography supervisor, Dalia Pening, said the new curriculum is meant to be uniform for all school sectors.

"This program features the term 'Nakba'. When the Hebrew book was translated, we need to make some cultural adjustments," she said. "Writing a version detached from reality is counterproductive to our goal of creating a joint sense of relevance."

Tamir's decision sparked harsh criticism: National Religious Party Chairman MK Zevulun Orlev called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to fire Tamir immediately saying her decision was "anti-Zionist and goes against the very existence of Israel as a Jewish state."

Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman slammed Tamir's decision as well "Tamir is like Avraham Burg. She expresses not only the post-Zionist spirit but also political masochism. The political left is constantly looking for ways to justify the other side, when we have nothing to apologize for."

Former education minister MK Limor Livnat (Likud) called the decision "miserable" adding that "once the Arab pupils are taught that the establishment of Israel was a disaster, they might infer that they should be fighting against us… our very own educational system may be raising a fifth column," said Livnat.

This is not the first time Tamir has authorized a controversial book be added to the schools curriculum. In December 2006 she ordered new textbooks featuring the Green Line – Israel's borders prior to the Six Day War – be distributed.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Education Minister Yuli Tamir is a brave politician and has done the right thing. History cannot be distorted or hidden, no one is dumb enough to state that the recreation of Israel in Palestine has not affected the Palestinian and neighbouring arab countries. Before the creation of Isreal Jews lived in Arab countries freely, they still do today - Iran has the largest Jewish community outside Israel, last week they were offered monies to live in Israel but they refused. Thier life is in Iran not Israel. They are also wise enough to face the reality that Arab Israelis are classed as second class citizens in Israel. Settlers from Europe and the Americas are first class citizens. Anyway going back to the point, this book will tell the truth to the Palestinian children and might even stop any false information being taught taht would make them even angrier. The fact of the matter is that Israel has for the first time admitted that the creation of Israel (by wiping Palestine off the map) has been a disaster for the Palestinians. The only way forward is for all parties to live in one country peacefully - not two or three different states. All people Jews, Muslims and Christians must live under one roof equally - until this is done the problems will never go away.

Iran Attack Could Be 2nd Holocaust, Gingrich Warns

Former US House speaker, who is considering running for presidency on Republican ticket, warns that if Iran acquires nukes, Israel and US would be under severe threat; 'Firing one or more bombs at Israel could be a second Holocaust for the Jewish people,' Gingrich says

Taken from Ynet News, Israel, 20.07.07
By Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON – Former House speaker and possible presidential contender Newt Gingrich said Thursday that the United States should make efforts to bring about a regime change in Iran and warned against the dangers of Tehran attaining nuclear weapons.

An Iranian nuclear strike on the United States could be more devastating than the Japanese attack in 1941, Gingrich told Project Israel, a non-profit organization established to provide the American media with information on Israel.



On Thursday Project Israel held a press conference on the Iranian threat, and invited presidential hopefuls to participate and voice their opinions on the issue.

"The stakes for Israel are even graver," Gingrich said. "The use of one or more nuclear weapons against Israel would constitute a second genocide of the Jewish people," said Gingrich, who is apparently considering running on theRepublican ticket.

Gingrich emphasized the gravity of the Iranian threat in his statement: "Indeed, the Iranian President does not even require us to read a book like Mein Kampf to understand how serious he is.

He enthusiastically makes speeches proclaiming to the world his commitment to genocidal annihilation of another nation."

"Meanwhile the civilized world wrings its hands and the United Nations acts with contemptible weakness," he added.

Rival Democratic candidate Senator Hillary Clinton issued a statement noting that American policy on Iran must be "clear, unambiguous and effective."

The US cannot let Iran build or acquire nuclear weapons, nor support terrorism, she said.

The senator responded firmly to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that Israel should be "wiped off the map," saying, "We must not tolerate threats to the existence of Israel."

The leading Democratic candidates told Project Israel that Iran can be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons through economic and diplomatic channels.

Democratic Senator Barack Obama, Clinton's chief Democratic rival, declared that, "Allowing Iran - a radical theocracy that supports terrorism openly threatens its neighbors - to acquire nuclear weapons is a risk we cannot take."

Obama demanded the UN take stronger action and boost sanctions on Tehran. "All nations need to understand that, while Iran's most explicit an intolerable threats are aimed at Israel, its conduct threatens all of us," Obama said. Democratic candidates John Edwards, Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd also said sanctions on Ahmadinejad's regime should be boosted.

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I just have two things to say to Newton Gingrich - I don't believe the Iranian leaders intention is to wipe Israel off the map in terms of destroying Israel and it's citizens - what he was saying is to change the Zionist regime in Israel. Secondly, Gringrich asks for regime change in Iran, well the USA and UK did participate in regime chnage in Iran. The last time we forced a regime change was because the democratically elected government of Dr. Mohammed Mosaddeq of Iran was imposing to nationalise the Oil industry in Iran - Well, we didn't let him because we took control of Iran via a coup and made the Shah of Iran (a puppet of ours) into the supreme leader. The Shah was an evil dictator, who tortured civilians and allowed multinational companies to run the Oil industry in Iran. He opposed democracy. The fact of the matter was that he was given enormous luxuries and finance for letting Allied governments run the oil. The Shah of Iran had no control over the Oil. In fact he was not even allowed to look into the accounts of the oil, he had no record of how much was produced and sold and what level remained in reserve. The only agreement was that Iran would receive a small percentage of profits made from the sale of the Oil (and hence the Country and the people were deprived of the wealth they would have received). The Shah of Iran kept his people poor whilst we enjoyed the benefits of his enormous riches. His secret police were trained by the CIA and Mossad to keep civilians in order and keep him in power. The legacy of the Shah and his brutality didn't last long, he himself was overthrown by the people of Iran via Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and fled the country into exil. The people of Iran hated the Shah and all the western countries that interfered with Iran - that is why there is so much hatred against the US government and it's foreign policies. I say let the people of Iran decide the fate of Iran - That is what they did with the Shah and look what happened to him.

18 Koreans Kidnapped In Afghanistan

Taken from Yahoo News, Fri Jul 20 2007
By By FISNIK ABRASHI, The Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan - Taliban militants threatened Friday to kill at least 18 kidnapped South Korean Christians, including 15 women, within 24 hours unless the Asian nation withdraws its 200 troops from Afghanistan.

In the largest abduction of foreigners since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, several dozen fighters kidnapped the South Koreans at gunpoint from a bus in Ghazni province on Thursday, said Ali Shah Ahmadzai, the provincial police chief.

"They have got until tomorrow (Saturday) at noon to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, or otherwise we will kill the 18 Koreans," Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, told The Associated Press on a satellite telephone from an undisclosed location. "Right now they are safe and sound."

Outmatched by foreign troops, the Taliban often resort to kidnapping civilians caught traveling on treacherous roads, particularly in the country's south, where the insurgency is raging. The tactic hurts President Hamid Karzai's government by discouraging foreigners involved in reconstruction projects from venturing into remote areas where their help is most needed.

The abductions came a day after two Germans and five of Afghan colleagues working on a dam project were kidnapped in central Wardak province.

Ahmadi said the Taliban were also holding the two Germans, and threatened to kill them if Germany did not withdraw its 3,000 troops from a NATO-led force by noon Saturday — the same deadline as he gave South Korea.

Germany's Foreign Ministry said it was "aware of the statement by the so-called spokesman of the Taliban" but that it contradicted a statement the previous day that the Taliban was not holding the Germans.

"We will continue to carefully monitor developments of the situation," ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said. "All necessary steps have been taken. The crisis team continues to work toward a swift release of the two kidnapped men."

On June 28, another German man was kidnapped in western Afghanistan, but was released after a week.

South Korea has about 200 troops serving with an 8,000-strong U.S.-led force, which is separate from the 40,000-member NATO-led force.

It was unclear what the Koreans were doing in Afghanistan.

A year ago, hundreds of South Korean Christians were ordered to leave Afghanistan amid rumors they were proselytizing in the deeply conservative Islamic nation. A member of that group promised they would return to the country in smaller groups, but denied charges of spreading Christianity.

Yonhap reported that most of the hostages were members of the Saemmul Community Church in Bundang, just south of the South Korean capital, Seoul.

An official at the Presbyterian church confirmed 20 of its members were in Afghanistan for volunteer work. The group left South Korea on July 13 and was to return on July 23, she said, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to talk to the media.

There were conflicting reports on how many Koreans were kidnapped.

The South Koreans' bus driver, released late Thursday, said there were 18 women and five men on the bus, Ahmadzai said. The Taliban spokesman said 15 women and three men were seized.

And the South Korean Foreign Ministry reported the abduction of 21 Koreans, including 16 women, according to the country's news agency, Yonhap.

The Koreans were seized as they traveled on a privately rented bus along the main highway from Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar, Ahmadzai said. The militants drove the bus into the desert before abandoning the vehicle and forcing the group to walk for about one hour, he said.

He said the group was in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif before it arrived in Kabul.

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According to the CIA World Factbook, Afganistan represents Sunni Muslim 80%, Shi'a Muslim 19%, and other 1%. This brings me to the question raised in the article - what were these South Korean Christians doing in Afganistan other than to spread Christianity in an occupied country that is represented by Muslims? This gives a bad message to the Muslim world i.e. We, the allied countries have delibrately occupied the country, there is no sign of Bin Laden, all captured terrorists that were taken to Gitmo are released without compensation because (apart from one or two) are all innocent and now we are sending missionaries to convert all Muslims into Christians, all this approved by a puppet government we support, oh and i forgot to mention that production of drugs has increased to record levels whilst we are occupying the country - need I saw more?

Iraqi Jails In 'Appalling' Condition

Crowded detention facilities are overwhelmed by an influx of suspects. Corruption and delays are endemic.

Taken from The LA Times, July 21, 2007
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske

BAGHDAD — A uniformed guard unfastened two padlocks and tugged open a large wooden door, releasing a rush of hot, fetid, sweaty air.

Inside, in a room the size of a high school gymnasium, 505 detainees stood or sat shoulder to shoulder on cardboard boxes and stained mattress pads. Their few clothes, copies of the Koran and other belongings hung from the walls or rafters. Metal ceiling fans barely disturbed the thick air.

The stench of human confinement intensified as the guard led the way to the back of the room and down a dark, flooded hallway to the bathroom, where half-naked detainees stood barefoot amid muddy puddles, broken floor tiles and stopped-up urinals. A shower and sink were filled with human waste.

The guard dropped his cigarette butt in a puddle as detainees relieved themselves in two holes and rinsed off under a broken water pipe.

Things had improved since the morning, the detainees said. The water was flowing.

This facility, the National Police detention center in northwest Baghdad, was intended to house up to 300 inmates when it opened two years ago. Nearly 900 are now crammed inside — an unwieldy mix of suspected insurgents, alleged criminals and apparent innocents.

Other Iraqi detention facilities have seen a similar influx since the launch of the U.S.-led security crackdown in February.

Partially treated wounds, skin diseases and grossly unsanitary conditions appear common here. So, too, is extortion by guards, say U.S. officials who serve as advisors to the Iraqi staff, but disclaim responsibility for the conditions inside.

"They're Iraqi government facilities. We work with the Iraqi government to get their facilities established. It's their responsibility to maintain the facilities, it's their responsibility to provide the guards," said a senior U.S. military official in Baghdad.


An Iraqi prisoner speaks to Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Kareem Khalaf while he escorts the news media on a tour of the National Police detention center in northwest Baghdad.


At the Iraqi-run National Police detention center in northwest Baghdad, detainees sit on the floor with some of their personal items hanging above them.


Detainees pass out simple meals of rice at the National Police detention center. Nearly 900 inmates are crowded in the facility, which was intended to hold 300.


This detainee says he was injured in a mortar attack two weeks ago. Half-treated wounds, skin diseases and grossly unsanitary conditions seem to be common at the detention facility.


According to Iraqi law, detainees should be brought before a judge within 72 hours of their arrest. Most stay for about two months, said Gen. Kareem Ali Chazrage, commander of the National Police division that manages the detention center.

Col. Daniel Britt, who heads the U.S. military's National Police Transition Team, which advises the detention center staff, said the conditions were "appalling" but met international standards.

U.S. soldiers visit almost daily, Britt said.

Iraqi authorities also say that the conditions comply with their laws and invited a reporter and photographer Thursday to tour the facility.

National Police Col. Thamir Mohammed Ismail Husseini, one of the commanders at the detention center, urged detainees to speak up about any problems they had experienced. "You can say what you want, even complaints," he said.

None of the detainees nearby took him up on his invitation.

U.S. officials say Husseini is connected to Al Mahdi, a Shiite Muslim militia loyal to Muqtada Sadr, a radical anti-U.S. cleric.

American commanders blame Al Mahdi for a campaign of sectarian killings aimed at driving Sunni Muslims out of west Baghdad. Most of the detainees here are Sunnis.

U.S. officials say jail staffers release fellow Shiites more quickly than they do Sunnis. "The Shiites will just get released, just let go. The paperwork will be legit, and they just disappear," a U.S. military official said.

According to Iraqi law, detainees should be brought before a judge within 72 hours of their arrest. Most stay for about two months, said Gen. Kareem Ali Chazrage, commander of the National Police division that manages the detention center.

"Sometimes the judicial process is slow, but it is not our fault," Husseini said.

U.S. officials say their own detention centers also have become more crowded since the security plan began Feb. 13 but that they are coping better than the Iraqis.

"There's a flow on the U.S. side and a bunch of bottlenecks on the Iraqi side," said Lt. Col. Steven Miska, commander of the combined U.S. and Iraqi Forward Operating Base Justice in the northwest neighborhood of Kadhimiya. The neighborhood contains the National Police detention center, which once held Saddam Hussein's military intelligence headquarters and was the site of his execution.

Once Husseini left, many detainees said they had been held too long on charges they didn't understand, some unable to contact their families.

Raqi Mishal, 32, a Sunni, had bloody gashes in his forehead and right shoulder. A bandage barely covered a deep, seeping wound in his right bicep.

He said he had been wounded two weeks earlier in a mortar attack on his home in the south Baghdad neighborhood of Dora. "I came to the hospital for that, and they brought me here,"

Mishal said, insisting that he did not know why he had been detained.

The jail's lone medic, who works out of a makeshift clinic, gave him bandages but no medication, Mishal said. Chazrage confirmed that the jail has had trouble stocking medication.

Khalid Hashimi, 24, pointed to his forearm and calf, where he developed a scaly rash after he was detained by the Iraqi army five months ago in Baghdad's Yarmouk neighborhood. The medic gave him a cream, he said, but it hasn't helped.

Unlike U.S. detention centers in Iraq where foreign and juvenile detainees are segregated to prevent insurgent networking, at the National Police detention center, detainees from Syria and youths, some as young as 15, were housed with the rest.

Marwan Sabah, 17, was detained about a week ago. Shortly after, his family received a call from guards who put him on the phone, then said the family would have to pay $20,000 to get him released.

"Where are we supposed to get this kind of money from?" said Sabah's cousin, Abdullah Fadil, 40, in an interview after the tour. "It's a sad situation when the government has reached this point, when we have to pay to get people released."

Fadil, who quit the Iraqi police force seven months ago, said the guards had not contacted them again. "We don't know who to blame," he said. "Is it the government? The militias' fault?"

Chazrage, whose office walls are covered with photographs of him posing with Iraqi and U.S. military commanders, said detainees were not abused and that he had repeatedly opened the detention center to human rights groups.

But Jasim Bahadeli, who leads an Iraqi government committee that inspects detention facilities, said guards tried to prevent him from seeing detainees or taking photographs when he visited the center a month and a half ago. He said guards also tried to hide detainees who were being held without sufficient evidence, as well as women and youths, who are supposed to be transferred to other facilities.

The jail's interrogation room has surveillance cameras, which are supposed to allow commanders to monitor interrogation techniques. Thursday, the equipment was unplugged, the cameras turned toward the walls.

Bahadeli estimated that 60% of detainees are innocent, compared with 40% before the crackdown began. He pressured commanders at the Kadhimiya detention center to release 73 detainees, he said. "If it wasn't for us, they would not have been released. They would have been left there to rot," he said.

Chazrage and other Iraqi commanders at the jail said they had tried to ease the crowding by transferring prisoners. But U.S. military commanders consider that a short-term solution.

Iraqi jail commanders are just "passing on the problem" of overcrowding, and need bigger budgets so they can expand and take better care of added detainees, said Col. Britt of the police transition team.

Chazrage received a U.S. grant this year to build a new barracks, and has promised that the first floor will include a dozen detention rooms, each capable of housing 70 people. The barracks, due to be completed in September, will also feature new bathrooms for detainees and an expanded clinic, Chazrage said.

There are also plans to add at least three judges and 25 investigators at the jail, part of a system-wide expansion, said Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf.

"Our hope is that we go back to the old days where if a person gets stopped, they go to the local jails and they get transferred to the court to be sentenced or released," he said, blaming most of the problems at the National Police facility and other such centers on the surge of detentions.

"It's only the current situation that is causing these problems."

But Bahadeli, the government inspector, said the facilities needed more experienced investigators and judges and more government oversight to ensure the law is enforced. "If they continue like this, they will only get themselves into trouble and it will be their undoing," he said.