Category: News

From the Washington Post:

The very setup of the U.S. presence in Iraq undercut the mission. The chain of command was hazy, with no one individual in charge of the overall American effort in Iraq, a structure that led to frequent clashes between military and civilian officials.

On May 16, 2003, L. Paul Bremer III, the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-run occupation agency, had issued his first order, “De-Baathification of Iraq Society.” The CIA station chief in Baghdad had argued vehemently against the radical move, contending that, “By nightfall, you’ll have driven 30,000 to 50,000 Baathists underground. And in six months, you’ll really regret this.”

He was proved correct, as Bremer’s order, along with a second that dissolved the Iraqi military and national police, created a new class of disenfranchised, threatened leaders.

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NYT Magazine:

The counterfeiting of American currency by North Korea might seem, to some, to be a minor provocation by that country’s standards. North Korea, after all, has exported missile technology in blatant disregard of international norms; engaged in a decades-long campaign of kidnapping citizens of other countries; abandoned pledges not to pursue nuclear weapons; and most recently, on July 4, launched ballistic missiles in defiance of warnings from several countries, including the United States.

But several current and former Bush administration officials whom I spoke with several months ago maintain that the counterfeiting is in important ways a comparable outrage. Michael Green, a former point man for Asia on the National Security Council, told me that in the past, counterfeiting has been seen as an “act of war.” A current senior administration official, who was granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of relations between the United States and North Korea, agreed that the counterfeiting could be construed by some as a hostile act against another nation under international law and added that the counterfeits, by creating mistrust in the American currency, posed a “threat to the American people.”

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From the BBC:

One of the Islamist leaders, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, urged all gunmen not allied to the UIC to surrender their weapons.

“Any attempt to fight the Islamic courts is pointless. We are committed to put Mogadishu under one leadership,” he said.

“Any group that tries to fight the Islamic courts will be destroyed. The Islamic courts have overcome the infidel stooges.”

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From the BBC:

According to reports on a Somali news network, gunmen arrived to close down the cinema in the town of Dhuusa Marreeb in central Galgadud district, where a crowd had gathered to watch the Germany-Italy World Cup semi-final.

Some of the football fans began to protest and according to reports, the gunmen fired in the air in an attempt to disperse them.

When this failed, shots were fired at the demonstrators and two people were killed.

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From the Washington Post:

Ali Iman Sharmarke, a businessman and radio journalist in Mogadishu, said he believed the Islamic militias would lose power if they grew too strict in their interpretation of religious law. “People will hate them as they hated the warlords,” Sharmarke said from Nairobi. “The moderates will not fly with bin Laden.”

But Jamal said it was increasingly apparent that outsiders — bin Laden, the United Nations, the United States, the African Union, Ethiopia, Eritrea — were shaping events, rather than Somalis.

“It looks like the interests of the Somali will not be looked after,” he said. “The situation is really very, very bad right now.”

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June 2006 issue of Crisis Watch, from the International Crisis Group:

Tensions and violence escalated in Israel/Occupied Territories as the Israeli military launched operations into Gaza following the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants. In Sudan, implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement faltered as rebel divisions widened. Insecurity along the border between Chad and Sudan increased as government forces and Chadian rebels renewed fighting. Efforts to resolve the border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea were dealt a setback when Eritrea refused to attend a meeting of the International Boundary Commission in The Hague. For North Korea, U.S. intelligence reports suggesting Pyongyang is preparing to test intercontinental ballistic missiles caused widespread alarm. And in Macedonia the campaign for the 5 July general election was marred by violence. The situation also deteriorated in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Guinea, Morocco, North Caucasus (non-Chechnya), Senegal and Somalia.

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Richard Clarke and Roger Cressey, from the New York Times:

There is, of course, another possible explanation for all the outraged bloviating. It is an election year. Karl Rove has already said that if it were up to the Democrats, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would still be alive. The attacks on the press are part of a political effort by administration officials to use terrorism to divide America, and to scare their supporters to the polls again this year.

The administration and its Congressional backers want to give the impression that they are fighting a courageous battle against those who would wittingly or unknowingly help the terrorists. And with four months left before Election Day, we can expect to hear many more outrageous claims about terrorism — from partisans on both sides. By now, sadly, Americans have come to expect it.

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From the Moscow Times, Chris Floyd on Ron Suskind’s new book “The One Percent Doctrine”:

But perhaps the most revealing moment in Suskind’s book is a brief vignette that captures the quintessence of Bush’s callous disregard for the American people — and the regime’s strange, preternatural calm in the face of imminent attack. In August 2001, while Bush dawdled on his Texas dude ranch, the entire national security system was, in Tenet’s words, “blinking red” in expectation of a major terrorist strike. On Aug. 6, a CIA official brought the infamous “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” memo to Crawford and read it out personally to the president. In response, he got nothing but a snide dismissal: “All right, you’ve covered your ass now.”

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From The New Yorker:

Most Americans, even those who follow politics closely, have probably never heard of Dick Cheney’s chief of staff David S. Addington. But current and former Administration officials say that he has played a central role in shaping the Administration’s legal strategy for the war on terror. Known as the New Paradigm, this strategy rests on a reading of the Constitution that few legal scholars share—namely, that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if national security demands it. Under this framework, statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance have been set aside. A former high-ranking Administration lawyer who worked extensively on national-security issues said that the Administration’s legal positions were, to a remarkable degree, “all Addington.” Another lawyer, Richard L. Shiffrin, who until 2003 was the Pentagon’s deputy general counsel for intelligence, said that Addington was “an unopposable force.”

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AP, from the New York Times:

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a strongly worded dissent, saying the court’s decision would “sorely hamper the president’s ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy.”

The court’s willingness, Thomas said, “to second-guess the determination of the political branches that these conspirators must be brought to justice is both unprecedented and dangerous.”

Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito also filed dissents.

In his own opinion, Justice Stephen Breyer said, “Congress has not issued the executive a ‘blank check.”‘

“Indeed, Congress has denied the president the legislative authority to create military commissions of the kind at issue here. Nothing prevents the president from returning to Congress to seek the authority he believes necessary,” Breyer wrote.

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From the BBC:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered special services to “find and destroy” the killers of four Russian diplomats taken hostage in Iraq.
The head of Russia’s security services immediately pledged to see Putin’s order carried out.

The Russian government confirmed the four men’s deaths this week, after an insurgent group released a video showing two of them being killed.

The group had demanded Russia leave Chechnya and release Muslim prisoners.

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