Washington’s War Theaters as March ends

Re-reported, compiled, edited by Carolyn Bennett
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual show in Washington would hardly be out of place in a Quentin Tarantino movie, Pepe Escobar wrote late last week. Picture a giant hall crammed with 7,500 very powerful people regimented by a very powerful lobby ─ plus half of the United States Senate and more than a third of the congress - basically calling in unison for Palestinian and Iranian blood. The AIPAC 2010 show predictably was yet one more ‘bomb Iran’ special but it was also a call to arms against the Barack Obama administration, as far as the turbo-charging of the illegal colonization of East Jerusalem is concerned.

The administration has reacted to the quarrel with a masterpiece of schizophrenic kabuki (classical Japanese dance-drama) theater. Corporate media insisted there was a deep ‘crisis’ between the unshakeable allies. Nonsense ─ One just has to look at the facts. …

When presidential candidate Barack Obama “addressed AIPAC on June 3, 2008 … he pulled a Netanyahu avant la lettre and declared ‘Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided.’…

“This ‘crisis’ between Tel Aviv and Washington is a non-event. … No one knows exactly whatever hardball Obama and Netanyahu played behind closed doors for three-and-a-half hours [last week] in Washington. … But Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies said it best: though “‘someone seems to have told the Obama administration that a series of polite requests equals pressure, it does not equal pressure. Real pressure looks like this:

Please stop settlements.

Answer: No

Then, you know that … $30 billion [former president George W] Bush arranged for you from U.S. tax money and we agreed to pay ─

Kiss that goodbye.

That’s what pressure looks like.’”

Casualty sites reporting
March 28, 2010 (accurate totals unknown, usual reporting not updated)

• Anti-war dot com March 19, 2003 ─ [Since the Obama inauguration January 20, 2009: 157] Wounded 31,716-100,000; U.S. veterans with brain injuries 320,000; Suicides 18 a day http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/
• Iraq Body Count figures documented civilian deaths from violence: 95,755 – 104,460 , http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
• ICasualties IRAQ: 4,386 U.S., 4,704 Coalition; AFGHANISTAN: 1,029 U.S., 1,703 Coalition http://icasualties.org/oif/
• Just Foreign Policy: [not current] 1,366,350
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/.org

March 28, 2010
Iraq
Fifty-nine people died and 73 suffered wounds on Friday when two bombs exploded in Iraq’s Diyala province. In an attack on a local politician in the town of Qaim in Iraq's Anbar province an estimated six people died and 15 suffered wounds.

On Sunday, four roadside bombs exploded one after the other near the house of Ghanim Radh, a member of the Development and Reforms Movement, a faction of Iyad Allawi’s secular coalition. The attacks came two days after Iraq’s election commission announced complete results from the March 7 nationwide vote in which Allawi’s Iraqiya party narrowly edged out the State of Law bloc led by incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

March 23, 2010
Afghanistan
The Karzai government confirmed that government and anti-government movements had met in Kabul, the Afghan capital, “with a plan for peace talks.” Citing a Monday Reuters story, “the Hezb-i-Islami group sent a delegation headed by Qutbuddin Helal, a former prime minister and deputy to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the group’s leader.”

Earlier this month, the government said a number of Hezb-i-Islami fighters, who lead an insurgency separate from the Taliban, had agreed to back the authorities after clashing with Taliban fighters over control of villages in the north.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Kabul, David Chater, said the talks ─ directly resulting from negotiations with the Afghan government in January in the Maldives ─ “were a breakthrough for [President Hamid] Karzai’s efforts at reintegration and reconciliation of the fighters against his government.” It means the parties “will perhaps attend the peace talks being called for the end of April.”

March 21, 2010
Pakistan
Three people died today and 12 suffered wounds when a bomb on a bicycle exploded in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta. Violence has taken hundreds of lives in the province since 2004. Baluch fighters have been “demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region’s natural resources....”

Participants meeting in Tribal councils (or ‘jirgas’ that play a central role in Pashtun culture along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border) “said they had little faith in the U.S.-Pakistan alliance and that Washington and Islamabad were more worried about internal political issues than dealing with the social issues at the root of much of the violence. A government offensive begun last year is thought to have killed hundreds of people ─ fighters and civilians ─ in South Waziristan.

March 28, 2010
Arab Summit
Israel’s settlement policy is “‘a dangerous obstacle to a just and comprehensive peace process’” said the document coming out of the Arab summit ending today in Libya. Al Jazeera reports Arab leaders expressing “their total rejection of Israel’s settlement policy in occupied East Jerusalem.”

According to Al Jazeera’s correspondents, the Arab leaders also discussed “exploring closer relations between the Arab League and Iran, possibly through a forum that would include Turkey; Iraq and the state of security in Iraq following its recent elections.


Sources and notes
Pepe Escobar in the Asia Times’ The Roving Eye “Obama squeezed between Israel and Iran,” March 26, 2010, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LC26Ak01.html. Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007); Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge; and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).


See also Counterspin, March 26, 2010, “Trudy Lieberman on health care, Phyllis Bennis on Israel-U.S. relations” Counterspin’s program segment lead in, “One of the most serious conflicts between the U.S. and Israel in decades? Or... something less than that? What does the recent exchange of heated language between U.S. and Israeli officials actually translate to in terms of U.S. policy toward the country? … a reading on things from Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies, author of Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer,” http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4050


Fellow Phyllis Bennis directs the New Internationalism Project at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies. The Middle East component of the Project challenges the drive towards U.S. Empire in that region and beyond and focuses particularly on ending the U.S. wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq and supporting a just and comprehensive peace based on an end to Israeli occupation and apartheid policies in Palestine. Among Bennis's recent writings are:

• “Afghanistan: This War Won't Work” (Op-Ed) January 25: The reasons for ending the war are growing, and justifications are few
• Ending the U.S. War in Afghanistan: A Primer (Book) January 20: Was Afghanistan ever a ‘good war’ and will President Obama’s plan and escalation of U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan work?
• “Yemen: Déjà Vu All Over Again” (Commentary) January 13: The United States punished Yemen 20 years ago by cutting off aid. Today, the United States is punishing Yemen by sending aid.

“Iraq politician targeted in attack,” Al Jazeera [AFP] March 28, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/201032814334966748.html
“Afghan group on ‘Kabul mission,’” Al Jazeera March 23, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/201032243846873289.html
“Fatal explosion hits Pakistani city,” March 21, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/20103217435090292.html
“Arab leaders condemn Israeli policy,” March 28, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/03/201032814252345504.html
Also news Sunday: “Obama makes ‘surprise’ Kabul visit,” March 28, 2010, http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/03/201032816319310458.html