Sen. Kennedy: US Has "Clear Obligation To Stop Ignoring" Iraqi Refugee Crisis

Related

Proud to be an American? Imagine that.

The Criminality of the State

---

We Can't Ignore Iraq's Refugees

By Edward M. Kennedy
Saturday, December 30, 2006; A21

With the nation still at war in Iraq, each of us is deeply grateful to the brave men and women in our armed forces who celebrated the holidays this year with half their hearts at home and half in Iraq. But this year especially it is essential that we also reflect on another human cost of the war -- the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children who have fled their homes and often their country to escape the violence of a nation increasingly at war with itself.

The refugees are witnesses to the cruelty that stains our age, and they cannot be overlooked. America bears heavy responsibility for their plight. We have a clear obligation to stop ignoring it and help chart a sensible course to ease the refugee crisis. Time is not on our side. We must act quickly and effectively.

Today, within Iraq, 1.6 million people have already fled or been expelled from their homes. An additional 1.8 million, fleeing sectarian violence, kidnappings, extortion, death threats and carnage, have sought refuge in neighboring countries. At least 700,000 are in Jordan, 600,000 in Syria, 100,000 in Egypt, 54,000 in Iran and 20,000 in Lebanon. Typically they are not living in refugee camps but have relocated in urban areas, where they must draw on their own meager resources to pay for food and shelter, and must depend on the good graces of the host governments.

The neighboring countries, in turn, are under enormous financial stress from the rapidly increasing needs of the refugees. In Jordan, they now make up more than 10 percent of the population -- the equivalent of 30 million people flooding America's shores. These countries are increasingly unable to meet the refugees' basic needs.

Borders are being closed to more and more of these men, women and children, with the result that many who are most in need or in danger are trapped in the Iraqi caldron of violence. As it continues to boil, the humanitarian crisis will only worsen.

The recent report of the Iraq Study Group rightly concluded that if this refugee situation "is not addressed, Iraq and the region could be further destabilized, and the humanitarian suffering could be severe." Sadly, as with so many other aspects of the Iraq war -- from the growing threat of the insurgency to the need to provide adequate armor for our troops -- the administration has failed to recognize the breadth of the crisis and to adjust our policy to address the plain facts on the ground.

There is an overwhelming need for temporary relief and permanent resettlement. Last year, however, America accepted only 202 Iraqi refugees, and next year we plan to accept approximately the same number. We and other nations of the world need to do far better.

Thousands of these refugees are fleeing because they have been affiliated in some way with the United States. Cooks, drivers and translators have been called traitors for cooperating with the United States. They know all too well that the fate of those who work with U.S. civilians or military forces can be sudden death. Yet, beyond a congressionally mandated program that accepts 50 Iraqi translators from Iraq and Afghanistan each year, the administration has done nothing to resettle brave Iraqis who provided assistance in some way to our military. This lack of conscience is fundamentally unfair. We need to do much more to help Iraqi refugees, especially those who have helped our troops.

Our nation is spending $8 billion a month to wage the war in Iraq. Yet to meet the urgent humanitarian needs of the refugees who have fled the war, the State Department plans to spend only $20 million in the current fiscal year.

America needs to lead, but we cannot adequately respond to this overwhelming crisis alone. Because of the magnitude of the problem, we also need action by Iraq's neighbors and the rest of the world. An essential first step could be to hold an international conference on the issue -- ideally sponsored by the countries in the region and the United Nations -- to begin to deal with the growing number and needs of Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons. The United States should participate in the conference and provide substantial support for the refugees. Doing so would encourage other nations to address the crisis, help the refugees and displaced persons, and assist the countries shouldering the greatest burden.

Working with Iraq's neighbors and the United Nations, we can encourage rapid action to relieve suffering and save lives. And a productive conference could lead in turn to broader discussions and greater progress on the future of Iraq.

Clearly, in the long term we need to work together to find a way to end the violence and stop the hemorrhaging of lives. In the short term, America needs to respond far more effectively to the needs of the millions of refugees and displaced persons who are suffering so much from the war. Failure to act quickly and cooperatively with other nations will only result in more carnage, chaos and instability in the region.

The writer is a Democratic senator from Massachusetts and incoming chairman of the Senate immigration, border security and refugee subcommittee.

A rogue 51st state

Israel already looks to be intent on scuppering the Iraq Study Group plan for Middle East peace

Peter Preston
Monday December 11, 2006
The Guardian

This injunction couldn't be clearer. "The United States will not be able to achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict. There must be a renewed and sustained commitment by the United States to a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace on all fronts." Notice that "must" word. Jim Baker and friends shout it now, in terms. Tony Blair says it again and again. If you don't cut out the cancer of hatred, loss and retribution, then nothing good will happen. There will be no rest for Iraq, no spread of democracy, no rapprochement with Tehran - and no breakthrough in the campaign against terrorism (including, Mr Blair might add, the wild and woolly recruitment of suicide teenagers from Leeds to Lahore).

Dig deeper in the Baker report text to discover what such "commitment" involves. "For several reasons, we should act boldly: there is no military solution to this conflict. The vast majority of the Israeli body politic is tired of being a nation perpetually at war. No American administration - Democratic or Republican - will ever abandon Israel. Political engagement and dialogue are essential in the Arab-Israeli dispute because it is an axiom that when the political process breaks down there will be violence on the ground."

Thus the road map is rolled out again. Thus UN resolutions 242 and 338 - which mean handing back the territorial spoils of past war - are invoked as foundation documents. Thus hostile nations and organisations that deny Israel's right to exist are frozen out of any action, and a more malleable Syria gets the Golan Heights back (maybe with US troops deployed along its new border). Thus two viable states emerge and learn to live together.

It doesn't sound an easy road - and, of course, it isn't. But there is at least a vestigial pathway here, if anyone wishes to walk along it. Yet who, first out of the block, seems to hate talking the talk, let alone putting his hiking boots on? Yes: it's the ally no American administration will ever abandon. In short order, Ehud Olmert announces that this "attempt to create a linkage between the Iraqi issue and the Mideast issue" is wrong. "We have a different view." More, he claims, George Bush has always agreed with him. Meet with Iran? Actually, he doesn't rule out military strikes against Tehran and its "criminal" president. "I rule nothing out." And as for Syria, Germany's foreign minister takes a pasting for even going to Damascus. "I think he made a mistake."

Maybe, with Hamas sidelined, Mr Olmert would see about seeking a "contiguous zone" agreement with President Mahmoud Abbas. But fiercely, specifically, he won't let the rest of the region in. It's nothing to do with them. Except, of course, that that's rubbish.

The trouble with Tehran - apart from some fire-breathing presidential rhetoric - is Iran's possible bomb, 10 years away in the making. Who else in the region has such a bomb already? Israel. Whose rockets landed on Israeli territory? Iraq's. Who reputedly plays godfather to Hizbullah in Lebanon? Iran. Who competes relentlessly for influence in Beirut? Syria. The list is longer than that, of course, but the point is a short, sharp one: there is no halcyon world where dominant Israelis and compliant Palestinians can be left alone to work out a deal. Everything connects - in emotion and often in practice. And Olmert fears that, which is why he moves so swiftly to exclude Iran and Syria; for including them brings pressure to his door.

Be clear. This is, absolutely, the reverse of the Baker plan. This turndown from day one. This is the abandonment of whatever wisdom the independent study group has to offer. Who needs enemies to sabotage prospects of a wider peace when "friends" do it instinctively? Don't they fear at least some retribution from US public opinion? Alas, no. As Jimmy Carter wrote the other day: "It would be almost politically suicidal for members of Congress to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine ... Very few of them would ever deign to visit the cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Gaza City or Bethlehem and talk to the beleaguered residents."

Accept that American attachment to the Israeli cause is total - as Baker himself makes clear. Bring on more peacekeeping American troops. The hinge and the question, though, is how far that attachment should wreck everything else? Israel could be propelled into regional talks. It floats on a sea of US subsidy. It is, in many ways , the real 51st state. But it does not agree with Baker that there are "no military solutions" here. Nor will it commit to the necessary level of "political engagement". Does more "violence on the ground" follow automatically, then? It's a sad, sad way to "abandon" hope.

p.preston@guardian.co.uk

Peter Preston was editor of the Guardian for 20 years, from 1975 to 1995, and now writes columns for the paper and for the Observer. He has written two books, Bess (1999) and The 51st State (1998).

Palestinian attacks go on despite Abbas/Olmert/US truce

US puppet declares truce. The legitimately and democratically elected government says bugger that. Divide and conquer will not work. The Palestinians have lost their fear of the Israeli genocidists. A demarcation line has passed unnoticed. Israel is over, a murderous and highly dangerous failed state in decline. Ten, twenty, maybe even 50 years from now,a showdown with these mad dogs will take place. The world has had it with this rogue state.
---
Palestinian attacks go on despite truce

By AMY TEIBEL and IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writers

32 minutes ago


Israeli troops withdrew from the Gaza Strip as a last-minute cease-fire deal took hold Sunday morning, but two major Palestinian militant groups, saying they had no intention of stopping their attacks, fired volleys of homemade rockets into Israel.

The ongoing rocket attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad tempered hopes for a lasting truce, which was meant to end five months of deadly clashes. The rockets landed in open fields and caused no injuries.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with his security chiefs Sunday and ordered them to send their forces to the Gaza border area by early afternoon to prevent further rocket attacks, according to Palestinian security officials.

Lt. Gen. Abdel Razek Almajaydeh, an Abbas security adviser, said the security forces had almost finished deploying.

"The instructions are clear. Anyone violating the national agreement will be considered to be breaking the law," he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered the army to show restraint in the face of the rockets.

"Even though there are still violations of the cease-fire by the Palestinian side, I have instructed our defense officials not to respond, to show restraint, and to give this cease-fire a chance to take full effect," he said during a ceremony at a high school in southern Israel.

A senior Israeli official said Israel would wait a few hours to see if the attacks were isolated breaches or a full-scale violation of the agreement before deciding whether to respond. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The truce agreement, if it holds, would be a coup for Abbas, who has been trying for months to end the violence in Gaza. He has also been working to end crippling international sanctions imposed on the Palestinian Authority when the militant Hamas group won January parliamentary elections and formed a Cabinet.

Abbas, a moderate from the Fatah Party, was elected separately last year.

The two sides announced the truce late Saturday after Abbas telephoned Olmert with an agreement from Palestinian militant groups to halt rocket fire and other violence from Gaza.

Olmert pledged to end the military offensive Israel launched in Gaza in June, less than a year after it pulled out of the coastal strip after 38 years of occupation. Israel's launched its offensive after Hamas militants in Gaza launched a cross-border raid on a military outpost, killing two soldiers and capturing one other.

The violence has claimed the lives of more than 300 Palestinians and five Israelis. Most of the Palestinians killed have been militants, but scores of civilians have been killed as well, including 19 members of an extended family killed earlier this month in a botched Israeli artillery attack.

Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rdeneh said the cease-fire deal would revive a truce reached in Egypt in February 2005.

Ahead of the new agreement, which took effect 6 a.m. Sunday, Israel pulled all its forces out of Gaza, the army said. Dozens of tanks and armored vehicles were parked just over the border in a military staging ground in southern Israel early Sunday.

But Palestinian militants continued firing rockets into Israel throughout the morning. Israeli police reported at least four rockets fired at the Israeli town of Sderot and an Associated Press photographer in the border town heard at least two more strikes. Another AP photographer in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun heard several rockets fired throughout the morning.

"Let's hope that's just the problems of the beginning," Olmert's spokeswoman, Miri Eisin, said of the rockets. "But if Israel is attacked, we will respond. If there are Palestinian factions that are not part of the cease-fire, it's hard to see how the cease-fire will hold."

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said he had contacted the leaders of all the Palestinian factions Sunday and they reassured him they were committed to the truce.

"There is a 100 percent effort to make this work, but there is no guarantee of 100 percent results," said Ghazi Hamad, a spokesman for the Hamas-led government.

Hamas' own militants claimed responsibility for firing rockets into Israel after 6 a.m., clouding prospects for the truce's longevity.

"(We) reiterate that our attacks against the enemy continue," the group said in a statement posted on its Web site.

The Hamas militants said they continued their attacks because some Israeli troops remained inside Gaza, an accusation Israel denied.

Islamic Jihad also claimed responsibility for firing rockets into Israel after the truce, and a spokesman, Abu Hamza, denied his group had signed on to truce. However, top Islamic Jihad leaders had said they were part of the deal, and the new rocket fire suggested they were not in complete control of their fighters.

Palestinian lawmaker Saeb Erekat, an Abbas ally, condemned the new rocket attacks.

"This is a violation and (Abbas) calls it a violation, and urges all to abide by the agreement that should be honored for the interest of the Palestinian people," he said.

Israeli forces originally entered Gaza to try to recover a soldier captured in a June 25 cross-border raid, but they soon widened their objectives to target militants firing rockets into Israel.

As the fighting swelled, rocket fire in November more than doubled from October, killing two Israeli civilians in a single week.

The violence cut short efforts by Olmert and Abbas to restart peace talks. A truce could help create momentum for new talks.

"We welcome the announcement and see this as a positive step forward," White House spokesman Alex Conant said Saturday evening in Washington. "We hope it leads to less violence for the Israeli and Palestinian people."

Israel has no ties with the Hamas government, which rejects the Jewish state's right to exist, but it considers Abbas an acceptable negotiating partner. He and Olmert agreed months ago to meet, but Abbas has balked at setting a date without assurances the meeting would yield real dividends for him, such as a release of Palestinian prisoners Israel holds.

Olmert has said no prisoners would be released to Hamas before the captured soldier is freed.

A cease-fire in Gaza is part of a broad package Abbas is trying to put together in the hope of restoring hundreds of millions of dollars in funding Western donors cut off to pressure Hamas to recognize Israel and renounce violence.

Associated Press reporter Ibrahim Barzak reported from Gaza City, Gaza Strip.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061126/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians

Linguistic Somersaults in an Age of Aggression and State Terrorism

Edward S. Herman
Z Magazine, forthcomingDecember 2006

[the edition here is slightly larger and has endnotes]

In this age of a global rogue state’s serial aggressions and terrorism, language is as essential a tool of the state’s managers as guns, tanks, missiles and bombs. Orwellian language has always been widely used by governments, but in this post-Soviet era with Soviet containment ended, with an openly acknowledged “projection of power” and a familiar ruthlessness working side-by-side with an alleged “promotion of democracy,” linguistic advances in putting state violence in a good light have been needed and supplied. The set below contains a few holdovers from my earlier Doublespeak Dictionary in Beyond Hypocrisy (South End Press: 1992). These are marked by an asterisk. Cross references are indicated by a q.v. (quod vide=which see).

MORE:

http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/articles/article0049872.html