Obama Sticks to 16 Month Timetable; Gives Gates 'New Mission'; 38 Killed, 100 Wounded in Spate of Bombings;

President-elect Barack Obama reaffirmed on Monday that he wants to withdraw US troops from Iraq within 16 months of his inauguration. That would be well before the December, 2011 deadline enshrined in the new security agreement between the two countries. The agreement stipulates that its details can be altered by mutual consent, or by one side giving one year's notice.

Obama, who is retaining Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, said he would give him a new mission, of getting out of Iraq and combatting the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. (I don't think there is any al-Qaeda in Afghanistan; at least, no captures there have been announced to my knowledge since 2002).

As many as 38 persons were killed and 100 wounded in a series of attacks in Iraq on Monday. Guerrillas detonated 2 bombs near a police academy in Baghdad, killing 16. An suicide bomber targeted the convoy of Gen. Mudhhir al Mawla, a right hand man of PM Nuri al-Maliki, seriously wounding him and killing 3 others.

In the northern city of Mosul, a man with a suicide bomb vest detonated it near a US convoy, killing some 16 Iraqis.

Iraq will support supply cuts by OPEC to force the price of petroleum back up, even though the US frowns on this practice. Remember the Neoconservative theory of Perle and Wolfowitz that after Saddam was overthrown, Iraq's production would sink OPEC and impoverish Saudi Arabia? Turns out, not so much.

Tension is increasing between PM Nuri al-Maliki and the Kurdistan Regional Government. Al-Maliki has criticized Irbil for trying to act like an independent country-- letting oil bids without checking with Baghdad and giving out visas, etc. The Kurds in turn are suspicious of the Support Councils al-Maliki has been forming among tribes, which have a paramilitary element and are personally loyal to him. In particular, they are upset that he has sought to organize the Arabs of Hawija in this way. These Arabs oppose the Kurdish annexation of Kirkuk.

Turkey bombed Iraq again striking at bases of the Kurdish Workers Party holed up in its mountains on the border with Turkey.

Iran has decided to back the Status of Forces Agreement between Iraq and the US, which parliament passed last week. The Iranians mainly want US troops out of Iraq; the agreement stipulates that all must be out by the end of 2011.

The Chicago Tribune profiles the Iraqi army in Mosul, finding improvement but serious remaining problems of equipment and corruption.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the governor of Diyala province is requesting a postponement of provincial elections in his province. He notes that the election in Kirkuk Province was postponed, and points out that Diyala is more racked with violence than Kirkuk. He also estimates that some 26,000 families have been displaced from the province (that would be 100,000, from a population of about 1.2 million, or nearly 10 percent!)

But I am suspicious of this plea. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a Shiite, pro-Iran party, has a commanding position in Diyala, even though it is thought to be 60% Sunni. The election will redress this situation, which stems from the Sunnis' refusal to vote in January, 2005. Things weren't quiet in 2005, either, but the province voted anyway.

Honor killings are on the rise in Basra.

For his part, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has expressed reservations about the security agreement, which to some extent infringes on Iraqi sovereignty. But his office says he is content to let the people decide on it. Parliament already voted it in, and a national referendum is to be held by June.

Iraq is seeking to license 14 oil fields to corporations for development.

The Iraqi government is seeking to revive 2.5 million square acres of land by removing excess salinity from it. In some provinces of Iraq, salinization has reduced crop yields to half of what they used to be.

McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Monday:

' - Three people were killed and 10 others were injured including security guards by a bomb that was planted in Sleikh neighborhood in east Baghdad near the house of General Mudhhir al Mawla, an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. Al Mawla was seriously injured and his driver was among the killed people. The incident took place around 9 a.m.

- 15 people, including policemen, were killed and 45 others were wounded when two explosions took place near the gate of the police academy on Palestine Street in east Baghdad on Monday morning. The first explosion was done by a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest followed by an explosion of a parked car bomb.

- Four people (2 policemen and 2 civilians) were wounded by a bomb in Palestine Street in east Baghdad around 8 p.m.

Nineveh

- Seven civilians (6 women and 1 child) were injured by two adhesive bombs which were stuck to the main gate of two houses in al Yarmouk neighborhood in west Mosul city on Sunday evening.

- Gunmen killed two women in al Yarmouk neighborhood in west Mosul city on Monday morning.

- 16 Iraqis were killed, most of them policemen, and 37 others were injured when a suicide car bomber attacked a joint convoy of Iraqi police and US military in New Mosul area in west Mosul city around 1 p.m.

- Gunmen killed two school teachers in two separated in south Mosul on Monday afternoon.

- Gunmen kidnapped a doctor in al Sarij Khana area in downtown Mosul city on Monday afternoon.

Kirkuk

- Police found 12 unidentified bodies in south Kirkuk.'

Jones at NSC; Even knows French (Eat your Heart out Tom DeLay)

The last eight years of yahoo anti-intellectualism (i.e. worship of stupidity) is coming to an end. I note that incoming National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones "spent part of his youth in France and is fluent in French."

It seems like only yesterday that Republican majority leader Tom DeLay was taunting 2004 Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry for knowing French. (DeLay is under indictment for corruption).

Jones not only knows French, but as supreme NATO commander he worked closely with the French military. Unlike the ignoramus DeLay, Jones knows that French troops have died in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban in solidarity with the United States.

So much for the US stand up comedians' glib jokes about alleged French cowardice.

DeLay, awaiting trial, actually accused Obama of being a "Marxist" while his own party was busy nationalizing the banks they had allowed to rob the public.

You can just feel the incompetence and stupidity and venality draining out of Washington with each passing day.

Rivera: How Obama's Presidency will Affect People of Color Forever

Jeff Rivera writes in a guest op-ed for IC

This week Obama appointed members for his national security team which included his former nemesis, Hillary Clinton. To see this man of color in such a powerful position is inspiring to say the least.

I remember people were dancing in the streets, honking their horns that day. I remember, and always will remember that day forever as we got the news that Barack Obama had won the presidency. The magnitude of it didn't really hit me until the next day. Whereas there was a gloom about New York City the day before, suddenly spirits were lifted. People of color seemed to walk just a little taller, a gentle smile on their face. Foreigners and Immigrants from all over the world enthusiastically greeted strangers saying in their brooken English, "Obama, good? Obama, good! Yes, yes!" It was heart warming and sweet but I pondered on those simple words, "Obama, good." Was Obama truly good for America. What would this mean, how would this effect not only our brothers and sisters of color but our Caucasian brothers and sisters who were equally supportive and equally responsible for having Mr. President Obama elected?

Practically this election sent out a message that Americans were no longer preoccupied with color. They wanted the best man who could do the job no matter what the color of his skin. It ushered in a new movement which included the appointment of Chicano Governor Richardson to the cabinet. Obama sent a message by mixing his cabinet with people of color as well as Anglo Americans that we had to move beyond the color issue.

Yet, since I moved from Miami to New York City, I have never in my life felt so proud of my heritage. I had been raised with a pride in our mixed culture of Native American and Black American, of our European ancestory, as well as our Caribbean roots, of our Puerto Rican cousins and our Filipino stepfather. These were things were taught to be proud of but never had I realize how much Obama's election would effect me until I saw him and his lovely wife at the steps of the White House for the very first time. They turned back next to the former president Bush and his wife toward the cameras. He with his trademark smile and she with her firey red dress and I thought to myself, "Wow. It actually happened. It actually happened." and I felt truly anything was possible, anything and that could be me up there. Watching them experience the presidency for the very first time was like me experiencing it vicariously.

I knew then that anything I had in my mind to do I could do. Anything. No longer did I feel ashamed for speaking educated or articulate. No longer did I find it necessary to dumb down my language when I was around them or put on a bit of an urban accent if it didn't come naturally just to fit in. No, I could be me, I could be Jeff Rivera and I could speak with pride and dignity, that I knew for certain.

Obama's election meant to me what it meant to many people of color that we do matter. That our little vote does make a difference and does effect the world around us. And although our vote and voice might have been silenced for 8 years of the previous presidency, that silent wave of disatisfaction and unrest came upon the Bush administration like a silent tsunami powerful and swift. Yes, truly the people had spoken and they would no longer be silent, they would speak with a cheer.

Suddenly, walking down Crown Height Brooklyn often scoffed at as the bowels of New York City, I saw signs all over the windows and smiles, tearful smiles of pride. I could raise my head with pride that we, we had done this not just our little community in Crown Heights but the city of Minneapolis and Portland, Oregon and South Central, Los Angeles. We had done this all of us. No longer could we has people of color blame the man for keeping us down.

Obama's win meant that we had to stand up on our own two feet, stop feeling powerless because we never really were. If anything, if we were to fail it would be upon our own shoulders, not to blame. For as the old saying goes, "When you point a finger at someone, you're pointing three fingers back at yourself."

No, we were the man, finally we were the man and the power that we always had was being recognized. We had spoken and never again would we allow ourselves to be silenced.

Jeff Rivera is the author of the award-winning novel
FOREVER MY LADY (Grand Central)

Indian Muslims Refuse to Bury Militants

The Muslim community in Mumbai says it doesn't want the gunmen who attacked Mumbai to be buried in the Muslim cemetery, on the grounds that they are not Muslims.

A spokesman for the Muslim council said, ""These terrorists are a black spot on our religion, we will very sternly protest the burial of these terrorists in our cemetery . . ."

Certainly the perpetrators are criminals from the point of view of Islamic law. The Qur'an forbids murder (qatl) and the classical jurisprudence on jihad forbids the killing of innocent noncombatants, sneak attacks, or the undertaking of military action without the authorization of duly constituted Muslim authorities.

Although removing an avowed Muslim from status as a Muslim, which is called 'takfir' or faith-denial, is frowned on by the mainstream Sunni tradition, it may be legitimate in this case, given the egregious departure from Sunni law, practice and belief in which the perpetrators engaged. It is an ironic twist, since the radical vigilantes are the ones who have been declaring normal people non-Muslims for the past few decades.

In India, moreover, there is an overlapping consideration of caste. Although Muslims do not formally operate in a caste system, it inevitably shapes their social worldview. There are high (ashraf) and low (ajlaf) statuses in Indian Islam that are caste-like. One thing the Mumbai council may be saying is that by virtue of their actions the militants "lost caste."

Cemeteries in India, like everything else, are influenced by caste conceptions, so it is implicitly being alleged that the attackers are ritually impure and would defile the Muslim cemetery.

I suppose they could always be cremated and their dust spread over the ocean from which they came. That would resolve the problem of what to do with the bodies, and would mark their departure from normative Islam.

Pakistani Reaganism Must End: The New Government must take on the Lashkar

Leaks to the Indian press by security officials in charge of interrogating the captured terrorist, Ajmal Amir Kamal (or Qasab?) are fleshing out the background of the attack on Mumbai and clarifying the evidence that it was an operation of the Lashkar-e Tayiba [the "Army of the Good"].

The Indian counterpart of the CIA, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), intercepted a cell phone call on November 18 to a number in Lahore, Pakistan, known to be that of a Lashkar-i Tayiba handler, saying that the caller was heading to Mumbai. They later found the phone itself on a hijacked Indian fishing boat, which the attackers had taken over to camouflage their approach to the port.

The sole captured LeT operative, Kamal, is said by the Indian press to be from Faridkot village near Dipalpur Tahsil in Okara District of Pakistani Punjab, southwest of Lahore [I saw one article, which I can no longer retrieve, in which the Indian press mispelled the tahsil or county as Gipalpur]). This is such a remote and little-known place that even Pakistani newspapers were having difficulty tracking it down).

Kamal is said to be telling Indian security that he and the others trained in camps in Pakistani Kashmir. (The original princely state of Kashmir, largely Muslim, is divided, with one third in Pakistani hands and two-thirds in Indian; India joined its portion to largely Hindu Jammu to create the province of Jammu and Kashmir.)

The Kashmir police have gotten good enough at counter-terrorism measures that elements of the LeT may have decided to go after a soft target such as Mumbai instead.

The story begins with the 1977 coup of Gen. Zia ul-Haqq, a Muslim fundamentalist who hanged his boss, PM Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, after overthrowing him. Zia favored Sunni fundamentalists and introduced discriminatory policies against Pakistani Shiites, secularists, etc.

Then in 1979 the Soviet Red Army came into Afghanistan to prop up a shaky Communist junta. Gen. Zia was suddenly America's man at the front lines of fighting the Soviets, and his Inter-Services Intelligence helped organize Afghan refugees in Pakistan to fight the Soviets. The ISI favored the most radical fundamentalists among the Mujahideen, such as Gulbadin Hikmatyar, who led the Hizb-i Islami. This model, of using private armies funded by black money (generated by illegal arms or drug sales) to "roll back" leftists, was being applied by Reagan in Nicaragua at the same time.

The military dictatorship was taking a lion's share of the Pakistani budget, and to whip up popular passions and make itself popular, it promoted the liberation of the rest of Muslim Kashmir from Hindu India as another major project alongside getting the Soviets out of Afghanistan. (This is the language of the military; actually India is a secular multicultural state, not a formally Hindu one; and in opinion polls Kashmiris do not say they want to join Pakistan, though they would like independence).

A lot of Pakistanis probably did not care so much about Kashmir, having other problems in life (and already worried about having to adopt 3 million Afghan refugees). But the military in Pakistan constantly played on the public's emotions on the issue, as a way of justifying military perquisites. (When British India was partitioned into Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India in 1947, Kashmir was the only Muslim-majority province to be successfully grabbed by India; Pakistan insisted it should have gone to the Muslim state; the UN insisted on a referendum, which was never held.)

The model that the Reagan administration pressed on the Pakistani military, of funding rightwing "Islamic" militias to kill Soviets, gradually became standard operating procedure. But then the Pakistani Religious Right began adopting the model for themselves. If it is all right to mobilize death squads in one righteous cause, why not in others?

Emboldened, lower middle class Sunni hate groups grew up in rural areas such as Jhang Siyal, where Shiite Sufi leaders had been given big estates by premodern rulers and so were big landlords. The Sipah-e Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), formed in 1985, was one such organization. It turned to violence, killing Shiites. Revivalist Deobandi clergy were important in its leadership. I don't think Zia much cared if they killed Shiites.

Others, including elements in the Pakistani military began wondering why they should not apply the Reagan Jihad model to Kashmir. And they did. In the late 1980s, Hafiz Muhammad Said (once a professor of engineering at Punjab University) set up the Center for Mission and Guidance (Markaz al-Da'wa wa al-Irshad) in a huge compound at Muridke outside Lahore. The Center soon established the Lashkar-e Tayiba as its paramilitary. With the behind the scenes encouragement of elements in the Pakistani military, the LeT sent guerrillas into Indian Kashmir to attack Indian troops and facilities. The Lashkar prided itself on not killing civilians, on not targeting Shiites, and on keeping its focus on what they thought of as the Indian occupation forces. But they fought alongside Sipah-e Sahaba elements that also took off time from murdering Shiites to infiltrate into Indian Kashmir and stage attacks.

I saw this militarization of Pakistani civil society with my own eyes. I first went to the country in 1981 before you could just buy a Kalashnikov in the bazaar. When I was doing research there in 1988 and then again in 1990, the situation was completely different. Pakistan had never had a drug problem but now there were a million addicts (the US encouraged the Afghan mujahidin to grow poppies for heroin to finance the anti-Soviet struggle, and the drugs spilled into Pakistan). Weapons were freely available. Karachi was having a kind of civil war. I remember that fanatics from the religious right attacked an art exhibition in Lahore, a city of the arts (graven images not allowed & etc.) Political figures were accused of cynically creating Islamic movements for personal and political gain. This deterioration of Pakistan was, in some important part, a direct result of Reagan-Bush policies. They used Pakistan, corrupted it with all those drugs, arms, and radical Muslim militias that they called 'freedom fighters,' and then threw it away when they did not need it any more. Reagan and the Saudis funneled billions to the Pakistani military. What did ordinary Pakistanis have to show for it?

When the Soviets withdrew in 1988-1989 from Afghanistan and the Mujahideen took over, the Pakistani military lost control of its northern neighbor. It therefore funded and promoted the Taliban (expatriate Afghan young men who had been through Deobandi seminaries in northern Pakistan) from 1994, enabling them to take over Afghanistan. The Taliban ran terrorist training camps, at which the Sipah-e Sahaba and the Lashkar-e Tayiba trained for missions in Kashmir. Afghanistan in essence was the boot camp for Pakistani Reaganism.

The SSP and the Lashkar-e Tayiba was joined by other Sunni militias, including the Movement of the Holy Warriors (Harakat ul Mujahidin). In 2000, Mawlana Massoud Azhar broke off from the latter to form the Jaish-e Muhammad or Army of Muhammad, a particularly violent group focusing on Kashmir. All these Pakistani organizations trained their fighters in the Taliban camps, some of which were actually run by al-Qaeda once Bin Laden allied with the latter in 1996. (It is said that the Inter-Services Intelligence made the introduction).

High Dudgeon of Americans directed at the Pakistani military for this activity is the height of hypocrisy. The Reagan administration actively encouraged Islamabad to mount precisely such activities against the leftist government of Afghanistan (which, while dictatorial and brutally oppressive, was busily educating girls, admitting women to professions, spreading literacy, working against the vestiges of landlord feudalism, etc.) From a Pakistani point of view, Soviet-occupied Afghanistan and Indian-occupied Kashmir were morally equivalent.

In 2002, under pressure from Washington, military dictator Pervez Musharraf dissolved the Lashkar-e Tayiba and other similar groups and initially arrested many members. They were later released by the Pakistani courts on the grounds that they hadn't broken any Pakistani laws. The dissolution was a bit of a farce, since the groups just took other names. Someone who now has a prominent official position in the Pakistani government once wryly observed to me that the Musharraf government couldn't seem to find the Lashkar-e Tayib headquarters at Muridke just outside Lahore, even though it was huge and a well known landmark at which thousands gathered. And, Lashkar went on raising money, supposedly for civilian relief works in Kashmir.

The Pakistani military is itself now suffering blowback for its past policies. Its name is mud in Pakistan. A Pakistani Taliban has emerged that often declines to be its puppet, and which has killed hundreds of Pakistani troops. The Marriott in Islamabad was blown up by the Pakistani Taliban.

The cell that hit Mumbai was probably a rogue splinter group. They completely disregarded the old Lashkar-e Tayiba concentration on hitting only Indian troops in Kashmir, targeting civilians instead. It is very unlikely that anyone in the Pakistani military put them up specifically to this Mumbai operation. This attack was much more likely to be blowback, when a covert operation produces unexpected consequences or agents that were previously reliable go rogue.

The Mumbai attacks were not the first of this scale on an Indian target by the LeT.

If the Pakistani government does not give up this covert terrorist campaign in Kashmir and does not stop coddling the radical vigilantes who go off to fight there, South Asian terrorism will grow as a problem and very possibly provoke the world's first nuclear war (possible death toll: 20 million).

The civilian government that has recently taken over Pakistan is weak. If it puts too much pressure on the military too quickly, it risks another coup and destabilization. But the training camps in Azad Kashmir must be closed.

India, Pakistan, and the Obama administration need to do some serious diplomacy on Kashmir, and try to settle this major global fault line before the 10.0 earthquake finally hits.

Loewenstein: The Blogging Revolution and Voices of Crisis

Antony Loewenstein writes in a guest op-ed for IC:

During last week’s terror attacks in Mumbai , new technology reacted to the news faster than traditional media services. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs featured (not always accurate) information from the ground and revealed the inadequacies of relying on “official” sources.

For example, as soon as it became clear that the head of the antiterrorist squad in Mumbai, Hemant Karkare, had been killed, Flickr instantly contained a portfolio of images of the official.

The ability to increasingly rely on eyewitness accounts leaves the professional journalist in a bind. For too many years Western news editors only deemed legitimate perspectives that were viewed and heard by fellow Western journalists. It was subconscious racism, protecting their own turf and deliberately ignoring points of view that challenged Washington and London’s foreign policy priorities.

After September 11, 2001, I was constantly frustrated with the lack of indigenous voices in the mainstream media (although I was living in Australia at the time, the situation was little different to the US). Why weren’t we constantly hearing from bloggers in Iraq about the impending war? What about civilians under American bombs in Kabul? Or Pakistanis in Lahore, Quetta or Karachi who resented former President General Pervez Musharraf’s Faustian deal with the Bush administration? Online media presented a unique opportunity to hear alternative voices on matters of of global significance. With notable exceptions, these people remain unheard.

In 2007 I travelled to Iran, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and China to speak to dissidents, bloggers, writers, politicians, men, women, conservatives, liberals and ordinary citizens about how the internet is changing their countries. I wanted to gauge their interests, desires, frustrations and attitudes towards each other and the west.

My new book, The Blogging Revolution, is a chance for these local voices to reveal how the web has democratised their minds - although it also reflects the fact that the vast majority of global netizens prefer online dating and downloading pirated films and music to challenging political orthodoxy.

Furthermore, I wanted to challenge the thesis that the introduction of the web automatically brings Western-style democracy to a society. This is, of course, the kind of thesis that neo-conservative think-tanks publish on a regular basis. Perhaps, instead, individuals in authoritarian societies actually want freedom from us.

Take Saudi Arabia. One of the most fundamentalist nations on earth, fully backed by the West for its abundant oil reserves, the blogging community is small but thriving. The country’s most famous blogger, Fouad Farhan – imprisoned in December 2007 and released without charge in April this year – was a compelling host. He talked passionately about using the web to convince his people that a moderate Islam was the only alternative to the current nepotistic system and al-Qaeda-type extremism.

It was an uphill battle – not least because free media and elections were impossible – but Farhan convinced me that it was a worthwhile struggle. The web was his only way of disseminating information.

Across the Middle East regimes implement various modes of censorship. Iran has the most sophisticated process – ably assisted by Western multinationals – and blocks thousands of websites related to gender, politics, sex, health and popular culture. The Islamic Republic is undoubtedly fearful of modernity and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has increased oppression against women, journalists, unionists, homosexuals and human right activists. Not surprisingly, the mullahs have realised the power of the web to spread the message of Shia Islam and now utilise many bloggers of their own to counter the perceived liberal leanings of reformists.

China, the world’s biggest internet community - with over 250 million users and growing at six million per month - has developed into a heavily filtered but exciting space (though online bullying has now reached epidemic proportions). Despite the vast restrictions, robust discussion about corruption and health issues are everywhere and challenges the Western perception of a largely cowered society.

Blogs can, and should, allow better opportunities for different cultures to interact, debate and disagree online. Sadly, the language barrier is hindering these developments and must be improved before there is any credible talk of a truly global internet.

The online culture, chaotic and disjointed in its aims, is unlike that of any previous social movement. Allowing people to write and speak for themselves without a western filter is one of the triumphs of blogging, though many western journalists feel threatened by its potential. While some want the right to criticise their leaders, others simply want to flirt and listen to hip-hop. That is revolutionary for much of the world.

Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based independent blogger, journalist who has written for publications across the world and author of My Israel Question (2006) and


The Blogging Revolution (2008).

India: Please Don't Go Down the Bush- Cheney Road

Many Indians have called the attacks in Mumbai "India's 9/11." As an American who lived in India, I can feel that country's anguish over these horrific and indiscriminate acts of terror.

Most Indian observers, however, were critical in 2001 (and after) of how exactly the Bush administration (i.e. Dick Cheney) responded to September 11. They were right, and they would do well to remember their own critique at this fateful moment.

What where the major mistakes of the United States government, and how might India avoid repeating them?

1) Remember asymmetry

The Bush administration was convinced that 9/11 could not have been the work of a small, independent terrorist organization. They insisted that Iraq must somehow have been behind it. States are used to dealing with other states, and military and intelligence agencies are fixated on state rivals. But Bush and Cheney were wrong. We have entered an era of asymmetrical terrorism threats, in which relatively small groups can inflict substantial damage.

The Bush administration clung to its conviction of an Iraq-al-Qaeda operational cooperation despite the excellent evidence, which the FBI and CIA quickly uncovered, that the money had all come via the UAE from Pakistan and Afghanistan. There was never any money trail back to the Iraqi government.

Many Indian officials and much of the Indian public is falling into the Cheney fallacy. It is being argued that the terrorists fought as trained guerrillas, and implied that only a state (i.e. Pakistan) could have given them that sort of training.

But to the extent that the terrorists were professional fighters, they could have come by their training in many ways. Some might have been ex-military in Britain or Pakistan. Or they might have interned in some training camp somewhere. Some could have fought as vigilantes in Afghanistan or Iraq. They needn't be state-backed.

Keep your eye on the ball.

The Bush administration took its eye off al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and instead put most of its resources into confronting Iraq. But Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaeda or the Taliban. Eventually this American fickleness allowed both al-Qaeda and the Taliban to regroup.

Likewise, India should not allow itself to be distracted by implausible conspiracy theories about high Pakistani officials wanting to destroy the Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai. (Does that even make any sense?) Focusing on a conventional state threat alone will leave the country unprepared to meet further asymmetrical, guerrilla-style attacks.

Avoid Easy Bigotry about National Character

Many Americans decided after 9/11 that since 13 of the hijackers were Saudi Wahhabis, there is something evil about Wahhabism and Saudi Arabia. But Saudi Arabia itself was attacked repeatedly by al-Qaeda in 2003-2006 and waged a major national struggle against it. You can't tar a whole people with the brush of a few nationals that turn to terrorism.

Worse, a whole industry of Islamphobia grew up, with dedicated television programs (0'Reilly, Glen Beck), specialized sermonizers, and political hatchetmen (Giuliani). Persons born in the Middle East or Pakistan were systematically harassed at airports. And the stigmatization of Muslim Americans and Arab Americans was used as a wedge to attack liberals and leftists, as well, however illogical the juxtaposition may seem.

There is a danger in India as we speak of mob action against Muslims, which will ineluctably drag the country into communal violence. The terrorists that attacked Mumbai were not Muslims in any meaningful sense of the word. They were cultists. Some of them brought stocks of alcohol for the siege they knew they would provoke. They were not pious.
They killed and wounded Muslims along with other kinds of Indians.

Muslims in general must not be punished for the actions of a handful of unbalanced fanatics. Down that road lies the end of civilization. It should be remembered that Hindu extremists have killed 100 Christians in eastern India in recent weeks. But that would be no excuse for a Christian crusade against Hindus or Hinduism.

Likewise, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, as a Sikh, will remember the dark days when PM Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards after she had sent the Indian security forces into the Golden Temple-- and the mob attacks on Sikhs in Delhi that took place in the aftermath. Blaming all Sikhs for the actions of a few was wrong then. It would be wrong now if applied to Muslims.

Address Security Flaws, but Keep Civil Liberties Strong

The 9/11 hijackings exploited three simple flaws in airline security of a procedural sort. Cockpit doors were not thought to need strengthening. It was assumed that hijackers could not fly planes. And no one expected hijackers to kill themselves. Once those assumptions are no longer made, security is already much better. Likewise, the Mumbai terrorists exploited flaws in coastal, urban and hotel security, which need to be addressed.

But Bush and Cheney hardly contented themselves with counter-terrorism measures. They dropped a thousand-page "p.a.t.r.i.o.t. act" on Congress one night and insisted they vote on it the next day. They created outlaw spaces like Guantanamo and engaged in torture (or encouraged allies to torture for them). They railroaded innocent people. They deeply damaged American democracy.

India's own democracy has all along been fragile. I actually travelled in India in summer of 1976 when Indira Gandhi had declared "Emergency," i.e., had suspended civil liberties and democracy (the only such period in Indian history since 1947). India's leadership must not allow a handful of terrorists to push the country into another Emergency. It is not always possible for lapsed democracies to recover their liberties once they are undermined.

Avoid War

The Bush administration fought two major wars in the aftermath of 9/11 but was never able to kill or capture the top al-Qaeda leadership. Conventional warfare did not actually destroy the Taliban, who later experienced a resurgence. The attack on Iraq destabilized the eastern stretches of the Middle East, which will be fragile and will face the threat of further wars for some time to come.

War with Pakistan over the Mumbai attacks would be a huge error. President Asaf Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani certainly did not have anything to do with those attacks. Indeed, the bombing of the Islamabad Marriott, which was intended to kill them, was done by exactly the same sort of people as attacked Mumbai. Nor was Chief of Staff Ashfaq Kiyani involved. Is it possible that a military cell under Gen. Pervez Musharraf trained Lashkar-e Tayiba terrorists for attacks in Kashmir, and then some of the LET went rogue and decided to hit Mumbai instead? Yes. But to interpret such a thing as a Pakistan government operation would be incorrect.

With a new civilian government, headed by politicians who have themselves suffered from Muslim extremism and terrorism, Pakistan could be an increasingly important security partner for India. Allowing past enmities to derail these potentialities for detente would be most unwise.

Don't Swing to the Right

The American public, traumatized by 9/11 and misled by propaganda from corporate media, swung right. Instead of rebuking Bush and Cheney for their sins against the Republic, for their illegal war on Iraq, for their gutting of the Bill of Rights, for their Orwellian techniques of governance, the public gave them another 4 years in 2004. This Himalayan error of judgment allowed Bush and Cheney to go on, like giant termites, undermining the economic and legal foundations of American values and prosperity.

The fundamentalist, rightwing Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, which has extensive links with Hindu extremist groups, is already attacking the secular, left-of-center Congress Party for allegedly being soft on Muslim terrorism. The BJP almost dragged India into a nuclear war with Pakistan in 2002, and it seeded RSS extremists in the civil bureaucracy, and for the Indian public to return it to power now would risk further geopolitical and domestic tensions.

India may well become a global superpower during the coming century. The choices it makes now on how it will deal with this threat of terrorism will help determine what kind of country it will be, and what kind of global impact it will have. While it may be hypocritical of an American to hope that New Delhi deals with its crisis better than we did, it bespeaks my confidence in the country that I believe it can.

Aljazeera English on the Aftermath of the Mumbai Attacks

Aljazeera English interviews victims of the Mumbai attacks in hospital, several of them Muslims.



Aljazeera English also reports on the reaction in Pakistan to the Mumbai events, both on the part of Foreign Minister Qureishi and in an interview with hard line radical fundamentalist Gen. Hamid Gul, a former head of the dreaded Inter-Services Intelligence.

12 Killed in Mosque Bombing; Controversy Rages over Security Pact

A suicide bomber detonated his payload outside a mosque in the largely Shiite town of Musayyib on Friday, killing 12 and wounding 23. Musayyib is in Babil province, and the US turned over security duties there to the Iraqi government last month. The Sadrists plamed the bombing on the security agreement and continued US presence in the country.

Hamza Hindawi of AP asks whether Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was weakened by the deal-making in which he had to engage to get the security pact through parliament. He had to agree to a national referendum, and to a package of reforms aimed at making Iraqi government more consensual and less concentrated in the executive, as for all practical purposes, it has become under al-Maliki. I am quoted as wondering whether the current alliance between al-Maliki's Islamic Da'wa (Mission) Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim will survive. If not, the two will square off against one another in December, during the next federal parliamentary elections. The constitutions stipulates that the largest single bloc in parliament gets first shot at forming a government, and that might not be the al-Da'wa Party.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that controversy continues to rage around the security pact, dividing communities against one another. The Association of Muslim Scholars condemned the Iraqi Islamic Party and other Sunni Arab parties for "selling Iraq" with their votes in its favor. Muqtada al-Sadr announced three days of mourning in protest against its enactment, but he did not order his supporters to engage in confrontation to overturn it, "in order to safeguard the unity of the country. One of the aides to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani called it a "diminution" of Iraq's sovereignty.

Muqtada asked his followers to mourn formally in mosques for three days, and to hold wakes (for all the world as though someone had died in the family). Muqtada all by himself will leave behind enough material to keep symbolic anthropologists busy for centuries. He sent out a statement expressing his "condolences" to Iraqis at this calamity, an agreement of abasement and humiliation. Hundreds of Sadrists managed to demonstrate after Friday prayers, despite strict security, and to burn American flags.

In Karbala, an aide to Sistani, Sheikh Ahmad al-Safi, said he had two concerns. First, would the Iraqi government actually exercise sovereignty to the degree stipulated in the agreement? And, second, he regretted the lack of any guarantee that Iraq would be removed from Chapter 7 of the UN Charter (and thus regain its independence from the UNSC). He pointed out that as long as US troops were on Iraqi soil, the government in Baghdad would not be truly sovereign, since it could not inspect the mail of American residents of Iraq, and US troops retained freedom of movement.

Ayatollah Muhammad al-Ya`qubi expressed his "disappointment" that the pact was enacted. (He is the spiritual leader of the Islamic Virtue Party or Fadhila, which is strong in Basra).

The Bush administration finally released the official English text on Friday. Some parliamentarians have expressed fears that it is not exactly the same as the Arabic text.


The European Union on Friday urged member states to take in 10,000 of the most vulnerable Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria. While it is a praiseworthy step, it cannot in itself resolve a massive crisis of 1.5 million Iraqis displaced abroad.

Mumbai Attacks and Indian Economy

Aljazeera English reports on the potential economic impact of the Mumbai attacks.



I don't think there are long-term economic implications of the attack as long as Mumbai authorities put in basic security in key areas. In the Middle East, the big tourist hotels have metal detectors and security staff and concrete barriers that keep car bombs away from the building. Indian hoteliers may just have to go in that direction.

There have been past terrorist attacks of similar magnitude, as well as communal violence that had much bigger death tolls (Hindu extremists in Mumbai and elsewhere killed hundreds of Muslims during the aftermath of the destruction of the Babri Masjid in the early 90s (and were helped by Shiv Sena police in Mumbai), and more recently, in 2002, there was the pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat), in which the provincial government was implicated. These events do not interfere with an economy in the medium or long term. It is only if there is instability on an ongoing basis.

I once talked to a merchant in Cairo about this sort of thing. He said his bad years were 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982. They were the years of the Arab-Israeli wars, and he was glad to have peace. But in the years in between, business always recovered.

This Aljazeera English report from yesterday contains a radio statement from one of the terrorists explaining his motives.



He cited Hindu extremists' attacks on Muslims, as in the Babri Mosque incident and in Gujarat.

This is typical hothouse crackpotism. Muslims are 13 percent of the Indian population. I lived in India for a couple of years, and my perception is that mostly people get along fine. There are Hindu-Muslim tensions (but so are there tensions between lower and upper caste Hindus, or between southerners and northerners, between Hindus and Christians, etc.), and occasionally they boil over. But aside from a relatively small number of Hindutva fanatics on the one side, and tiny Muslim terrorist groups in Kashmir (e.g.) on the other, there isn't normally a big problem.

It would help if President-elect Obama would follow through on his stated commitment to finally getting a resolution of the Kashmir issue, since it generates a lot of the tensions.

CNN is reporting that two of the terrorists may have been Britons of South Asian heritage (about half of UK Muslims are originally from Kashmir). If true, that datum would make sense of some of the tactics used in Mumbai (concentration on Americans, British and Israelis or Jews), since many young British Muslims view Anglo-American actions in Iraq and Afghanistan as a genocide against Muslims, and Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank as a slow genocide against Palestinians. In their fevered imagination, Hindu India is an ally in this generalized persecution of a harmless and righteous community.

In fact, the ruling Congress Party generally attracts the Muslim vote and in turn New Delhi does favors for the Muslims.

My suspicion is that a US withdrawal from Iraq will lead to fewer such incidents (The Iraq War was cited by the perpetrators of the bombings in Madrid and 7/7 in London, and it is probably implicated in this one too. Fallujah is a rallying cry).

Passage of Security Pact Strengthens al-Maliki; Provides Obama with Strong Partner in Withdrawal

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that 149 MPs out of 198 in attendance voted for the security pact, including the three major blocs, the (Shiite) United Iraqi Alliance, the Kurdistan Alliance, and the (Sunni Arab) Iraqi Accord Front. The Iraqi Accord Front demanded as the price of its positive vote, and got, a commitment that the Iraqi government would conduct a national referendum no later than July on the agreement. Al-Hayat said that the Sadr Movement MPs came dressed in black and held up placards on which was written "Absolutely "No!" to the Agreement." The 30 Sadrists were among the 49 present who voted against the agreement. For its part, the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila) boycotted the session (it has 15 seats).

Al-Zaman writing in Arabic pointed out that 149 out of 275 MPs is only 54 percent, while Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani had said he wanted a broad buy-in among the diversity of the Iraqi people.

I suspect the big Sunni Arab vote of the Iraqi Accord Front, along with that of the Kurdistan Alliance and the United Iraqi Alliance Shiites, will satisfy Sistani.

Joseph Krauss of AFP interviews analysts on the passing of the Iraqi-American Security Pact on Thursday. He quotes Hamid Hassan of Baghdad University as saying, "This agreement will make Maliki's position very strong (in Iraq) because it includes a timetable for the withdrawal of American and coalition forces. . . This success will also send a message to President-elect (Barack) Obama and his people that Maliki is a strong person and a person who can be relied on."

Krauss also quotes Hosham Dawod at France's CRNS, "He knows that he has a small party, Dawa, but he is trying to create a dynamic around his person to enlarge his base . . . He is trying to obtain the support of the t19ribes, the technocrats, the middle class, the urban population of the big cities and even the Sunni Arabs in the areas disputed with the Kurds."

I am quoted saying, "Maliki can only survive in the medium to long term if he can avoid being painted as a puppet of the Americans . . . This security agreement, because of its stipulation that the US gets out on a timetable, potentially turns Maliki into a hero of national independence."

McClatchy reports the views of analysts who fear that al-Maliki may get too powerful in the wake of this victory. He is establishing tribal councils, which have a paramilitary element, and which some fear will become the prime minister's private militia, and might intimidate voters so as to strengthen al-Maliki's Da'wa Party.

McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Thursday:

Baghdad

- Around 10 pm of Wednesday a magnetic bomb targeted a civilian car in downtown Baghdad. An officer of police commandos was seriously injured and then died in hospital.

- Around 7 am a roadside bomb targeted an army patrol in Qahira neighborhood (east Baghdad). One soldier was killed and three others were wounded.

- Around 10 am a roadside bomb detonated in Maisloon intersection in Karrada neighborhood (downtown Baghdad). One civilian was killed and six others were wounded.

Mosul

- A suicide bomber targeted a police patrol in downtown Mosul city. Six policemen were wounded.

- A suicide car bomber targeted a police patrol in Mansour neighborhood in Mosul city. Two civilians were killed and 28 others were wounded including 16 policemen.'

Iranian Radio Says Referendum Will Arm Iraqi Officials Against US 'Pressures'

The USG Open Source Center translates a radio broadcast from The Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran praising the passage of the Security Agreement between Iraq and the US by the Iraqi parliament. The celebratory style shows that official Iran has swung behind the agreement as a tool for getting the US military out of their western neighbor. Chief Justice Ayatollah Mahmud Hashemi Shahrudi had praised the agreement. (Shahrudi is Iraqi in origin and served 1982-84 as the head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, now led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.) Although Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei initially opposed it, he fell quiet once the Iraqi cabinet passed it. Both President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani strongly opposed it, but they don't appear to control the official radio. So if this agreement really were a good thing for Bush, would Iran be this happy?

Iranian Radio Says Referendum Will Arm Iraqi Officials Against US 'Pressures'
Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran Radio 1
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Document Type: OSC Translated Text

The Iraqi parliament has approved a referendum on the Baghdad-Washington security agreement. On this basis the agreement will be put to a referendum in Moradad (month beginning 22 July) next year. The security agreement, which is called SOFA (US-Iraqi Status of Forces Agreement), was approved by the parliament following months of consultation between the American and Iraqi officials and after many arguments and making some changes to its contents.

The draft of the agreement was revised and amended seven times due to strong resistance by Iraqi political groups against the irrational demands of America.

According to Resolution 1770 of the Security Council, the military presence of American troops was coming to an end by the end of the current Christian year. For this reason, to pursue their strategic objectives, the Americans have been trying for the past year to legitimize their presence in Iraq by imposing an agreement called SOFA on the Iraqi government but their efforts have been met with domestic and foreign oppositions and concerns, especially the neighboring countries. And of course, these concerns have been proved right with the recent attack on Syria.

This security agreement, which specifies the beginning of 2011 as the time for the complete withdrawal of American forces from Iraq, contains many conditions. One of these conditions, notably the withdrawal of American troops after guaranteeing stability in Iraq, can be used as a pretext by the future American government to prolong its stay in Iraq. For this reason, this agreement has been faced with opposition from various groups in Iraq giving rise to the issue of holding a referendum.

The agreement of the Iraqi government and parliament with holding a referendum shows that Iraqi officials, who are under pressure from America, will be in a better position to express their views by referring to the general consensus and the support of the Iraqi people, and will be able to free themselves from the pressures of the American statesmen.

(Description of Source: Tehran Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran Radio 1 in Persian -- state-run radio)