Washington Post - Page 11

tx_ned · #**101** Monday, May 24, 2010

By Tara Bahrampour and Pamela Constable
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 24, 2010

A series of international terrorism incidents linked to Pakistanis, including a failed car bombing this month in Times Square, has prompted many Pakistanis who once had deep ties to the United States to look elsewhere for work, education and travel. It has also left some Pakistani Americans feeling uneasy in their adopted homeland.

The stress of living under suspicion has had a palpable effect, Pakistani American community leaders say. Travel agents say bookings between Pakistan and the United States are down, and U.S. visa applications for travel from Pakistan appear to be dwindling. Though the U.S. government has ended a policy implemented after an attempted Christmas Day airplane bombing that involved extra scrutiny for travelers from 14 countries, including Pakistan, many Pakistanis still feel they are being watched.

Times Square bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad "has put us all in this situation where everyone will look at us Pakistani Americans and wonder if they have any connection," said Shaista Mahmood, 54, a community leader who lives in Mount Vernon.

In Pakistan, increased scrutiny of visas and more stringent U.S. airport searches have exacerbated feelings of rejection and discomfort. Many Pakistanis say they do not want to travel to the United States anymore, whether to study, visit relatives or take once-desirable jobs.

Anger and anxiety

"All these U.S. policies have given a whole generation of Pakistanis the psyche that the United States doesn't want us," said Arsalan Ishtiaq, a visa adviser in the city of Rawalpindi who has not received a single U.S. student visa inquiry in two years. "Not only is it much harder to get a visa now, but the few who do get them worry they may get in trouble or implicated in something if they go."

A dozen technology students in Islamabad and Rawalpindi who once would have given anything to work in the United States said they were instead seeking jobs in Britain, Australia, Canada or the United Arab Emirates. Several said they had heard about humiliating searches at U.S. airports and spoke angrily of Pakistanis being branded as Islamist radicals. The Times Square incident, they said, was the last straw.

"Now the Americans will think we are all terrorists," said Asalan Khan, 21, who recently completed a course in cellphone technology and plans to work in South Africa. "Why should we study so hard, take all those tests and pay all those expenses if they are not going to respect us?"

The Times Square incident has generated hundreds of comments by bloggers, columnists and others in Pakistan. Some were perplexed and angry that an apparently successful Pakistani American might be connected to the bomb plot; others warned of new crackdowns and humiliations.

Some younger Pakistanis said friends in the United States have told prospective employers that they are of Indian origin to avoid problems. Others said relatives who are longtime U.S. residents have faced criticism from friends still living in Pakistan, whose views have become much more anti-American in recent years.

"My uncle has been living in the United States for years," said Akmal Abassi, an English language instructor and visa adviser in Rawalpindi. "He still admires the American values of freedom and equality, but now it is much harder for him to convince people here at home." Abassi says the majority of his students now seek advanced degrees in Britain.

Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis have relatives in the United States, and several said they have decided not to visit them for now, to avoid unpleasant encounters.

'As a parent, it gets scary'

There has been no shift in the number of U.S. citizens of Pakistani origin seeking visas to travel to their native land, said Nadeem Haider Kiani, a spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington. But he said that such a shift would be hard to gauge until this summer. "Most travel to Pakistan during summer vacation, so we'll have to wait and see," he said.

None of those interviewed in Pakistan said their family members in the United States had encountered personal problems with U.S. authorities. But Adnan Khan, who has lived in the United States for 28 years, said that this summer, for the first time, he will send his wife and daughter alone on the regular family visit to Pakistan and keep his 19-year-old son with him in Walnut, Calif.

"Reports coming out now are that it's five or six hours in the airport," he said, referring to tales of Pakistani travelers, usually young men, being detained for questioning. The last time the Khan family returned from Pakistan, three years ago, the son was pulled aside for questioning. It unsettled the father. "Why is he being separated and why am I not included?" said Khan, president of the Council of Pakistan American Affairs. "As a parent, it gets scary."

The effects of the negative publicity could be lasting, Khan said. "We're going to have a whole generation of kids . . . growing up seeing their parents sitting down every night and the discussion was this whole terrorism thing," he said. "I think they'll need therapy, once this war ends, telling them they're not terrorists."

Constable reported from Pakistan.

tx_ned · #**102** Tuesday, May 25, 2010

By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer

BEIJING -- The Obama administration announced Monday that it would bolster South Korea's defenses and initiate joint military exercises with Seoul because of growing tensions with the North over the sinking of one of South Korea's warships.

In twin announcements, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the White House said U.S. forces in South Korea had been directed to "coordinate closely with their Korean counterparts to ensure readiness and to deter future aggression."

"U.S. support for South Korea's defense is unequivocal," the White House statement said.

Seoul has steered clear of threatening specific military retaliation since blaming the North for the March 26 attack on its warship -- which left 46 South Korean sailors dead. Still, moves by both the South and the United States make clear that they are including a significant military component to their response.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said Monday that his country would launch a joint anti-submarine military exercise with the United States and join a U.S.-led anti-proliferation program, known as the Proliferation of Security Initiative (PSI), that South Korea had previously been reluctant to take part in to avoid provoking the North.

Additionally, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak vowed that his country's military would learn from the mistakes that allowed what was believed to be a North Korean mini-submarine to approach the Cheonan and split it in two with a torpedo.

"The discipline of the armed forces will be reestablished, military reform efforts will be expedited and combat capabilities will be reinforced drastically," Lee said in a speech to the nation Monday. He said that the U.S.-Korean military alliance -- there are almost 29,000 U.S. troops deployed in South Korea -- would be strengthened.

At the United Nations, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who served previously as South Korea's foreign minister, issued an unusually tough statement saying the evidence of North Korean culpability in the torpedo attack was "overwhelming and deeply troubling. I fully share the widespread condemnation of the incident."

"I am confident that the council, in fulfilling its responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, will take measures appropriate to the gravity of the situation," Ban said.

Lee's main moves against North Korea so far have involved trade. On Monday, he said the South would block all imports and exports from North Korea and cut off some investments; South Korean waters were closed to North Korean ships as well. About 60 North Korean ships a month pass through South Korea's water, South Korea's government said.

Lee's trade embargo will still cost North Korea almost $500 million -- about one-tenth of its total estimated exports, the South Korean government estimated, and $326 million in imports.

The trade ban excluded the industrial enclave at Kaesong, where South Koreans run factories in the North, in part because it is home to more than 1,000 South Koreans. Factories at Kaesong account for most of the $1.7 billion in annual trade on the peninsula.

Speaking to reporters in Beijing, Clinton described the situation on the peninsula as "highly precarious," but she added that the United States was trying to stabilize the situation.

"We are working hard to avoid an escalation of belligerence and provocation," Clinton told reporters on the sidelines of meetings in Beijing. "This is a highly precarious situation that the North Koreans have caused in the region. And it is one that every country that neighbors or is in proximity to North Korea understands must be contained."

Clinton said she was having "intensive consultations" with China about the issue, but it appeared that China did not want to take sides in the fight. Speaking to reporters, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said that Beijing's position was "very clear" on the sinking of the Cheonan and that both sides should "exercise restraint and remain cool-headed."

Staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations contributed to this report.

tx_ned · #**103** Wednesday, May 26, 2010

By Michael Gerson

After the British army conquered the Sindh region of what is now modern-day Pakistan in the 1840s, Gen. Charles Napier enforced a ban on the practice of Sati -- the burning of widows alive on the funeral pyres of their husbands. A delegation of Hindu leaders approached Napier to complain that their ancient traditions were being violated. The general is said to have replied: "You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. . . . You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

The incident can hardly be commended as a model of cross-cultural relations, but it clarifies a tension. Conflict can arise between respect for other cultures and respect for universal human rights.

This is particularly true when it comes to the rights of women. Traditional societies can be deeply admirable -- conservative, family-oriented, stable, wise about human nature and human society. But they can also be highly patriarchal, evidenced by such practices as Sati, foot-binding, widow inheritance and female circumcision. This is not to say that modern, rights-based societies are without their own faults and failures; it is only to recognize that multiculturalism and human rights can sometimes clash.

For the most part, these tensions no longer emerge through colonialism but through migration, which can transplant a traditional culture smack in the middle of an aggressively liberal one. The most visible areas of difference -- say in dress -- can spark controversy, just as the wearing of the burqa is now doing in Europe.

Belgium is moving toward a total ban on face-covering veils in public. Italian police recently fined a woman for wearing a burqa. In France, a law banning garments "designed to hide the face" is likely to be introduced in July. "The burqa is not a sign of religion," says French President Nicolas Sarkozy, "it is a sign of subservience. It will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic."

Disagreements about the burqa among Islamic women are often heated. This is to be expected because religious covering means different things in different contexts. It can be a "body bag" placed on unwilling women by threatening relatives and religious police. It can be, according to one critic, "a sad process of self-isolation and self-imposed exile." But it can also be a way for women from traditional backgrounds to preserve their marriage prospects and family honor in mixed-sex settings. Many women who wear the burqa are fully conscious of the choice they are making.

The motives of European leaders in this controversy are less sympathetic. Some speak deceptively (and absurdly) of a security motive for banning Islamic covering. Who knows what they are hiding? But by this standard, the war on terrorism would mandate the wearing of bikinis. The real purpose of burqa bans is to assert European cultural identity -- secular, liberal and individualistic -- at the expense of a visible, traditional religious minority. A nation such as France, proudly relativistic on most issues, is convinced of its cultural superiority when it comes to sexual freedom. A country of topless beaches considers a ban on excessive modesty. The capital of the fashion world, where women are often overexposed and objectified, lectures others on the dignity of women.

For what the opinion of an outsider is worth, I do think the burqa is oppressive. It seems designed to restrict movement, leaving women clumsy, helpless, dependent and anonymous. The vast majority of Muslim women do not wear complete covering because the Koran mandates only modesty, not sartorial imprisonment.

But at issue in Europe is not social disapproval; it is criminalization. In matters of religious liberty, there are no easy or rigid rules. Governments apply a balancing test. A tradition that burns widows or physically mutilates young girls would justify the Napier approach. Some rights are so fundamental that they must be defended in every case. But if a democratic majority can impose its will on a religious minority for any reason, religious freedom has no meaning. The state must have strong, public justifications to compel conformity, especially on an issue such as the clothes that citizens wear.

In France -- where only a few thousand women out of 5 million Muslims wear the burqa -- a ban is merely a symbolic expression of disdain for an unpopular minority. It would achieve little but resentment.

mgerson@globalengage.org

tx_ned · #**104** Thursday, May 27, 2010

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 27, 2010

Obama administration officials have dubbed their policy toward North Korea "strategic patience" -- a resolve that Pyongyang has to make the first move to reengage and that it won't be granted any concessions.

Now that patience is going to be tested.

Since President Obama took office, North Korea has launched missiles, conducted a second nuclear test, seized a pair of U.S. journalists and sunk a South Korean warship, killing 46 sailors. This week, after South Korea halted aid and trade to Pyongyang, the North said it would sever relations with its neighbor. It also warned of more provocative actions if Seoul pushes ahead with plans to seek a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing additional sanctions.

When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stopped in Seoul on Wednesday to meet with President Lee Myung-bak and other officials, Lee's spokesman said, she reaffirmed the policy of strategic patience. Officials traveling with Clinton said efforts to restart long-dormant nuclear disarmament talks had been put on hold.

"What we're focused on is changing North Korean behavior," one senior U.S. official said. "We are not focused on getting back to the table."

"We recognize that diplomacy, some form of diplomacy with North Korea, is inevitable at some point," another official said. "We're really not there."

Analysts worry, though, that the administration's policy allows North Korea to set the agenda. The United States and its allies are constantly reacting to Pyongyang's actions and, partly as a result, have little opportunity to reduce tensions or bolster diplomatic efforts.

The administration is "all about resolve. We want North Korea to know they can't jerk us around again," said Susan Shirk, a former Clinton administration official who is director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation and a professor at the University of California at San Diego. "The problem with it is, how do you credibly convince them that if they did something positive, we would be prepared to engage?"

The Obama policy is in many ways a reaction to the jarring dissonance of the George W. Bush administration's handling of North Korea. That administration veered from tough talk and actions -- which included the termination of a deal that had provided North Korea with fuel oil in exchange for freezing its nuclear program -- to a desperate gamble to strike any deal at almost any cost. In the end, Bush returned illicit funds and removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, only to see his efforts collapse with few lasting achievements.

Because the Bush approach also frayed relations with Japan and South Korea, the Obama administration has worked hard to coordinate closely with Tokyo and Seoul. U.S.-Japanese relations were rocky in the early months of the new government but seem to have stabilized in the wake of the North Korean actions. That coordination, U.S. officials say, has sharpened the attention of Chinese officials.

"It complicates their security environment. And over time, it affects their thinking," one of the U.S. officials said, predicting that China soon will signal support for South Korea despite Beijing's longtime alliance with the North.

People involved in the Obama transition say the North Korea portfolio was thought to have so little chance of success that there was no desire to invest much Still, L. Gordon Flake, a Korea expert who is executive director of the Mansfield Foundation in Washington, said the administration and the current South Korean government "have displayed remarkable adherence to their core principles in dealing with North Korea. There is a consistency you have not seen before."

But "looking forward, I'm a bit concerned," he said. "It leads down a road where the diplomatic options are increasingly constrained. Strategic patience is a solid policy, but what if North Korea is not patient?"

In the coming weeks, North Korea is likely to respond negatively to U.S.-South Korea anti-submarine exercises and to possible Security Council action. Either could heighten tensions and lead to possible miscalculations.

North Korea's recent belligerence may be tied to internal domestic considerations, specifically leader Kim Jong Il's efforts to ensure that one of his sons succeeds him. U.S. intelligence analysts attribute the North's action to both an effort to build up popular support for a successor and a desire to avenge a naval skirmish with South Korea last year that North Korea lost.

Such internal political calculations in North Korea could make diplomacy more difficult. They may already have been a factor in the Obama administration's fitful efforts to restart six-nation disarmament talks. In the past year, North Korea at times has appeared to signal that it was willing to engage, only to pull back.

Stephen W. Bosworth, the administration's envoy for North Korea, visited Pyongyang in December. But a return visit to the United States by a North Korean official fell through this spring; North Korea would not agree to a U.S. demand that it return to the negotiating table in exchange for the visa.

The lesson may be that the United States ignores North Korea at its peril. "The problem is that North Korea won't let you put them on a back burner," Shirk said.

tx_ned · #**105** Sunday, May 30, 2010

By Greg Miller
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 29, 2010

The U.S. military is reviewing options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan in the event that a successful attack on American soil is traced to the country's tribal areas, according to senior military officials.

Ties between the alleged Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, and elements of the Pakistani Taliban have sharpened the Obama administration's need for retaliatory options, the officials said. They stressed that a U.S. reprisal would be contemplated only under extreme circumstances, such as a catastrophic attack that leaves President Obama convinced that the ongoing campaign of CIA drone strikes is insufficient.

"Planning has been reinvigorated in the wake of Times Square," one of the officials said.

At the same time, the administration is trying to deepen ties to Pakistan's intelligence officials in a bid to head off any attack by militant groups. The United States and Pakistan have recently established a joint military intelligence center on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar, and are in negotiations to set up another one near Quetta, the Pakistani city where the Afghan Taliban is based, according to the U.S. military officials. They and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding U.S. military and intelligence activities in Pakistan.

The "fusion centers" are meant to bolster Pakistani military operations by providing direct access to U.S. intelligence, including real-time video surveillance from drones controlled by the U.S. Special Operations Command, the officials said. But in an acknowledgment of the continuing mistrust between the two governments, the officials added that both sides also see the centers as a way to keep a closer eye on one another, as well as to monitor military operations and intelligence activities in insurgent areas.

Obama said during his campaign for the presidency that he would be willing to order strikes in Pakistan, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a television interview after the Times Square attempt that "if, heaven forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences."

Obama dispatched his national security adviser, James L. Jones, and CIA Director Leon Panetta to Islamabad this month to deliver a similar message to Pakistani officials, including President Asif Ali Zardari and the military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani.

Jones and Panetta also presented evidence gathered by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies that Shahzad received significant support from the Pakistani Taliban.

The U.S. options for potential retaliatory action rely mainly on air and missile strikes, but could also employ small teams of U.S. Special Operations troops already positioned along the border with Afghanistan. One of the senior military officials said plans for military strikes in Pakistan have been revised significantly over the past several years, moving away from a "large, punitive response" to more measured plans meant to deliver retaliatory blows against specific militant groups.

The official added that there is a broad consensus in the U.S. military that airstrikes would at best erode the threat posed by al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and risk an irreparable rupture in the U.S. relationship with Pakistan.

"The general feeling is that we need to be circumspect in how we respond so we don't destroy the relationships we've built" with the Pakistani military, the second official said.

U.S. Special Operations teams in Afghanistan have pushed for years to have wider latitude to carry out raids across the border, arguing that CIA drone strikes do not yield prisoners or other opportunities to gather intelligence. But a 2008 U.S. helicopter raid against a target in Pakistan prompted protests from officials in Islamabad who oppose allowing U.S. soldiers to operate within their country.

The CIA has the authority to designate and strike targets in Pakistan without case-by-case approval from the White House. U.S. military forces are currently authorized to carry out unilateral strikes in Pakistan only if solid intelligence were to surface on any of three high-value targets: al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, or Taliban chief Mohammad Omar. But even in those cases, the military would need higher-level approval.

"The bottom line is you have to have information about targets to do something [and] we have a process that remains cumbersome," said one of the senior military officials. "If something happens, we have to confirm who did it and where it came from. People want to be as precise as possible to be punitive."

U.S. spy agencies have engaged in a major buildup inside Pakistan over the past year. The CIA has increased the pace of drone strikes against al-Qaeda affiliates, a campaign supported by the arrival of new surveillance and eavesdropping technology deployed by the National Security Agency.

The fusion centers are part of a parallel U.S. military effort to intensify the pressure on the Taliban and other groups accused of directing insurgent attacks in Afghanistan. U.S. officials said that the sharing of intelligence goes both ways and that targets are monitored in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In the Peshawar fusion cell, which was set up within the last several months, Pakistanis have access to "full-motion video from different platforms," including unarmed surveillance drones, one official said.

The fusion centers also serve a broader U.S. aim: making the Pakistanis more dependent on U.S. intelligence, and less likely to curtail Predator drone patrols or other programs that draw significant public opposition.

To Pakistan, the fusion centers offer a glimpse of U.S. capabilities, as well as the ability to monitor U.S. military operations across the border. "They find out much more about what we know," one of the senior U.S. military officials said. "What we get is physical presence -- to see what they are actually doing versus what they say they're doing."

That delicate arrangement will be tested if the two sides reach agreement on the fusion center near Quetta. The city has served for nearly a decade as a sanctuary for Taliban leaders who fled Afghanistan in 2001 and have long-standing ties to Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.

U.S. officials said that the two sides have done preliminary work searching for a suitable site for the center but that the effort is proceeding at a pace that one official described as "typical Pakistani glacial speed." Despite the increased cooperation, U.S. officials say they continue to be frustrated over Pakistan's slow pace in issuing visas to American military and civilian officials.

One senior U.S. military official said the center would be used to track the Afghan Taliban leadership council, known as the Quetta shura. But other officials said the main mission would be to support the U.S. military effort across the border in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where a major U.S. military push is planned.

Staff writers Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung contributed to this report

tx_ned · #**106** Tuesday, June 01, 2010

By Colum Lynch and Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post staff writer
Tuesday, June 1, 2010; 8 : 17 AM

UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. Security Council early Tuesday condemned "those acts which resulted in" the deaths of at least nine civilians aboard an aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip, and called for a "prompt, impartial, credible and transparent" investigation into why and how the Israeli military acted to stop the ships from reaching their destination.

"The Security Council deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries resulting from the use of force during the Israeli military operation in international waters against the convoy sailing to Gaza," the statement said. It added, "The Security Council requests the immediate release of the ships as well as the civilians held by Israel. The Council urges Israel to permit full consular access, to allow the countries concerned to retrieve their deceased and wounded immediately, and to ensure the delivery of humanitarian assistance from the convoy to its destination."

The statement, which appeared to be less directly critical of Israel than Turkey and many Arab countries had demanded, said Israel's blockade of Gaza is "not sustainable" and called for a regular flow of supplies into the impoverished Palestinian territory.

"The Security Council underscores that the only viable solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an agreement negotiated between the parties and re-emphasizes that only a two-State solution, with an independent and viable Palestinian State living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbours, could bring peace to the region," the statement said.

At least nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed and dozens were injured early Monday when Israeli naval commandos took control of the boats about 70 miles offshore in international waters. Turkey had dispatched the main Mavi Marmara ship, which carried 600 activists and thousands of tons of aid.

When the 15-nation security council met in emergency session hours after the melee, Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, urged the group to condemn "this Israeli act of aggression" and punish those responsible.

Behind closed doors, U.S. diplomats sought to prevent the council from authorizing a U.N. investigation into the Israeli raid, saying Israel should be given a chance to conduct a credible investigation first.

The United States found itself in the difficult position of trying to mediate between two important allies at the emotionally charged session, which provided a barometer of international anger over the Israeli attack.

Alejandro Wolff, the United States' second-highest-ranking ambassador to the United Nations, said Monday that the United States is still trying to "ascertain the facts" but that it "regrets the tragic loss of life and injuries." Wolff said the United States expects "a credible and transparent investigation and strongly urges the Israeli government to investigate the incident fully."

But Wolff also scolded the members of the humanitarian convoy, saying that their unapproved delivery of aid "by sea is neither appropriate nor responsible, and certainly not effective, under the circumstances." Wolff said that "non-provocative and non-confrontational" procedures exist for delivering assistance to Gazans.

The Turkish foreign minister, however, compared Israel's action as "tantamount to banditry piracy" and accused Israeli leaders of lying about the alleged presence of radical Islamists on the aid ships. "It saddens me to see that officials of a state stoop so low as to lie and struggle to create pretexts that would legitimize their illegal actions," Davutoglu said, using unusually harsh language for such a forum.

John Holmes, the U.N. humanitarian relief coordinator, also strongly criticized the Israeli action, saying: "I condemn this dreadful waste of life over a humanitarian issue. Whatever the truth about what happened, which the full investigation called for by the secretary general should establish quickly, such an incident should never have happened or needed to happen."

Israel's deputy U.N. ambassador, Daniel Carmon, countered that the flotilla's intention was to break what he described as a legal maritime blockade on Gaza and that some of the activists had "known terrorist history."

"What kind of peace activists use knives, clubs and other weapons to attack soldiers who board a ship in accordance with international law?" Carmon told the council. "The answer is clear: They are not peace activists; they are not messengers of good will. They cynically use a humanitarian platform to send a message of hate and to implement violence.

An earlier draft statement introduced by Turkey condemned Israel in the "strongest terms" for the attack on the aid flotilla and called on Israel to pay compensation to those affected by the attack.

The statement characterized Israel's action -- which occurred in international waters -- as a "clear violation of international law," and asked U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to "undertake an independent international investigation by the U.N. to determine how this bloodshed took place and to ensure that those responsible would be held accountable."

Wilgoren reported from Washington.

tx_ned · #**107** Wednesday, June 02, 2010

By Janine Zacharia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 2, 2010; 6 : 23 AM

JERUSALEM -- Israel on Wednesday began deporting hundreds of activists captured during a deadly raid on an aid flotilla that set off widespread international criticism of the Gaza blockade, with popular opinion in many countries swinging heavily against Israel and even the United States urging its ally to find new ways to allow aid shipments to reach the Palestinians.

Israeli officials said 204 Turks who had been taken into custody on board the flotilla Monday were bused to Ben Gurion International Airport Wednesday morning to be sent out of the country. Those allegedly involved in attacks on the commandos who staged the raid with be expelled along with the rest, Israeli police said, in accordance with a government decision reached Tuesday night to deport all who arrived on the boats within 48 hours.

Eleven American citizens who were being held at Ela prison were expected to be deported Wednesday, according to the Interior Ministry.

The United States continued to tread carefully in public on Tuesday -- expressing regret about the deaths but not condemning Israel's actions. Behind the scenes, administration officials pressed Israel to make sure the incident is not repeated, especially with a new aid ship heading for the besieged coastal strip within days.

Israeli Ambassador Michael B. Oren and national security adviser Uzi Arad spent four hours in meetings Tuesday at the White House, including a session with James L. Jones, President Obama's national security adviser. The meetings focused on how to contain the immediate diplomatic fallout from the raid, which has endangered the push for sanctions against Iran and peace efforts in the Middle East.

The discussions also explored ways for future humanitarian deliveries to reach Gaza without jeopardizing Israel's security, a White House official said. Behind the White House's message was a sense within the administration that Israel's approach toward upholding its blockade is unworkable over the long term, and the focus now is on preventing another deadly raid at sea.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told Defense Minster Ehud Barak during a phone conversation that "we should be extremely cautious in both what we say and what we do in coming days," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

The Obama administration faces a difficult balancing act as it tries to patch up relations with Israel while not letting Arab anger over the raid, which left nine activists dead, undercut its outreach to the Muslim world.

While Israeli officials closed ranks in fending off international criticism, the internal debate in Israel focused on why the government and the military had permitted the operation to turn into a public relations fiasco that has tarnished Israeli relations with onetime allies, especially Turkey. Israeli officials were adamant that their policy toward Gaza will not change.

A public opinion poll in the Israeli daily Maariv Wednesday illustrated local support for the political leadership but discontent with the way the Navy seized the flotilla. Seventy-five percent said Barak doesn't need to resign; 89 percent said Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu shouldn't resign. But 63 percent of those asked said the Navy should have stopped the flotilla in a different way. The country was split on the question of whether Israel should establish a commission to investigate what happened with 46 percent saying yes and 52 percent saying no.

Israeli military Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, while visiting navy commandos who were wounded during clashes aboard the 600-passenger Mavi Marmara ship early Monday, said everything would be studied, "from the commander of the navy to the last of the soldiers, in order to learn for the future."

The future may come as soon as later this week when the MV Rachel Corrie, the seventh ship in the flotilla, will attempt to reach Gaza. The ship is named for an American activist killed in Gaza in 2003 while protesting Israeli home demolitions.

Netanyahu, who returned home Tuesday after canceling a trip to Washington, convened his security advisers for a four-hour review that covered Monday's raid, the diplomatic fallout from the incident and how to contend with other attempts to breach the blockade. An Israeli official said no change has been made to Israel's policy to stop ships from reaching Gaza, which Israeli forces have kept under a maritime blockade since the Islamist Hamas movement took control of the strip in 2007.

Israeli commandos seized five ships in an aid flotilla early Monday but fought with protesters aboard a sixth. Israeli officials say the demonstrators attacked the commandos with axes and metal rods, while flotilla organizers say the troops used excessive force on unarmed civilians.

Even as Israeli officials defended their right to use force to uphold the blockade, Israeli commentators decried the raid, and some called for Barak to resign. Others blamed the military. A former senior Israeli military official said the navy tried "to be like Rambo" and "gave this kind of illusion to the political level that they can carry it out very easily without complications. It's the navy chief who is responsible."

While Israeli officials said soldiers had not expected violent resistance, officials had alleged for days that the activists aboard the large Turkish ship were part of a radical group with links to militant organizations.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which visited some of the activists in the prison south of the city of Beersheba, released a statement Tuesday raising "serious questions concerning the methods and means used by the Israel Defense Forces to prevent the flotilla from proceeding to Gaza."

Israel's actions have been condemned by governments worldwide, and the raid spawned demonstrations in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia.

As Israel's diplomatic isolation grew, Nicaragua announced it was suspending ties with Israel, the first country to do so since the Israeli attack on the aid ship Monday.

Central to the criticism of Israel were questions about the legality of its actions. The raid took place on a ship that was apparently unarmed, in international waters. But Allen Weiner, a former State Department lawyer and legal counsel at the U.S. Embassy at The Hague, said Israel was technically operating legally.

"Israel claims to be in a state of armed conflict with a non-state group, with Hamas in Gaza. Under the laws of war, a blockage is legal," said Weiner, who teaches at Stanford Law School. "That includes operating on the high seas. You don't have to wait until you are on territorial waters."

The U.N. Security Council condemned "those acts which resulted in" the deaths of nine civilians and called for a "prompt, impartial, credible and transparent" investigation of why and how the Israeli military acted to stop the ships.

Though officially the Obama administration insisted that Israel was "best positioned" to conduct an investigation, a senior administration official acknowledged that an Israeli probe will not be seen as legitimate, so "we are pushing hard for an international role."

As anger spread throughout the Arab world, Egypt, in a symbolic gesture of solidarity with Gaza, partly opened the long-shuttered Rafah border crossing into the territory. Many Palestinians headed there Wednesday. It was unclear how long the border -- long the main crossing point for Gaza's residents -- would remain open.

Israel and Egypt have coordinated in keeping their crossings with Gaza closed for all but humanitarian purposes in an attempt to isolate Hamas leaders. Because of the Egyptian and Israeli blockades, most commercial goods sold in Gaza are smuggled from Egypt through tunnels.

Special correspondent Samuel Sockol in Jerusalem and staff writers Glenn Kessler and Scott Wilson in Washington and Colum Lynch in New York contributed to this report.

tx_ned · #**108** Thursday, June 03, 2010

By Scott Wilson and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 3, 2010

The Obama administration said Wednesday that it had warned Israel's government repeatedly to use "caution and restraint" with half a dozen aid boats bound for the Gaza Strip before Israeli commandos raided the flotilla this week in an operation that killed nine people.

"We communicated with Israel through multiple channels many times regarding the flotilla," P.J. Crowley, a State Department spokesman, said in a statement issued in response to a question from The Washington Post. "We emphasized caution and restraint given the anticipated presence of civilians, including American citizens."

The acknowledgment shed new light on the administration's contact with the Israeli government before the Monday morning raid, which has inflamed international opinion against Israel and complicated President Obama's efforts to improve U.S. relations with the Islamic world. White House officials said Wednesday that there is a growing consensus within the administration that U.S. and Israeli policy toward Gaza must change, even as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu flatly rejected calls for his country to lift its blockade of the Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu, addressing his nation Wednesday for the first time since the raid, angrily defended Israel from mounting international criticism over its use of force against the flotilla, which was carrying construction materials, medicine, school paper and other aid to Gaza when Israeli commandos set upon it in international waters.

Netanyahu called the criticism "hypocrisy" and described Gaza, where 1.5 million people live in a narrow slice of dunes and refugee camps between southern Israel and the sea, as "a terror state funded by the Iranians."

"The same countries that are criticizing us today should know that they will be targeted tomorrow," he said, just a day after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Israel's policy toward Gaza "unsustainable." "It's for this and for many other reasons we have a right to inspect cargo heading into Gaza,'' Netanyahu added.

The flotilla was organized by the Free Gaza Movement and a Turkish charity that Israeli officials say has connections to radical groups.

In an interview with Charlie Rose broadcast Wednesday night, Vice President Biden agreed that Israel had a right to inspect the cargo. "You can argue whether Israel should have dropped people onto that ship or not . . . but the truth of the matter is, Israel has a right to know -- they're at war with Hamas -- has a right to know whether or not arms are being smuggled in," he said.

At the same time, Biden acknowledged that the administration is trying to sway the Israeli government on the issue of Gaza, which has been under some form of an Israeli blockade for five years.

"We have put as much pressure and as much cajoling on Israel as we can to allow them to get building materials" and other designated humanitarian aid into Gaza, he said.

Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to Washington, said that although lifting the blockade is out of the question, Israel shares the administration's goal of improving civilian life in the Gaza Strip. "We are open to the discussion of how best to reconcile the civilian needs of the people of Gaza with Israel's very real security needs," he said in an interview.

The Israeli raid on the flotilla has focused international attention on Israel's closure policy and the mixed results it has achieved.

Israel withdrew its soldiers and settlements from Gaza in 2005 after a nearly four-decade presence in the strip. But it has maintained strict control over the coast and crossing points for goods arriving from Israel, which has come under frequent attack over the years from rockets fired by the Islamist movement Hamas and other armed groups at war with the Jewish state.

In 2007, after Hamas's violent takeover of the strip, Israel effectively closed it to all but a limited amount of humanitarian aid. The goal was to turn the public against Hamas, and prevent arms-making materials from entering. Israel has also linked lifting the blockade -- which includes a ban on nearly all exports from Gaza -- to the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier Hamas captured in Israel in 2006.

But Israel has let several aid flotillas land at Gaza over the past two years, missions designed primarily to draw attention to the blockade. Before Monday's most ambitious attempt to run the blockade, Israel had turned back two previous flotillas and detained some participants for more than a week.

Israel said Wednesday that it had completed the deportation of the more than 700 activists detained after the raid. Most of them were flown to Turkey, which was Israel's chief Muslim ally in the region before the raid but has since withdrawn its ambassador.

The administration's acknowledgment that it warned Israel against using excessive force comes as White House officials have been meeting with Israeli diplomats and security officials to discuss how the blockade might be altered to allow more aid to enter Gaza without risking Israeli security.

White House officials said Obama has had several phone calls with Netanyahu since the incident, and national security adviser James L. Jones met with his Israeli counterpart for several hours this week.

A White House official briefed on those meetings said there is "a general sense in the administration that it's time to change our Gaza policy," although he would not elaborate on how the administration might change the way it engages an area controlled by a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.

The official said meetings have been held to explore "alternative approaches to dealing with ships who try to run the blockade, and to ensure the humanitarian aid reaches people in Gaza." The official added that "our militaries are in touch on this."

David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said that discussion should focus on trimming the Israeli bans on many basic items for fear that they could be used for nefarious purposes. "It needs to be streamlined, so that everything is permitted unless it is forbidden, rather than everything is forbidden unless it is permitted," he said. "You have got to use common sense so that you just deny things that can be used for weapons."

Correspondent Janine Zacharia in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

tx_ned · #**109** Friday, June 04, 2010

By Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 4, 2010

Beneath its commitment to soft-spoken diplomacy and beyond the combat zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Obama administration has significantly expanded a largely secret U.S. war against al-Qaeda and other radical groups, according to senior military and administration officials.

Special Operations forces have grown both in number and budget, and are deployed in 75 countries, compared with about 60 at the beginning of last year. In addition to units that have spent years in the Philippines and Colombia, teams are operating in Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.

Commanders are developing plans for increasing the use of such forces in Somalia, where a Special Operations raid last year killed the alleged head of al-Qaeda in East Africa. Plans exist for preemptive or retaliatory strikes in numerous places around the world, meant to be put into action when a plot has been identified, or after an attack linked to a specific group.

The surge in Special Operations deployments, along with intensified CIA drone attacks in western Pakistan, is the other side of the national security doctrine of global engagement and domestic values President Obama released last week.

One advantage of using "secret" forces for such missions is that they rarely discuss their operations in public. For a Democratic president such as Obama, who is criticized from either side of the political spectrum for too much or too little aggression, the unacknowledged CIA drone attacks in Pakistan, along with unilateral U.S. raids in Somalia and joint operations in Yemen, provide politically useful tools.

Obama, one senior military official said, has allowed "things that the previous administration did not."

'More access'

Special Operations commanders have also become a far more regular presence at the White House than they were under George W. Bush's administration, when most briefings on potential future operations were run through the Pentagon chain of command and were conducted by the defense secretary or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"We have a lot more access," a second military official said. "They are talking publicly much less but they are acting more. They are willing to get aggressive much more quickly."

The White House, he said, is "asking for ideas and plans . . . calling us in and saying, 'Tell me what you can do. Tell me how you do these things.' "

The Special Operations capabilities requested by the White House go beyond unilateral strikes and include the training of local counterterrorism forces and joint operations with them. In Yemen, for example, "we are doing all three," the official said. Officials who spoke about the increased operations were not authorized to discuss them on the record.

The clearest public description of the secret-war aspects of the doctrine came from White House counterterrorism director John O. Brennan. He said last week that the United States "will not merely respond after the fact" of a terrorist attack but will "take the fight to al-Qaeda and its extremist affiliates whether they plot and train in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond."

That rhetoric is not much different than Bush's pledge to "take the battle to the enemy . . . and confront the worst threats before they emerge." The elite Special Operations units, drawn from all four branches of the armed forces, became a frontline counterterrorism weapon for the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But Obama has made such forces a far more integrated part of his global security strategy. He has asked for a 5.7 percent increase in the Special Operations budget for fiscal 2011, for a total of $6.3 billion, plus an additional $3.5 billion in 2010 contingency funding.

Bush-era clashes between the Defense and State departments over Special Operations deployments have all but ceased. Former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld saw them as an independent force, approving in some countries Special Operations intelligence-gathering missions that were so secret that the U.S. ambassador was not told they were underway. But the close relationship between Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is said to have smoothed out the process.

"In some places, we are quite obvious in our presence," Adm. Eric T. Olson, head of the Special Operations Command, said in a speech. "In some places, in deference to host-country sensitivities, we are lower in profile. In every place, Special Operations forces activities are coordinated with the U.S. ambassador and are under the operational control of the four-star regional commander."

Chains of command

Gen. David H. Petraeus at the Central Command and others were ordered by the Joint Staff under Bush to develop plans to use Special Operations forces for intelligence collection and other counterterrorism efforts, and were given the authority to issue direct orders to them. But those orders were formalized only last year, including in a CENTCOM directive outlining operations throughout South Asia, the Horn of Africa and the Middle East.

The order, whose existence was first reported by the New York Times, includes intelligence collection in Iran, although it is unclear whether Special Operations forces are active there.

The Tampa-based Special Operations Command is not entirely happy with its subordination to regional commanders and, in Afghanistan and Iraq, to theater commanders. Special Operations troops within Afghanistan had their own chain of command until early this year, when they were brought under the unified direction of the overall U.S. and NATO commander there, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and his operational deputy, Lt. Gen. David M. Rodriguez.

"Everybody working in CENTCOM works for Dave Petraeus," a military official said. "Our issue is that we believe our theater forces should be under a Special Operations theater commander, instead of . . . Rodriguez, who is a conventional [forces] guy who doesn't know how to do what we do."

Special Operations troops train for years in foreign cultures and language, and consider themselves a breed apart from what they call "general purpose forces." Special Operations troops sometimes bridle at ambassadorial authority to "control who comes in and out of their country," the official said. Operations have also been hindered in Pakistan -- where Special Operations trainers hope to nearly triple their current deployment to 300 -- by that government's delay in issuing the visas.

Although pleased with their expanded numbers and funding, Special Operations commanders would like to devote more of their force to global missions outside war zones. Of about 13,000 Special Operations forces deployed overseas, about 9,000 are evenly divided between Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Eighty percent of our investment is now in resolving current conflicts, not in building capabilities with partners to avoid future ones," one official said.

Questions remain

The force has also chafed at the cumbersome process under which the president or his designee, usually Gates, must authorize its use of lethal force outside war zones. Although the CIA has the authority to designate targets and launch lethal missiles in Pakistan's western tribal areas, attacks such as last year's in Somalia and Yemen require civilian approval.

The United Nations, in a report this week, questioned the administration's authority under international law to conduct such raids, particularly when they kill innocent civilians. One possible legal justification -- the permission of the country in question -- is complicated in places such as Pakistan and Yemen, where the governments privately agree but do not publicly acknowledge approving the attacks.

Former Bush officials, still smarting from accusations that their administration overextended the president's authority to conduct lethal activities around the world at will, have asked similar questions. "While they seem to be expanding their operations both in terms of extraterritoriality and aggressiveness, they are contracting the legal authority upon which those expanding actions are based," said John B. Bellinger III, a senior legal adviser in both of Bush's administrations.

The Obama administration has rejected the constitutional executive authority claimed by Bush and has based its lethal operations on the authority Congress gave the president in 2001 to use "all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons" he determines "planned, authorized, committed, or aided" the Sept. 11 attacks.

Many of those currently being targeted, Bellinger said, "particularly in places outside Afghanistan," had nothing to do with the 2001 attacks.

tx_ned · #**110** Sunday, June 06, 2010

By Namik Tan
Turkish ambassador
Washington Post

On May 31, we awoke to tragic news from international waters in the eastern Mediterranean. As we now know well, instead of the day ending with the delivery of humanitarian aid to ease the desperate lives of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, it began with the killing by Israel Defense Forces of nine peace activists and the wounding of about 30, all civilians.

The Free Gaza flotilla was not an initiative by the Turkish government. It was an international aid convoy made up of nationals of 32 countries taking food, toys, medical equipment and similar aid to the people of Gaza, who have been deprived of these basic commodities for years. Among the ships' 600 activists were Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, European lawmakers, journalists, business leaders and an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor -- hardly targets who could pose a threat to Israel's well-trained commandos.

Whatever the aid carriers may have chanted in opposition to Israel, this was a humanitarian initiative. In any democratic country, people have freedom of expression so long as they avoid violence.

Because the attack took place in international waters, 72 miles off Israel's coast, it was illegal. Indeed, this was the first such attack against civilian Turkish citizens by a foreign military force in our republic's 87-year history.

That flouting of international law, the loss of life and the inexplicable and protracted detention of the ships' passengers only partially explain why the Turkish public, along with the international community, is so stunned and angry and why the Turkish government immediately withdrew its ambassador to Israel and canceled joint military exercises with that country.

The other reason is that Israel has been Turkey's friend and partner since we became the first Muslim-majority nation to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, which was shortly after its founding. This was not an attack by a sworn enemy but by a friend with which Turkey has worked long and hard to develop constructive strategic and economic collaboration. (I recently served as Turkey's ambassador to Israel, where I took part in those collaborations and where I still have a great many friends.)

The attack shocks Turkey because for so long we have viewed Israel as we viewed ourselves: a redoubt of secularism and democracy in our region, striving hard to protect its own citizens.

The offense is painful, too, because the Turkish people have for centuries been hospitable to Jews. Unlike many nations, the Ottoman Empire welcomed Jews who escaped the Spanish Inquisition in 1492. Our diplomats risked their lives to save European Jews from the Nazi threat during World War II and brought them to refuge in Turkey. In recent years, Turkey played a critical role as a peace mediator between Syria and Israel, supported Israel's membership in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and worked tirelessly for the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured by Hamas in 2006.

This history cannot and will not prevent us from expressing outrage when injustice arises, even if it is committed by a friend. We cannot avert our eyes when the lives of our citizens -- innocents -- are lost during an illegal assault in defense of a blockade that is unfair, inhumane and unsustainable. We cannot stand idly by when actions threaten to set back efforts to bring peace to such a volatile region.

It will be up to Israel to decide how it reconstitutes its standing as a good bilateral partner and responsible member of the international community.

Israel can start by bringing an end to its blockade on Gaza; by ending its inappropriate and disproportionate police actions toward the Palestinian civilians of that land; and by allowing a prompt, independent, impartial, credible and transparent international investigation into the incident. Moreover, Israel owes an apology to the Turkish nation.

The United States should encourage Israel to become a genuine partner for peace in the Middle East.

The writer is Turkey's ambassador to the United States.

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