Israel's Risky Response

Bombing the Beirut airport is a disproportionate reaction to yet another senseless provocation.
EDITORIALS
Los Angeles Times
July 14, 2006

TWO WEEKS AGO, ISRAEL RESPONDED to the kidnapping of one its soldiers by sending its forces into Palestinian territory in Gaza. On Thursday, it reacted to another abduction — this time of two soldiers — by dispatching bombers and troops to the kidnappers' staging ground in Lebanon. In both cases, Israel was provoked; in both cases, it overreacted, running the risk of emboldening Arab rejectionists.

Yet there is an important and ominous difference between the two operations. Gaza is part of a would-be state of Palestine. Lebanon is an independent country, albeit one in which the terrorist group Hezbollah has a foothold in government. As President Bush observed Thursday at a news conference in Germany, Israel certainly has the right to defend itself. But, as he also emphasized, it is not in Israel's interest to "weaken that government."

By bombing the Beirut airport, Israel runs the risk of doing exactly that. The Israelis have every right to pursue into Lebanon the Hezbollah operatives who crossed into Israel to abduct the two soldiers. But to hold the entire state of Lebanon responsible — and to exact retaliation by striking at infrastructure that serves innocent civilians — is disproportionate.

Israel is tired of being urged to exercise restraint when it responds to an attack. In recent years, the Jewish state has made significant concessions — uprooting settlers in Gaza, accepting the once-anathema idea of a Palestinian state — only to see Palestinians elect a government dominated by the rejectionist Hamas movement. The kidnapping of Israeli soldiers on Israeli soil first by allies of Hamas, then by Hezbollah, adds insult to injury.

But the counsel to caution still makes sense, especially at a time when the United States, Israel's ally, is fighting an insurgency in Iraq and trying to rally Arab and Islamic nations to pressure Iran not to develop nuclear weapons. There is never a good time for another Middle East war. But this is an especially bad time, from both the Israeli and U.S. vantage points.

Bush pointedly said Thursday that Syrian President Bashar Assad "needs to show some leadership toward peace," and other administration officials blamed Syria and Iran for supporting Hezbollah. It will be easier for the United States and Arab states such as Egypt and Jordan to bring pressure on Tehran and Damascus to rein in Hezbollah if Israel keeps its retaliation in proportion.

Behind the Crisis, A Push Toward War

By David Ignatius
The Washington Post
Friday, July 14, 2006; A21

After Hezbollah guerrillas captured Israeli soldiers Wednesday, a furious Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz warned that the Israeli army would "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years." Unfortunately, that statement was truer than he may have intended.

By pounding the Beirut airport and other civilian targets yesterday, the Israelis have taken a step back in time -- to tactics that have been tried repeatedly in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories without much success. Many Lebanese will be angry at Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah for provoking the crisis, but that won't translate into new control on the militia's actions. Instead, the outcome is likely to be similar to what has happened in Gaza over the past several weeks: Israeli attacks to free a captured soldier further weakened the Palestinian Authority without much damaging the terrorists.

Watching the events of the past few days, you can't help but feel that this is the rerun of an old movie -- one in which the guerrillas and kidnappers end up as the winners. Israel's fledgling prime minister, Ehud Olmert, wants to emulate the toughness of his predecessor, Ariel Sharon. But that shouldn't include a replay of Sharon's 1982 Lebanon invasion, a strategic mistake that spawned Hezbollah in the first place.

Hezbollah's action in seizing the Israeli soldiers was utterly reckless. That's the new part of this crisis -- that Iranian-backed radicals deliberately opened another front in a war that, in their minds, stretches from Gaza to Iraq. Watching Nasrallah's cocky performance at a news conference Wednesday, I thought that he seemed almost to be inviting an Israeli counterattack -- knowing that it would destabilize the Lebanese government of Fuad Siniora, which is one of the few solid achievements of U.S. policy in the region.

Israeli and American doctrine is premised on the idea that military force will deter adversaries. But as more force has been used in recent years, the deterrent value has inevitably gone down. That's the inner spring of this crisis: The Iranians (and their clients in Hezbollah and Hamas) watch the American military mired in Iraq and see weakness. They are emboldened rather than intimidated. The same is true for the Israelis in Gaza. Rather than reinforcing the image of strength, the use of force (short of outright, pulverizing invasion and occupation) has encouraged contempt.

The danger of Iranian-backed adventurism is immense right now, but that's all the more reason for America and Israel to avoid past mistakes in countering it. Reliable strategic lessons are hard to come by in that part of the world, but here are a few:

The first is that in countering aggression, international solidarity and legitimacy matter. In responding to the Lebanon crisis, the United States should work closely with its allies at the Group of Eight summit and the United Nations. Iran and its proxies would like nothing more than to isolate America and Israel. They would like nothing less than a strong, international coalition of opposition.

A second point -- obvious from Gaza to Beirut to Baghdad -- is that the power of non-state actors is magnified when there is no strong central government. That may sound like a truism, but responding wisely can require some creative diplomacy. The way to blunt Hamas is to build a strong Palestinian Authority that delivers benefits for the Palestinian people. The way to curb Hezbollah is to build up the Lebanese government and army. One way to boost the Lebanese government (and deflate Hezbollah) would be to negotiate the return of the Israeli-occupied territory known as Shebaa Farms. That chance is lost for now, but the Bush administration should find other ways to enhance Siniora's authority.

A final obvious lesson is that in an open, interconnected world, public opinion matters. This is a tricky battlefield for an unpopular America and Israel, but not an impossible one. To fight the Long War, America and Israel have to get out of the devil suit in global public opinion. For a generation, America maintained a role as honest broker between Israel and the Arabs. The Bush administration should work hard to refurbish that role.

In the Lebanon crisis we have a terrifying glimpse of the future: Iran and its radical allies are pushing toward war. That's the chilling reality behind this week's events. On Tuesday the Iranians spurned an American offer of talks on their nuclear program; on Wednesday their Hezbollah proxy committed what Israel rightly called "an act of war." The radicals want to lure America and Israel deeper into the killing ground, confident that they have the staying power to prevail. We should not play their game.

Miss Egypt!?

Contestants in the 2006 Miss Universe pageant Miss Egypt, Fawzeya Mohamed, left, and Miss Israel, Anastasya Yentin, pose together as they arrive for a party in Los Angeles, Monday July 10, 2006. (AP Photo/Lucas Jackson)

Israel’s Two-Front Battle

Editorial
The New York Times
July 13, 2006

Kidnapping Israeli soldiers to use as bargaining chips for the release of Arab prisoners is horrible behavior for groups that claim international recognition and political legitimacy, as Hamas and Hezbollah do. The same applies to lobbing rockets over Israel’s borders in the hope that they might kill unsuspecting civilians. In response to such unacceptable provocations, Israeli forces are now engaged in major military operations in Gaza, to the south, and in Lebanon, to the north.

But even when acting justifiably in the face of aggression, Israel best serves its long-term security interests by acting wisely and proportionately. Its guiding principle must always be to focus military actions as narrowly as possible on those individuals, organizations and governments directly complicit in the attacks, while sparing the civilian populations that surround them.

That is, of course, far easier said than done. Military actions in inhabited areas cannot be fine-tuned. Yet surely the repeated lesson of recent history is that inflicting pain and humiliation on Arab civilians does not make them angry at the terrorists who provoked the violence. It makes them angrier at Israel.

It is too soon to judge how well Israel is hewing to this standard in Lebanon. The political context there is different from that in Gaza. Hezbollah, whose militia is to blame for the kidnappings and rocket fire, has deputies in Lebanon’s Parliament and ministers in its cabinet. But it is not the main party of government, as Hamas is in the Palestinian territories. And Lebanon, unlike Gaza and the West Bank, is a legally sovereign state. A great deal of international effort has been invested in trying to free it of foreign military and political meddling, and restore real content to its sovereignty.

Obviously, that effort has not been fully successful. Hezbollah’s role as an autonomous militia controlling the international border with Israel makes that painfully clear, and Israel cannot be expected to put up with it. But in responding, it needs to make careful distinctions between Hezbollah guerrillas and Lebanese civilians; calling the rockets an “act of war” by Lebanon’s government was not a good idea.

In Gaza, where Israeli operations have been going on for two weeks and seem to be expanding day by day, it is not too soon to question Israeli military strategy, as many Israelis themselves are now doing. Israel’s initial foray into the southern part of Gaza, after one of its soldiers was kidnapped near the border, was appropriate, as were the initial airstrikes on bridges, meant to impede the movements of the kidnappers.

But after these steps failed to produce their intended result, the operation seemed to lose its clear territorial and counterterrorist definition and began to take on a perverse momentum of its own. Israel should not back off its efforts to secure the release of its kidnapped soldier. But it needs to refocus its Gaza operations on that very specific goal.

Did Bush's Democracy Plan Go Poof?

His drive to remake the Middle East is taking a U-turn in Egypt.
Max Boot
Los Angeles Times
July 12, 2006

IF YOU WANT TO chart the downsizing of President Bush's democracy-promotion agenda, look at the difference in his handling of Egypt between his first and second terms.

Back in 2002, when Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a leading liberal dissident, was rotting in an Egyptian prison, the White House reacted with outrage. After the U.S. threatened to withhold $130 million in aid, Ibrahim was freed by an Egyptian court.

This year, "president-for-life" Hosni Mubarak has imprisoned another liberal dissident, Ayman Nour, who had the temerity to challenge Mubarak in last year's semi-free presidential election. Many other pro-democracy demonstrators also have been locked up or roughed up.

The State Department has reacted with ritual expressions of "concern" and "deep disappointment." But actions speak louder than words, and even as Mubarak's goons have been bashing heads in Cairo, his son, Gamal, was in May granted a coveted White House meeting with President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other senior officials. This was quite an honor for someone who occupies no government post — but who is widely considered to be his father's handpicked successor.

Even worse, the administration has blocked any attempt to tie U.S. aid to improvements in Egypt's dismal human rights record. When Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.) tried earlier this year to withhold $200 million of Egypt's $1.8-billion aid package, Assistant Secretary of State David Welch went to Capitol Hill to lobby against the measure. "Our strategic partnership with Egypt is in many ways a cornerstone of our foreign policy in the Middle East," Welch asserted. "The United States and Egypt share a common vision of a Middle East that is at peace and free of the scourge of terror."

This sort of claptrap has been emanating from Foggy Bottom Arabists for decades. Bush seemingly repudiated this policy of uncritical support in a 2003 speech to the National Endowment for Democracy in which he called on Egypt to "show the way toward democracy in the Middle East." After making a few genuflections in that direction, Mubarak is now back to his wicked old ways. And yet he suffers no consequences — none! — for defying the wishes of the United States and, more important, of his own people.

No doubt State Department realpolitikers have convinced themselves that it's better not to rock the boat. After all, Mubarak delivers "stability," and he might be succeeded by an anti-American regime dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Thus we fall once again into Mubarak's trap. He extends greater tolerance to Islamist extremists than to liberal critics such as Nour and Ibrahim because the radicals are a handy cudgel with which he can beat back Western demands for democracy.

The case for supporting Mubarak would be stronger if he actually were the wholehearted friend of the United States and Israel that the State Department makes him out to be. It's true that Mubarak abides by the Camp David accords (what choice does he have?), allows U.S. warships to transit the Suez Canal (a profitable business) and cooperates in our war against Islamist terrorists (entirely in his own interest). But all the while his government sponsors mosques and media outlets that spew venomous anti-American, anti-Semitic and pro-jihad propaganda.

The Middle East Media Research Institute posted a translation of a recent tirade delivered on a children's program on state-run TV by an imam employed by the Egyptian government. Sheik Muhammad Nassar told the kiddies an uplifting tale of a teenager from the Middle Ages who became a "martyr" while waging jihad against the infidels. "This, my friends, is a beautiful story," he proclaimed.

No wonder the U.S. military reports that the largest number of foreign fighters captured in Iraq are Egyptians. With its stagnation at home and ubiquitous calls for jihad abroad, the land of the pharaohs has become a perfect breeding ground for suicide bombers.

A self-described "pro-U.S., secular, libertarian, disgruntled" Egyptian who blogs at sandmonkey.org suggests that the proper Western response to this intolerable state of affairs is "to boycott Egypt financially … until this government stops silencing dissent."

The U.S. could start by trimming or eliminating its $1.8-billion annual subsidy of Mubarak, which represents 10% of his government revenues, and redirecting the money to promotion of civil society in the Middle East. That's the kind of bold move that Bush — the visionary leader who once proclaimed that his "ultimate goal" was "ending tyranny in our world" — might have made. If only he were still in office.

Iran's Waiting Game

By David Ignatius
The Washington Post
Wednesday, July 12, 2006; A15

"To jaw-jaw is better than to war-war," Winston Churchill said famously in 1954 about negotiations to end the Korean War, and the Bush administration embraced this precept in proposing talks with Iran over its nuclear program. But yesterday, the Party of Jaw hit an Iranian obstacle -- forcing all sides to consider less pleasant alternatives.

The chance of any quick breakthrough on the nuclear issue evaporated when Iranian negotiator Ali Larijani said in Brussels that Iran wasn't ready yet to respond to a European-American offer of incentives in exchange for halting its nuclear program. The Bush administration had been expecting an ambiguous Iranian response, and it agreed weeks ago with its allies that anything short of a clear "yes" would be taken as a "no." But for administration officials who had argued for the diplomatic opening to Iran, Tehran's non-response was still a disappointment.

U.S. officials saw nothing positive in Larijani's meeting with Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief. The Iranian official didn't come close to accepting the European-American proposal for talks, one knowledgeable official said, or to accepting the West's precondition that Iran halt its enrichment of uranium. This outcome was a setback, if not a surprise. Administration officials had been warning privately last week that a divided and suspicious Iran didn't yet appear ready to make significant concessions.

The Party of War waits in the wings, in Washington and Tehran, but Washington's strategy for now is one of diplomatic pressure. The first step will be to push the Iranian nuclear issue to the U.N. Security Council. Administration officials say that Russia and China had promised they would back at least some limited U.N. measures against Iran if Tehran balked at negotiations, and President Bush wants a strong statement criticizing Iran at the Group of Eight summit this weekend in St. Petersburg. The Iranians appear to be counting on Russia as their secret protector, but here they may have misjudged. Russian President Vladimir Putin will take the stage in St. Petersburg as the West's friend, not Tehran's.

U.S. officials expect a period of jockeying over the next few months -- a long summer of pressure and counterpressure, in which the parties test and probe each other's resolve and diplomatic clout. The administration wants to avoid rhetorical bombast and an American-Iranian confrontation, preferring a steady international pressure campaign that makes clear to the Iranians that they must make a choice. For that strategy to be credible, Russia will have to stand tough with America and Europe. That means Putin holds the high cards in this poker game.

The danger now, as in any diplomatic standoff, is miscalculation. For months the Iranians have been almost dismissive of U.S. warnings -- apparently convinced that America is so bogged down in Iraq that it lacks any real leverage against Tehran. That Iranian overconfidence is potentially dangerous. Spurning a superpower is never a good idea, especially a wounded one, and the Iranians arguably missed their best chance this week to begin making a deal that would address all sides' security concerns.

"I always expected that Iran would say 'yes' and 'no,' and that it would be taken by Washington as a 'no,' " said Hadi Semati, a professor of political science at Tehran University who is a visiting fellow this summer at the Woodrow Wilson Center. He cautions that Iran remains deeply suspicious of American policy, because many in Iran believe that it's the Americans who are adopting a strategy to delay, while maintaining a hidden agenda of regime change. Still, says Semati, "Iran should not overplay its hand" and "miss an honorable chance" to resolve security issues with the West.

After 27 years of not speaking to each other, it's hardly surprising that a July wedding isn't in the cards for Mr. Great Satan and Ms. Axis of Evil. Perhaps the best outcome from the stillborn U.S. proposal for talks is that it has produced some real debate within Iran, with the clergy and the political elite mulling the proper response. That ferment will intensify this fall, when the Iranians hold elections for their Assembly of Experts, a sometimes contentious body dominated by the clergy.

The Bush administration, in the new post-cowboy phase of its diplomacy, has made a big bet on the steadfastness of its friends and allies. It has decided, for now, to rely on the United Nations and its ability to respond seriously to the crisis posed by Iran's nuclear program. The next few weeks will show whether that bet was wise.

Justice for Serbia

Kosovo Independence Imperils Our Democracy
By Vojislav Kostunica
The Washington Post
Wednesday, July 12, 2006; A15

The demands for the independence of Kosovo present Southeast Europe and the rest of the world with a compelling question: Will absolute justice be made to yield to relative political interests -- and will authentic democratic values be sacrificed for a mere semblance of peace?

The arguments given by Serbia against independence for its southern province are well known. From the point of view of international law, these arguments are simply irrefutable. They are based on the fundamental documents and pillars of international order: the U.N. Charter, the Helsinki Final Act and relevant resolutions of the U.N. Security Council.

Depriving a democratic country of a part of its territory simply because one ethnic group that has aspirations for that territory threatens violence is impermissible, not only morally but also from the perspective of historical experience. Indeed, tragic occurrences have taught mankind that a policy of appeasement toward those who threaten force only opens the way to more and even greater violence.

There is another, purely pragmatic argument that is equally indisputable: An independent Kosovo could not help becoming a hotbed of chronic tension in the region, both because of the probability of new territorial demands and because of its economic unviability and its widespread network of organized crime.

Viewed strategically, and not just with regard to preserving stability in the Balkans, the arguments against an independent Kosovo are equally strong: Independence for Kosovo would surely be viewed as a precedent, setting off similar demands elsewhere. Those who argue otherwise are, quite simply, closing their eyes to the hard facts. Resolving the problems of national minorities through self-determination (especially in the case of nationalities that already have their own countries nearby) inevitably leads to border changes and all the dangerous complications that this entails.

But even if it remained deaf to all of these arguments, the international community would have to take account of the impact that Kosovo's eventual independence would have on democratic Serbia. Let us recall that Serbia liberated itself from a communist regime on its own by investing enormous effort and taking huge risks. Can such a country, by any measure a democratic one, survive the forcible taking of 15 percent of its territory? What democratically elected government could explain to its voters after such an act that they should continue to believe in the principles of tolerance, liberalism and the sacrosanct will of the people -- the values of enlightened Western civilization, in the name of which they toppled an evil, authoritarian regime?

To put it simply, a young democracy, which in a mere six years has achieved impressive results in developing its economy, building institutions, protecting human rights, battling corruption and crime, and fostering international relations, would stand little chance of survival under such circumstances.

Democracy, in Serbia as anywhere else, is essentially based on the equality of all and, no less important, on trust. If people stop believing in the rules of democracy, if they start thinking that a set of rules is applicable to one nation but not to others, if they feel betrayed by powerful institutions, and if the standards and norms of behavior for relations among individuals and nations alike are trampled upon, then people will lose faith. And where faith is lost, there can be no democracy.

In attempting to preserve the province of Kosovo within its borders, Serbia has acted in the most reasonable and constructive way possible. It is prepared to accept any form of compromise that does not entail independence, and it offers Albanians the greatest possible autonomy, including all legislative, executive and judicial powers, while expecting in return only the inviolability of borders and safety for the non-Albanian population of the province.

In its struggle for Kosovo, Serbia is also struggling for fundamental principles of international justice and order. And, by defending an inalienable part of its territory, Serbia may even be defending the future of democracy as a way of life and a view of the world.

The writer is prime minister of Serbia.

Aggression Under False Pretenses

By Ismail Haniyeh
The Washington Post
Tuesday, July 11, 2006; A17

GAZA, Palestine -- As Americans commemorated their annual celebration of independence from colonial occupation, rejoicing in their democratic institutions, we Palestinians were yet again besieged by our occupiers, who destroy our roads and buildings, our power stations and water plants, and who attack our very means of civil administration. Our homes and government offices are shelled, our parliamentarians taken prisoner and threatened with prosecution.

The current Gaza invasion is only the latest effort to destroy the results of fair and free elections held early this year. It is the explosive follow-up to a five-month campaign of economic and diplomatic warfare directed by the United States and Israel. The stated intention of that strategy was to force the average Palestinian to "reconsider" her vote when faced with deepening hardship; its failure was predictable, and the new overt military aggression and collective punishment are its logical fulfillment. The "kidnapped" Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit is only a pretext for a job scheduled months ago.

In addition to removing our democratically elected government, Israel wants to sow dissent among Palestinians by claiming that there is a serious leadership rivalry among us. I am compelled to dispel this notion definitively. The Palestinian leadership is firmly embedded in the concept of Islamic shura , or mutual consultation; suffice it to say that while we may have differing opinions, we are united in mutual respect and focused on the goal of serving our people. Furthermore, the invasion of Gaza and the kidnapping of our leaders and government officials are meant to undermine the recent accords reached between the government party and our brothers and sisters in Fatah and other factions, on achieving consensus for resolving the conflict. Yet Israeli collective punishment only strengthens our collective resolve to work together.

As I inspect the ruins of our infrastructure -- the largess of donor nations and international efforts all turned to rubble once more by F-16s and American-made missiles -- my thoughts again turn to the minds of Americans. What do they think of this?

They think, doubtless, of the hostage soldier, taken in battle -- yet thousands of Palestinians, including hundreds of women and children, remain in Israeli jails for resisting the illegal, ongoing occupation that is condemned by international law. They think of the pluck and "toughness" of Israel, "standing up" to "terrorists." Yet a nuclear Israel possesses the 13th-largest military force on the planet, one that is used to rule an area about the size of New Jersey and whose adversaries there have no conventional armed forces. Who is the underdog, supposedly America's traditional favorite, in this case?

I hope that Americans will give careful and well-informed thought to root causes and historical realities, in which case I think they will question why a supposedly "legitimate" state such as Israel has had to conduct decades of war against a subject refugee population without ever achieving its goals.

Israel's unilateral movements of the past year will not lead to peace. These acts -- the temporary withdrawal of forces from Gaza, the walling off of the West Bank -- are not strides toward resolution but empty, symbolic acts that fail to address the underlying conflict. Israel's nearly complete control over the lives of Palestinians is never in doubt, as confirmed by the humanitarian and economic suffering of the Palestinians since the January elections. Israel's ongoing policies of expansion, military control and assassination mock any notion of sovereignty or bilateralism. Its "separation barrier," running across our land, is hardly a good-faith gesture toward future coexistence.

But there is a remedy, and while it is not easy it is consistent with our long-held beliefs. Palestinian priorities include recognition of the core dispute over the land of historical Palestine and the rights of all its people; resolution of the refugee issue from 1948; reclaiming all lands occupied in 1967; and stopping Israeli attacks, assassinations and military expansion. Contrary to popular depictions of the crisis in the American media, the dispute is not only about Gaza and the West Bank; it is a wider national conflict that can be resolved only by addressing the full dimensions of Palestinian national rights in an integrated manner. This means statehood for the West Bank and Gaza, a capital in Arab East Jerusalem, and resolving the 1948 Palestinian refugee issue fairly, on the basis of international legitimacy and established law. Meaningful negotiations with a non-expansionist, law-abiding Israel can proceed only after this tremendous labor has begun.

Surely the American people grow weary of this folly, after 50 years and $160 billion in taxpayer support for Israel's war-making capacity -- its "defense." Some Americans, I believe, must be asking themselves if all this blood and treasure could not have bought more tangible results for Palestine if only U.S. policies had been predicated from the start on historical truth, equity and justice.

However, we do not want to live on international welfare and American handouts. We want what Americans enjoy -- democratic rights, economic sovereignty and justice. We thought our pride in conducting the fairest elections in the Arab world might resonate with the United States and its citizens. Instead, our new government was met from the very beginning by acts of explicit, declared sabotage by the White House. Now this aggression continues against 3.9 million civilians living in the world's largest prison camps. America's complacency in the face of these war crimes is, as usual, embedded in the coded rhetorical green light: "Israel has a right to defend itself." Was Israel defending itself when it killed eight family members on a Gaza beach last month or three members of the Hajjaj family on Saturday, among them 6-year-old Rawan? I refuse to believe that such inhumanity sits well with the American public.

We present this clear message: If Israel will not allow Palestinians to live in peace, dignity and national integrity, Israelis themselves will not be able to enjoy those same rights. Meanwhile, our right to defend ourselves from occupying soldiers and aggression is a matter of law, as settled in the Fourth Geneva Convention. If Israel is prepared to negotiate seriously and fairly, and resolve the core 1948 issues, rather than the secondary ones from 1967, a fair and permanent peace is possible. Based on a hudna (comprehensive cessation of hostilities for an agreed time), the Holy Land still has an opportunity to be a peaceful and stable economic powerhouse for all the Semitic people of the region. If Americans only knew the truth, possibility might become reality.

The writer is prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority.

Defense Titans Seek New Israeli Sales

By Jonathan Karp
Wall Street Journal
July 11, 2006

U.S. military contractors are angling to seize a potential new market as Israel considers fielding urban defenses to counter a surge of rocket attacks by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

Northrop Grumman Corp. recently has held talks with the Israeli government about a laser-based defense, hoping for a breakthrough sale for a system Northrop says has proven itself in tests but which the U.S. Defense Department decided not to deploy. Raytheon Co. has been discussing with Israel a rapid-fire gun system that the U.S. Army is using in Iraq to protect against artillery and mortar attacks.

For years, Hamas Islamist militants have fired crude, short-range "Qassam" rockets into southern Israel, primarily causing property damage. But a resurgence of attacks since Israel withdrew from Gaza last year has created political pressure to respond and is prompting the military to aggressively seek new technologies for a so-called active defense against the rocket threat.

Northrop executives have pitched a laser system in meetings with Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who hails from a southern Israeli town frequently targeted by Qassam attacks. "We're exploring a possible deal," said Dan Wildt, Northrop's director of business development for directed-energy weapons, who took part in the talks. Based on Israel's expression of interest in the laser technology, he said, Northrop has begun the process of applying for an export license.

Northrop's solution, dubbed Skyguard, is based on technology it developed with $400 million of U.S. and Israeli funding. Radar identifies an incoming threat, then a high-energy laser fires at the missile, heating the warhead until it detonates in flight. In U.S. Army field tests between 2000 and 2004, Northrop's laser consistently destroyed rockets, artillery shells and mortars. But funding was discontinued last year when the Defense Department decided to pursue smaller, more-mobile laser technologies.

Mr. Wildt says Northrop since has cut the laser system to a fourth the size of the test model, allowing it to fit onto a truck. Skyguard can shoot down a rocket as far as six miles away, he said. For the U.S., an initial Skyguard unit would cost $150 million and take 18 months to build, he said, but the price and schedule for Israel would depend on negotiations once an export license is granted.

Raytheon's potential solution is radically different. Called Phalanx, it is an advanced gun that fires as many as 4,500 rounds of ammunition a minute after radar locks onto an incoming threat. Originally developed for the U.S. Navy, Phalanx has been modified for land use. Six batteries currently are deployed in Iraq, said John Eagles, a spokesman for Raytheon's missile unit. He declined to comment on what industry officials described as contacts between Raytheon and Israel about potential field trials to test defenses against short-range rockets.

Raytheon and Boeing Co. are working on separate programs with Israel to develop defenses against longer-range missiles.

Kill, Don't Capture

How to solve our prisoner problem
By Ralph Peters
New York Post
July 10, 2006

The British military defines experience as the ability to recognize a mistake the second time you make it. By that standard, we should be very experienced in dealing with captured terrorists, since we've made the same mistake again and again.

Violent Islamist extremists must be killed on the battlefield. Only in the rarest cases should they be taken prisoner. Few have serious intelligence value. And, once captured, there's no way to dispose of them.

Killing terrorists during a conflict isn't barbaric or immoral - or even illegal. We've imposed rules upon ourselves that have no historical or judicial precedent. We haven't been stymied by others, but by ourselves.

The oft-cited, seldom-read Geneva and Hague Conventions define legal combatants as those who visibly identify themselves by wearing uniforms or distinguishing insignia (the latter provision covers honorable partisans - but no badges or armbands, no protection). Those who wear civilian clothes to ambush soldiers or collect intelligence are assassins and spies - beyond the pale of law.

Traditionally, those who masquerade as civilians in order to kill legal combatants have been executed promptly, without trial. Severity, not sloppy leftist pandering, kept warfare within some decent bounds at least part of the time. But we have reached a point at which the rules apply only to us, while our enemies are permitted unrestricted freedom.

The present situation encourages our enemies to behave wantonly, while crippling our attempts to deal with terror.

Consider today's norm: A terrorist in civilian clothes can explode an IED, killing and maiming American troops or innocent civilians, then demand humane treatment if captured - and the media will step in as his champion. A disguised insurgent can shoot his rockets, throw his grenades, empty his magazines, kill and wound our troops, then, out of ammo, raise his hands and demand three hots and a cot while he invents tales of abuse.

Conferring unprecedented legal status upon these murderous transnational outlaws is unnecessary, unwise and ultimately suicidal. It exalts monsters. And it provides the anti-American pack with living vermin to anoint as victims, if not heroes.

Isn't it time we gave our critics what they're asking for? Let's solve the "unjust" imprisonment problem, once and for all. No more Guantanamos! Every terrorist mission should be a suicide mission. With our help.

We need to clarify the rules of conflict. But integrity and courage have fled Washington. Nobody will state bluntly that we're in a fight for our lives, that war is hell, and that we must do what it takes to win.

Our enemies will remind us of what's necessary, though. When we've been punished horribly enough, we'll come to our senses and do what must be done.

This isn't an argument for a murderous rampage, but its opposite. We must kill our enemies with discrimination. But we do need to kill them. A corpse is a corpse: The media's rage dissipates with the stench. But an imprisoned terrorist is a strategic liability.

Nor should we ever mistreat captured soldiers or insurgents who adhere to standing conventions. On the contrary, we should enforce policies that encourage our enemies to identify themselves according to the laws of war. Ambiguity works to their advantage, never to ours.

Our policy toward terrorists and insurgents in civilian clothing should be straightforward and public: Surrender before firing a shot or taking hostile action toward our troops, and we'll regard you as a legal prisoner. But once you've pulled a trigger, thrown a grenade or detonated a bomb, you will be killed. On the battlefield and on the spot.

Isn't that common sense? It also happens to conform to the traditional conduct of war between civilized nations. Ignorant of history, we've talked ourselves into folly.

And by the way: How have the terrorists treated the uniformed American soldiers they've captured? According to the Geneva Convention?

Sadly, even our military has been infected by political correctness. Some of my former peers will wring their hands and babble about "winning hearts and minds." But we'll never win the hearts and minds of terrorists. And if we hope to win the minds, if not the hearts, of foreign populations, we must be willing to kill the violent, lawless fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population determined to terrorize the rest.

Ravaged societies crave and need strict order. Soft policies may appear to work in the short term, but they fail overwhelmingly in the longer term. Wherever we've tried sweetness and light in Iraq, it has only worked as long as our troops were present - after which the terrorists returned and slaughtered the beneficiaries of our good intentions. If you wish to defend the many, you must be willing to kill the few.

For now, we're stuck with a situation in which the hardcore terrorists in Guantanamo are "innocent victims" even to our fair-weather allies. In Iraq, our troops capture bomb-makers only to learn they've been dumped back on the block.

It is not humane to spare fanatical murderers. It is not humane to play into our enemy's hands. And it is not humane to endanger our troops out of political correctness.

Instead of worrying over trumped-up atrocities in Iraq (the media give credence to any claim made by terrorists), we should stop apologizing and take a stand. That means firm rules for the battlefield, not Gumby-speak intended to please critics who'll never be satisfied by anything America does.

The ultimate act of humanity in the War on Terror is to win. To do so, we must kill our enemies wherever we encounter them. He who commits an act of terror forfeits every right he once possessed.

Ralph Peters' new book, "Never Quit the Fight," hits stores today.

Egyptian journalists go on strike

By Miret el Naggar
McClatchy Newspapers
Jul 09, 2006

CAIRO, Egypt - Workers at 25 Egyptian newspapers went on strike Sunday as the legislature in Cairo appeared ready to approve a law that leaves journalists more vulnerable to fines and jail time for critical reports on the finances and behavior of government officials.

About 200 Egyptian journalists gathered in front of the parliament building to draw attention to the clampdown on the opposition media, which they described as another example of the government backsliding on reforms promised by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The president's ruling party appears to have the votes necessary to make the bill law; a vote is expected at Monday's session.

"It will shut mouths and break pens," said Sahar Ramadan, a journalist from the al-Wafd opposition paper who attended the rally. "Criminals will remain on the streets while journalists go to jail."

Egypt, a close U.S. ally in the Middle East and the recipient of $2 billion in American aid every year, won praise from the Bush administration last year for allowing the first contested presidential elections and showing other tentative signs of democratic reform. In recent months, however, the leader has drawn international condemnation for violent clashes between his forces and pro-reform activists, and the mass arrests of opposition figures.

During his re-election campaign last year, the 78-year-old Mubarak had vowed to abolish a law under which journalists faced prison sentences and fines in defamation cases. Emboldened by the promise, Egyptian journalists became far more daring in their coverage of the government in the past year. They reported on alleged election fraud, corruption cases involving senior Egyptian officials and opened - or reopened - a number of independent or opposition dailies and weeklies.

Egyptian journalists contend those changes are in jeopardy now that the majority of legislators appear to be in favor of a law that threatens reporters with $5,000 fines and imprisonment for up to two years for reports linked to the finances of public figures, criticism of public institutions and "offending" Egypt's leadership.

The law protects journalists from prosecution in defamation cases, the protesters said, but it added a new list of offenses that could land reporters behind bars.

Twenty-five of Cairo's most venerable papers called a one-day strike and did not print Sunday editions in protest. Pro-government legislators could not be reached for comment Sunday evening. The government-backed Akhbar newspaper quoted majority leader Abdulahad Gamal el-Din as saying, "the constitution has always appreciated the press and the new law has granted the press even more freedom and guarantees."

The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist opposition group that's officially banned but generally tolerated by the government, joined in the calls to block the bill. The group's leadership said its 88 members of the legislature were prepared to vote against the new press law introduced by Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party.

Like Islamist groups in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Jordan and other parts of the Middle East, the Brotherhood is widely viewed by Egyptians as a force working against government corruption, cronyism and misuse of public funds. The bolder Egyptian press that emerged in the past year was a powerful tool for exposing such allegations, Brotherhood supporters said.

"This is a setback from the president's campaign platform," said Hamdy Hassan, a spokesman for the Brotherhood's legislative bloc. "The government uses its majority in parliament to pass laws that are to their own benefit. They brought on a law that protects corruption."

Egyptian journalists point to the law as a harbinger of a more restricted press. Already, the cases of two well-known media figures have drawn condemnation from international media rights advocates.

Ibrahim Issa, the editor of the independent weekly al-Dustour, received a fine and a yearlong prison sentence on charges of insulting the president and harming public security. His paper had reported on a lawsuit that accused Mubarak of mismanagement and waste of foreign aid. He is free on bail pending an appeal of his sentence.

In a separate case, the editor of another independent weekly, Sowt al-Umma, was accused of publishing information on judges allegedly involved with fraud during last year's parliamentary elections. Court proceedings against the editor, Wael el-Ebrashi, are scheduled to resume in September.

"With each investigation, with each report, we expect to land in jail," Ebrashi said at the demonstration Sunday. "We came to announce the death of political reform."

Is Pakistan Expendable?

Dumping Musharraf
By CONN HALLINAN
CounterPunch
July 9, 2006

There is a whiff of "regime change" in the air these days, but not where you might expect it. Not in Iraq, where the conservative U.S.-backed Shiites are already in power. Not in Iran, where White House threats have served to unite, rather than divide, that country. But in Pakistan, where President Pervez Musharraf has recently fallen out of U.S. favor.

Consider the following developments.

The Bush administration's "man in Kabul," Afghan President Hamid Karzai, recently fingered Pakistan as the source of the current fighting in the southern part of his country. "The world should go where terrorism is nourished, where it is provided money and ideology," he told a Kabul press conference this past June. "The war in Afghanistan should not be limited to Afghanistan."

Chris Patten, former European Union commissioner for external affairs, echoed this theme in a mid-May commentary in the Wall Street Journal. "The problem in Afghanistan," wrote Patten, "is Islamabad."

When President Bush visited Pakistan in March, he lectured President Musharraf about the need to be more aggressive in the "war on terrorism," although Pakistan has lost more soldiers fighting the Taliban in its northwestern tribal areas than the entire NATO coalition has lost in Afghanistan. And Bush refused to discuss the issue of Kashmir, the major flashpoint in Pakistan-India relations that has brought the two nuclear-armed powers to the brink of war on several occasions.

Indeed, when Musharraf asked for the same nuclear agreement that Washington had just handed New Delhi, Bush openly insulted his Islamabad hosts. With the Pakistani president standing stiffly beside him, Bush told the press, "I explained that Pakistan and India are different countries with different needs and histories."

The nuclear deal-which was favorably voted out of House and Senate committees-would let India bypass Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty sanctions slapped on it for secretly developing atomic weapons. The Indians could freely buy uranium for their civilian reactors and in turn divert their meager domestic uranium supplies into constructing more nuclear weapons.

The Bush Administration also cut $350 million in civilian and military aid to Pakistan because of a " failure" to improve democracy and human rights.

And according to Syed Saleem Shahzad, Pakistan bureau chief for the Asia Times, " Western intelligence" has helped funnel money through Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and London to insurgents in Pakistan's Baluchistan Province.

One can hardly blame Pakistan for feeling as though they are in the U.S. crosshairs. But why the sudden thumb's down from Washington? Musharraf has basically done everything the White House wanted him to do, including breaking with the Taliban and sending 90,000 troops to seal the border with Afghanistan.

The answer is not that Pakistan has fallen out of favor, but that it is a pawn that has outlived its usefulness in a global chess match aimed at China.

Chess with China

In 1992 the George H.W. Bush administration drew up a Defense Planning Guidance document that laid out a blueprint for a post-Cold War world. "The United States will attempt to dissuade any military competitor from developing disruptive or other capabilities that could enable regional hegemony or hostile action against the United States," the document read, continuing, "Of the major and emerging powers, China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States."

Jump ahead to the year 2000 and a Foreign Affairs article by soon-to-be national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice: "China is not a 'status quo' power, but one that would like to alter Asia's balance of power in its own favor The United States must deepen its cooperation with Japan and South Korea and maintain its commitment to a robust military presence in the region," she wrote, adding that the United States had to "pay close attention to India's role in the regional balance" to recruit the latter into an anti-China alliance.

While September 11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq derailed this grand scheme, recent developments suggest it is back on track, with strong support from the influential American Enterprise Institute, the Project for a New American Century, and wealthy foundations like Scaife, Olin, and Carthage.

The anti-China alliance is already well underway.

Japan and Australia have agreed to field U.S.-supplied anti-ballistic missiles, and the administration is wooing India to do the same. While the rationale for the ABMs is North Korea, the real target is China's twenty intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Japan-which has one of the largest navies in the world-is stepping up its military coordination with the United States and has agreed to support the United States in case it intervenes in a war between China and Taiwan.

In the meantime, the United States is pouring men and materials into Asia and beefing up bases in Japan and Guam. It is also conducting war games with India, and jointly patrolling the Malacca Straits with the Indian Navy.

There is a certain schizophrenia in U.S. policy toward China, because the United States needs China to ramrod the Six Party Talks with North Korea and would like China to join Washington's full court press on Iran. So far, however, China has refused to go along with economic sanctions against either Pyongyang or Tehran, a stance that has chilled relations with the Bush administration even further.

These counter-trends, however, are more than offset by Washington's continuing efforts to build bases in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, plus recent attacks by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on China's military (using some of the same language as in the 1992 document). In short, the Defense Guidance Plan appears to be alive and well.

But while chess is a supremely logical game, diplomacy is considerably messier, and the grand scheme to corner the dragon is stirring up some dangerous regional furies.

Japan Rising?

To get Japan on board the anti-China coalition, Washington has encouraged Tokyo to adopt a more muscular foreign policy. As a result, Japan has sent troops to Iraq and dumped Article Nine of its constitution renouncing war as a "sovereign right of the nation."

When he was secretary of state, Colin Powell told the Financial Times, "If Japan is going to play a full role on the world's stage, Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution will have to be examined."

Japanese right-wingers, with the support of over 100 members of the Diet, as well as powerful industrial organizations like Canon and Mitsubishi, are pushing textbooks that rewrite the history of World War II and downplay Japanese atrocities. But this resurgent Japanese nationalism has angered and frightened nations in the region, many of which have vivid memories of World War II.

Goading the dragon has become almost a sport in Japan. The government of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi recently took control of a lighthouse first established by right-wing nationalists on Diaoyu Island, an action China called a "provocation against, and an intrusion into territorial sovereignty." Japan and China have also clashed over the Chunxiao offshore oil field. A Japanese official told the Financial Times that Tokyo was pursuing "proportional escalation" over the fields.

South Korea, which suffered through more than three decades of brutal Japanese occupation, is barely on speaking terms with Tokyo, and has come close to blows with Japan over the Tokdo Islands claimed by both nations.

Washington's support for Japan's growing militarism has also fueled anti-Americanism in South Korea and a growing movement to close U.S. bases in that country. This is hardly the atmosphere for a grand alliance.

From Kashmir to Baluchistan

The law of unintended consequences may be playing itself out with Indian and Pakistan as well. India's central strategy has always been to insure control of Kashmir and to weaken the Pakistani Army, two goals that the Bush administration seems to share.

According to the Asia Times, a CIA official told the Indians that weakening the Pakistani army was central to the U.S. goal of bringing "democracy" to Pakistan, though the lack of it never bothered Washington in the past. The Times also reports that the CIA has been meeting with exiled former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, who recently formed the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy.

General Hamid Gul, former head of the Pakistani InterService Intelligence organization, told the PakTribune that he thought the United States was aiming to replace Musharraf.

If the United States sides with India on Kashmir, Pakistan could be looking at a strategic defeat in a long-running dispute that would not only weaken the army but possibly destabilize the entire country.

So could a stalemate in Pakistan's counterinsurgency war in Baluchistan.

The Baluchistan conflict dates back to the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan. The Baluchs, who are ethnically distinct from the Punjabis who dominate Pakistan, were forced to become part of the new state. It is Pakistan's poorest province and at the same time home to the country's largest oil and gas deposits, two realities that help fuel the insurgency.

India has been sharply critical of Pakistani actions in Baluchistan, although the Indians are highly aggressive with their own separatist movements.

In a March meeting with U.S. Central Command chief General John Abizaid, Musharraf accused India of aiding the insurgents financially, a charge New Delhi denies.

Is U.S. support for the nuclear deal and the Kashmir policy a quid pro quo for India joining the anti-China alliance? It is hard to fathom what else might explain Washington's relentless criticism of Pakistan for not doing enough in the "war on terrorism," or the recent cut in aid.

Pakistan's response has been to raise defense spending, step up its production of nuclear weapons, and test a new generation of long-range missiles. But there is a significant section of the Indian elite that doesn't particularly fear a nuclear war between the two nations. "India can survive a nuclear attack," says former Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes, "but Pakistan cannot."

Washington's obsession with China is unleashing some particularly malevolent forms of nationalism that threaten to destabilize a broad swath of the region from South Asia to the north Pacific. In this chess match, India, with its enormous population and economic potential, is a major piece on the board. Pakistan, with a sixth the population and a tenth the economic potential, is a pawn.

An expendable one it would appear.

Conn Hallinan is a foreign policy analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus and a lecturer in journalism at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

What's an Iraqi Life Worth?

By Andrew J. Bacevich
The Washington Post
Sunday, July 9, 2006; B01

In Iraq, lives differ in value -- and so do deaths. In this disparity lies an important reason why the United States has botched this war.

Last November in Haditha , a squad of Marines, outraged at the loss of a comrade, is said to have run amok, avenging his death by killing two dozen innocent bystanders. And in March, U.S. soldiers in Mahmudiyah allegedly raped a young Iraqi woman and killed her along with three of her relatives -- an apparently premeditated crime for which one former U.S. soldier has been charged . These incidents are among at least five recent cases of Iraqi civilian deaths that have triggered investigations of U.S. military personnel. If the allegations prove true, Haditha and Mahmudiyah will deservedly take their place alongside Sand Creek, Samar and My Lai in the unhappy catalogue of atrocities committed by American troops.

But recall a more recent incident, in Samarra . On May 30, U.S. soldiers manning a checkpoint there opened fire on a speeding vehicle that either did not see or failed to heed their command to stop. Two women in the vehicle were shot dead. One of them, Nahiba Husayif Jassim, 35, was pregnant. The baby was also killed. The driver, Jassim's brother, had been rushing her to a hospital to give birth. No one tried to cover up the incident: U.S. military representatives issued expressions of regret.

In all likelihood, we will be learning more about Haditha and Mahmudiyah for months to come, whereas the Samarra story has already been filed away and largely forgotten. And that's the problem.

The killing at the Samarra checkpoint was not an atrocity; most likely it was an accident, a mistake. Yet plenty of evidence suggests that in Iraq such mistakes have occurred routinely, with moral and political consequences that have been too long ignored. Indeed, conscious motivation is beside the point: Any action resulting in Iraqi civilian deaths, however inadvertent, undermines the Bush administration's narrative of liberation, and swells the ranks of those resisting the U.S. presence.

Gen. Tommy Franks, who commanded U.S. forces when they entered Iraq more than three years ago, famously declared: "We don't do body counts." Franks was speaking in code. What he meant was this: The U.S. military has learned the lessons of Vietnam -- where body counts became a principal, and much derided, public measure of success -- and it has no intention of repeating that experience. Franks was not going to be one of those generals re-fighting the last war.

Unfortunately, Franks and other senior commanders had not so much learned from Vietnam as forgotten it. This disdain for counting bodies, especially those of Iraqi civilians killed in the course of U.S. operations, is among the reasons why U.S. forces find themselves in another quagmire. It's not that the United States has an aversion to all body counts. We tally every U.S. service member who falls in Iraq, and rightly so. But only in recent months have military leaders finally begun to count -- for internal use only -- some of the very large number of Iraqi noncombatants whom American bullets and bombs have killed.

Through the war's first three years, any Iraqi venturing too close to an American convoy or checkpoint was likely to come under fire. Thousands of these "escalation of force" episodes occurred. Now, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, has begun to recognize the hidden cost of such an approach. "People who were on the fence or supported us" in the past "have in fact decided to strike out against us," he recently acknowledged.

In the early days of the insurgency, some U.S. commanders appeared oblivious to the possibility that excessive force might produce a backlash. They counted on the iron fist to create an atmosphere conducive to good behavior. The idea was not to distinguish between "good" and "bad" Iraqis, but to induce compliance through intimidation.

"You have to understand the Arab mind," one company commander told the New York Times, displaying all the self-assurance of Douglas MacArthur discoursing on Orientals in 1945. "The only thing they understand is force -- force, pride and saving face." Far from representing the views of a few underlings, such notions penetrated into the upper echelons of the American command. In their book "Cobra II," Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor offer this ugly comment from a senior officer: "The only thing these sand niggers understand is force and I'm about to introduce them to it."

Such crass language, redolent with racist, ethnocentric connotations, speaks volumes. These characterizations, like the use of "gooks" during the Vietnam War, dehumanize the Iraqis and in doing so tacitly permit the otherwise impermissible. Thus, Abu Ghraib and Haditha -- and too many regretted deaths, such as that of Nahiba Husayif Jassim.

As the war enters its fourth year, how many innocent Iraqis have died at American hands, not as a result of Haditha-like massacres but because of accidents and errors? The military doesn't know and, until recently, has publicly professed no interest in knowing. Estimates range considerably, but the number almost certainly runs in the tens of thousands. Even granting the common antiwar bias of those who track the Iraqi death toll -- and granting, too, that the insurgents have far more blood on their hands -- there is no question that the number of Iraqi noncombatants killed by U.S. forces exceeds by an order of magnitude the number of U.S. troops killed in hostile action, which is now more than 2,000.

Who bears responsibility for these Iraqi deaths? The young soldiers pulling the triggers? The commanders who establish rules of engagement that privilege "force protection" over any obligation to protect innocent life? The intellectually bankrupt policymakers who sent U.S. forces into Iraq in the first place and now see no choice but to press on? The culture that, to put it mildly, has sought neither to understand nor to empathize with people in the Arab or Islamic worlds?

There are no easy answers, but one at least ought to acknowledge that in launching a war advertised as a high-minded expression of U.S. idealism, we have waded into a swamp of moral ambiguity. To assert that "stuff happens," as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is wont to do whenever events go awry, simply does not suffice.

Moral questions aside, the toll of Iraqi noncombatant casualties has widespread political implications. Misdirected violence alienates those we are claiming to protect. It plays into the hands of the insurgents, advancing their cause and undercutting our own. It fatally undermines the campaign to win hearts and minds, suggesting to Iraqis and Americans alike that Iraqi civilians -- and perhaps Arabs and Muslims more generally -- are expendable. Certainly, Nahiba Husayif Jassim's death helped clarify her brother's perspective on the war. "God take revenge on the Americans and those who brought them here," he declared after the incident. "They have no regard for our lives."

He was being unfair, of course. It's not that we have no regard for Iraqi lives; it's just that we have much less regard for them. The current reparations policy -- the payment offered in those instances in which U.S. forces do own up to killing an Iraq civilian -- makes the point. The insurance payout to the beneficiaries of an American soldier who dies in the line of duty is $400,000, while in the eyes of the U.S. government, a dead Iraqi civilian is reportedly worth up to $2,500 in condolence payments -- about the price of a decent plasma-screen TV.

For all the talk of Iraq being a sovereign nation, foreign occupiers are the ones deciding what an Iraqi life is worth. And although President Bush has remarked in a different context that "every human life is a precious gift of matchless value," our actions in Iraq continue to convey the impression that civilian lives aren't worth all that much.

That impression urgently needs to change. To start, the Pentagon must get over its aversion to counting all bodies. It needs to measure in painstaking detail -- and publicly -- the mayhem we are causing as a byproduct of what we call liberation. To do otherwise, to shrug off the death of Nahiba Husayif Jassim as just one of those things that happens in war, only reinforces the impression that Americans view Iraqis as less than fully human. Unless we demonstrate by our actions that we value their lives as much as the lives of our own troops, our failure is certain.

bacevich@bu.edu

Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University.