Deal could yield guilty plea from bin Laden's cook

BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com
Miami Herald
Jun. 19, 2010

In this photo of a sketch by courtroom artist Janet Hamlin, defendant Ibrahim al Qosi, far left, sits with a member of his defense team in the courthouse for the U.S. war crimes commission at the Camp Justice compound on Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. Navy Base in Cuba, Wednesday, July 15, 2009. A Pentagon court security officer approved this sketch for release.
JANET HAMLIN / POOL SKETCH ARTIST
In this photo of a sketch by courtroom artist Janet Hamlin, defendant Ibrahim al Qosi, far left, sits with a member of his defense team in the courthouse for the U.S. war crimes commission at the Camp Justice compound on Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. Navy Base in Cuba, Wednesday, July 15, 2009. A Pentagon court security officer approved this sketch for release.
Negotiations are under way for the first Guantánamo war court conviction of the Obama administration, according to sources, a deal that would eventually send Osama bin Laden's one-time cook home to Sudan.

At a time when the White House is stymied in its Guantánamo closure efforts, a guilty plea could permit the Pentagon to downsize its detainee population again. It would also give the Pentagon a terror trial victory in the process President Barack Obama once derided and then reformed.

The case involves a little-known captive, Ibrahim al Qosi, who has been a war prisoner at Guantánamo since 2002 -- and has faced charges since the Bush administration inaugurated the controversial military commissions in 2004.

Qosi, 49, is accused of conspiracy and providing material support for terror for allegedly serving on a Taliban mortar crew and as a sometime bin Laden bodyguard. A conviction could carry life in prison, which a deal would avert.

He is often described as the al Qaeda founder's cook because U.S. military documents allege he worked in the kitchen of Bin Laden's ``Star of Jihad'' compound in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Two sources with knowledge of the negotiations, but not directly involved in them, confirmed the goal was to present a deal at Guantánamo July 6, when a Qosi hearing is scheduled, three days after his 50th birthday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized by the Qosi prosecution or defense teams to talk about the negotiations and refused to say how much longer Qosi might have to serve before going home.

On Thursday, the Dubai-based, Saudi-owned Arabic satellite news network Al Arabiya reported that U.S. officials had already sealed a deal trading Qosi's guilty plea for a lesser sentence.

It was not quantified, and Qosi's defense attorneys, Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier and civilian Paul Reichler refused to discuss the report.

At the Pentagon on Friday, war court spokesman Joe DellaVedova said the office would ``not comment on the existence or status of pretrial negotiations in any military commissions case.'' Disclosure would violate both the American Bar Association ethics guidelines and the commissions' rule book, he added.

Qosi is a bookkeeper by training. Prosecutors earlier alleged he handled the al Qaeda payroll before 1996 in his native Sudan, but his judge, Air Force Lt. Col. Nancy Paul, refused in December to expand the scope of his trial beyond al Qaeda's arrival in Afghanistan in 1996, a setback for the prosecution.

Then twice this year, a Sudanese lawyer, Ahmed Elmufti, traveled from Khartoum to the U.S. Navy base to meet Qosi. Elmufti last went in May, soon after Defense Secretary Robert Gates named retired Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald as the so-called ``convening authority for military commissions.''

The powerful job decides which Guantánamo captives cases can be prosecuted, and can orchestrate plea deals and dismissals.

As a foreigner, Elmufti does not have a security clearance and so only consults with his client in earshot of guards and other U.S. military personnel. American lawyers with security clearances are entitled to attorney-client confidentiality.

There were 181 foreign captives at the remote prison camps Friday, only one of them convicted, former al Qaeda propagandist Ali Hamza al Bahlul of Yemen. He was sentenced to life in 2008 after refusing to acknowledge the court's authority and mounting no defense at trial.

The two other captives convicted at Guantánamo were Australian David Hicks in March 2007, a confessed al Qaeda foot soldier, and Bin Laden's Yemeni driver, Salim Hamdan. Both got short sentences and were freed in their native countries before George W. Bush left office.

Signs of a looming deal in the Qosi case emerged after the Pentagon abruptly canceled plans to airlift 14 journalists to Guantánamo on Monday -- all to watch a Qosi hearing for their first time.

Defense attorneys sought the delay, said a Pentagon spokeswoman, Army Maj. Tanya Bradsher, and the judge and prosecutors agreed. July 6 would be the first chance to present any deal to Paul.

Qosi's plea would be the first since Hicks -- in a surprise -- sealed a secret agreement in March 2007 that let him go home and be free in Australia the same year. A U.S. military panel deliberated his punishment, anyway, and handed down a seven-year sentence, for the record.

The Obama era war court has the same provision.

``In all cases tried by military commission,'' said DellaVedova, a panel decides a sentence, ``regardless of whether the plea was guilty or not guilty, including cases involving pretrial agreements.''

First, a military judge would ``determine whether a plea is knowing and voluntary,'' DellaVedova added, discussing procedure, not the Qosi case in particular.

Were a Qosi deal to be sealed in July, a plea could be bifurcated from the sentencing hearing. If a deal is struck, the sentencing could take place in mid-August around the time of jury selection in the trial of Canadian captive Omar Khadr.

No Accountability for Torture

Obama, the Supreme Court and Maher Arar: No Accountability for Torture

18.6.10

I don’t have time to write about the US Supreme Court’s shameful refusal to hear the case of Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen who was rendered to Syria by the US in 2002, where he endured brutal torture for 10 months, so instead I’m cross-posting a suitably acerbic article by David Cole (one of Arar’s lawyers), as published in the New York Review of Books. Cole explains how, “In twenty-five years as a civil rights and human rights lawyer, I have never handled a case of more egregious abuse,” and expresses palpable disgust that the Obama administration, like the Bush administration that was responsible for Arar’s torture, has had the effrontery to claim in court that “torture is never permissible, but [has] then [gone] on to argue at length that federal officials accused of torture should not be held accountable.” As an additional note to readers, Maher Arar’s case is cited in the final part of the UN Secret Detention Report that I posted yesterday, which also discusses other men — and boys — rendered by the US to Syria up to eight years ago who have never been heard from since.

He Was Tortured, But He Can’t Sue
By David Cole, New York Review of Books, June 15, 2010

On Monday, June 14, the Supreme Court declined to hear Maher Arar’s case, conclusively shutting the door on the Canadian citizen’s effort to obtain redress from US officials who stopped him in September 2002 while he was changing planes on his way home to Canada and shipped him instead to Syria, where he was tortured and imprisoned without charges for nearly a year. In so ruling, the Court refused to reconsider the decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, sitting en banc, which had ruled in November 2009 [PDF] that Arar’s case raised too many sensitive issues of national security and confidential information to permit its adjudication in a court of law. If he is to obtain any remedy now, it must come from Congress and the President. The courts have washed their hands of the affair, but that does not mean that it is resolved.

I am one of Arar’s lawyers, along with others at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. In twenty-five years as a civil rights and human rights lawyer, I have never handled a case of more egregious abuse. US officials not only delivered Arar to Syrian security forces that they regularly accuse of systematic torture, but did everything in their power to ensure that Arar could not get to a court to challenge their actions while he was in their custody. When they finally permitted him to see a lawyer, on a Saturday ten days into his detention, the government hastily scheduled an extraordinary hearing for the next night — Sunday evening — and only “notified” Arar’s lawyer by leaving a voicemail on her office answering machine that Sunday afternoon. They then falsely told Arar that the lawyer had declined to participate, and questioned him for six hours, until 3 a.m. Monday.

When Arar’s lawyer retrieved the voicemail message later that Monday morning, she immediately called the Immigration and Naturalization Service. They told her falsely that Arar was being moved to New Jersey, and that she could contact him there the next day. In fact, he remained in New York until late that night, when he was put on a federally chartered jet and spirited out of the country. US officials never informed Arar’s lawyer that he had been deported, much less that he had been delivered to Syrian security forces.

Arar was beaten and tortured while Syrian officials asked him questions virtually identical to those US officials had asked him in New York. He was locked up for a year without charges and in complete isolation, most of the time in a cell the size of a grave. After a year, Syria released him, finding no evidence that he had done anything wrong. He returned to Canada — this time avoiding any change of planes in the United States.

Canada responded to Arar’s case as a nation who has wronged a human being should. It established a blue-ribbon commission to investigate his case, which wrote a 1,100-page report fully exonerating Arar, and faulting Canadian officials for erroneously telling US officials that Arar was the target of an investigation into possible al-Qaeda links. In fact, Arar was merely listed as one of many persons “of interest” to the investigation, because he was thought to know one of the individuals who was targeted. The commission found, however, that Canadian officials did not know that the United States was planning to send Arar to Syria. That decision was made by US officials with the Syrians and not shared with the Canadians.

Canada, in other words, played a relatively small part in Arar’s injuries, as compared to the United States. Yet Canada’s Parliament issued a unanimous apology, and the government paid Arar $10 million (Canadian) for its role in the wrong done to him.

Here in the United States, the response could not have been more different. US officials have never apologized to Arar. They persist in leaving him on a “no-fly” list, despite the fact that Canada has cleared him of any suspicion, much less wrongdoing. And when we filed suit in 2004 to seek damages from the US officials directly responsible for the decision to send Arar to his torturers, lawyers for the Bush administration argued that even assuming that federal officials had intentionally delivered Arar to Syria to be tortured, and blocked him from seeking court protection while he was in their custody, they could not be held liable for his injuries on the grounds that the case implicated secret communications and national security concerns not appropriate for court resolution.

Regrettably, the courts agreed with the Bush administration position — and so has Obama’s Department of Justice. The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reasoned that hearing Arar’s claims would present too many sensitive issues that courts were ill-equipped to decide. These included, according to the court, the perceived need for the [extraordinary rendition] policy, the threats to which it responds, the substance and sources of the intelligence used to formulate it, and the propriety of adopting specific responses to particular threats in light of apparent geopolitical circumstances and our relations with foreign countries.

But these questions would be presented only if it is permissible under some set of circumstances for the United States to send a man to another country for the purpose of having him tortured — as Arar alleged happened in his case, and as the courts were required to take as true for purposes of deciding whether his case should be dismissed at the outset. Even the Bush administration lawyers did not argue that sending Arar to be tortured was permissible. Torture is directly contrary to US law and policy. Thus, there can be no “perceived need” for rendering a man to a foreign country to have him tortured, regardless of the “threats to which it responds,” the “geopolitical circumstances,” our “relations with foreign countries,” or the “intelligence” that might underlie it. If, as US law provides, torture is absolutely forbidden, none of the above “sensitive” issues need to be decided.

In addition, the United States did not dispute that if, as was his legal right, Arar had been able to get his claim before a court while he was being detained in the United States — before he was sent to Syria — the federal courts would have entertained his case and could have stopped his rendition. Congress has expressly authorized the courts to review immigration decisions and to bar removal of foreign nationals to any country where they face a risk of torture. Knowing that, US officials made sure Arar could not get to court — denying his initial requests for a lawyer, lying to him and his lawyer, and then flying him out of the country in the dead of night before he or his lawyer could file anything. Arar therefore sought the only remedy left — damages for his injuries. The Second Circuit never explained why Arar’s case, which indisputably could have been adjudicated had he been able to seek review before he was removed, suddenly became too “sensitive” once Arar sought damages for injuries incurred as a result of that removal.

Bush administration officials sent Arar to be tortured, and Bush administration lawyers initially sought to have his damages suit dismissed. But nothing changed when President Obama took office. The Obama administration aggressively defended the Second Circuit’s decision to throw Arar’s case out of court. It opened its brief to the Supreme Court with a paragraph reiterating that torture is never permissible, but then went on to argue at length that federal officials accused of torture should not be held accountable.

In this, the Obama administration’s brief eerily echoed one of the Bush administration’s own “torture memos.” After retracting John Yoo’s infamous August 2002 memo authorizing waterboarding, the Bush administration in December 2004 replaced it with a new memo that opened with the proclamation: “Torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and to international norms.” As we now know, however, that memo went on to approve of the very same torture tactics that Yoo’s memo had approved — including waterboarding. So, too, Obama’s Justice Department opened its brief [PDF] by proclaiming that torture is always forbidden, but then defended a ruling that said that those who send an innocent man to be tortured cannot be held liable for their actions.

In President Obama’s May 2009 speech on national security and American values, he opposed a commission to investigate torture by arguing that there were proceedings in the courts that could provide accountability. Yet in the Arar case — as in every other civil case that has sought accountability for torture — the Obama administration argued that the courts were not an appropriate forum. To the Obama administration, defending government officials from suit, regardless of the gravity of the allegations, is evidently more important than holding individuals responsible for complicity in torture.

By refusing to hear the case, the Supreme Court has now effectively upheld the Bush and Obama administration positions. The court’s decision has no value as a precedent, because it is merely a decision not to take up the case on its merits. But it is the end of the line for Arar in the courts. It must not be the end of the line for the United States, however. Canada’s legislature and government did the right thing by Maher Arar without a judicial decision. So, too, the United States Congress apologized to the Japanese and Japanese Americans who were interned on the basis of their race during World War II — even though the Supreme Court had years earlier upheld the internment as legal. It took Congress more than 40 years to do right by the World War II internees. We must do better this time around.

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in January 2010, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, currently on tour in the UK, and available on DVD here), and my definitive Guantánamo habeas list.

Police postpone CCTV scheme targeting British Muslims

David Sapsted, Foreign Correspondent
The National (Abu Dhabi)
June 17. 2010

A policeman and a police community support officer hand out leaflets in Birmingham in 2008 after five men were arrested over a plot to kidnap and behead a British soldier. Paul Ellis / AFP

LONDON // The introduction of a network of more than 200 CCTV cameras giving blanket coverage of two predominantly Muslim areas of Birmingham is to be postponed after furious protests.

Muslim, civil rights and community groups were enraged after it emerged earlier this month that the cameras were not primarily for crime prevention and detection, but were paid for by the police for anti-terrorism surveillance.

It led to accusations that, because of the concentration of Muslim families in the Washwood Heath and Sparkbrook districts of the city, the police had stigmatised the area as a terrorist ghetto.

The Safer Birmingham Partnership, the joint city council/police organisation that installed the cameras, backed down yesterday after mounting protests and a parliamentary motion condemning the move, and announced that the 218 cameras would not be switched on in August as planned.

About 60 of the cameras are hidden in buildings or trees. Another 150 are on roadside poles and monitor every vehicle entering the two districts. When the cameras first started going up in April, the Safer Birmingham Partnership said it had received a £3 million (Dh16m) grant from the Home Office to improve community safety and reduce crime.

However, The Guardian newspaper revealed earlier this month that the cameras were actually financed through the Association of Chief Police Officers’ fund for terrorism. The stated objective of the fund is to finance projects that “deter or prevent terrorism or help to prosecute those responsible”. Amid mounting anger in the two communities, civil rights lawyers threatened legal action, Roger Godsiff, the Labour MP for the area, tabled a motion condemning the move as a “grave infringement of civil liberties” and, after several public meetings, a petition was started calling on Chris Sims, the chief constable of the West Midlands, to resign.

Mr Godsiff said yesterday: “I put down an early day motion in the House of Commons expressing my concern about the way it had been handled and saying that there should be proper public consultation before the cameras are activated.

“If that’s what the police have now decided to do, I applaud them for doing so.”

The total of 150 number plate recognition cameras in the two areas is more than three times the total in the rest of Birmingham, which has a population of just over a million, about 15 per cent of them Muslims.

Announcing the postponement of the switching on of the network pending consultation with the two communities, the Safer Birmingham Partnership said in a statement: “We apologise for these mistakes, which regrettably may have undermined public confidence in the police and the council.

“Although the counter terrorism unit was responsible for identifying and securing central government funds and has overseen the technical aspects of the installation, the camera sites were chosen on the basis of general crime data, not just counter-terrorism intelligence.”

However, city councillors, including the deputy leader of the council, Paul Tilsley, and Ayoub Khan, the councillor in charge of community safety programmes, said they had not been involved in the decision to install the cameras and that it had purely been in the hands of police.

Mr Khan yesterday welcomed the move to defer the deployment of the cameras and called on the police to physically cover them up to reassure residents that they were not being used, otherwise many residents “will not believe they are inactive”.

He said that the failure to consult earlier had left a bitter taste. “All communities felt offended by the manner in which number plate recognition cameras were placed, not just the Muslim community,” he told the Birmingham Mail. “I am not against [number plate recognition cameras] and CCTV technology. In many areas it is welcome because it creates a feeling of safety. Unfortunately, with this particular scheme it is obvious that the local communities were not consulted. I was never informed at any stage in relation to the intensity or the geographical coverage of such a system. Counter terrorism was mentioned at a meeting, but it was as a bolt-on extra not the main thrust.”

Tanveer Choudhry, a local councillor, said: “The area has been stigmatised as a terrorist ghetto. The police should remove the cameras until they have fully consulted with local communities.”

Mr Choudhry said that some in the community were sceptical about the belated consultation and that, eventually, the cameras would go live regardless of local opinion.

Birmingham is not regarded as one of the hotbeds of Muslim extremism in Britain, although five young men were convicted in 2008 of a plot to capture and behead a soldier to protest against the UK’s involvement in Afghanistan.

Steve Jolly, the organiser of a grassroots campaign against the cameras, said: “Birmingham is one of the most successfully integrated cities in the country. Coming together to oppose the scheme has united the Muslim community and what you might call the white, middle-class community. We’re speaking with one voice.”

Strong Support For Attack On Iran

By AFP
June 19, 2010
Sydney Morning Herald

Majorities in many Western and some Muslim countries are willing to consider military action against Iran to prevent the Islamic republic from obtaining nuclear weapons, a global poll showed on Thursday.

The Pew Research Center's poll conducted in 22 countries found majorities or pluralities in 16 countries endorsing the possibility of military intervention.

Americans are among the most supportive of a military option to deal with Iran with 66 per cent of those who oppose a nuclear-armed Iran saying they would consider the use of force, a figure second only to Nigeria's 71 per cent.

Among Europeans, the views are more mixed.

In France, 59 per cent said they would consider the use of military force to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, but a sizeable minority of 41 per cent rejected this option.

Support for the military option is softer in Germany (51 per cent), Spain (50 per cent) and Britain (48 per cent), while significant numbers (39, 34 and 37 per cent, respectively) said it is more important to avoid a military conflict with Iran, even if it results in a nuclear-armed Tehran.

In the Muslim world, there is support for the use of military action to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons in Egypt (55 per cent), Jordan (53 per cent) and Lebanon, with 44 per cent supporting such a notion and 37 per cent opposed.

In Turkey, 37 per cent of those surveyed said avoiding a military conflict with Iran should be the priority while 29 per cent would consider the use of military force.

Pakistanis, meanwhile, largely support Iran's purported efforts to acquire nuclear arms: 58 per cent favour and just 10 per cent oppose Iran acquiring such weapons, the poll showed.

Of the Pakistanis who oppose a nuclear-armed Iran, 34 per cent said avoiding a conflict with Iran should be the priority and just 21 per cent would endorse taking military action.

Russians were divided on the use of force, with 32 per cent in each camp, while the Chinese poll respondents favoured avoiding a clash by a margin of 43 to 35 per cent; in Japan the priority of avoiding conflict was endorsed by 55 per cent to 34 per cent.

The poll also showed widespread negative views of Tehran's Islamic regime and broad support for efforts to prevent the country from arming itself with atomic weapons.

"There is widespread opposition to Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and considerable support for tougher economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic," Pew said in its Global Attitudes Project poll.

The poll found strong opposition to the Iranian nuclear effort and support for stronger sanctions in Spain (79 per cent), Britain (78 per cent), Germany (77 per cent) and France (76 per cent), as well as 67 per cent in Russia and 58 per cent in China.

Some 86 per cent in Germany expressed an unfavourable view of Iran, with the figure 81 per cent in France and 75 per cent in Japan.

Iran had a positive image only in Pakistan and Indonesia in the poll, which surveyed 24,000 people in 22 countries between April 7 and May 8.

European leaders on Thursday backed new sanctions on Iran, going further than new UN and US punitive measures, in the wake of a fourth set of sanctions approved by the UN Security Council slapped over Iran's refusal to halt suspect nuclear activities.

U.S. Testing Pain Ray in Afghanistan

by Noah Shachtman
Wired.com
Saturday, June 19, 2010

The U.S. mission in Afghanistan centers around swaying locals to its side. And there's no better persuasion tool than an invisible pain ray that makes people feel like they're on fire.

OK, OK. Maybe that isn't precisely the logic being employed by those segments of the American military who would like to deploy the Active Denial System [1] to Afghanistan. I'm sure they're telling themselves that the generally non-lethal microwave weapon is a better, safer crowd control alternative than an M-16. But those ray-gun advocates better think long and hard about the Taliban's propaganda bonanza when news leaks of the Americans zapping Afghans until they feel roasted alive [2].

Because, apparently, the Active Denial System is "in Afghanistan for testing [3]."

An Air Force military officer and a civilian employee at the Air Force Research Laboratory are just two of the people telling Danger Room co-founder Sharon Weinberger [4] that the vehicle-mounted "block 2″ version of the pain ray is in the warzone, but hasn't been used in combat.

[Update: "We are currently not testing the Active Denial System in Afghanistan," Kelley Hughes, spokesperson for the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate [5], tells Danger Room.

So I ask her: Has it been tested previously? She hems and haws. "I'm not gonna get into operational," Hughes answers.

Hughes also disputes the assertion that Active Denial creates a burning feeling. "It's an intolerable heating sensation," she says. "Like opening up an oven door."]

For years, the military insisted that the Active Denial System - known as the "Holy Grail [6]" of crowd control - was oh-so-close to battlefield deployment. But a host of technical issues hampered the ray gun [7]: everything from overheating [7] to poor performance in the rain. Safety concerns lingered; a test subject had to be airlifted to a burn center after being zapped by the weapon [1]. (He eventually made a full recovery.) And then there were concerns about "the atmospherics" - how the locals might react [8] - when they learned that the United States had turned a people-roaster on ‘em. "Not politically tenable [9]," the Defense Science Board concluded.

I pinged Gen. Stanley McChrystal's staff about the use of Active Denial in Afghanistan. I'll let you know if I hear anything back. But a few months ago, a source told me that a representative from the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate was in Afghanistan. Did that mean Active Denial was about to be put into action? Nope, the source said. "She's just out getting some atmospherics on the use of non-lethals."



US May Unleash Microwave Weapon in Afghanistan
Sharon Weinberger
AOL News

TAMPA, Fla. (June 17) -- A controversial nonlethal weapon that uses microwave energy to create intense pain is being considered for use in Afghanistan, AOL News has learned.

An Air Force military officer and a civilian employee at the Air Force Research Laboratory told AOL News at an industry conference here that the Active Denial System, which heats the top layer of skin via millimeter waves, was in Afghanistan for testing. The sources were not able to offer details on how or whether the weapon was being used in combat.

The weapon is designed to shoot an invisible beam of energy at people, creating an intense burning sensation that forces them to flee. The Air Force has called it the "goodbye effect." It has not been used before in military operations.
The Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate Active Denial System (ADS) is a counter-personnel, non-lethal, directed energy weapon.
U.S. Air Force
The Active Denial System, a nonlethal weapon being considered for use in Afghanistan, shoots at its target energy that causes a burning sensation on the skin. The heat quickly becomes intolerable and forces the target to move.

Defense Department representatives confirmed the weapon was being considered for use and did not deny it was in Afghanistan, but indicated it had not yet been used operationally.

"Consideration is under way for the appropriate employment of an Active Denial System," Kelley Hughes, a representative for the Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate, wrote in an e-mail to AOL News.

In 2008, the Pentagon considered deploying the Active Denial System in Iraq, but the effort was stymied over policy concerns. Whether it will become part of the U.S. arsenal is Afghanistan remains unclear.

"It is my understanding that there are discussions under way about deploying an ADS but no decision/approval yet," Marine Corps Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, wrote in an e-mail to AOL News when asked whether the Pentagon's civilian leadership had approved the weapon's use in Afghanistan.

Lapan was unable to respond by deadline to requests for further clarification.

The technology used in the Active Denial System, which was developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., has been adapted to several different configurations. Lab officials told AOL News that the weapon sent to Afghanistan is a Block 2, a more advanced version that is mounted on a military vehicle. The lab is also looking at a mounting it on an aircraft.

Michael Kleiman, a spokesman for the Air Force Research Laboratory, declined comment and referred calls to the Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate. The directorate's Hughes did not respond to additional e-mails or calls seeking confirmation of whether ADS is in Afghanistan.

An automated reply to an e-mail sent to Col. Tracy J. Tafolla, head of the Joint Nonlethal Weapons Directorate, indicated he was out of the office until June 28.

The military's history of disclosing details about the controversial weapon has been mixed. After years of secret work, the Pentagon disclosed the weapon's existence in 2001, shortly before a news article was about to be published describing the device.

Though the Air Force says years of testing have proved its safety, in 2007 an airman acting as a test subject was severely burned. The Air Force later that year released a heavily redacted report describing the accident, which required the airman to be airlifted to a burn center. A copy of the full report later provided to Wired.com revealed that the lack of proper operator training and missing safety equipment contributed to the accident.

The Air Force has since said the technical problems were related to the earlier Block 1 system, and the training problems have been resolved.

In a phone interview, John Alexander, former head of the nonlethal weapons program at Los Alamos National Laboratory, told AOL News that he was not aware of the weapon's deployment, but that he thought it would be useful in Afghanistan for point defense, such as protecting a base. The barriers to deploying the weapon have been policy concerns, not technical problems, said Alexander, who has been a longtime supporter of the Active Denial System.

"Mostly the issues are the concern about publicity," he said.

Gaza convoy activists claim Israeli soldiers using debit cards stolen in raid

Boarding party troops in deadly flotilla raid confiscated cards and spent on them, claim campaigners who were on board

Haroon Siddique
guardian.co.uk
Friday 18 June 2010 18.59 BST

Israeli troops have been accused of stealing from activists arrested in the assault on the Gaza flotilla after confiscated debit cards belonging to activists were subsequently used.

In their raid of 31 May, the Israeli army stormed the boats on the flotilla and, as well as money and goods destined for the Palestinian relief effort in Gaza, the bulk of which have yet to be returned, took away most of the personal possessions of the activists when taking them into custody.

Individual soldiers appear to have used confiscated debit cards to buy items such as iPod accessories, while mobile phones seized from activists have also been used for calls.

Ebrahim Musaji, 23, of Gloucester, has a bank statement showing his debit card was used in an Israeli vending machine for a purchase costing him 82p on 9 June.

It was then used on a Dutch website, www.thisipod.com, twice on 10 June: once for amounts equivalent to £42.42 and then for £37.83. And a Californian activist, Kathy Sheetz, has alleged that she has been charged more than $1,000 in transactions from vending machines in Israel since 6 June.

Musaji and Sheetz were on board two separate boats – one the Mavi Marmara, on which nine Turkish activists were killed, the other on the Challenger 1. Both activists only entered Israel when arrested, and were in custody for their entire time on Israeli soil.

"They've obviously taken my card and used it," Musaji told the Guardian.

"When they take things like people's videos and debit cards and use them, and their mobile phones, it becomes a bit of a joke.

"We were held hostage, we were attacked, and now there's been theft. If the police confiscate your goods in the UK, they're not going to use your goods and think they can get away with it."

Musaji cancelled his card on 7 June, the day after he returned to Britain, where he is a support worker for adults with learning difficulties. His bank has agreed to treat the transactions as fraudulent and he will not be charged for them. His mobile phone was also used for two short calls in Israel after it had been confiscated.

Another American activist, David Schermerhorn, 80, from Washington state, claims his iPhone was used, while Manolo Luppichini, an Italian journalist, said his card was debited with the equivalent of €54 after it was confiscated.

Activists say Israel still has possession of at least £1m of goods and cash, comprising aid and personal possessions, including laptops and cameras.

Some passports, three of them belonging to British citizens, have still not been returned. On Thursday, delegations in 12 countries, including the UK, held meetings with their respective governments to exert pressure on Israeli to return the seized property.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli embassy in London advised Musaji to register a formal complaint.

"We regard any misconduct as described in Mr Musaji's allegations to be utterly unacceptable and intolerable, and suggest waiting until this subject matter is clarified," she said. "As had happened previously, an Israeli soldier was found guilty of illegal use of a credit card for which he was indicted and sentenced to seven months' imprisonment."

Aish Machal recruits non-Israelis for IDF

Photo by: ASSOCIATED PRESS Aish Machal recruits non-Israelis for IDF By SAM CROSS 17/06/2010 Organization establishes army volunteer program.

Not since the days before the War of Independence – when David Ben-Gurion and Menachem Begin scoured the globe seeking members of the Diaspora to fight in the War of Independence – has an organization proactively recruited non-Israelis to serve in the nation’s military. Aish Machal decided to fill this void by establishing a full-enlistment army volunteer program for non-Israeli citizens. This month, the first 20 participants began a six-week program of rigorous physical activity, ulpan, classes and excursions focused on Jewish history, Jewish identity and Zionism in order to prepare for IDF service. “With the creation of JoinTheIDF.com we have the first-ever pro-active recruitment effort for the IDF,” said Jay M. Shultz, executive chairman of Aish Machal. “It’s amazing that no one has actively recruited for something this important before.” By connecting with other Diaspora-recruiting organizations, like Birthright, and Jewish organizations on college campuses, like Hillel, Aish Machal plans on reaching tens of thousands of young Jews per year to connect with with their homeland. A lone soldier center that will include dorms in Tel Aviv is also in the works. Although the program currently comprises only boys, Aish Machal says it plans on hosting girl groups in the near future. The organization not only focuses on bringing young Jews to Israel for military duty, but also encourages other types of national civil service, like Sherut Leumi. And Aish Machal has just made history again – by having the first-ever male from the Diaspora to sign up for Sherut Leumi. “It’s not about trying to get them to just serve in the army,” Shultz said. “It’s about substantively serving Israel and connecting to our identity as a people.” Most 18-year-olds graduating from high school are not ready for college, Shultz says. By spending a year serving the Israeli community – whether through the IDF or Sherut Leumi – young Jews not only gain a sense of belonging to their homeland, but also the greater maturity they need for college. “Israel is no longer a welfare state,” says Shultz. “We are at a time in history where the Jews of the Diaspora need Israel more than Israel needs them. This program can do a tremendous amount of good in building up our next generation internationally, both as Jews and as contributing members of society – regardless of whether they stay in Israel after service, or not. “Serving Israel should not just be seen as a responsibility; it should be seen as a noble honor.” The key problem for many young Jews has not been their willingness to serve Israel, but rather an inability to cut through the Israeli government’s bureaucracy. Steve Rieber, a 24-year-old from Los Angeles, had been trying to enter the August draft for the past two-and-half months before he finally found Aish Machal. “I had been looking around, office to office, to sign up for the army,” Rieber said. “They sent me here and they sent me there, and it got so ridiculous. I eventually ran into a buddy of mine who was joining [Aish Machal] and he told me to join. I was able to cut through all the bureaucracy.” Entering the program, however, seems to be the only part of it that is easy. Aish Machal recruits wake at 5:30 a.m. every morning and are immediately forced to do physical exercise. If they are caught not speaking Hebrew, they must do more push-ups. The recruits, however, do not seem to mind. On the contrary; they have been waiting – some of them for their whole lives – to serve. “Since I was a little kid, I was fascinated by the Israeli soldiers,” said Yakov Kroll, a 20-year-old American who studies at community college in L.A. “I never thought twice about it, I always knew I would do this. And, honestly, I could not be happier right now.” Motivated by their love of Israel and a sense of duty, these young men came to Israel already feeling an attachment toward the country. Asked why he decided join the IDF, as opposed to the US army, Rieber pointed to his Jewish heritage. “I’m an American, but at the same time, I’m also a Jew,” he said. “So if I’m going to take a bullet for somebody, when you get down to it, I’m going to take it for a place I’m more connected to.”

What Ankara Knows

The Middle East is Changing

By RAMZY BAROUD
June 18, 2010

"Even despots, gangsters and pirates have specific sensitiveness, (and) follow some specific morals."

The claim was made by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a recent speech, following the deadly commando raid on the humanitarian aid flotilla to Gaza on May 31. According to Erdogan, Israel doesn’t adhere to the code of conduct embraced even by the vilest of criminals.

The statement alone indicates the momentous political shift that’s currently underway in the Middle East. While the shift isn’t entirely new, one dares to claim it might now be a lasting one. To borrow from Erdogan’s own assessment of the political fallout that followed Israel’s raid, the damage is “irreparable.”

Countless analyses have emerged in the wake of the long-planned and calculated Israeli attack on the Turkish ship, Mavi Marmara, which claimed the lives of nine, mostly Turkish peace activists.

In “Turkey’s Strategic U-Turn, Israel’s Tactical Mistakes,” published in the Israeli daily Haaretz, Ofra Bengio suggested Turkey’s position was purely strategic. But he also chastised Israel for driving Turkey further and faster “toward the Arab and Muslim worlds.”

In this week’s Zaman, a Turkish publication, Bulent Kenes wrote: “As a result of the Davos (where the Turkish prime minister stormed out of a televised discussion with Israeli President Shimon Peres, after accusing him and Israel of murder), the myth that Israel is untouchable was destroyed by Erdogan, and because of that Israel nurses a hatred for Turkey.”

In fact, the Davos incident is significant not because it demonstrates that Israel can be criticized, but rather because it was Turkey — and not any other easily dismissible party — that dared to voice such criticism.

Writing in the Financial Times under the title, “Erdogan turns to face East in a delicate balancing act,” David Gardner places Turkey’s political turn within a European context. He sums up that thought in a quote uttered by no other than Robert Gates, US defense secretary: “If there is anything to the notion that Turkey is moving Eastward, it is in no small part because it was pushed, and pushed by some in Europe refusing to give Turkey the kind of organic link to the West that Turkey sought.” But what many analysts missed was the larger political and historical context, not only as pertaining to Israel and Turkey, but to the whole region and all its players, including the US itself. Only this context can help us understand the logic behind Israel’s seemingly erratic behavior.

In 1996, Israeli leaders appeared very confident. A group of neoconservative American politicians had laid out a road map for Israel to ensure complete dominance over the Middle East. In the document entitled, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” Turkey was mentioned four times. Each reference envisaged the country as a tool to “contain, destabilize, and roll back some of .. (the) most dangerous threats” to Israel. That very “vision” in fact served as the backbone of the larger strategy used by the US, as it carried out its heedless military adventures in the Middle East.

Frustrated by the American failure to reshape the region and unquestioningly eliminate anything and everything that Israel might perceive as a threat, Israel took matters into its own hands. However, in 2006 and between 2008 and 2009, it was up for major surprises. Superior firepower doesn’t guarantee military victory. More, while Israel had once more demonstrated its capacity to inflict untold damage on people and infrastructure, the Israeli weapon was no longer strategically effective. In other words, Israel’s military advantage could no longer translate into political gains, and this was a game-changer.

There are many issues the Israeli leadership has had to wrangle with in recent years. The US, Israel’s most faithful benefactor, is now on a crisis management mode in Iraq and Afghanistan, struggling on all fronts, whether political, military or economic. That recoil has further emboldened Israel’s enemies, who are no longer intimidated by the American bogyman. Israel’s desperate attempt at using its own military to achieve its grand objectives has also failed, and miserably so.

With options growing even more limited, Israel now understands that Gaza is its last card; ending the siege or ceasing the killings could be understood as another indication of political weakness, a risk that Israel is not ready to take.

Turkey, on the other hand, was fighting — and mostly winning — its own battles. Democracy in Turkey has never been as healthy and meaningful as it is today. Turkey has also eased its chase of the proverbial dangling carrot, of EU membership, especially considering the arrogant attitude of some EU members who perceive Turkey as too large and too Muslim to be trusted. Turkey needed new platforms, new options and a more diverse strategy.

But that is where many analysts went wrong. Turkey’s popular government has not entered the Middle Eastern political foray to pick fights. On the contrary, the Turkish government has for years been trying to get involved as a peacemaker, a mediator between various parties. So, yes, Turkey’s political shift was largely strategic, but it was not ill-intentioned.

The uninvited Turkish involvement, however, is highly irritating to Israel. Turkey’s approach to its new role grew agitating to Israel when the role wasn’t confined to being that of the host — in indirect talks between Syria and Israel, for example. Instead, Turkey began to take increasingly solid and determined political stances. Thus the Davos episode.

By participating at such a high capacity in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, with firm intentions of breaking the siege, Turkey was escalating its involvement well beyond Israel’s comfort zone. Therefore, Israel needed a decisive response that would send a message to Turkey — and any daring other — about crossing the line of what is and is not acceptable. It’s ironic how the neoconservatives’ “A Clean Break” envisaged an Israeli violation of the political and geographic boundaries of its neighbors, with the help of Turkey. Yet, 14 years later, it was Turkey, with representatives from 32 other countries, which came with a peaceful armada to breach what Israel perceived as its own political domain.

The Israeli response, as bloody as it was, can only be understood within this larger context. Erdogan’s statements and the popular support his government enjoys show that Turkey has decided to take on the Israeli challenge. The US government was exposed as ineffectual and hostage to the failing Israeli agenda in the region, thanks to the lobby. Ironically it is now the neoconservatives who are leading the charge against Turkey, the very country they had hoped would become Israel’s willing ally in its apocalyptic vision.

Ramzy Baroud is editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers and journals worldwide. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London). His newbook is, “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story” (Pluto Press, London).

Grand Theft Flotilla

Looting the Victims of the Raid on the Gaza Flotilla

By STANLEY HELLER
June 18, 2010

"There’s been three or four reports from passengers that Israelis then went out with their credit cards and bought beer with it.” That’s what Greta Berlin of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla told me about what happened with the possessions of people who were on the seven boats of the Flotilla.

The deaths so far have been given major attention (nine at the moment and two so badly injured that they’re unlikely to live). The 40 or 50 wounded or beaten (many in Israeli jails) less so. For those who appreciated last week’s CounterPunch piece by the amazing Kenneth Nichols O'Keefe they should see his interview when bloodied and beaten as he was let out of Israeli custody.

However, the facts about what the Israelis did with the personal possessions of the passengers have received scant notice. This can be summed up in a few words: theft, malicious destruction and seizure.

First there’s good news, the supplies. It’s reported that the U.N. will transport ” the entire cargo” of the Turkish ships to Gaza. Hopefully the same will happen with the supplies from the non-Turkish ships. It’s a bitter triumph for the Free Gaza Movement and a sign that despite the thousands organized by the Israeli soccer club Betar to spew hatred in front of the Turkish Embassy in Israel and the opinion polls there showing overwhelming support for the raid, Netanyahu is rational enough to see he has to make a concession.

What about the personal property, cameras, computers, Iphones, and luggage? According to Greta Berlin some of the electronics were returned, all smashed up. Others were not given back at all. The Israelis selectively used snippets of passenger video to advance their case that the poor Israelis rappelling from the skies were set upon by well armed terrorists. The rest of the videotape and flash memory cards are kept back, no doubt for THE INVESTIGATION or perhaps they were pre-emptively “lost”.

Berlin said she received a report from a lawyer working for a Turkish organization that over $3.5 million dollars in equipment had been destroyed. Clothing, personal items. If a passenger wants to see if their luggage was returned they can go to a Turkish warehouse and pick though the suitcases packed with random clothing and gear and see what they can recover.

They flat out stole money and credit cards. Not a dime has been returned of the cash and as has been mentioned some security officials are merrily tippling their Lowenbraus and laughing at their unwitting benefactors.

Many of the passports have not been returned, especially those from Palestinian Israelis. Now, whatever could they do with passports? What Mossad bunker have they been shipped to be examined and refashioned for use in the next assassination?

Then there are the ships, big expensive ships this time, not the little boats of the first few voyages. They sit in Ashdod harbor. Supposedly they were to be returned to Turkey within ten days. The Free Gaza Movement is afraid the Israelis will demand they first sign a pledge never to use them again to bring things to Gaza. They won’t sign any such pledge of shame. They will be going back. Right now the ships sit in the port along a Free Gaza ship the Israeli navy stole last year.

Stealing is not such a big thing. Look at the olive trees that now dot the settlements, fine decorations. It used to be that the Israeli pioneers would plant fir trees of Europe “to make the desert bloom”. But with all the olive trees available, with the hundreds of thousands being bulldozed out as they army builds the Wall and whatnot, why just waste them, why not put them to good use. So the fashion is established.

Why doesn’t Netanyahu get it over with? Remove the Star of David and blue bars from the Israeli flag and hoist up the Jolly Roger.

Piracy pays.

The fly in the ointment is the fact that the Flotilla Massacre survivors are speaking out. Or they’re trying to. Several of the survivors are attempting to speak at the U.N. and at events in the U.S. However, a group of powerful NYC politicians are demanding the U.S. State Department keep them out. No, it’s not neo-cons slandering the survivors as having “ties” with terrorists. It’s what passes for New York liberals.

The New York Daily News says Representative Carolyn Maloney has pledged to deliver a petition with more than 23,000 signatures demanding the State Department do visa checks of Mavi Marmara ship passengers planning a speaking tour. The Congresswoman says she’s defending the country from “Hamas”. At the press conference Congressman Jerome Nadler made the claim that the IHH which organized the Turkish ships “has long been known for its ties to Hamas and al-Qaeda”.

The paper quotes Harlem Congressman Charlie Rangel as saying, "Use extra caution. Take this threat seriously." What threat, the threat that survivors might rip through the steady stream of Israeli propaganda? What irony. We have the Congressman from Harlem defending the outrageous lies of a country headed by a President (Shimon Peres) who in the heyday of apartheid offered to sell nuclear weapons to South Africa. This foremost Black Congressman pledges on his website “unwavering support” to a country where racism (against Palestinians) is open and pervasive.

Malcolm and Martin must be spinning in their graves.

Stanley Heller is host of the news magazine “The Struggle” which can be seen at www.TheStruggle.org He can be reached at mail@TheStruggle.org

A Short History of BP

Beyond Petroleum, Beyond Pollution, Beyond Politics

By M. KAMIAR
June 16, 2010

British Petroleum is the UK’s largest corporation. It is among the largest private-sector energy corporations in the world. It is a vertically integrated cartel that operates oil and natural-gas exploration, marketing, and distribution all over the globe.

BP, however, goes beyond petroleum, indeed, beyond business. The mess we have today in the Gulf of Mexico is not the first time BP has committed crimes against the environment and against people. This is a proverbial drop in the bucket for BP. This outfit has been cheating humanity since its inception.

Many people do not know that BP was born, named after, and committed many crimes against the people of Iran. For nearly 80 years, it seized the wealth of that nation, interfered in its politics, and destroyed its future.

The history of crude-oil exploration and production in the Middle East began with William Knox D’Arcy (1849-1917), a British subject living in Australia who became very rich very quickly—twice. D’Arcy, a lawyer, invested in gold mines in Rockhampton, Queensland. After becoming a millionaire by the end of 19th century, he and his family returned to England.

In 1901, D’Arcy obtained a concession from the government of Iran to drill for mineral resources, with the exception of the five northern provinces the Russians wanted. This concession, called the “Green Document,” was written on a page of green paper signed by the Shahanshah, king of kings, of Iran. D’Arcy was to pay the government of Iran £20,000 in cash and £20,000 in stock in the proposed operation, plus a royalty of 16% of net profits from all enterprises formed under the agreement.

D’Arcy founded the First Exploration Company in 1903. He never set foot on the land that made him a wealthy man. D’Arcy conducted business through representatives and later through the UK government. He hired G. B. Reynolds, an experienced geologist-engineer, to oversee the drilling. Reynolds had worked in India and been drilling in Sumatra.

Reynolds had visited Baghdad frequently and had paid close attention to local legends, especially the stories about Zoroastrian temples built on eternal fire and tar pits in southwestern Iran. He hired scouts from local nomadic tribes. These were akin to Native Americans guiding Ponce de Leon to the Fountain of Youth.

He had two areas in mind. The very first attempt at drilling in western Iran, in Qaser Shirin, near the border with the Ottoman Empire, was disappointing. A third well was drilled near Masjid Sulaiman, 80 miles northeast of Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan province. There was no oil here either.

D’Arcy had spent more than £225,000 to no avail and was ready to sell his precious Green Document. He mortgaged his remaining gold holdings but was still running out of money. D’Arcy telegraphed Reynolds and told him to close down the operation.

But Reynolds was sure he would find oil. He telegraphed back and asked for written confirmation to be sent by mail. While waiting for the mail, which normally took two weeks, he and his scouts followed their noses day and night, searching for that rotten-egg smell. Reynolds ordered drilling for a fourth well where he had found traces from a natural seepage in the same vicinity as the third.

This one was a gusher. The crude shot 50 feet over the derrick from a well that was 1,180 feet deep. On May 26, 1908, the most significant chapter in the history of the Middle East—if not the whole of mankind—opened.

By its 100th anniversary, this well had produced more than one billion barrels of light crude oil. Reynolds had struck one of the world’s richest oil fields on the edge of the Persian Gulf basin. With 314 wells, the Masjid Sulaiman field was still producing about 7,000 barrels of oil per day in the early 1980s. And this was only the first of many productive Persian Gulf reservoirs.

In 1909, D’Arcy formed the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC). Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, had been following the progress of the burgeoning petroleum industry because he was thinking of converting the British navy’s ships from coal to oil, which he implemented in 1911. In order to protect its supplies of this now-crucial military resource, the British government became part owner of APOC in 1914, acquiring 50 percent of the voting stock, reimbursing all of D’Arcy’s expenditures, and granting him £900,000 worth of shares. D’Arcy remained a director until his death in 2000. In 1923, the company secretly paid £5,000 to Churchill to lobby the UK government to grant APOC a monopoly on Iranian oil resources (Myers 2009).

The rush was on. Western oil companies eventually attained total control over the middle-eastern oil industry. These companies often became de facto rulers of these semi-colonial territories. All aspects of exploration, production, refining, and marketing were controlled by these multinational corporations. The owners not only discouraged but prevented native populations from obtaining the skills and education to manage their own resources, and workers were treated no better than slaves.

In 1935, the Iranian government sent a memorandum to all foreign embassies in Tehran to address the country by its correct name: Iran—not Persia. Persia, or Pars, is only one of 30 provinces in Iran; Greek historians mistakenly assumed that all people in Iran were Persians, and the British and others kept repeating this mistake (Kamiar 2007). APOC was forced to change its name to Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC).

Oil concessions generally covered very large areas and were for long durations. They paid a small, fixed, non-negotiable royalty. Until 1953, AIOC was paying Iran a 16% royalty. The government of Iran was not even allowed to check AIOC’s records.

More importantly, these oil imperialists were supported by the full military might of their respective governments. Iran’s shah, who was installed by the Allies in 1941, headed a corrupt dictatorship. There is no telling what or how much he stole from his people. With the help of these corrupt shahs, first backed by the British then by the US, AIOC appropriated the lion’s share of Iran’s wealth.

By the post-WWII era and the beginning of decolonization, educated people in Iran realized the country was in effect occupied and controlled by AIOC. They’d had enough. Coinciding with the growth of a new nationalist fervor in the region, the shah was forced aside, remaining primarily as a figurehead, and a new prime minister, Mohammad Mossadeq, was elected in 1951. Mossadeq, with the approval of Majlis (the Iranian parliament), nationalized Iran’s oil industry. The British government contested the nationalization at the International Court of Law, but its complaint was dismissed.

The British had, in effect, been kicked out of Iran.

AIOC responded with a boycott of Iranian oil, but that was not enough to bring the country to its knees. The British then approached Washington for help. Nothing much developed during the remainder of the Truman presidency, but the incoming president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, was a very close friend and ally of Churchill’s and did not ignore his comrade’s pleas for assistance.

In 1953, the year Eisenhower took office, the CIA went into action, in partnership with the British. Eisenhower approved the plan, called Operation Ajax, of instigating a counter-coup designed to return the shah to total power. The director of the operation was Theodore Roosevelt’s grandson, Kermit Roosevelt, who headed the CIA’s Middle East division. The CIA paid out $1 million to hire demonstrators—mostly gang members, prostitutes, drug addicts, and thugs (Gelvin, 2005, p. 279; Fayazmanesh, 2003, p.4). This same tactic had been used successfully in Italy in 1948 to prevent the communists from winning the elections. Operation Ajax, mostly planned by Donald N. Wilbur, an architecture expert, was also supported by few ayatollahs, powerful landlords, and big merchants. The riots and chaos that ensued did the trick, and Mossadeq was forced to resign. (See Alexander Cockburn's The Crude Truth.)

When the shah triumphantly returned to Tehran on August 19, he personally expressed his gratitude to his savior, Kermit Roosevelt, for putting him back on his Peacock Throne. Upon returning to the US, Roosevelt accepted a job with Gulf Oil. He remained in demand as a consultant and liaison between American oil companies and Middle Eastern governments.

The shah’s return opened a reign of terror, funded by the US, in Iran. Mossadeq was found guilty of treason, spent three years in solitary confinement, and was put under house arrest until his death in 1967. The majority of his supporters, however, were turned over to firing squads. Mossadeq’s foreign minister, Hossein Fatemi, was taken from a hospital to be executed.

In return for US help, AIOC agreed to share its Iranian concession with US oil companies. American victory in Iran resulted a newly formed oil consortium, expansion of the right of extraterritoriality (meaning US and UK nationals could not be tried in Iranian courts), and the establishment of SAVAK, the shah’s secret police. SAVAK was created in 1957 with CIA assistance and US tax dollars. Its primary mission was to eliminate threats to the shah. Its tactics included censorship, “disappearances” of dissidents, torture, and execution.

The shah showed his gratitude to US foreign-policy makers. During the wars of 1967 and 1973 between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the shah provided cheap fuel for the Israeli war machine even as Arab members of OPEC decreased oil production and created an oil embargo directed at the western nations, causing oil prices to quadruple in two months. By 1975, as the world’s second-largest oil producer (after Saudi Arabia), Iran was earning nearly $20 million per hour. Much of this money went to the US as Iran became the largest purchaser of American weapons.

In 1954, AIOC changed its name to British Petroleum. In 1959, BP expanded beyond the Middle East to Alaska, and in 1965 it was the first company to strike oil in the North Sea. Today, the oil company that began in Iran has gone global. It has oil wells and gas stations on all continents.

At $1 million, the counter-coup in Iran seemed like a bargain for the US. But was it? Drawing a straight line from the overthrow of Mossadeq’s government in 1953 to the Iranian revolution of 1979—and perhaps to the events of September 11, 2001—we begin to see Operation Ajax’s ultimate cost in terms of money and lives. From 1953 to 1979, Iran was a BP prison, polluted and poor, run with an iron fist by the company and its puppet, the shah.

Now it is drilling offshore near the US in the Gulf of Mexico. Many Americans in the region are beginning to feel the pain and outrage Iranians endured for 70 years—getting a small taste of how BP goes Beyond Politics.

Dr. M. Kamiar is a professor of geography at Florida State College. With Professor Stanley D. Brunn, he is editing Native World Geography. Each chapter on a region in this book is going to be written by a geographer with a doctoral degree from that region. He can be reached at mkamiar@fscj.edu.

Sources cited:

CIA. The World Factbook. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ir.html.

Fayazmanesh, S. “In Memory of August 19, 1953: What Kermit Roosevelt Didn’t Say.” www.counterpuch.org, August 18, 2003.

Gelvin, L. G. The Modern Middle East: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Kamiar, M. “Country Name Calling: The Case of Iran vs. Persia.” The American Geographical Society’s Focus on Geography, Vol. 49, No. 4, Spring 2007, pp. 1-11.

Myers, K. “The Greatest 20th Century Beneficiary of Popular Mythology has been the Cad Churchill.” Independence, Thursday September 03, 2009. http://www.independent.ie/opinion/ columnists/kevin-myers/the-greatest-20th-century-beneficiary-of-popular-mythology-has-been-the-cad-churchill-1876680.html.

Pollack, K. M. The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America. New York: Random House, 2004.

On Father's Day, hypocrites are all in the family

By Colbert I. King
The Washington Post
Saturday, June 19, 2010; A17

Family, marriage and the contribution of fathers come together as topics for reflection on Father's Day. So I'd like to know why Barack Obama, a husband and a father in a family structure that encompasses bonds deemed essential to our society, is constantly and savagely attacked by conservative leaders whose personal circumstances undermine the family values they espouse?

Consider Obama: Raised by a single mother in a middle-class family where hard work and education were watchwords, Obama graduated from two of the top schools in the country, Columbia University and Harvard Law School. His legal scholarship was recognized when he became the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. He married and, equally important, has stayed married to Michelle Robinson, a Princeton graduate and Harvard Law alumna. He lives with his wife, two children and his mother-in-law. Obama: constitutional law professor, civil rights lawyer, state legislator, U.S. senator, 44th U.S. president, family man.

Now let's turn to Obama's foremost critics: Rush Hudson Limbaugh III, Newton Leroy Gingrich and Sarah Palin.

Limbaugh and Gingrich have said too many negative things about Obama to count. "I want him to fail" (Limbaugh) and "secular socialist" (Gingrich) are just two of their attacks. Yet two of the nation's loudest proponents of family-values issues are serial husbands. Between them, the two men have had seven wives.

Limbaugh, who dropped out of college after one year, married his first wife, a sales secretary, in September 1977. She filed for divorce three years later; it was granted in July 1980. Limbaugh next married an usherette in 1983; they divorced in 1990. In May 1994, he married an aerobics instructor he met online. They separated in June 2004 and divorced that December.

Two weeks ago, Limbaugh married a Florida party planner. He's still wedded to her as far as I can tell.

Gingrich is one nuptial behind Limbaugh. But he started earlier. In 1962, at age 19, Gingrich married his 26-year-old former high school geometry teacher. Gingrich left her in the spring of 1980. He did return to see her at the hospital where she was getting treatment for cancer. He was there to discuss divorce terms. Formally divorced in 1981, Gingrich remarried six months later.

That marriage lasted until 2000. By his own admission, Gingrich started an affair with a woman 23 years his junior during his second marriage. It was around the time he was taking Bill Clinton to task over Monica Lewinsky.

Gingrich's second marriage ended in 2000, and he married his girlfriend the same year. The current Mrs. Gingrich is still with him, as far as I can tell.

Gingrich and Limbaugh, national icons in the conservative movement -- and mockers of this country's most traditional and honored symbol of commitment: holy matrimony.

But what would a Father's Day discussion of the nuclear family and a moral society be without bringing into the picture Mrs. Family Values herself, Sarah Palin?

The same Palin who last week said of President Obama, "It sounds like the inner circle that he has are some Chicago thugs." Well, Palin knows lawbreaking, too.

Her sister-in-law, Diana Palin, half sister of the former governor's husband, got a 15-month sentence this year. Burglarizing the same Alaska house three times for money to satisfy a drug habit is the kind of thing that can get you arrested. Thuggery? How about Sherry Johnston, the mother of Levi Johnston, the high school dropout who fathered Palin's grandson? She was arrested and charged with selling drugs; after pleading guilty to one count with intent to deliver the drug OxyContin she was sentenced to three years.

Because of her medical condition, the woman who was once Bristol Palin's future mother-in-law was released from prison to home confinement, where she wears an ankle-monitoring device.

And the whereabouts of 19-year-old Levi on this Father's Day weekend? His bonds with the Palins were so tight, he said on TV, that Sarah and her husband, Todd, allowed Levi to live in their house with Bristol while they dated. Conservative family values?

Levi can be found on the cover of Playgirl magazine, his nude body blocked from full exposure by his strategically placed arm.

And to think, as we prepare to celebrate this day of men and family, Limbaugh, Gingrich and Palin have the unmitigated gall to look down their noses at our president.

kingc@washpost.com

José María Aznar: If Israel goes down, we all go down

17 June 2010

The following article by the former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznarwas published in the British newspaper 'The Times' on 17 June 2010:


If Israel goes down, we all go down

Anger over Gaza is a distraction. We cannot forget that Israel is the West’s best ally in a turbulent region

By José María Aznar

For far too long now it has been unfashionable in Europe to speak up for Israel. In the wake of the recent incident on board a ship full of anti-Israeli activists in the Mediterranean, it is hard to think of a more unpopular cause to champion.

In an ideal world, the assault by Israeli commandos on the Mavi Marmara would not have ended up with nine dead and a score wounded. In an ideal world, the soldiers would have been peacefully welcomed on to the ship. In an ideal world, no state, let alone a recent ally of Israel such as Turkey, would have sponsored and organised a flotilla whose sole purpose was to create an impossible situation for Israel: making it choose between giving up its security policy and the naval blockade, or risking the wrath of the world.

In our dealings with Israel, we must blow away the red mists of anger that too often cloud our judgment. A reasonable and balanced approach should encapsulate the following realities: first, the state of Israel was created by a decision of the UN. Its legitimacy, therefore, should not be in question. Israel is a nation with deeply rooted democratic institutions. It is a dynamic and open society that has repeatedly excelled in culture, science and technology.

Second, owing to its roots, history, and values, Israel is a fully fledged Western nation. Indeed, it is a normal Western nation, but one confronted by abnormal circumstances.

Uniquely in the West, it is the only democracy whose very existence has been questioned since its inception. In the first instance, it was attacked by its neighbours using the conventional weapons of war. Then it faced terrorism culminating in wave after wave of suicide attacks. Now, at the behest of radical Islamists and their sympathisers, it faces a campaign of delegitimisation through international law and diplomacy.

Sixty-two years after its creation, Israel is still fighting for its very survival. Punished with missiles raining from north and south, threatened with destruction by an Iran aiming to acquire nuclear weapons and pressed upon by friend and foe, Israel, it seems, is never to have a moment’s peace.

For years, the focus of Western attention has understandably been on the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians. But if Israel is in danger today and the whole region is slipping towards a worryingly problematic future, it is not due to the lack of understanding between the parties on how to solve this conflict. The parameters of any prospective peace agreement are clear, however difficult it may seem for the two sides to make the final push for a settlement.

The real threats to regional stability, however, are to be found in the rise of a radical Islamism which sees Israel’s destruction as the fulfilment of its religious destiny and, simultaneously in the case of Iran, as an expression of its ambitions for regional hegemony. Both phenomena are threats that affect not only Israel, but also the wider West and the world at large.

The core of the problem lies in the ambiguous and often erroneous manner in which too many Western countries are now reacting to this situation. It is easy to blame Israel for all the evils in the Middle East. Some even act and talk as if a new understanding with the Muslim world could be achieved if only we were prepared to sacrifice the Jewish state on the altar. This would be folly.

Israel is our first line of defence in a turbulent region that is constantly at risk of descending into chaos; a region vital to our energy security owing to our overdependence on Middle Eastern oil; a region that forms the front line in the fight against extremism. If Israel goes down, we all go down. To defend Israel’s right to exist in peace, within secure borders, requires a degree of moral and strategic clarity that too often seems to have disappeared in Europe. The United States shows worrying signs of heading in the same direction.

The West is going through a period of confusion over the shape of the world’s future. To a great extent, this confusion is caused by a kind of masochistic self-doubt over our own identity; by the rule of political correctness; by a multiculturalism that forces us to our knees before others; and by a secularism which, irony of ironies, blinds us even when we are confronted by jihadis promoting the most fanatical incarnation of their faith. To abandon Israel to its fate, at this moment of all moments, would merely serve to illustrate how far we have sunk and how inexorable our decline now appears.

This cannot be allowed to happen. Motivated by the need to rebuild our own Western values, expressing deep concern about the wave of aggression against Israel, and mindful that Israel’s strength is our strength and Israel’s weakness is our weakness, I have decided to promote a new Friends of Israel initiative with the help of some prominent people, including David Trimble, Andrew Roberts, John Bolton, Alejandro Toledo (the former President of Peru), Marcello Pera (philosopher and former President of the Italian Senate), Fiamma Nirenstein (the Italian author and politician), the financier Robert Agostinelli and the Catholic intellectual George Weigel.

It is not our intention to defend any specific policy or any particular Israeli government. The sponsors of this initiative are certain to disagree at times with decisions taken by Jerusalem. We are democrats, and we believe in diversity.

What binds us, however, is our unyielding support for Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself. For Western countries to side with those who question Israel’s legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel’s vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude.

Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is upturned and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Whether we like it or not, our fate is inextricably intertwined.


José María Aznar was prime minister of Spain between 1996 and 2004.

Obama More Popular Abroad Than At Home, Global Image of U.S. Continues to Benefit

Pew Research Center
6-17-2010

Overview

As the global economy begins to rebound from the great recession, people around the world remain deeply concerned with the way things are going in their countries. Less than a third of the publics in most nations say they are satisfied with national conditions, as overwhelming numbers say their economies are in bad shape. And just about everywhere, governments are faulted for the way they are dealing with the economy.

Yet in most countries, especially in wealthier nations, President Barack Obama gets an enthusiastic thumbs up for the way he has handled the world economic crisis. The notable exception is the United States itself, where as many disapprove of their president’s approach to the global recession as approve.

This pattern is indicative of the broader picture of global opinion in 2010. President Barack Obama remains popular in most parts of the world, although his job approval rating in the U.S. has declined sharply since he first took office.[1] In turn, opinions of the U.S., which improved markedly in 2009 in response to Obama’s new presidency, also have remained far more positive than they were for much of George W. Bush’s tenure.

Ratings of America are overwhelmingly favorable in Western Europe. For example, 73% in France and 63% in Germany say they have a favorable view of the U.S. Moreover, ratings of America have improved sharply in Russia (57%), up 13 percentage points since 2009, in China (58%), up 11 points, and in Japan (66%), up 7 points. Opinions are also highly positive in other nations around the world including South Korea (79%), Poland (74%), and Brazil (62%).

The U.S. continues to receive positive marks in India, where 66% express a favorable opinion, although this is down from last year when 76% held this view. America’s overall image has also slipped slightly in Indonesia, although 59% still give the U.S. a positive rating in the world’s largest predominantly Muslim nation.

Publics of other largely Muslim countries continue to hold overwhelmingly negative views of the U.S. In both Turkey and Pakistan – where ratings for the U.S. have been consistently low in recent years – only 17% hold a positive opinion. Indeed, the new poll finds opinion of the U.S. slipping in some Muslim countries where opinion had edged up in 2009. In Egypt, America’s favorability rating dropped from 27% to 17% – the lowest percentage observed in any of the Pew Global Attitudes surveys conducted in that country since 2006.

Closer to home, a special follow-up poll found America’s favorable rating tumbling in Mexico in response to Arizona’s enactment of a law aimed at dealing with illegal immigration by giving police increased powers to stop and detain people who are suspected of being in the country illegally. Only 44% of Mexicans gave the U.S. a favorable rating following the signing of the bill, compared with 62% who did so before the bill passed.

The new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, conducted April 7 to May 8, also finds that overall opinion of Barack Obama remains broadly positive in most non-Muslim nations. In these countries, the national median confidence in Obama to do the right thing in world affairs is 71%, and overall approval of his policies is 64%. In particular, huge percentages in Germany (88%), France (84%), Spain (76%) and Britain (64%) say they back the president’s policies. Similarly in the two African nations polled Obama gets high marks – 89% of Kenyans and 74% of Nigerians approve of his international policies.

Muslims Grow Disillusioned About Obama

Among Muslim publics – except in Indonesia where Obama lived for several years as a child – the modest levels of confidence and approval observed in 2009 have slipped markedly. In Egypt the percentage of Muslims expressing confidence in Obama fell from 41% to 31% and in Turkey from 33% to 23%. Last year only 13% of Pakistani Muslims expressed confidence in Obama, but this year even fewer (8%) hold this view. And while views of Obama are still more positive than were attitudes toward President Bush among most Muslim publics, significant percentages continue to worry that the U.S. could become a military threat to their country.

Obamamania Tempers

In countries outside of the Muslim world, where the president’s ratings remain generally positive, his standing is not quite as high in 2010 as it was a year ago. The new poll found fewer in many Asian and Latin American countries saying they have confidence in Obama and approve of his policies generally, and even in Europe the large majorities responding positively to his foreign policy are not quite as large as they were in 2009.

Besides declines in overall confidence in some countries, strong endorsement of Obama eroded in countries where he remains broadly popular. Notably, in Britain, France, Germany, and Japan, fewer this year say they have a lot of confidence in Obama’s judgment regarding world affairs, while more say some confidence; still there was no increase in the percentage expressing no confidence in Obama in these countries.

Even though Obama has called the Arizona immigration law “misdirected,” it is nonetheless having a negative impact on views of him in Mexico. Prior to the law’s passage, 47% of Mexicans had confidence in Obama’s international leadership, but after passage only 36% held this view. More specifically, 54% of Mexicans say they disapprove of the way Barack Obama is dealing with the new law, and as many as 75% say that about Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer.

Disagreeing While Not Disapproving

Perhaps more significant than Obama’s small declines in ratings is that a generally positive view of him and the U.S. coexists with significant concerns about the American approach to world affairs and some key policies. This was not the case in the global surveys taken during President Bush’s terms in office, when specific criticism ran hand in hand with anti-American and anti-Bush sentiment.

Then, as now, one of the most frequent criticisms of U.S. foreign policy is that in its formulation it does not take into account the interests of other countries. This is the prevailing point of view in 15 of 21 countries outside of the U.S. Somewhat fewer people in most countries level this charge than did so during the Bush era. Currently, the median number saying that the U.S. acts unilaterally is 63%; in 2007 a median of 67% expressed that view.

Mixed Reactions to American Policies

In contrast to the Bush years, there is substantial majority support for U.S. anti-terrorism efforts in Britain, France, Spain and Germany. The new poll also found major increases in support of the American efforts in two countries that have been struggling with terrorism of late: Indonesia and Russia, where roughly seven-in-ten say they back the U.S. in this regard. Publics in India, Brazil, Kenya and Nigeria also express strong support for U.S.-led efforts to combat terrorism. However, opposition to these policies is particularly strong in most Muslim countries, and it is also substantial in many nations where the U.S. is fairly well-regarded, including Japan and South Korea.

The war in Afghanistan remains largely unpopular. In Germany, which has the third largest contingent of allied troops in Afghanistan, nearly six-in-ten people favor withdrawal from that country. Opinions are more divided in NATO allies Britain, France and Poland. In most other countries surveyed, majorities or pluralities also oppose the NATO effort.

Global opinion of Barack Obama’s dealing with world trouble spots parallels general opinion of U.S. policies in these areas. With regard to Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, the polling found as many countries approving as disapproving of his handling of these issues. However, the American president gets his worst ratings for dealing with another world problem for which the U.S. is often criticized: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Of 22 nations surveyed including the U.S., in only three nations do majorities approve of Obama’s handling of the dispute: France, Nigeria and Kenya.

In sharp contrast to criticisms and mixed reviews of Obama’s handling of geo-political problems, Obama not only gets good grades for the way he has handled the world economic crisis, but also for dealing with climate change. In most countries, people approve of Obama’s climate change efforts. France is a notable exception, with a 52%-majority disapproving, despite the country’s approval of his other policies.

Modest Economic Optimism

Global publics are mostly glum about the way things are going in their countries. And, despite signs of economic recovery in many parts of the world, people nearly everywhere, with the notable exception of China, India and Brazil, complain that their national economy is doing poorly. Moreover, there is little optimism about the economic future. And in the wake of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, more Europeans say integration has hurt their economies, although overall ratings for the EU remain favorable.

In 20 of 22 countries surveyed, less than half the population is satisfied with the direction of the country, including only 30% of Americans. Lebanese (11%) are the least satisfied. Only in China does an overwhelming portion of the population (87%) express satisfaction with national conditions. Overall, assessments are up in nine countries and down in only five.

Few people are happy with the current state of their national economy. In only four countries: China (91%), Brazil (62%), India (57%) and Poland (53%) do publics say economic conditions are good. All four of these nations weathered the global recession relatively well. Economic gloom is most widespread in Japan, France, Spain and Lebanon, where roughly one-in-eight believes the economy is doing well. But there are signs that an economic recovery may be taking hold. In ten of the countries surveyed, people’s assessment of the economy improved significantly from 2009 to 2010. Only in four nations did it recede.

Still, global publics are taking a wait-and-see attitude about the economic future. In only seven of 22 societies does a majority of those surveyed think economic conditions will improve over the next year. The economic bulls in the survey are the Chinese (87%), Nigerians (76%) and Brazilians (75%). The Japanese (14%) are the most bearish.

Disgruntled people generally fault their government for their country’s economic troubles, although many also blame banks and themselves; few blame the U.S. The most satisfied with their government’s economic performance are also those who have experienced some of the strongest growth in the last year. Roughly nine-in-ten Chinese (91%) say Beijing is doing a good job. Indians (85%) and Brazilians (76%) are also quite pleased with their government’s economic management.

Despite some of the worst recent economic conditions since the Depression, support for free markets remains strong, with some of the most tepid backing in Argentina (40%) and Japan (43%). And people continue to favor trade and globalization, with the weakest – but still majority – support in Turkey (64%) and the U.S. (66%).

China Ascendant

A growing number of people around the globe see China’s economy as the most powerful in the world. Looking at the 20 countries surveyed in each of the last three years, China’s economic star keeps rising. The median number naming China as the world’s leading economy has risen from 20% to 31%. Meanwhile, the percentage naming the U.S. has dropped from 50% to 43%. The publics of the countries surveyed vary in their views of China’s growing economic clout. In the West, opinion is divided in Britain, while majorities in Germany, France and Spain and a plurality in the U.S. see China’s economic strength as a bad thing for their country.

The Pakistanis (79%), Indonesians (61%) and Japanese (61%) regard China’s rising economic power as a positive development. Indians and to a lesser extent South Koreans do not. Latin American, Middle Eastern and African publics see their countries benefiting from China’s economic growth. The Turks (18%) overwhelmingly see it the other way.

China is clearly the most self-satisfied country in the survey. Nine-in-ten Chinese are happy with the direction of their country (87%), feel good about the current state of their economy (91%) and are optimistic about China’s economic future (87%). Moreover, about three-in-four Chinese (76%) think the U.S. takes into account Chinese interests when it makes foreign policy.

Europeans on Europe

In the midst of growing economic concerns in Europe, there is little indication of a broad public backlash against the European Union. Large majorities in Poland, Spain, France and Germany and nearly half in Britain remain supportive of the Brussels-based institution. And European publics continue to have a positive view of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is well-regarded in Britain, Spain and France. In fact, as in the past, Merkel gets better ratings in France than in Germany itself for her leadership in world affairs. And French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ratings are, if anything, somewhat better in Germany than in France. The French leader is less well-regarded in Britain and Spain, but that has been so in previous surveys.

However, Europeans are divided in their views about major economic issues.[2] They are supportive of the euro, but disagree about the merits of European economic integration and the bailing-out of EU member countries in trouble. Opinion of Greece, the recipient of EU financial aid, is on balance positive in Britain and France. But, a majority of Germans express an unfavorable opinion of it.

At a time when NATO is developing a new strategic concept, majorities in major Europeans nations surveyed continue to hold a favorable view of it, as do most Americans. However, many fewer Germans express a positive assessment of it currently (57%) than did so in 2009 (73%). Germans who express opposition to the NATO effort in Afghanistan are far less likely to hold positive views of this defense organization (45%) than do those who back it (76%). This is also true, but to a lesser extent, in the other EU countries surveyed as well as in the U.S.

Limited Support for Extremism

Support for terrorism remains low among the Muslim publics surveyed. Many fewer Muslims in 2010 than in the middle of the past decade say that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilians are justified to defend Islam from its enemies. However, the new poll does show a modest increase over the past year in support for suicide bombing being often or sometimes justifiable, with a rise in Egypt from 15% to 20% and in Jordan from 12% to 20%. Still, these are below the levels of support observed mid-decade.

Overall attitudes toward Osama bin Laden have followed a similar trend line among the Muslim publics surveyed by the Pew Global Attitudes Project. Views of the al Qaeda leader have been far more negative in recent years than they were mid-decade. And the poll shows considerably less positive regard for him in Jordan than was apparent in 2009. Support for bin Laden has also declined among Nigerian Muslims, although 48% still express confidence in the al Qaeda leader.

Iran and Its Nuclear Weapons Program

Among the nations surveyed, there is widespread opposition to Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and considerable support for tougher economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic. For instance, more than three-quarters of those who oppose the Iranian nuclear program in Spain (79%), Britain (78%), Germany (77%) and France (76%), as well as 67% in Russia and 58% in China, approve of tougher sanctions. Many are also willing to consider using military force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear capabilities, including about half of those who oppose Iran’s program in Poland, Germany, Spain, and Britain, and roughly six-in-ten in France.

Still, the Pew Global Attitudes survey foreshadows potential tension between the U.S. and other leading powers over what to do about the Iranian nuclear program. Among those who oppose Tehran acquiring nuclear weapons, Americans are more likely than Europeans, Japanese, Chinese, Indians or Russians to approve of economic sanctions against Iran and to support taking military action to stop Tehran from acquiring nuclear armaments.

Pakistan is the only country in which a majority (58%) favors Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Elsewhere among largely Muslim nations, public opinion on balance opposes a nuclear-armed Iran, although significant numbers of Jordanians (39%) and Lebanese (34%) do want Iran to have such capabilities. In predominantly Muslim countries, those who oppose Iranian nuclear weapons tend to favor tougher economic sanctions, and although fewer support using the military to prevent the Islamic Republic from developing these weapons, majorities or pluralities in four of the six countries surveyed favor this option.

Views on Climate Change

As in 2009, the new poll found substantial majorities of the publics in most countries seeing global climate change as a serious problem. The intensity of concern about this issue is less evident in the U.S., China, Russia, Britain and France than it is among the publics of other major carbon-emitting nations, such as Germany, India, Japan and South Korea.

The publics of the 22 nations surveyed are more divided about paying increased prices to combat climate change. Willingness to do so is nearly universal in China and clear majorities in India, South Korea, Japan, Turkey and Germany also favor consumers paying higher bills. Most people express opposition in the U.S., France, Russia and many of the less affluent countries surveyed, while views are more mixed in Britain, Spain and Brazil.

Also of Note:

• Somewhat more Americans than in 2005 (35% vs. 26%) think the U.S. is well-liked around the world. However, fully 60% think the U.S. is generally disliked. As in 2005, only Americans and Turks are more likely to say their country is disliked than to say it is liked.

• Americans are no more isolationist than Europeans. Asked whether their country should deal with its own problems and let others take care of themselves, 46% of Americans agree, as do 44% of Germans and 49% of British. The French are the most isolationist; 65% oppose helping other nations cope with their challenges.

• But Americans are among the least supportive of international trade among the 22 nations surveyed; nevertheless 66% think it is good for their country.

• While most Europeans and Japanese think Americans are too religious, people in the rest of the world – in 18 of 22 countries – think Americans are not religious enough. This includes the U.S., where 64% say their country should be more religious. Criticism of American secularism is particularly strong in the three Arab nations surveyed.

• Confidence in Russian President Dmitri Medvedev is on the rise, with his assessment up in all five EU member nations surveyed. The strongest backing is in Germany (50%) and the greatest improvement in Poland, where confidence in Medvedev has more than doubled in the last year, to 36%.

1 Pew Research Center U.S. surveys show President Obama’s approval ratings declining from 64% in a February 2009 survey to 47% currently.

2 Interviews were conducted among EU member states from April 9 to May 8, prior to the EU’s approval of a 750 billion euro bailout package to staunch the European sovereign debt crisis on May 9, 2010.