Afghanistan's Electoral Process Is Coming Under Attack, UN Says

[seemslikeadream]

Afghanistan's Electoral Process Is Coming Under Attack, UN Says
June 22 (Bloomberg) -- Afghanistan is becoming ``more volatile'' and gunmen are attacking the country's process for elections scheduled for September, Jean Arnault, the United Nations special envoy, said.

``We are now facing direct attacks with fairly heavy weapons against the office of the electoral process,'' Arnault said yesterday in the Afghan capital, Kabul, according to a UN statement. Attacks in the past three weeks are evidence life in Afghanistan ``has become more volatile.''

Three rocket-propelled grenades were fired at an electoral office in Kabul late Sunday. An office in the southern city of Kandahar was attacked on Friday, the UN said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said earlier this month the country will go ahead with its first democratic elections in September in the face of the increased violence. Fighters from al- Qaeda and the ousted Taliban regime are blamed for the attacks, which have targeted Afghan officials, UN convoys and election workers. Eleven Chinese construction workers were killed June 9 near the northern city of Kunduz.

Voter registration is increasing with 4.1 million Afghans out of 9.5 eligible voters completing the process, the UN said. An average of 90,000 Afghans are registering each day. Last week, the daily figures twice topped 101,000, the UN said.

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http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000080&sid=atw7PwtQWZVc&refer=asia

[seemslikeadream]

1. Have you been following TPM?

TPM: When you say that we're left with few options besides military options, what are the other options we should be pursuing?

ANONYMOUS: I try to outline them in the book. I don’t think very many of them will even be debated. I think we should look somewhat at our relationship with Israel. Clearly we need an energy policy, not just in the United States but in the West, that makes us less dependent on oil out of the Gulf. For myself, I can't figure out what American interest we would have in Saudi Arabia if it wasn't for oil. If they all killed each other to their heart's content, it wouldn't affect America at all.

TPM: Is there an ideological war America can wage against al-Qaeda?

ANONYMOUS: I think the whole idea of public diplomacy is finished. For a long time, America was indeed viewed as a broker, as a mediator. Franklin Roosevelt helped ensure the British empire went away. stopped the Israelis and the French and the British at Suez. Ronald Reagan supported the mujahideen. There's none of that left anymore. No one gives us the benefit of the doubt. Partially, I think a large part, because of our policies. But also because of the domination of Arab satellite television. Our words are never going to be listened to while Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera is broadcasting live every day from the West Bank, as homes are being bulldozed and the Israelis are fighting the Palestinians and the Palestinians are blowing up the Israelis. No one's out there to listen.

Our ideology of democracy and personal freedoms and civil liberties can have an effect in the world--by example, not by transfer. … by our trying to transfer it, by putting it on a CD-ROM and giving it to Chalabi and saying, "Here, you have three months to install this."…

TPM: But can't we support, and materially support, Arab liberals? And in the case where it would hurt Arab liberals to be associated with us, to say "We'll back away and give you what you need?" In order to seek an open path according to local circumstances?

ANONYMOUS: I'm not sure if there is a liberal element out there anymore in the Arab world, insofar as someone who would stand up and say "We want to adopt Western society or democracy." I think we're so viewed as malignant in the Islamic world that there aren't that many people who would say that, first because they're mad at us, and second because they'd risk being killed by people who disagree with them. So I'm not so sure we can talk our way out of this one. I think that's probably one of the most important points of this crossroads we're at. No one's going to listen. It doesn't matter what we say. It doesn’t matter how many Madison Avenue people we hire to put out the word, to put out magazines. Ain’t no one out there listening anymore.


As the above exchange illustrates, I think relinquishing the promotion of democratic reform in the Muslim world limits our options in the war on terrorism to basically military measures that stand a significant chance of spiraling out of control. And there are Muslim liberals and reformers out there--just ask Egyptian dissident Saad Eddin Ibrahim. After the occupation of Iraq, and especially after Abu Ghraib, it's hard to disagree with the proposition that our credibility is in serious disrepair, but that's not an argument for cutting our losses and ceding the intellectual battlefield to the jihadists. In order to sharpen this point and chart a course forward in what Anonymous rightly identifies as a war of survival, Imperial Hubris is worth examining and debating.

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http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com

[struggle4progress]

2. kick

:kick:

[Karenina]

3. And another

:kick:

[seemslikeadream]

4. Ouch! you guys always seem to be kicking me Ahmed Hikmat Shakir.

On Sunday, 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman told Tim Russert that since the 9/11 staff statement asserting no operative link between Iraq and al-Qaeda was written, "new intelligence coming in steadily from the interrogations in Guantanamo and in Iraq and from captured documents. And some of these documents indicate that there is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al-Qaeda. That still has to be confirmed." Why this intelligence should just be coming to the 9/11 Commission now is unclear. According to Hayes, Carney found Shakir on the Fedayeen officers list in February, and it would stand to reason that Carney would find that information pertinent enough to deliver to the 9/11 Commission, which is mandated by law to review all documents in the possession of the bureaucracy relating to the 9/11 conspiracy. It could be that new information suggesting Shakir "was a very prominent member of al-Qaeda" has recently been found. I don't pretend to know. But Lehman's disclosure on Meet The Press was the first public, on-the-record reference to Shakir as a possible link from Baghdad to al-Qaeda.

There were, however, off-the-record references floated by the Bush administration. Newsweek's Mike Isikoff and Mark Hosenball reported the tale of Shakir's imprisonment and release (though not that the Jordanians and CIA tried to flip him) in an October 7, 2002 story. They obtained an intelligence document putting Shakir at the Kuala Lumpur meeting. The story carried a quote from an administration official: "Shakir connects to both Iraq and 9-11." But the reporters cautioned, "It's a startling claim--though far from proven." As best as I can tell, the administration didn't return to Shakir as a prospective link between Iraq and al-Qaeda until Feith sent his famous memo to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in October 2003. Leaked to Hayes shortly thereafter, the memo said Shakir "facilitated the arrival of one of the Sept 11 hijackers for an operational meeting in Kuala Lumpur (Jan 2000). Sensitive reporting indicates Shakir's travel and contacts link him to a worldwide network of terrorists, including al Qaeda. Shakir worked at the Kuala Lumpur airport--a job he claimed to have obtained through an Iraqi embassy employee."

Again, I don't know what intelligence the 9/11 Commission has obtained about Shakir. Nor do I know why the Commission is still receiving new intelligence about him now--specifically, whether it's just getting all the information about Shakir now, or whether it's now getting new information indicating Shakir is, as Lehman said, "a very prominent member of al-Qaeda." Now, there would have to be some additional information on Shakir to indicate that he's an al-Qaeda member, as nothing public to date indicates that he is. It's possible. But, even assuming that Saddam authorized Shakir to attend the Malaysia meeting, which we don't yet know, it's also possible that Saddam was trying to gather intelligence on terrorist operations.

But even without Shakir in custody, it should at least be theoretically possible to advance our understanding of his connection to the plot, to Saddam, and to Saddam's heretofore-elusive connections to al-Qaeda: While three of the attendees of the meeting are dead (al-Midhar, fellow hijacker Nawaf al-Hazmi and Hambali), and Shakir's whereabouts are unknown, two other attendees, Sufaat and Khallad bin Attash are in custody. If Shakir was acting as Saddam’s delegate to the meeting, theoretically Sufaat and Attash would know, though I freely concede that this might not necessarily be the case. Perhaps if they were kept in the dark, the al-Qaeda operative who arranged the meeting would know: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. KSM, as he's known, was captured in Pakistan in 2003. The 9/11 Commission, staff director Philip Zelikow told me in January, has had full access to debriefings of his interrogations, and clearly they've informed the staff reports. (KSM has told interrogators that Iraq was not in any significant way tied to al-Qaeda.) It would stand to reason that at least one of these three detained terrorists involved with the Kuala Lumpur meetings would know if Shakir attended on behalf of Saddam Hussein--after all, is it really plausible that Saddam was involved with the meeting if the terrorists involved were unaware who, if anyone, Shakir was working for? I suppose it's possible, but it would seem a stretch.

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http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

[struggle4progress]

5. Sounds like more of the usual Bushista fluff to me. eom