More
than 100,000 of the 750,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have
sought treatment for mental problems from the Department of Veterans
Affairs, an official said during a hearing on suicides.
Dr.
Ira Katz, the VA's deputy chief of patient care, told members of the
House Veterans' Affairs Committee that the department's suicide hotline
has received more than 6,000 calls from veterans or their families
since it was established in July.
( Taliban-style militias are spreading in northwest of
Pakistan.)
Taliban has
set up a centralized organization in northwest of Pakistan for a joint
war against US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The
militants have named their movement as Tehrik Taliban-i-Pakistan and
said the aim of the movement was to enforce strict laws in respective
areas.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - President Pervez Musharraf lifted a six-week-old state of emergency Saturday, telling a skeptical nation the crackdown was to save Pakistan from a conspiracy rather than ensure his own political survival
But
Musharraf also made clear he would keep a tight lid on dissent,
entrenching limits he imposed under the emergency including strict
curbs on press freedom and the replacement of independent-minded judges
with jurists friendlier to the U.S.-backed leader. Opponents have said
the changes set the stage for national elections next month to be
rigged, and have threatened to hold mass demonstrations.
The
country's recently acquired refining capability allows producers to set
up small, mobile factories along Afghanistan's borders with Pakistan
and Iran that turn opium into heroine. Some analysts say much of the
production takes place in areas controlled by Taliban insurgents, such
as Helmand Province, and Kandahar.
Many analysts
argue that poor farmers are forced to grow opium poppy as a cash crop
for lack of better options. Norine MacDonald, President of the
Paris-based international research group, The Senlis Council,
says Afghanistan remains poor and undeveloped, despite recent economic
progress. "You are getting ten, fifteen, twenty times more for growing
opium poppy than any of the alternative crops that are currently
available. It's a very desert area. There's been drought for several
years, and there are no formal, proper irrigation systems in place.
Poppy is a drought-resistant crop. So that's why they have found
themselves really in a corner where poppy is the only viable crop to
allow them to earn enough to feed their families," says MacDonald.
But the opium
poppy is not just about drugs, says Nazif Shahrani, Chairman of the
Near Eastern Languages and Cultures Department at Indiana University.
Every part of the plant, says Shahrani, benefits the farmers and their
families. "The opium sap is only one part of the produce from poppy.
The sap is sold for cash. But also the poppy seed is used to extract
oil. The poppy pod as well as even the stalk can be used to sell for
cash either directly or by boiling it and getting a watery substance
that can be reduced to something useable. If they don't do that, the
poppy stalk is a valuable fuel. And in some rural areas, they burn
poppy stalks and then extract caustic soda from it and produce organic
soup," says Shahrani. "And one of the challenges is that you can't find
a substitute for this crop."
Afghanis
have traditionally used opium as a social drug and as medicine. (
...) But many experts say drug use has spiked in recent years as
refugees returning from Iran and Pakistan brought home a previously
unknown phenomenon - - heroine injections. That, coupled with two other
factors, has fueled an increase in drug abuse, says Alexander Their of the United States Institute of Peace.
"One
is that as Afghanistan's population has grown, and the war and conflict
have destroyed some of its economy and you have an increasing
urbanization of the population. You have a lot of people who are
unemployed, particularly a lot of young men. And that is really the
demographic that tends to use opium and particularly heroine," says
Their. "The second danger is that opium is now being refined in
Afghanistan. Previously, you would not have found heroine in
Afghanistan, which is much more addictive. And now you do find it,
which means that more people are getting addicted more easily."
Comment: Let's
not forget that under the Taliban, Afghanistan greatly reduced its
opium crop to the point of near elimination. So the drug boom is yet
another of the many "benefits" that the U.S. brought there.
What makes drug
addiction in Afghanistan more alarming is that the country is
ill-equipped to deal with it. The Senlis Council's Norine MacDonald
says the country's health care system is too basic even to meet the
needs of ordinary citizens, let alone drug addicts.
The
Israeli daily Ha'aretz has revealed that that the paper obtained a copy
of a previously unreleased document from the 2000 Israeli-Palestinian
peace talks known as the Camp David Summit. According to Ha'aretz, the document shows that there was much more agreement between the two sides than was publicly announced.
After
7 years of open conflict, and more than 5,000 Palestinians killed, in
addition to nearly 1,000 Israelis, the fact that a document existed in
which the two sides secretly agreed on core issues raises the ire of
peace activists on both sides, who feel the deaths could have been
avoided. The document
shows that Israeli authorities were considering an 'initiated
separation plan' as early as June 2000, in which Israeli troops would
withdraw from their occupation of Palestinian land. It also shows that
there was significant agreement between the two sides on some part of
the core issues of borders, refugees and Jerusalem.
The Palestinian
uprising known as the intifada, or 'shaking-off' in Arabic, began in
September 2000 after a provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa mosque in
Jerusalem led to protests by Palestinians, which were violently
attacked by Israeli police. Since that time, the Israeli military
occupation of Palestinian land has increased exponentially, and Israeli
settlement of Palestinian land in the West Bank has also increased
several times over.
Talks
were frozen between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in early 2001,
after the intifada and violence of the occupation did not subside.
Apparently,
the secret document revealed Thursday morning by the Ha'aretz newspaper
was approved in October 2000 by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, but
when power passed from Barak to Ariel Sharon, the 26-page document,
entitled "The Status of the Diplomatic Process with the Palestinians
Points to Update the Incoming Prime Minister”, was abandoned, along
with the negotiations.
There were a
number of points on which agreement was not reached – the Palestinian
leadership thought that the timeline for Israeli withdrawal was too
slow, and disagreed with the ongoing Israeli control of Palestinian
skies, among other things.
There were still
wide gaps between the two sides in the newly-revealed document of 2000.
One was Israel's unwillingness to give up territory it had seized
through military invasions of Palestine in 1967. There was also
significant disagreement on who would hold which parts of Jerusalem,
although the division of Jerusalem in some way between Israel and the
Palestinian Authority was agreed upon.
The document was
leaked this week as Israeli and Palestinian leaders plan to re-start peace talks that were abandoned in 2001.
By Pervez Dastoor ...........reader's-comment
Egypt refuses to sign UN nuclear watchdog protocols for stricter inspections
( MORE ABOUT EGYPT AT :
December 15, 2007
US In ‘Shock’ As Egypt Begins Quest For Nuclear Bomb
s
orcha faal )
GAZA CITY - Tens
of thousands of people rallied in central Gaza City on Saturday to mark
Hamas's 20th anniversary, in a show of force six months after the
Islamist movement seized control of the territory.
Former
minister and senior Hamas member Said Siam told AFP that the massive
turnout "is the answer to those who say Hamas is losing ground."
And top Hamas leader Mahmud al-Zahar said that "our message to the world is that this movement cannot be destroyed."
It
comes just a month after a similar mass rally by Abbas's Fatah movement
ended in bloodshed when Hamas forces opened fire, killing several
people.
In
September Israel declared the territory a "hostile entity" and the
following month began restricting fuel supplies, creating what the
World Health Organization described on Monday as an "intolerable"
humanitarian situation.
Israel,
along with the European Union and the United States, regards Hamas as a
terrorist organization. In January 2006, Hamas won an overwhelming
victory over the long-dominant Fatah to sweep to power in democratic
parliamentary elections.
Martin
Bright, writing in the New Statesman magazine, said that in 2002 he
received a phone call from a woman named Val Hann who had read an
article he had written about Unity Mitford, a British high-society fascist who was reportedly Hitler's lover.
Unity
Mitford, who was born in 1948 in London, was reportedly conceived in
the town of Swastika, in Ontario, Canada, a coincidence that did much
to impress the circle of Nazi leaders she subsequently ingratiated
herself with during her stay in 1930s Germany.
Val
Hann, who received no money for her story from the New Statesman, said
she had been led to believe that the child was a boy, and that he had
been subsequently given up for adoption.
A program on the subject is to be aired on Britain's Channel 4 on December 20.
When the U.S. Air Force Southern Command's 10-year usage rights for Ecuador's Manta air base expire in 2009, it can expect to be evicted in favor of China.
President
Jamil Mahuad signed a 10-year lease agreement with the U.S. military in
1999. The Manta base is not geopolitically important for U.S. national
security, but the Southern Command (South Com) currently uses it to combat illegal cocaine trade in the "source zone" of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.
About
475 U.S. military personnel are stationed at the air base under a
10-year agreement signed with Quito in November 1999, which is due to
expire in 24 months.
Acording
to Latin Americanist Marc Becker, the agreement with the U.S. military
"has proved to be unpopular and, some argue, unconstitutional. The
purported purpose of the FOL was to help interdict drug shipments from
neighboring Colombia, but opponents contend that the U.S. government
has ... move[d] well beyond that mandate into counterinsurgency and
anti-immigrant activities." There are also complaints that the base was
consolidated by expropriating land
from indigenous groups and small farmers, and that it is being used by
Colombian pilots and as a center of anti-guerilla intelligence as a
part of Plan Colombia,
and for the targeting of alleged terrorist groups. From March 5 to 9,
2007, more than 400 activists gathered in Manta for the first
International Conference for the Abolition of Foreign Military Bases. They chose Manta due to the new government's stance against continued U.S. presence.
( continued...)
WASHINGTON
- Wikipedia sleuths Wednesday exposed the U.S. military hackers
who labeled Fidel Castro ( ...) and deleted sensitive information about
Gitmo detainees from the Web site.
Volunteers
working for the online encyclopedia traced digital fingerprints found
on Wikipedia.org to Joint Task Force-Guantanamo, the U.S. military
command running the Camp Delta terrorist prison in Cuba.
12/11/07 "ICH" --- - Alan
Dershowitz is a skillful debater, a capable attorney, and and a
ferocious defender of Israel. He is also a Harvard professor and a
former member of OJ Simpson's legal defense called the Dream Team.
An article by Dershowitz appeared on op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal on Novemeber 7, 2007, titled “Democrats and
Waterboarding”.
In that article Dershowitz makes a spirited defense of waterboarding,
going so far as to say that (he believes) the Democrats “will lose the
presidential race if it defines itself as soft on terror.”
( ....)
I
agree with Dershowitz that "waterboarding cannot be decided in the
abstract.” Nor has it been. It has been thoroughly researched and
condemned under the Geneva Conventions, the US military, and every
human rights organization on earth. The issue has already been decided.
It is torture, pure and simple, and no amount of legalistic gibberish
changes a thing.
There's another reason for rejecting torture besides the fact that
it is morally abhorrent, or because it conflicts with our reading of
the Constitution, or even because it abrogates the presumption of
innocence, due process, the right to attorney, habeas corpus and every
other principle to which we claim to adhere.
The real reason that torture should be rejected is because it
confers more authority on the state than is prudent for the safety and
welfare of “We the people”. The state is now—and has always been—the
greatest threat to human rights and civil liberties. That's truer
today--in our post 9-11 world--than ever before. The state is the
natural enemy of personal freedom.
Dershowitz's polemic has nothing to do with his alleged interest in
the security of the American people. That's hogwash. It is an attempt
to expand the authority of the state by softening public attitudes
towards torture. It's a blatant power-grab, pure and simple; and should
be repudiated by anyone who grasps its true meaning.
AND
.........r-comm
AND
These are among the issues to be
discussed on Psyche, Science, and Society. Welcome!
Stephen Soldz
The
treaty is a watered down version of the defunct European Union
Constitution which was rejected by voters in the Netherlands and France
in referendums in 2005. It is controversial in Britain, where the
conservative opposition and Euroskeptic media has called for it to be put to a popular vote.
In
Britain, the conservative opposition has seized on the issue and, in a
statement issued on Tuesday, the party's spokesman on Foreign Affairs,
William Hague, said Brown was willing to sign the treaty but "doesn't
have the guts to do it in public."
"If
he's ashamed of signing this treaty, then why doesn't he honor his
election promise and let the British people have their say?" Hague
added, reiterating his call for a referendum.
While
Tony Blair promised a popular vote on the constitution, Brown argues
that the new treaty is a less significant document and it was not
necessary to have a referendum. Only one of the 27 EU nations - Ireland
- is likely to put the treaty to a referendum.
Meanwhile,
environmentalists have questioned the need for the Lisbon ceremony,
which took place a day before EU leaders meet in Brussels. In response
several leaders agreed to "plane-share" over their day trip to Portugal.
The Lisbon treaty
scraps the system under which the bloc's presidency rotates among
member states every six months. Instead, a president chosen by member
states will serve a two and a half-year term.
Voting
procedures for EU nations will be altered, the number of European
Commissioners cut and a new high representative for foreign policy
appointed.
........................................................................
Hardly
a week passes without Delhi taking stock of China's creeping
"encirclement" of India. The Indian media reported on Thursday that
Delhi denied permission for China's cargo carrier Great Wall Airlines
to land in Mumbai or Chennai since the two Indian cities have "key
nuclear facilities" which Chinese aeroplanes might reconnoiter.
That
becomes more grist to the mill, though no one knows what it could be
that the two aging Indian cities would hide that Google Earth hasn't
yet spotted. Beijing predictably balked. Some Indian strategic thinkers
go so far as to call it China's "containment" of India - as if the
Indian rogue elephant has gone berserk in the Asian courtyard and needs
to be shackled.
Actually,
the latest irritant shouldn't have been aerial reconnoitering, but
China's upset win - trumping formidable rivals like the US, Canada and
Russia - in the massive Afghan tender for copper mines. But the
strategic community in Delhi doesn't know, as the Indian media kept it
in the dark.
The
news from the Hindu Kush would have made Indian thinkers pull their
hair in despair. China has never been a player in Afghanistan in modern
history. Indeed, it is a needless provocation on the part of the
Chinese to be so utterly fearless of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. While
India prides itself as a major donor for Afghan reconstruction -
building roads, bridges, hospitals, a Parliament building and even,
intriguingly, public toilets - China marches ahead and wins the tender
for the Aynak cooper deposit in Afghanistan's Logar province bordering
Kabul, which is billed as one of the world's largest copper mines.
(
...) But the mother of all Chinese encirclement of India still
remains largely unnoticed in Delhi - the Beijing-Tehran axis. There is
wide recognition that if the United States hasn't been able to push
through another tougher United Nations Security Council resolution
against Iran over its nuclear program, that has been largely because of
China's reluctance to concur.
But what happened last Sunday still came as a bolt from the blue.
China Petroleum Corporation, better known as the Sinopec Group, signed
a contract with the Iranian Oil Ministry for the development of the
Yadavaran oil and gas fields in southwestern Iran. ( ...) No one
talked anymore about the "north-south transportation corridor" that the
previous government in Delhi initiated as a means of gaining access to
Afghanistan and the Central Asian region (and Russia).
BALI .....( again ):
Nusa Dua, Indonesia - Nearly 200 nations agreed at U.N.-led talks in Bali
on Saturday to launch negotiations on a new pact to fight global
warming after a reversal by the United States allowed a breakthrough.
Comment: If you have read the current SOTT Focus article: Majesterium and the Tipping Point
you will know by now that all these CO2 emission cut talks are just for
the eyes of the sheeple, so they can continue sleeping calmly at night
that their leaders are taking care of their well being. Which can't be
further than the truth!
( ...)