Just Foreign Policy News
October 6, 2008


Summary:
U.S./Top News
1)
Britain is stepping up pressure for a political and diplomatic
settlement to the conflict in Afghanistan, the Guardian reports. The
message is being delivered with increasing urgency by British military
commanders, diplomats and
intelligence officers, to NATO allies and governments in the region,
the Guardian says. "We're not going to win this war," the commander of
UK troops in Afghanistan said. "It's about
reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that's not a strategic
threat and can be managed by the Afghan army." He said the aim should
be to change the nature of the debate in Afghanistan so that disputes
were settled by negotiation and not violence. "If the Taliban were
prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a
political settlement, then that's precisely the sort of progress that
concludes insurgencies like this," he said.

2) The British government risked "fuelling a rift" with the US by
supporting a military commander's statement suggesting that the war
against the Taliban cannot be won, the Financial Times reports. A
spokesman said the UK's ministry of defence "did not have a problem"
with warning the UK public not
to expect a "decisive military victory" and to prepare instead for a
possible deal with the Taliban. NATO commanders and diplomats have been
saying for some time that the Taliban
insurgency cannot be defeated by military means alone and that
negotiations with the militants will ultimately be needed to bring an
end to the conflict.

3) The top UN official in Afghanistan said the war cannot be won
militarily and success is only possible through political means
including dialogue between all relevant parties, Reuters reports. "I've
always said to those that talk about the military surge ... what we
need most of all is a political surge, more political energy," said Kai
Eide, the U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan. A Taliban spokesman and
President Karzai denied reports that negotiations had taken place
between the Taliban and the Afghan government in Saudi Arabia.

4) King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia recently hosted talks between the
Afghan
government and the Taliban militant group, CNN reports. The meeting
took place during the last week of September in Mecca, according to the
CNN source. The current round of talks is anticipated
to be a first step in a long process. According to the source, it has
taken two years of behind-the-scenes meetings to get to this point.

5) Poland ended its Iraq mission at a ceremony in the Shiite province of Diwaniyah, AFP reports.

6) The State Department's travel advisory for Bolivia may reflect the
politics of the Bush Administration more than it provides useful
information for U.S. citizens who might be traveling to the country,
suggests a travel writer in the Seattle Times. She suggests that the
web sites of Australia, Canada and the UK governments may be more
useful to Americans considering travel to places where there have been
reports of violent conflict.

Iran
7) Secretary of
State Rice said the Bush administration is still considering
setting up a diplomatic outpost in Iran, Reuters reports. Her comments
contradicted an AP report that the administration had shelved plans to
open an "interest section" in Iran.

8) In an interview with the Washington Post, Iran's Foreign
Minister said he believed there would be no U.S. or Israeli attack on
Iran's nuclear facilities. Asked if Iran would regard an attack on Iran
by Israel as an attack from the US, he said, "In the Middle East, [no
one] makes a distinction between the U.S. and Israel."

Iraq
9)
The brain drain of Iraqi professionals continues, the Los Angeles Times
reports. Some - including the president of the Iraqi American Chamber
of Commerce and Industry - say a new U.S. policy opening the door to
more Iraqi refugees each year is exacerbating the situation.

10) Iraq's presidency council has agreed to approve a long-delayed law
that will allow most of the country to hold provincial elections early
next year, McClatchy News reports. An aide to one of Iraq's vice
presidents said the council will ask parliament to reinstate a
provision of the law guaranteeing representation for Christians
and other Iraqi minorities.

Afghanistan
11) It is
widely believed in Afghanistan and among Western governments that
President Karzai's brother is involved in drug trafficking, the New
York Times reports. US officials fear perceptions that the Afghan
president might be protecting his brother are damaging his credibility
and undermining efforts by the US to buttress his government.

Israeli/Palestine
12)
A Scottish human rights activist has filmed the Israeli navy firing
machine guns at unarmed Palestinian fishing boats off the coast of
Gaza, the Scotland Sunday Herald reports. No-one was injured in the
incident, but Palestinian fishermen claim 14 colleagues have been
murdered at sea by the Israeli navy since the onset of an economic
blockade in
2007. [The Herald publishes the video at the link - JFP.]

Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Talks with Taliban The Only Way Forward in Afghanistan, says
UK Commander
Britain urges allies to use diplomacy to end conflict
There will be no decisive victory, says brigadier
Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, Monday October 6 2008
https://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/06/afghanistan.military

Britain is stepping up pressure for a political and diplomatic
settlement to the conflict in Afghanistan, a move set in sharp relief
yesterday by the commander of UK troops who warned that the war against
the Taliban was not going to be won.

The message is being
delivered with increasing urgency by British military commanders,
diplomats and intelligence officers, to Nato allies and governments in
the region, the Guardian has learned.

"We're not going to win this war," Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith
said yesterday. "It's about reducing it to a manageable level of
insurgency that's not a strategic
threat and can be managed by the Afghan army. We may well leave with
there still being a low but steady ebb of rural insurgency."

Carleton-Smith, commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, which has just
completed a six-month mission in southern Afghanistan during which 32
of his soldiers were killed and 170 injured, said his forces had "taken
the sting out of the Taliban for 2008". But he warned that the public
should not expect "a decisive military victory". It was necessary to
"lower our expectations" and accept it as unrealistic that
multinational forces can entirely rid Afghanistan of armed bands.

He said the aim should be to change the nature of the debate in
Afghanistan so that disputes were settled by negotiation and not
violence.
"If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and
talk about a political settlement, then that's precisely the sort of
progress that concludes insurgencies like
this," Carleton-Smith said. "That shouldn't make people uncomfortable."

Abdul Rahim Wardak, Afghanistan's defence minister, expressed disappointment at the comments.

But Carleton-Smith's warnings were echoed by a senior defence source
yesterday, who said "the notion of winning and losing the decisive
battle does not exist". Carleton-Smith added that all the Nato-led
international military force could do in Afghanistan was provide the
"parameters of security".

The deepening concerns reflect what
British defence chiefs are saying privately. The conflict with the
Taliban has reached "stalemate", they say. They also express increasing
frustration with the weakness and corruption of President Hamid
Karzai's government in
Kabul.

2) Britain Risks US Rift In War Against Taliban
Jimmy Burns and Daniel Dombey, Financial Times, October 6 2008
https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/278cca02-933f-11dd-98b5-0000779fd18c.html

The British government yesterday risked fuelling a rift with the US and
some members of the Afghan government by supporting a military
commander's statement suggesting that the war against the Taliban
cannot be won.

A spokesman said the UK's ministry of defence
"did not have a problem" with warning the UK public not to expect a
"decisive military victory" and to prepare instead for a possible deal
with the Taliban.

"Our ministers have said before that the
combat in Afghanistan is not about winning or losing. We have always
said it is about improving infrastructure and making sure that the
Afghanistan army and police can take over security. We are also looking
for a political settlement," the spokesman told the FT.
...
Nato commanders and diplomats have been saying
for some time that the Taliban insurgency cannot be defeated by
military means alone and that negotiations with the militants will
ultimately be needed to bring an end to the conflict. But the
brigadier's statement airs a view on the subject at a time when there
are signs of policy rifts developing among the allies.

The US, which has stepped up its efforts on Afghanistan in recent
months, is sceptical about any idea of negotiating with the Taliban.
"We all agree on the need for the people of Afghanistan to come
together if they are going to succeed in creating a lasting and viable
state," Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, told the FT. "It
remains to be seen if some in the Taliban will really renounce violence
and extremism and play a constructive role in
Afghanistan."

3) Afghan war cannot be won militarily: U.N.
Jonathon Burch, Reuters, Monday, October 6, 2008; 2:16 PM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/06/AR2008100601183.html

The war in Afghanistan cannot be won militarily and success is only
possible through political means including dialogue between all
relevant parties, the United Nations' top official in the country said
Monday. His comments come after Britain's military commander in
Afghanistan said the war could not be won and that the goal was to
reduce the insurgency to a level where it was no longer a strategic
threat and could be dealt with by the Afghan army. Brigadier Mark
Carleton-Smith said if the Taliban were willing to talk, that might be
"precisely the sort of progress" needed to end the
insurgency.

"I've always said to those that talk about the
military surge ... what we need most of all is a political surge, more
political energy," Kai Eide, the U.N. special
envoy to Afghanistan, told a news conference in Kabul. "We all know
that we cannot win it militarily. It has to be won through political
means. That means political engagement."

Eide said success depended on speaking with all sides in the conflict.
"If you want to have relevant results, you must speak to those who are
relevant. If you want to have results that matter, you must speak to
those who matter," he said.
...
Faced with the persistent
reluctance of some of its European allies to send more troops to
Afghanistan or allow them to fight once there, the United States has
asked Japan and NATO countries to help foot the $17-billion bill to
build up the Afghan army. "The faster we get the (Afghan army) to the
size and strength they need to be,
the less they depend on us for providing security," said Pentagon press
secretary Geoff Morrell.

The Afghan Defense Ministry says the cost of one foreign soldier in Afghanistan
is equal to more than 60 Afghan troops.

More foreign troops have been killed in Afghanistan already this year
than in any entire year since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the
Taliban after the September 11 attacks in 2001.

As casualties
mount, so have Western calls for negotiations with the militants to
bring an end to the conflict. But the Taliban have repeatedly rejected
the idea of talks unless all 70,000 foreign troops leave the country.
"As we said before, as long as the invader forces are in Afghanistan,
we won't participate in any negotiations," Taliban spokesman Qari
Mohammad Yousuf told the Pakistan-based Afghan news agency, AIP, Monday.

Yousuf also denied reports that negotiations had taken place between
the Taliban and the Afghan
government in Saudi Arabia. "All these reports are wrong. We have
neither held talks with any government bodies nor have we sent any
delegation for talks anywhere," Yousuf told AIP.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has also denied the reports but said
he had asked the king of Saudi Arabia to help in talks with the
militant group. Any negotiations would only take place in Afghanistan,
he said.

4) Source: Saudi hosts Afghan peace talks with Taliban reps
King Abdullah hosted talks in city of Mecca at end of September, source says
Saudi Arabia has generally dealt with Afghanistan through Pakistan
Talks are the first aimed at bringing a negotiated settlement to the Afghan conflict
All parties agreed only solution to Afghan conflict is dialogue, not fighting
Nic Robertson, CNN, October 5, 2008
https://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/10/05/afghan.saudi.talks/index.html

In a groundbreaking meeting, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia recently
hosted talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban militant
group, according to a source
familiar with the talks. The historic four-day meeting took place
during the last week of September in the Saudi city of Mecca, according
to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the
sensitivity of the negotiations.

King Abdullah broke fast during the Eid al-Fitr holiday with the
17-member Afghan delegation - an act intended to show his commitment to
ending the conflict. Eid al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, the Muslim
holy month of fasting. Taliban leader Mullah Omar was not present, the
source said.

It marks a significant departure by the Saudi
leadership to take a direct role in Afghanistan, hosting some delegates
who have until recently been their enemies. In the past, Saudi Arabia
has generally dealt with Afghanistan through Pakistan.

The
desert kingdom's current foray marks a significant shift and appears to
recognize the political weakness of Pakistan and the need to stem the
growth of al Qaeda.

The current
round of talks is anticipated to be a first step in a long process.
According to the source close to the talks, it has taken two years of
behind-the-scenes meetings to get to this point.

The talks took place between September 24 and 27 and involved 11
Taliban delegates, two Afghan government officials, a representative of
former mujahadeen commander and U.S. foe Gulbadin Hekmatyar, and three
others.

It was the first such meeting aimed at bringing a
negotiated settlement to the Afghan conflict and for the first time,
all parties were able to discuss their positions and objectives openly
and transparently, the source said.

Saudi Arabia was one of
only three countries that recognized the Taliban leadership during its
rule over Afghanistan in the 1990s, but that
relationship was severed over Mullah Omar's refusal to hand over al
Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

While Mullah Omar was not present at the talks in Mecca, the source
said the Taliban
leader has made it clear he is no longer allied with al Qaeda - a
position that has never been publicly stated but emerged at the talks.
It confirms what another source with an intimate knowledge of the
Taliban and Mullah Omar has told CNN in the past.

During the talks, all parties agreed that the only solution to
Afghanistan's conflict is through dialogue, not fighting. The source
described the Mecca talks as an ice-breaking meeting where expectations
were kept necessarily low. Further talks are expected in Saudi Arabia
involving this core group and others.

5) Poland Ends Iraq Mission
Amal Jayasinghe, AFP, Sat Oct 4
https://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081004/wl_afp/iraqunrestpoland_081004113100;_ylt=AsvuYDJcTMAVHn8gSOCqQWSs0NUE

Diwaniyah, Iraq - Poland ended its Iraq mission at a formal ceremony in the Shiite province of
Diwaniyah on Saturday and said it will pull its 900 troops out of the country by the end of the month.

"We feel responsible for the future of Iraq. The completion of our
mission does not mean end of an engagement," Warsaw's Defence Minister
Bogdan Klich said in an address during the ceremony. "We hope to
cooperate in Iraq's economic and financial areas," Klich said.
...
Security control of Diwaniyah, which has seen occasional outbursts of
intense Shiite infighting, was handed over by the US-led forces in July.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who came to power in October 2007,
pledged a quick withdrawal from Iraq during his election campaign. The
mandate of the 900 troops in the deployment was, however, subsequently
extended to the end of
October 2008.

6) How helpful is the State Department's travel information?
Carol Pucci, Seattle Times, October 5, 2008
https://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2008226237_trpucci050.html

Seasoned travelers know that it pays to look beyond information
provided by the U.S. State Department on its Web site when it comes to
advice on visiting other countries. I was reminded of this while
reviewing various travel advisories on Thailand and Bolivia where anti-
and pro-government clashes have triggered recent political clashes.

Information published on the government Web sites of Australia, Canada
and the United Kingdom tends to be more detailed, up-to-date, easier to
find and more useful in terms of specific advice for traveling in
different areas within a country.

How and when the State
Department
decides to issue an official warning - a recommendation that Americans
avoid travel and a critical blow to any country's tourism industry -
has always been controversial.

Critics
question how much politics and economic considerations come into play,
and how frequently the government reviews the situation once it puts a
warning in place.
...
Considering the Bush administration's deteriorating relations with
Bolivia's Evo Morales government and its close ties to Thailand - the
U.S. is one of the country's biggest foreign investors - seeking the
travelers' equivalent of a second, third or fourth opinion makes sense.
...
The State Department issued a travel warning on Sept. 15 advising
against all travel in Bolivia, citing an "unstable social and security
situation" as clashes escalated between opponents and supporters of
President Morales.

Then, last month, Morales expelled the U.S.
ambassador, accusing him of fomenting
anti-government violence in the eastern half of the country. Washington
reciprocated by expelling Bolivia's ambassador, moving Peace Corps
volunteers to Peru and threatening to suspend duty-free
allowances for Bolivian exports.

Canada's advice to its
citizens was more targeted. It advised exercising "a high degree of
caution" when traveling in the country, but ruled out nonessential
travel only in Santa Cruz, Pando, Chuquisaca, Beni and Tarija, where
most of the violence has occurred.

Its updates have been
frequent and detailed. On Sept. 23, it posted information on the
progress of talks between the pro- and anti-government groups,
roadblocks and demonstrations, and on Sept. 24 reported the news that
American Airlines had canceled its U.S. flights.

Australia and
the UK took a similar approach, recommending people "reconsider their
need" to travel in the specific areas affected. The UK later issued
updates including a stronger
warning that people avoid all travel in Pando where martial law was
declared.

As of midweek, the U.S. State Department's travel warning - three
paragraphs of generalized information
attached to two standard paragraphs of boilerplate - contained no new
updates, but referred travelers to the embassy Web site where there was
news on the flight cancellations and the demonstrations in Santa Cruz.

If the government's advice is going to be truly helpful to travelers, it's going to have to be better than that.

Iran
7) U.S. considering diplomatic outpost in Iran: Rice
Reuters, Sunday, October 5, 2008; 10:46 AM
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/05/AR2008100500717.html

The Bush administration is still considering setting up a diplomatic
outpost in Iran, U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday. Her comments appeared to contradict an
Associated Press report that the administration, in its waning months
in office, had shelved plans to open an "interest
section" in Iran.

"We continue to look at the idea, think
it's an interesting idea," Rice told reporters who asked about a
possible U.S. "interest section" in Tehran.
...
"But we are
going to take a look at it in the light of what it could do for our
relationship with the Iranian people," Rice said.
...
During
the summer, U.S. media reported that senior officials at the State
Department were mulling a proposal to establish an "interest section,"
in Tehran, similar to the one the United States has operated in Havana
since 1977. This would stop short of full diplomatic relations but
involve sending some US diplomats to Tehran.

Rice has never publicly discussed the idea at any length, saying she did not want to
comment on "internal deliberations." But months have gone by without any decision being announced.

Last week the Bush administration took the rare step of granting
permission for a U.S. non-governmental organization to open an office
in Iran, while saying that Washington's Iran policy - including heavy
U.S. sanctions over its nuclear program - remain unchanged.

8) Trust Is 'A Two-Way Street'
Interview with Iranian Foreign Minister, Washington Post, October 6, 2008; A15
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/05/AR2008100501252_2.html

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki spoke with Newsweek-The
Post's Lally Weymouth in New York last week about U.S.-Iranian
relations. Excerpts:

Q. Do you believe there will be an Israeli or an American attack on your nuclear facilities?
A. No.

Q. If there were such an attack by Israel, would you regard it as an attack by the United States?
A. In the Middle East, [no one] makes a distinction between the U.S. and Israel.
...
Q. The U.S. has been insisting that you shut down your systems, and the
International Atomic Energy Agency has been insisting on more
transparency. What do you mean when you say "resolve the nuclear issue"?
A. Westerners are calling for increased confidence and trust. We are saying that confidence building is a two-way street.

Q. But you are not going to abandon your nuclear program?
A. What we are doing is completely legal. The six ministers in their
letter to me have clearly announced that they recognize and respect
Iran's right . . .
...
Q. What about the other charges in the IAEA report?
A. The resolutions of the U.N. Security Council are unlawful and
illegal. Last year, we responded to all the questions that were given
to us by the
agency. Later, it became quite clear that the questions were given to
the agency by the Americans. After we were through with that set of
questions, the Americans came back with new claims that
they gave the agency to look into.
...
Q. Do you think that
Iran and the U.S. share any common interests in Iraq and in
Afghanistan, and do you see any basis for the two countries working
together in those areas?
A. Our position when it comes to Iraq and
Afghanistan [is] we want security and stability for those countries. We
are calling for the determination of the fate of those two countries to
be handed over to the people and to the legally elected governments of
those countries. If the U.S. has the same point of view, we have to
respond by saying that [it] has chosen the wrong policies to go about
this.

Iraq
9) Iraq too dangerous for many professionals
The brain drain continues as doctors, professors, engineers and other
well-educated, affluent or secular Iraqis flee or stay away, nervous about kidnappings and random violence.
Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times, October 5, 2008
https://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-displaced5-2008oct05,0,3145944.story
...
In June, the government raised civil servant salaries 50% to 75% to
attract state employees such as teachers and doctors, many of whom were
fired after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
Iraq's Ministry of Displacement and Migration says tens of thousands of
people have returned since last fall.

But more than 2.5
million Iraqis have fled, and the exodus continues. Political and
business leaders believe it will be many years before the loss of
professionals can be reversed.

The Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said it
monitored numbers at the main border crossing linking Iraq to Syria
from January to July this year and found that 7,200 more Iraqis left
than entered. And some say a new U.S. policy opening
the door to more Iraqi refugees each year is exacerbating the situation.

"It's counterproductive," said Raad Ommar, president of the Iraqi
American Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Baghdad. "They're trying
to achieve their goal on one hand of taking Iraqis to the United
States, and on the other hand they're trying to get Iraq stabilized and
improve the economy and everything else. The flight of qualified Iraqis
is not going to help that."
...
More than 7,000 physicians have
left, including virtually all who had 20 years' or more experience,
said Mustafa Hiti, a member of parliament who sits on its health
committee. About 600 have returned, he said, but none are the sort of
top-flight specialists needed here.

Most specialists were
Sunni
Arabs who, to achieve their professional status, were members of
Hussein's Baath Party. Even if they did not adhere to its ideology,
they were ostracized and forced from their jobs after
Hussein was ousted. Now, they do not feel comfortable in a country run
by Shiite Muslims, said Hiti, who expressed doubts about the
government's commitment to moving away from the so-called
de-Baathification policies.
...
At the Ministry of Higher Education, spokeswoman Siham Shujairi said
6,700 professors had left Iraq and only about 150 had returned. About
300 have been killed.

10) Iraq's presidency agrees to provincial-elections law
Corinne Reilly, McClatchy Newspapers, Fri, Oct. 03, 2008
https://www.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/story/53433.html

Iraq's presidency council has agreed to approve a long-delayed law that
will allow most of the country to hold provincial elections early next
year,
officials said Friday.

Iraq's parliament passed the
elections law late last month after months of infighting, and approval
from Iraq's three-man presidency council, which includes
Iraqi president Jalal Talabani and two deputies, is the last formal
hurdle the measure must clear to take effect.

A staff aide to Tariq al Hashimi, one of Iraq's two vice presidents,
told McClatchy that all three members of the presidency council agreed
to sign off on the law though the council has yet to officially sign
the measure.

He added, however, that the council will ask
parliament to reinstate a provision of the law guaranteeing
representation for Christians and other Iraqi minorities. The aide
spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak
to the media.

The council will formally
sign the elections agreement into law after the end of Eid, a three-day
holiday that Iraq's Muslims are now observing, the aide
said.

Afghanistan
11) Reports Link Karzai's Brother to Heroin Trade
James Risen, New York Times, October 5, 2008
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/world/asia/05afghan.html

When
Afghan security forces found an enormous cache of heroin hidden beneath
concrete blocks in a tractor-trailer outside Kandahar in 2004, the
local Afghan commander quickly impounded the truck and notified his
boss.

Before long, the commander, Habibullah Jan, received a
telephone call from Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid
Karzai, asking him to release the vehicle and the drugs, Mr. Jan later
told American investigators, according to notes from the debriefing
obtained by The New York Times. He said he complied after getting a
phone call from an aide to President Karzai directing him to release
the truck.

Two
years later, American and Afghan counternarcotics forces stopped
another truck, this time near Kabul, finding more than 110 pounds of
heroin. Soon after the seizure, United States
investigators told other American officials that they had discovered
links between the drug shipment and a bodyguard believed to be an
intermediary for Ahmed Wali Karzai, according to a participant in the
briefing.

The assertions about the involvement of the president's brother in the
incidents were never investigated, according to American and Afghan
officials, even though allegations that he has benefited from narcotics
trafficking have circulated widely in Afghanistan.

Both
President Karzai and Ahmed Wali Karzai, now the chief of the Kandahar
Provincial Council, the governing body for the region that includes
Afghanistan's second largest city, dismiss the allegations as
politically motivated attacks by longtime foes.

"I am not a drug dealer, I never was
and I never will be," the president's brother said in a recent phone interview. "I am a victim of vicious politics."

But the assertions about him have deeply worried
top American officials in Kabul and in Washington. The United States
officials fear that perceptions that the Afghan president might be
protecting his brother are damaging his credibility and undermining
efforts by the United States to buttress his government, which has been
under siege from rivals and a Taliban insurgency fueled by drug money,
several senior Bush administration officials said. Their concerns have
intensified as American troops have been deployed to the country in
growing numbers.

"What appears to be a fairly common Afghan public perception of
corruption inside their government is a tremendously corrosive element
working against establishing long-term confidence in that government -
a very serious matter," said Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, who was commander
of coalition military forces in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and is
now retired. "That could be problematic strategically for the United
States."

The White House says
it believes that Ahmed Wali Karzai is involved in drug trafficking, and
American officials have repeatedly warned President Karzai that his
brother is a political liability, two senior Bush administration
officials said in interviews last week.

Numerous reports link Ahmed Wali Karzai to the drug trade, according to
current and former officials from the White House, the State Department
and the United States Embassy in Afghanistan, who would speak only on
the condition of anonymity. In meetings with President Karzai,
including a 2006 session with the United States ambassador, the Central
Intelligence Agency's station chief and their British counterparts,
American officials have talked about the allegations in hopes that the
president might move his brother out of the country, said
several people who took part in or were briefed on the talks.

"We thought the concern expressed to Karzai might be enough to get him
out of there," one official said. But
President Karzai has resisted, demanding clear-cut evidence of
wrongdoing, several officials said. "We don't have the kind of hard,
direct evidence that you could take to get a criminal indictment," a
White House official said. "That allows Karzai to say, 'where's your
proof?' "

Israeli/Palestine
12) Scottish activist films Israeli navy shooting at Gaza fishermen
Claims of 14 deaths in previous incidents
Billy Briggs, Scotland Sunday Herald, October 06, 2008
https://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2446157.0.scottish_activist_films_israeli_navy_shooting_at_gaza_fishermen.php

A Scottish human rights activist has filmed the Israeli navy firing
machine guns at unarmed Palestinian fishing boats in the Mediterranean
Sea off the coast
of the Gaza Strip. The footage, taken on September 6 by Andrew Muncie,
who is from the Highlands, shows an Israeli gunboat engaging fishing
boats while international observers hold their arms in the air and
scream for them to stop firing.

No-one was injured in the incident, but Palestinian fishermen claim 14
colleagues have been murdered at sea by the Israeli navy since the
onset of an economic blockade imposed after Hamas took control of the
Gaza Strip in June 2007. Israel says patrolling these waters is a vital
security measure to stop weapons being smuggled into Gaza.
...
The Gaza Strip's waters have been patrolled by the Israeli navy since a
blockade was imposed after Hamas took control of the Strip. Israel
allows in limited supplies of food, fuel and aid but last
year tightened economic sanctions in response to rocket attacks by
militants on Israeli towns near Gaza.

According to the United Nations, the crisis has left the number of households
in Gaza below the poverty line at an unprecedented 52%.

Gaza's fishing industry has been hit particularly hard. Under the 1993
Oslo accords, Gazan fishermen were to be allowed 20 nautical miles out
to sea. According to Oxfam, fishermen are now only allowed six miles
out to sea - not far enough out to reach the schools of large fish -
and risk being shot or arrested if they breach this limit.

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