Council for a Livable World

IRAN
Analysts believe Iran scientist death was a foreign hit
Andrew Hammond, Reuters – July 26, 2011
(Reuters) – Western security agencies were most likely behind the killing of an Iranian scientist in an operation that underlines the myriad complications in the conflict over Iran’s nuclear programme, analysts say. Darioush Rezaie, 35, a university lecturer, was shot dead by gunmen in eastern Tehran on Saturday, the third murder of a scientist since 2009. One was killed in a car bomb, the second by a device detonated remotely.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Names Mediator In Power Struggle
Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty – July 26, 2011
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is said to have appointed a mediator to resolve disputes within the government — including the ongoing dispute between President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and the parliament, which has also challenged the supreme leader’s authority. Khamenei named his ally and former judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmud Shahrudi to head an arbitration body charged with mediating the disputes, Iranian agency reports say.

NORTH KOREA
North Korea Seen Conducting Large-Scale Military Drill Soon
Steve Herman, Voice of America – July 26, 2011
South Korean government sources say, based on information from intelligence teams, North Korea appears poised for a rare, large-scale military drill.he chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Navy Admiral Michael Mullen, addressing reporters in Washington on Monday, did not make mention of the apparent preparations in North Korea for a military exercise.  But the admiral did express concern that Pyongyang’s military will conduct some sort of action against the South again, at some point.

N.Korea Lays Train Tracks to New Missile Site
Chosun Ilbo – July 25, 2011
North Korea has been laying train tracks between a new missile test site in Tongchang-ri, North Pyongan Province and a nearby railroad station. In October last year before it shelled Yeonpyeong Island, the regime reportedly conducted an engine combustion test for the Taepodong-2 or an improved version of a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile in Tongchang-ri.

Confronting an Unrepentant North Korea
Doug Bandow, The American Spectator – July 26, 2011
Just the other day the Kim Jong-il regime threatened to “wipe out” both the U.S. and South Korea if they started a war. Adm. Mike Mullen , chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned: “I’m not convinced that they won’t provoke again.” Another day, another North Korean threat. The Korean Central News Agency constantly spews forth vicious epithets to little effect. But North Korea’s uncompromising policy makes any negotiated settlement seem unlikely.

N. Korea conditionally agrees to meet with S. Korea over seized assets
Yonhap – July 27, 2011
SEOUL, July 26 (Yonhap) — North Korea conditionally accepted South Korea’s proposal to hold talks this week to resolve an ongoing dispute over the handling of seized South Korean assets at a North Korean mountain resort, Seoul’s unification ministry said Tuesday. The North sent the South a notice earlier in the day that business representatives should be brought to the talks, according to the ministry. On Monday, South Korea proposed that officials from the two sides meet Friday at the resort on Mount Kumgang for a third round of talks.

AFGHANISTAN
Envoy Says U.S. Will Start Afghan Pullout, Slowly
Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times – July 25, 2011
KABUL, Afghanistan — The new American ambassador to Afghanistan took the oath of office on Monday, saying in a succinct but personal speech that the United States would start to pull back from its engagement here — but only gradually. The ambassador, Ryan C. Crocker, a diplomat with deep experience in some of the most difficult postings of the last 40 years, spoke to embassy staff members and senior diplomats at a moment when the Afghan war, while incrementally improved in terms of NATO casualties, is claiming a rising number of civilian lives and the Afghan government remains shaky.

LIBYA
In Libya’s West, Signs of Growing Frustration With NATO
C.J. Chivers, New York Times – July 24, 2011
One of the consistent experiences of reporting alongside opposition fighters in Libya is feeling the delineation between what the rank and file have to say of the NATO bombing campaign and the statements of the officials in the Transitional National Council, the de facto rebel authority. Officially, the rebel leadership cannot thank the pilots flying overhead enough. Those closer to the fighting or who live in harm’s way, however, have a richer take.

Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Walter Jones (R-NC) are asking their colleagues to sign a letter to the President urging all troops to leave by the end of the year.

They write, “Leaving troops and military contractors in Iraq beyond the deadline is not in our nation’s security interests, it is not in our nation’s strategic interests, and it is not in our nation’s economic interests.”

The full letter follows:

KEEP TO THE CURRENT DEADLINE
Bring all U.S. Troops and Military Contractors in Iraq Home by Dec. 31, 2011!

93 signers:
Baldwin, Bass (CA-33), Boswell, Braley, Capps, Capuano, Chu, Cicilline, Clark (MI-13), Clarke (NY-11), Clay, Cleaver, Clyburn, Cohen, Conyers, Costello, Davis (IL-7), DeFazio, DeLauro, Deutch, Doggett, Doyle, Duncan (TN-2), Edwards, Ellison, Farr, Filner, Frank, Fudge, Garamendi, Grijalva, Gutierrez, Hahn, Hanabusa, Hastings (FL-23), Heinrich, Hirono, Holt, Honda, Jackson Jr. (IL-2), Jackson-Lee, Johnson (IL-15), Johnson (TX-30), Jones, Kaptur, Kucinich, Larson, Lee, Lewis (GA-5), Loebsack, Lofgren, Lujan, Maloney, Matsui, McCollum, McDermott, McGovern, Michaud, Miller (CA-7), Moore, Nadler, Napolitano, Norton, Olver, Paul, Payne, Pingree, Polis, Rangel, Richardson, Rush, Sanchez (CA-39), Sanchez (CA-47), Schakowsky, Schrader, Scott (VA-3), Serrano, Sewell, Slaughter, Speier, Stark, Thompson (CA-1), Thompson (MS-2), Tonko, Towns, Tsongas, Velazquez, Waters, Watt, Welch, Wilson (FL-17), Woolsey, Yarmuth

The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We are writing to urge you to hold to our nation’s Status of Forces Agreement with the government of Iraq that commits our nation to bringing all of our troops and military contractors home at the end of this calendar year.  

The American people have made it clear that the war in Iraq must end.  By wide and overwhelming margins, Americans approve of your plan to remove all the troops from Iraq by the end of this year.  

We are deeply concerned to learn that your Administration is considering plans to keep potentially thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq beyond the end of this year.  Extending our presence in Iraq is counterproductive – the Iraqi people do not support our continued occupation.  Remaining in Iraq would only further strengthen the perception that we are an occupying force with no intention of leaving Iraq.

Leaving troops and military contractors in Iraq beyond the deadline is not in our nation’s security interests, it is not in our nation’s strategic interests, and it is not in our nation’s economic interests.  

Mr. President, we look forward to working with you in maintaining our nation’s Status of Forces Agreement with the government of Iraq and bringing all of our troops and military  contractors home at the end of this year.

Sincerely,

Barbara Lee
Member of Congress

Walter B. Jones
Member of Congress

IRAN
Survivor of Attack Leads Nuclear Effort in Iran
David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, New York Times – July 22, 2011
WASHINGTON — Eight months after he narrowly survived an assassination attempt on the streets of Tehran, Fereydoon Abbasi, the nuclear physicist whom Iran’s mullahs have put in charge of the country’s Atomic Energy Organization, is presiding over what intelligence officials in several countries describe as an unexpected quickening of Iran’s production of nuclear material. The selection of Dr. Abbasi earlier this year was itself a clear message to the West.

Man killed in Iran shooting was student, not nuclear scientist
Associated Press – July 24, 2011
TEHRAN—Iran said the victim of a deadly shooting Saturday was a university student, not a physicist involved in the country’s nuclear program as state media had first reported. A mix-up over the victim’s name apparently led to the confusion, the English-language Press TV said.Initial reports said a pair of gunmen firing from motorcycles killed 35-year-old Dariush Rezai, a physics professor whose area of expertise was neutron transport.

Iranian Scientist Gunned Down at Home
Scott Shane, New York Times – July 23, 2011
Gunmen riding motorcycles fatally shot an Iranian scientist in front of his house in Tehran on Saturday, Iranian news agencies reported. It appeared to be the latest in a series of attacks that Iranian authorities have called an assassination campaign directed by Israeli, American and British intelligence agencies against the country’s nuclear program. It was uncertain what role, if any, he played in Iran’s nuclear program.

Opposition: Iran consolidates nuclear bomb effort
Douglas Birch, AP – July 23, 2011
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Iranian opposition group said Friday that Tehran’s leaders have consolidated several scattered nuclear research efforts in a single new defense agency geared to streamline weapons development. The Mujahedin-e Khalk, or MEK, told The Associated Press that Iran’s defense ministry established the new agency in March to merge various nuclear-related programs. The State Department had no immediate comment on the report. Some of MEK’s past claims about Iran’s nuclear program have been confirmed, while others have not. But a former international nuclear inspector said Friday he has heard a similar report.

Iran: Elite Force Commander Is Killed
Reuters – July 22, 2011
A commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was killed in an explosion during clashes with Kurdish rebels in northwestern Iran, the Guards said in a statement on Friday. It identified the victim as Gen. Abbas Asemi, a commander in Qom Province, southwest of Tehran.

Iran backtracks on report it downed U.S. ‘spy drone’
CNN – July 24, 2011
(CNN) — Iran’s military shot down a report that it downed a U.S. “spy drone” flying near its Fordo nuclear enrichment plant in Qom province, according to Fars, the official Iranian news agency. Fars and state-run Press TV both quoted an Iranian lawmaker last week saying that Iranian air defense units of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shot down the drone. The initial report was a mistake caused by a training exercise, an IRGC spokesman told Fars on Friday.

NORTH KOREA
North Korean Envoy to Visit U.S. for Nuclear Talks
Choe Sang-Hun, New York Times – July 24, 2011
SEOUL, South Korea — A senior North Korean diplomat believed to be an important strategist in his government’s nuclear negotiations with the United States will visit New York this week to discuss restarting talks seeking to end the North’s nuclear weapons program, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday. Mrs. Clinton said in a statement that the United States had invited the diplomat, Kim Kye-gwan, the first vice foreign minister, for “an exploratory meeting to determine if North Korea was prepared to affirm its obligations under” previous international agreements on nuclear disarmament and to “take concrete and irreversible steps toward denuclearization.”

Chief Nuclear Negotiators From North and South Korea Meet for First Time Since 2008
Choe Sang-Hun, New York Times – July 22, 2011
SEOUL, South Korea — The chief nuclear negotiators for South and North Korea met Friday for the first time since 2008, raising cautious hopes that after months of recriminations the countries were inching toward broader talks on ending the North’s nuclear weapons program. The negotiators, Wi Sung-lac of South Korea and Ri Yong-ho, a newly appointed North Korean envoy, met on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations regional forum being held in Bali, in Indonesia, officials in Seoul said.

Reading Between North Korea’s Lines
Mark McDonald, New York Times – July 22, 2011
SEOUL — Whenever North Korea sends up a diplomatic flare, as it did recently with a threat to start “a merciless sacred war” against South Korea, the message is delivered in a flamboyant vernacular that can sound comically retro or ominous and threatening. The statements come through the Korean Central News Agency, the state-controlled office that operates a rudimentary Web site with daily reports in Korean, English and Spanish. The agency is the principal (and nearly only) way in which North Korea communicates with the outside world. While North Korea’s back-channel diplomacy has become more temperate in recent years, the Communist propagandists at K.C.N.A. still regularly promise “strikes without mercy by the steadfast and ever-vigilant People’s Army.”

AFGHANISTAN
U.S. trucking funds reach Taliban, military-led investigation concludes
Karen DeYoung, Washington Post – July 24, 2011
A year-long military-led investigation has concluded that U.S. taxpayer money has been indirectly funneled to the Taliban under a $2.16 billion transportation contract that the United States has funded in part to promote Afghan businesses. The unreleased investigation provides seemingly definitive evidence that corruption puts U.S. transportation money into enemy hands, a finding consistent with previous inquiries carried out by Congress, other federal agencies and the military. Yet U.S. and Afghan efforts to address the problem have been slow and ineffective, and all eight of the trucking firms involved in the work remain on U.S. payroll. In March, the Pentagon extended the contract for six months.

No permanent U.S. bases in Afghanistan: U.S. ambassador
Michelle Nichols, Reuters – July 25, 2011
(Reuters) – The United States has no interest in creating permanent military bases in Afghanistan and does not want to use the country as a platform to influence neighboring countries, the new U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan said Monday. Washington is negotiating with the Afghan government on a deal to define the long-term American role in Afghanistan beyond the end of 2014, when NATO-led combat troops are due to leave after handing security control to the Afghan army and police.

PAKISTAN
Pakistan Spies on Its Diaspora, Spreading Fear
Mark Mazzetti, Eric Schmitt and Charlie Savage, New York Times – July 23, 2011
WASHINGTON — F.B.I. agents hunting for Pakistani spies in the United States last year began tracking Mohammed Tasleem, an attaché in the Pakistani Consulate in New York and a clandestine operative of Pakistan’s military spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence. Mr. Tasleem, they discovered, had been posing as an F.B.I. agent to extract information from Pakistanis living in the United States and was issuing threats to keep them from speaking openly about Pakistan’s government. The investigation exposed one part of what American officials say is a broader campaign by the Pakistani spy agency, known as the ISI, to exert influence over lawmakers, stifle public dialogue critical of Pakistan’s military and blunt the influence of India, Pakistan’s longtime adversary.

DEFENSE BUDGET
From Budget Cuts to Dirty Bombs
Kenneth N. Luongo and Kenneth C. Brill, New York Times – July 22, 2011
THE House of Representatives has decided that countering the threat of nuclear terrorism no longer deserves America’s best efforts. Last week, it passed an energy and water budget bill that slashes the country’s defenses against nuclear terrorism — a threat both parties have long recognized as one of the most serious facing America. The Senate has the opportunity to reverse that mistake. If it does not, over a decade of nuclear security gains could evaporate.

“There is little connection between the fighting and dying being done by our young men and women in Afghanistan’s valleys, farmlands and cities and keeping our nation safe from a terrorist attack,”

-Rep. James McGovern (D- MA) and Matthew Hoh, “Change course in Afghanistan,” The Worcester Daily Gazette, 7/20/11

Rep. McGovern, a Massachusetts Representative, and Matthew Hoh, former Marine Corps Captain and State Department official in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as a board member of the Council for a Livable World, describe President Obama’s strategy to withdraw 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by summer 2012 as “insufficient.”  The 18-month plan does not reflect the domestic debt crisis or U.S. goals and capabilities in Afghanistan.

McGovern and Hoh make the case that U.S. national security is intertwined with economic security, and, therefore, the strategy is not responsible or realistic.  Though Congress is embroiled in a battle over cutting spending, the government continues to borrow nearly $10 billion a month to pay for the war, adding to the debt.  “Where is the sense in borrowing money to build a bridge or school in Afghanistan that later gets blown up – while telling our cities and towns that we have no money to help them with their needs?”  Though development efforts in Afghanistan are worthy, at what cost to U.S. lives and economic or national security?

The U.S. invaded Afghanistan to ensure that the Taliban would no longer provide a safe haven for Al-Qaeda.  Today, Al-Qaeda has been almost entirely uprooted from Afghanistan, and the operation to kill Osama Bin Laden proved that neither 100,000 nor 70,000 troops are necessary to weaken the organization.  After 2012, roughly 70,000 U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan (with gradual withdrawal) and will continue to fight for a mission they have already completed.  

Beyond the original aim, the U.S. has undertaken social, political and economic development to attempt to leave Afghanistan with peace, a functional government and human rights protections.  However, many Afghanistan experts have argued that the only solution is political.  The President should be encouraging a negotiated settlement and bringing the troops home now, McGovern and Hoh write.  Despite high hopes, the U.S. military cannot “advance the cause of peace, protect the rights of women and ethnic minorities, or strengthen civil society,” and they will lose their lives trying.  

There is no space for compromise or a middle course, and no more time to debate this issue, the writers maintain. This spring was the deadliest spring in the ten years that the U.S. has been in Afghanistan.  “We don’t need to wait 18 more months to change course. We need to do it now.”