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  • Originally posted by liutangsanzang View Post
    Dog u say Iran lives according to its belief. But there are many different ways of islam.
    Unfortunately, this is the one that matters.

    Originally posted by liutansanzhang View Post
    I dont know if u c the problem for a religious mind. And for the mind of many people in the world.
    I see it every time you post.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by liutangsanzang View Post

      So maybe USA making apologies and trying to judge criminals might help the world to be a better place....

      If you are going to judge a criminal, judge him on everything

      Your customizable and curated collection of the best in trusted news plus coverage of sports, entertainment, money, weather, travel, health and lifestyle, combined with Outlook/Hotmail, Facebook, Twitter, Bing, Skype and more.


      Translation:

      The Israeli-implemented isolation of the Gaza Strip has made it one of the least likely places in the world to contract swine flu. Israel has experienced 4 cases so far.


      Sadly enough, knowing middle-eastern politics, it'll pop up there. Perfect excuse for a Palestinian PR stunt.

      But for the time being, Liu- I believe that on behalf of the Palestinian people, on behalf of whom you speak so loudly, you owe the Israeli government your gratitude.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by dogchow108 View Post

        The Israeli-implemented isolation of the Gaza Strip has made it one of the least likely places in the world to contract swine flu. Israel has experienced 4 cases so far.
        On the other hand, it is the most likely place to be murdered or tortured or bombed or shelled or gassed or experimented on.

        Asshole.

        Can't wait until the mental payback for your words starts. There are people in this world who will mentally attack you and drive you crazy for sentiments like that. I am telling you ahead of time so you build up some fear.

        Most people don't realize they were mentally attacked until years later when it is over and the mental attacks have changed them into a human being.

        Comment


        • Originally posted by mbokohutu View Post
          On the other hand, it is the most likely place to be murdered or tortured or bombed or shelled or gassed or experimented on.

          Asshole.

          Can't wait until the mental payback for your words starts. There are people in this world who will mentally attack you and drive you crazy for sentiments like that. I am telling you ahead of time so you build up some fear.

          Most people don't realize they were mentally attacked until years later when it is over and the mental attacks have changed them into a human being.
          Clearly the words of a man who has made it through this in one piece.

          Comment


          • Mobutu and dog write love letters!

            I dont want to blame, but when we think about Japan not being very explicit in its history book, what is the situatin in american history books?

            And if germany wouldnt have made apologies what would we think?

            So why dont USA make apologies to Iran for instance, that would help calm down the game...

            I m not historian so i cant say i know usa made mistakes with the shah dictature, but that is what a lot of people think...

            Why dont politicians do so, even if have done nothing, it would make a lot of people happier and peaceful> Maybe some politicians dont want peace in order to exist???

            Why dont u talk about making apologies to ur politicans?

            peace and love

            Comment


            • Originally posted by liutangsanzang View Post

              So why dont USA make apologies to Iran for instance, that would help calm down the game...
              Obama is trying that to some degree. A conciliatory approach.

              It's not working.

              He has as much to learn about these people as you do, LOL
              Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

              "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

              (more comments in my User Profile)
              russbo.com


              Comment


              • Sure i have to learn from Iranians and many people。。。 Need communication, understanding and love, not prejudices。Have u meditated on the suffering of the afghan civilians that were killed and their family, on the suffering of talibans?

                peace and love

                Comment


                • Interesting point about stoning in shariah law:

                  Under Iran's Islamic law, people convicted of adultery can still be stoned to death.

                  The guilty person is partially buried in a public spot — men up to their waists and women to their shoulders.

                  Stones are then hurled at them until they are dead — although if they manage to free themselves their lives are spared.
                  The men are given a better chance of surviving than the women.
                  Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

                  "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

                  (more comments in my User Profile)
                  russbo.com


                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by dogchow
                    No. Talk all you want. But the fact is that's all it is. What you are asking for is for the government to give you evidence that it would be stupid for it to give you. So that gives you the technical right to say there is no "evidence". Pat yourself on the back all you want but you are still swinging in the dark.
                    Heh... in other words, "yes zachsan, that is exactly what I was saying".

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by zachsan View Post
                      Heh... in other words, "yes zachsan, that is exactly what I was saying".

                      In other words..."I need a hug. Patting just doesn't cut it"

                      I suppose nothing can come between a fool and his folley :/

                      My point is that talk is cheap. That is why "intellectuals" do it so much and accomplish so little.

                      Comment


                      • http://www.michaelparenti.org/afghan...%20untold.html



                        Afghanistan, Another Untold Story

                        (posted in 2009)


                        Barack Obama is on record as advocating a military escalation in Afghanistan. Before sinking any deeper into that quagmire, we might do well to learn something about recent Afghani history and the role played by the United States.
                        Less than a month after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, US leaders began an all-out aerial assault upon Afghanistan, the country purportedly harboring Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist organization. More than twenty years earlier, in 1980, the United States intervened to stop a Soviet 搃nvasion?of that country. Even some leading progressive writers, who normally take a more critical view of US policy abroad, treated the US intervention against the Soviet-supported government as 揳 good thing.?The actual story is not such a good thing.
                        Some Real History
                        Since feudal times the landholding system in Afghanistan had remained unchanged, with more than 75 percent of the land owned by big landlords who comprised only 3 percent of the rural population. In the mid-1960s, democratic revolutionary elements coalesced to form the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). In 1973, the king was deposed, but the government that replaced him proved to be autocratic, mismanaged, and unpopular. It in turn was forced out in 1978 after a massive demonstration in front of the presidential palace, and after factions of the army intervened on the side of the demonstrators.
                        The military officers who took charge invited the PDP to form a new government under the leadership of Noor Mohammed Taraki, a poet and novelist. This is how a Marxist-led coalition of national democratic forces came into office. “It was a totally indigenous happening. Not even the CIA blamed the USSR for it,” writes John Ryan, a retired professor at the University of Winnipeg, who was conducting an agricultural research project in Afghanistan at about that time.
                        The Taraki government proceeded to legalize labor unions, and set up a minimum wage, a progressive income tax, a literacy campaign, and programs that gave ordinary people greater access to health care, housing, and public sanitation. Fledgling peasant cooperatives were started and price reductions on some key foods were imposed.
                        The government also continued a campaign begun by the king to emancipate women from their age-old tribal bondage. It provided public education for girls and for the children of various tribes.
                        A report in the San Francisco Chronicle (17 November 2001) noted that under the Taraki regime Kabul had been “a cosmopolitan city. Artists and hippies flocked to the capital. Women studied agriculture, engineering and business at the city’s university. Afghan women held government jobs—-in the 1980s, there were seven female members of parliament. Women drove cars, traveled and went on dates. Fifty percent of university students were women.”
                        The Taraki government moved to eradicate the cultivation of opium poppy. Until then Afghanistan had been producing more than 70 percent of the opium needed for the world’s heroin supply. The government also abolished all debts owed by farmers, and began developing a major land reform program. Ryan believes that it was a “genuinely popular government and people looked forward to the future with great hope.”
                        But serious opposition arose from several quarters. The feudal landlords opposed the land reform program that infringed on their holdings. And tribesmen and fundamentalist mullahs vehemently opposed the government’s dedication to gender equality and the education of women and children.
                        Because of its egalitarian and collectivist economic policies the Taraki government also incurred the opposition of the US national security state. Almost immediately after the PDP coalition came to power, the CIA, assisted by Saudi and Pakistani military, launched a large scale intervention into Afghanistan on the side of the ousted feudal lords, reactionary tribal chieftains, mullahs, and opium traffickers.
                        A top official within the Taraki government was Hafizulla Amin, believed by many to have been recruited by the CIA during the several years he spent in the United States as a student. In September 1979, Amin seized state power in an armed coup. He executed Taraki, halted the reforms, and murdered, jailed, or exiled thousands of Taraki supporters as he moved toward establishing a fundamentalist Islamic state. But within two months, he was overthrown by PDP remnants including elements within the military.
                        It should be noted that all this happened before the Soviet military intervention. National security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski publicly admitted--months before Soviet troops entered the country--that the Carter administration was providing huge sums to Muslim extremists to subvert the reformist government. Part of that effort involved brutal attacks by the CIA-backed mujahideen against schools and teachers in rural areas.
                        In late 1979, the seriously besieged PDP government asked Moscow to send a contingent of troops to help ward off the mujahideen (Islamic guerrilla fighters) and foreign mercenaries, all recruited, financed, and well-armed by the CIA. The Soviets already had been sending aid for projects in mining, education, agriculture, and public health. Deploying troops represented a commitment of a more serious and politically dangerous sort. It took repeated requests from Kabul before Moscow agreed to intervene militarily.
                        Jihad and Taliban, CIA Style
                        The Soviet intervention was a golden opportunity for the CIA to transform the tribal resistance into a holy war, an Islamic jihad to expel the godless communists from Afghanistan. Over the years the United States and Saudi Arabia expended about $40 billion on the war in Afghanistan. The CIA and its allies recruited, supplied, and trained almost 100,000 radical mujahideen from forty Muslim countries including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Algeria, and Afghanistan itself. Among those who answered the call was Saudi-born millionaire right-winger Osama bin Laden and his cohorts.
                        After a long and unsuccessful war, the Soviets evacuated the country in February 1989. It is generally thought that the PDP Marxist government collapsed immediately after the Soviet departure. Actually, it retained enough popular support to fight on for another three years, outlasting the Soviet Union itself by a year.
                        Upon taking over Afghanistan, the mujahideen fell to fighting among themselves. They ravaged the cities, terrorized civilian populations, looted, staged mass executions, closed schools, raped thousands of women and girls, and reduced half of Kabul to rubble. In 2001 Amnesty International reported that the mujahideen used sexual assault as “a method of intimidating vanquished populations and rewarding soldiers.’”
                        Ruling the country gangster-style and looking for lucrative sources of income, the tribes ordered farmers to plant opium poppy. The Pakistani ISI, a close junior partner to the CIA, set up hundreds of heroin laboratories across Afghanistan. Within two years of the CIA’s arrival, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland became the biggest producer of heroin in the world.
                        Largely created and funded by the CIA, the mujahideen mercenaries now took on a life of their own. Hundreds of them returned home to Algeria, Chechnya, Kosovo, and Kashmir to carry on terrorist attacks in Allah’s name against the purveyors of secular “corruption.”

                        In Afghanistan itself, by 1995 an extremist strain of Sunni Islam called the Taliban---heavily funded and advised by the ISI and the CIA and with the support of Islamic political parties in Pakistan---fought its way to power, taking over most of the country, luring many tribal chiefs into its fold with threats and bribes.
                        The Taliban promised to end the factional fighting and banditry that was the mujahideen trademark. Suspected murderers and spies were executed monthly in the sports stadium, and those accused of thievery had the offending hand sliced off. The Taliban condemned forms of “immorality” that included premarital sex, adultery, and homosexuality. They also outlawed all music, theater, libraries, literature, secular education, and much scientific research.
                        The Taliban unleashed a religious reign of terror, imposing an even stricter interpretation of Muslim law than used by most of the Kabul clergy. All men were required to wear untrimmed beards and women had to wear the burqa which covered them from head to toe, including their faces. Persons who were slow to comply were dealt swift and severe punishment by the Ministry of Virtue. A woman who fled an abusive home or charged spousal abuse would herself be severely whipped by the theocratic authorities. Women were outlawed from social life, deprived of most forms of medical care, barred from all levels of education, and any opportunity to work outside the home. Women who were deemed “immoral” were stoned to death or buried alive.
                        None of this was of much concern to leaders in Washington who got along famously with the Taliban. As recently as 1999, the US government was paying the entire annual salary of every single Taliban government official (SF Chronicle, 10/2/2001). Not until October 2001, when President George W. Bush had to rally public opinion behind his bombing campaign in Afghanistan did he denounce the Taliban’s oppression of women. His wife, Laura Bush, emerged overnight as a full-blown feminist to deliver a public address detailing some of the abuses committed against Afghan women.
                        If anything positive can be said about the Taliban, it is that they did put a stop to much of the looting, raping, and random killings that the mujahideen had practiced on a regular basis. In 2000 Taliban authorities also eradicated the cultivation of opium poppy throughout the areas under their control, an effort judged by the United Nations International Drug Control Program to have been nearly totally successful. With the Taliban overthrown and a Western-selected mujahideen government reinstalled in Kabul by December 2001, opium poppy production in Afghanistan increased dramatically.
                        The years of war that have followed have taken tens of thousands of Afghani lives. Along with those killed by Cruise missiles, Stealth bombers, Tomahawks, daisy cutters, and land mines are those who continue to die of hunger, cold, lack of shelter, and lack of water.
                        The Holy Crusade for Oil and Gas
                        While claiming to be fighting terrorism, US leaders have found other compelling but less advertised reasons for plunging deeper into Afghanistan. The Central Asian region is rich in oil and gas reserves. A decade before 9/11, Time magazine (18 March 1991) reported that US policy elites were contemplating a military presence in Central Asia. The discovery of vast oil and gas reserves in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan provided the lure, while the dissolution of the USSR removed the one major barrier against pursuing an aggressive interventionist policy in that part of the world.
                        US oil companies acquired the rights to some 75 percent of these new reserves. A major problem was how to transport the oil and gas from the landlocked region. US officials opposed using the Russian pipeline or the most direct route across Iran to the Persian Gulf. Instead, they and the corporate oil contractors explored a number of alternative pipeline routes, across Azerbaijan and Turkey to the Mediterranean or across China to the Pacific.
                        The route favored by Unocal, a US based oil company, crossed Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. The intensive negotiations that Unocal entered into with the Taliban regime remained unresolved by 1998, as an Argentine company placed a competing bid for the pipeline. Bush’s war against the Taliban rekindled UNOCAL’s hopes for getting a major piece of the action.
                        Interestingly enough, neither the Clinton nor Bush administrations ever placed Afghanistan on the official State Department list of states charged with sponsoring terrorism, despite the acknowledged presence of Osama bin Laden as a guest of the Taliban government. Such a “rogue state” designation would have made it impossible for a US oil or construction company to enter an agreement with Kabul for a pipeline to the Central Asian oil and gas fields.
                        In sum, well in advance of the 9/11 attacks the US government had made preparations to move against the Taliban and create a compliant regime in Kabul and a direct US military presence in Central Asia. The 9/11 attacks provided the perfect impetus, stampeding US public opinion and reluctant allies into supporting military intervention.
                        One might agree with John Ryan who argued that if Washington had left the Marxist Taraki government alone back in 1979, “there would have been no army of mujahideen, no Soviet intervention, no war that destroyed Afghanistan, no Osama bin Laden, and no September 11 tragedy.” But it would be asking too much for Washington to leave unmolested a progressive leftist government that was organizing the social capital around collective public needs rather than private accumulation.
                        US intervention in Afghanistan has proven not much different from US intervention in Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, and elsewhere. It had the same intent of preventing egalitarian social change, and the same effect of overthrowing an economically reformist government. In all these instances, the intervention brought retrograde elements into ascendance, left the economy in ruins, and pitilessly laid waste to many innocent lives.
                        The war against Afghanistan, a battered impoverished country, continues to be portrayed in US official circles as a gallant crusade against terrorism. If it ever was that, it also has been a means to other things: destroying a leftist revolutionary social order, gaining profitable control of one of the last vast untapped reserves of the earth’s dwindling fossil fuel supply, and planting US bases and US military power into still another region of the world.
                        In the face of all this Obama’s call for “change” rings hollow.

                        Comment


                        • Afganistan is really a mess, where we kill civilians and talibans. These days i really think it is crazy how american politicians have brought us to that and keep on advising what to do instead of being judged. Of course not talking about Kashmir and india

                          I dont know how much i can trust this vote and this governemnt. These days it seems a bit like a second checheny to me, in the name of supporting a corrupted government that is a western ally we dont mind killing civilians.

                          I think better solve the problems in palestine, kashmir, sudan (u can have a very different view of sudan from china, for instance how france supports chad governement despite regular violations of human rights, chad being a place where the pacific southern rebels take refuge, and how the west might fund and give weapons to christian rebels), somalia and such, really want to cut the corruption and poverty in afghanistan and start talking about stoppin using money.

                          As Kongzi said, u cannot rule by punishment but by moral example

                          I dont know, correct me if i am wrong



                          Observers see pattern of fraud before Afghan vote

                          http://l.yimg.com/a/i/us/nws/p/ap_logo_106.png
                          http://d.yimg.com/a/p/ap/20090813/ca...E0l12i917LYQ-- AP – A campaign vehicle covered with posters of presidential candidate and former Finance Minister Ashraf …



                          By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer Jason Straziuso, Associated Press Writer – Thu Aug 13, 6:23 pm ET
                          KABUL – Voting observers expect fraud during next week's Afghan presidential election and warn that cheating will most likely take place at polling stations in remote or dangerous areas where independent monitors won't be able to be present.
                          A suspiciously high number of women — far more than men — have been registered to vote in culturally conservative provinces where President Hamid Karzai expects to do well, a leading election monitor said this week. An adviser to the top U.S. commander said the black market for voter registration cards is flourishing and that she could have personally bought 1,000.
                          Monitors said they would tolerate a limited amount of fraud in the Aug. 20 balloting.
                          "If the level of corruption or violation is under 10 percent, it will be acceptable for me," said Jandad Spinghar, the executive director of the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan, the country's top independent election monitoring group.
                          "My personal feeling is we cannot expect that our election will be according to the standard that you have in the United States or Germany or France, but at least we should have a voting process according to the level of a country in the Third World."
                          But serious questions over the fairness of the election raise the possibility that losing candidates and their supporters will not accept the results. That could lead to a period of political turmoil in a country where the central government is struggling to exert control in many regions.
                          Taliban militants have vowed to disrupt the election and warned Afghans to stay away from the polls. With one week to go before the ballot, Karzai declared that Afghan government forces would observe an election day cease-fire and called on militants not to "create problems for people who vote."
                          Among the questionable election figures is the number of Afghans the country's election commission says have registered: more than 17 million. The campaign of former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah — Karzai's top challenger — alleges that there are more registered than eligible voters.
                          The CIA estimates the population of Afghanistan at 33.6 million, and says that half the population is under age 18. No one can be sure, however, because the country hasn't conducted a census since 1979.
                          The number of women who were registered over the last year in Paktia, Khost and Logar provinces is also raising eyebrows, said Spinghar. Afghan males there registered multiple women from their families — as many as 10 or 15 in some cases — and claimed that because of cultural sensitivities the women could not register in person, he said. It's not clear those women exist.
                          The dominant ethnic group in all three conservative provinces is the Pashtun tribe. Karzai, the leading candidate in a crowded field of three dozen contenders hoping to win a five-year term, is a Pashtun.
                          Figures from Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission show that 72,958 women registered in Khost compared with 38,500 men; 87,600 women registered in Paktia compared with 50,250 men; and 36,849 women registered in Logar but 14,342 men.
                          "The number of women is so high compared with the men," Spinghar said. "We cannot expect so many women to have registered."
                          The figures are far different in other areas. In Herat, a more liberal province where women move about more freely, 55,483 women registered compared with 104,946 men, commission figures show. In Kunduz, another northern, more liberal province, 45,572 women registered compared with 109,650 men.
                          The European Union Election Observation Mission, which will send out 120 monitors, said it's concerned that male heads of household may try to vote for all the females in their families — a practice forbidden by election rules.
                          "It's something that we're looking at in the south and the southeast of the country," the mission's deputy chief, Dimitra Ioannou, said Thursday. "We are concerned about this because the number of registered voters in that region is quite high."
                          Spinghar said his monitors also reported multiple cases of underage Afghans registering and receiving voting cards.

                          The top U.N. official in the country, Kai Eide, said last weekend that fraud prevention measures are much better than they were in 2004, when Afghanistan held its first direct presidential election. As in the previous election, each voter will be required to dip his or her finger in indelible ink, a measure intended to prevent people from voting multiple times.
                          In 2004, however, there were complaints that some election staff used regular ink — which was easy to wash off. Other allegations included ballot-box stuffing and voter intimidation.
                          Eide said he does not expect a completely fair election.
                          "Will there be irregularities? Yes, I fear there will," he said. "But I hope with the measures that have been undertaken we will be able to keep it to a level that will not affect the credibility of the elections."
                          Spinghar said enforcement of the one-vote ink rule will depend on the impartiality of the election staff.
                          "We have enough observers, but in places where there are no observers or the IEC (Independent Election Commission) is not able to control the impartiality of their staff, we cannot guarantee a good vote," he said.
                          A former journalist who has lived in Afghanistan since 2001 and is now an adviser to U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said she personally bought 10 voter registration cards on the black market.
                          "I could have bought a thousand if I had wanted to. And I could take those or somebody could take those into a polling place, you know, one of the more remote ones, and just fill out ballots in the names of those people whose cards you have," Sarah Chayes said on MSNBC last month. Spinghar hopes to have 8,000 election observers in the field, but he said he can't guarantee all will go out because of weak security. Thousands of U.S., NATO and Afghan security forces are working to secure remote voting sites. Election officials have said militant violence in the south will prevent some 700 of the country's 7,000 polling centers from opening

                          Comment


                          • "As Kongzi said, u cannot rule by punishment but by moral example"

                            This may be true, but i think sometimes it is a mixture of both. As life also can be punishing, as well as a moral example.

                            Confucianism isnt my cup of tea.
                            "Life is a run. In attack we run, in defense we run. When you can no longer run, time to die" - Shichiroji "Seven samurai"

                            Comment


                            • Foreign Affairs — The leading magazine for analysis and debate of foreign policy, economics and global affairs.


                              HomeFeaturesSnapshots › Hamas 2.0
                              Hamas 2.0


                              The Islamic Resistance Movement Grows Up


                              Michael Bröning


                              August 5, 2009


                              Summary --
                              The January war in Gaza overshadowed the fact that Hamas is in the midst of an unprecedented ideological transformation -- and it's time for the West to pay attention.



                              MICHAEL BRÖNING is Director of the East Jerusalem office of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, a German political foundation affiliated with the Social Democratic Party. He is a regular contributor to German newspapers and magazines, including Die Zeit and Der Spiegel.




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                              Steven A. Cook

                              An annotated Foreign Affairs syllabus on the Middle East peace process.

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                              “ But how symbolic is the launching of hundreds of Qassam rockets? They might be not a militarily effective weapon, but they’re definitely more than 'symbols.'


                              David W. comments on
                              "Hamas 2.0" 14 Comments Join





                              For decades, Western decision-makers have viewed Hamas as a terrorist organization that seeks to destroy the state of Israel and thus will never accept a territorial compromise based on a two-state solution.
                              Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently reiterated that assessment in a July 14, 2009, speech in Tel Aviv. Unfortunately, it also forms the basis of U.S. President Barack Obama's new approach to Middle East peacemaking. In his Cairo address, Obama refrained from labeling Hamas a "terrorist organization," but he urged Hamas to reform itself. "To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations," he declared, "Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel's right to exist." The message was clear: if Hamas wants to be part of a political solution to the conflict, it has to adapt to political benchmarks set by Israel, the United States, and the Middle East Quartet.
                              The perception of Hamas as an organization intrinsically incapable of compromise has driven Western policy for more than 20 years and remains one of the most influential dogmas in Middle East diplomacy. Western observers justify their belief that any rapprochement with Hamas would be futile by pointing to its history of terrorist attacks and the movement's supposedly inflexible ideology. They bolster their argument by referring to the Hamas charter, the group's 1988 founding manifesto, which outlines a militant doctrine aimed at "liberating the land of Palestine" by force and invokes such anti-Semitic tracts as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
                              However, such critics fail to grasp the transformation currently taking place within Hamas. Today, the charter has ceased to play a significant role in the group's ideology. As early as 1990, Hamas began to distance itself from the document, which has since fallen into neglect. Although Hamas has not officially renounced the charter, no references to it can be found in any of the group's recent statements. Moreover, Hamas leaders, such as Mahmoud Ahmad al-Ramahi, the secretary-general of the Palestinian Legislative Council, have recently begun downplaying the charter's relevance by clarifying that "it should not be confused with the Holy Koran."
                              Rather than focusing on Hamas' unbending symbolic positions, Western diplomats should acknowledge the organization's reduced aspirations and ideological softening.

                              In turn, Western decision-makers should rethink their approach. Rather than basing political judgments on largely outdated proclamations, they should study recent Hamas policies and the movement's performance on the ground. In 2006, Hamas began to evolve from a dogmatic organization located outside the political system into a functioning opposition party within the Palestinian body politic. This shift was followed by a transformation from a radical opposition party into the majority party of the Palestinian territories and, after the 2006 elections, the de facto governing party of Gaza. In a surprisingly short time, Hamas has largely abandoned religious rhetoric and calls for the violent liberation of Palestine, in favor of the increasingly secular and pragmatic task of state building.
                              Following its decision to participate in Palestinian elections in January 2006, Hamas conducted a thorough review of its political platform for the first time. Its campaign focused not on violent resistance but on promises of judicial reform, improved education and housing, as well as better health and environmental policies. The movement won a landslide victory in what was considered a democratic and fair election.
                              Hamas later released a "cabinet platform," in which Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza's current prime minister, detailed the movement's principles as ruling party. The document marked Hamas' transition from a radical armed movement to an aspiring governing party. It does not mention armed resistance or anti-Israeli agitation. Instead, it focuses primarily on state building and economic policies, even identifying "international investment as a basic pillar in sustainable development."
                              In June 2007, the collapse of the Palestinian unity government and the subsequent coup d'etat in Gaza effectively established Hamas as the governing authority there. Hamas' ruthless ousting of Fatah forces put it in an unprecedented position: for the first time in the history of the modern Middle East, a Sunni religious fundamentalist organization had gained control over a substantial stretch of territory with a homogenous population.
                              Confronted with the task of governing one-third of the Palestinian population, Hamas immediately engaged in state-building activities, such as collecting taxes, controlling borders, and reforming security forces. Faced with an orchestrated strike of civil servants, Hamas leaders did not dissolve government structures in order to establish "traditional Islamic" forms of governance, opting instead to staff Palestinian institutions in Gaza with loyal party activists. In doing so, they differed substantially from radical Salafi movements in Somalia or Taliban warlords in Afghanistan. Five years of Taliban rule resulted in the absence of a functioning central government, minimal formal economic activity, and only rudimentary administrative offices. In contrast to this premodern style of governance, Hamas adapted to existing institutions, established a strong monopoly on institutional power, and ruthlessly suppressed opposing Fatah activists, religious rivals from the Islamic Jihad movement, and criminal gangs.
                              Although Hamas is running a fairly efficient civil administration in Gaza, this should not conceal the more disturbing aspects of Hamas rule: the movement remains authoritarian, human rights violations are common, and freedom of expression has been significantly curtailed in Gaza

                              That said, Hamas' decision to join the Palestinian government in 2006, and its subsequent takeover of Gaza, have led to a significant ideological softening regarding the idea of a two-state solution. In April 2006, the foreign minister of the Hamas-led Palestinian government, Mahmoud al-Zahar, indicated a subtle shift by vaguely alluding to a two-state solution in a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. After two years of diplomatic boycotts of Hamas, this message is finally getting out.
                              In response to statements from Obama and Netanyahu, the Hamas leader Khaled Mashal spoke in Damascus in June. He outlined a political agenda that starkly broke with the traditionally rigid rhetoric of confrontation: "At a minimum," he said, "we demand the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital with full sovereignty within the 1967 borders, removing all checkpoints and achieving the right of return." Just before Mashal's speech, Haniyeh likewise called for a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders. The significance of this change in Hamas' political stance becomes clear when compared to the uncompromising anti-Semitic language of the charter, which categorically calls for the liberation of all of "Palestine."
                              Mashal and Haniyeh's break with the rhetoric of the past reflects a fundamental shift within Hamas based on broad consensus. Indeed, the only open criticism of this new direction came from Hizb-al Tahrir, a radical Islamist party that enjoys only marginal support in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Although Mashal's insistence on a "right of return" may seem as irreconcilable with Israeli positions as the division of Jerusalem, his recent statements could conceivably pave the way for a historic territorial compromise.
                              Contrary to what Hamas leaders expected, the Western reaction to Mashal's statement has been lukewarm due to Hamas' continuing refusal to formally accept Israel's right to exist. Western observers took this apparent contradiction as tactical double-talk and quickly dismissed the notion that Hamas had changed. For Hamas, however, showing strategic ambiguity -- a de facto acceptance of Israel paired with a refusal to recognize Israel's legitimacy -- is of paramount importance. In advance of upcoming elections Hamas needs to keep its stance vague in order to maintain its own legitimacy as an Islamic Resistance Movement in Gaza and the West Bank.
                              Recognizing Israel as a Jewish state would not only damage Hamas' public standing among Palestinians but also reduce its political leverage in future negotiations with Israel. In the words of Zahar, "[T]he PLO's recognition of Israel [in 1993] was not reciprocated by an equivalent Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state or national rights. It was a dirty game, and we are not going to repeat it."
                              But this refusal to recognize Israel and the resulting ambiguity need not rule out diplomatic engagement with Hamas. After all, pragmatic political concessions have often preceded abstract ideological shifts. A variety of radical organizations have followed this model of reform, including the European socialist movements of the twentieth century. These groups remained faithful to the historical commitment to class struggle and revolution long after notions of violent Leninist uprisings had lost any practical relevance. Similarly, the People's Republic of China has created special economic zones that epitomize capitalist development while zealously maintaining its commitment to communism as the state's official ideology.
                              Rather than focusing on Hamas' unbending symbolic positions, Western diplomats should acknowledge the organization's reduced aspirations and ideological softening. Hamas has ceased to act purely as a terrorist organization and has demonstrated that it is capable of political development and ideological pragmatism. This shift is supported by all factions of Hamas: the hard-liners in Damascus represented by Mashal, moderate detainees incarcerated in Israel, and Haniyeh's middle-of-the-road leadership in Gaza.
                              Unfortunately, recent reactions from Washington have been less than promising. The deputy spokesman for the U.S. State Department, Tom Casey, rejected Mashal's groundbreaking speech, stating, "Nothing has changed in terms of Hamas' basic views about Israel and about peace in the region." Focusing on Hamas' abstract ideological positions, he went on to say that "Hamas still believes in the destruction of the state of Israel and does not believe in Israel's right to exist."
                              Rather than reciting the same worn-out formulations, Western diplomats must acknowledge the favorable developments on the ground and abandon their policy of boycotting Hamas. Instead, the United States and its European allies should signal their acceptance of a Palestinian government that includes Hamas. Such an approach would encourage Hamas to further reinvent itself and increase the chances for Palestinian reconciliation -- opening up new negotiating opportunities for Western, Israeli, and Palestinian decision-makers. In the end, only talks without preconditions will resolve the current ideological stalemate and pave the way for a two-state solution and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace.

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                              • I would say "hate to say I told you so", but the truth is I quite enjoy it.

                                "Cheney Refuted: Those CIA memos he got released don't show what he said they'd show."

                                In April, after the Obama White House released memos documenting the Central Intelligence Agency's use of what the Bush administration called "enhanced interrogation techniques" and what everybody else called "torture," former Vice President Dick Cheney said:

                                One of the things that I find a little bit disturbing about this recent disclosure is they put out the legal memos, the memos that the CIA got from the Office of Legal Counsel, but they didn't put out the memos that showed the success of the effort. … I know specifically of reports that I read, that I saw, that lay out what we learned through the interrogation process and what the consequences were for the country.

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                                Cheney went on to say that he'd requested that copies of these reports be made public. In May, the CIA denied Cheney's request, but on Aug. 24, it released the documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by Judicial Watch, a conservative nonprofit. You can read the reports. Portions have been redacted, so perhaps the evidence Cheney claims that enhanced interrogation saved American lives has been blacked out. But judging from what's visible to the naked eye, the documents do not provide anything like the vindication that Cheney claims.

                                The first report, dated July 13, 2004, is titled "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: Preeminent Source on al-Qaida." The second report, dated June 3, 2005, is titled "Detainee Reporting Pivotal for the War Against al-Qaida." As the titles suggest, these reports are not about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of water-boarding and other techniques employed to elicit information from enemy combatants; they speak only to the value of the information gleaned from Sheikh Mohammed and other detainees. We know that Sheikh Mohammed and other detainees were water-boarded, but the reports shed no light on what they said before they were water-boarded versus what they said afterward.

                                To the extent that the two reports explore detainees' reasons for revealing valued information, it is to demonstrate not how difficult it was to elicit but how easy. Sheikh Mohammed, we learn, "appears to have calculated, incorrectly, that we had this information [about al-Qaida's attempts to acquire biological and chemical weapons] already." What a chump! Also, "almost immediately following his capture in March 2003," Sheikh Mohammed "elaborated on his plan to crash commercial airplanes into Heathrow Airport." This was probably because he knew a key plotter was already in custody. But he "withheld details about the evolution of the operation until confronted with"—a cat-o'-nine-tails?—no (yawn), just "reporting from two other operatives knowledgeable concerning the plot." Sheikh Mohammed dropped a dime on Iyman Faris, a truck driver from Ohio with whom Sheikh Mohammed had plotted to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge by cutting its cables with acetylene torches. Sheikh Mohammed, we learn, gave Faris up "[s]oon after his arrest." Far from a tough nut, the Sheikh Mohammed who emerges from these reports sounds like a regular Chatty Cathy.

                                Abu Zubaydah (whose importance within al-Qaida later became a matter of some dispute) identified Sheikh Mohammed as 9/11's mastermind "early in his detention," which, a March 29 Washington Post story reported, citing unnamed CIA officials, was before Zubaydah was water-boarded. After Zubaydah was water-boarded, the Post said, "Zubaida's revelations triggered a series of alerts and sent hundreds of CIA and FBI investigators scurrying in pursuit of phantoms." Every lead "ultimately dissolved into smoke and shadow, according to high-ranking former U.S. officials with access to classified reports."
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                                It's certainly possible that Sheikh Mohammed, Zubaydah, and others gave up key information after being roughed up. In Sheikh Mohammed's case, we know he was subjected to intensive water-boarding almost immediately; according to one Justice Department memo, he was water-boarded 183 times in March 2003, the same month he was captured. But the two CIA reports do not specify which information came before the water-boarding and which came after. Even if they did, one would need to keep in mind the fallacy post hoc, ergo propter hoc—just because one thing happens after another thing, that doesn't mean it happened because of that other thing. If, in fact, it was easy to elicit from Sheikh Mohammed the information cited above after he was water-boarded, we might still legitimately wonder exactly how difficult it would have been had the water-boarding never occurred.

                                Iyman Faris, for the record, had already given up on destroying the Brooklyn Bridge well before Sheikh Mohammed's arrest. (Apparently it's more difficult than it looks. Faris is currently serving 20 years for providing material support to al-Qaida.) Extensive details about al-Qaida's anthrax program had been revealed a year and a half before Sheikh Mohammed's arrest, thanks to the Wall Street Journal's discovery of Ayman al-Zawahiri's disk drive, which it promptly turned over to authorities.

                                To be fair, Sayf al-Rahman Paracha, whom Sheikh Mohammed gave up in March 2003—they'd plotted to bring explosives into the United States for an attack on New York City—may still have been trying to blow something up in New York when he was captured five months later. (He's currently in Guantanamo.) We don't know, and the two CIA reports don't say. But it doesn't inspire confidence that both reports dwell not on whatever it was that Paracha was up to but, rather, on the Library Tower plot, details of which were revealed by Sheikh Mohammed under interrogation. As I have previously demonstrated at great length, the Library Tower, a building in Los Angeles now known as the U.S. Bank Tower, was in no danger at the time of Sheikh Mohammed's arrest. That's because the plot's ringleader had been captured 13 months before, and the second of four conspirators had been captured three months before. That left two plotters, one of whom has stated that he believed the operation to have been called off. He was in a good position to know, because he was working at the time for Riduan Isamuddin ("Hambali")—leader of a Southeast Asian al-Qaida affiliate called Jemaah Islamiyah and the man Sheikh Mohammed had placed in charge of the Library Tower attack. And, anyway, the plot called for a plane to be flown into the Library Tower, 9/11-style. That particular terror technique failed to remain viable even through 9/11, as the heroism of United Flight 93's passengers demonstrated. And there was another problem: Neither of the two plotters who remained at large knew how to fly a plane.

                                But don't take my word for it. The Bush White House repeatedly claimed that it had shut down the Library Tower plot for good in February 2002.

                                Update, Aug. 26, 2009: The newly released, less-redacted version of the 2004 CIA Inspector General's report on enhanced interrogation sheds more light on all these questions than the two reports whose release Cheney demanded. Most significantly, it states that Sheikh Mohammed "provided only a few intelligence reports prior to the use of the waterboard, and analysis of that information revealed that much of it was outdated, inaccurate, or incomplete." So why didn't Cheney talk up the IG report instead? Perhaps because its findings on whether enhanced interrogation actually worked are inconclusive. Perhaps because it says that "[u]nauthorized, improvised, inhumane, and undocumented techniques were used," including mock executions and threats to harm or kill members of detainees' families, and that these techniques were "inconsistent with the public policy positions that the United States has taken regarding human rights." Perhaps because it says that none of the plots revealed by detainees "were imminent." (So much for ticking time bombs.) Perhaps because it says that enhanced interrogation has put the CIA at risk of "potentially serious long-term political and legal challenges." Perhaps because, even though the conclusions are still blacked out, one gets the strong sense that the CIA IG thinks torturing enemy combatants was a truly terrible idea.

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