By Dean Yates

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq hopes to have security control of all its provinces by the year-end, the national security adviser said on Wednesday, underscoring the government’s growing confidence in its own forces.

In a sign of the challenges ahead, a car bomb killed 15 people and wounded 90 at a market in the northern town of Tal Afar, the town’s mayor said. The U.S. military said initial reports put the death toll at 12, with 18 wounded.

The attack followed several bombings on Tuesday which killed around 40 people in northern areas, where al Qaeda militants are still feared despite a series of military offensives.

National security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie was speaking at a ceremony where U.S.-led troops handed security responsibility for southern Shi’ite Qadisiya province to Iraqi forces.

The handover puts Baghdad in control of security in 10 of the country’s 18 provinces, all mainly Shi’ite or Kurdish areas.

“We aspire to reach to the 18th province before the end of this year. God willing, all provinces will be under the control of the Iraqi security authorities before the end of this year,” Rubaie said in a speech broadcast on state-controlled Iraqiya television from the Qadisiya capital of Diwaniya.

U.S. military officials have been much more cautious about timeframes for handing back security control of some of the remaining provinces, especially in the north and also Baghdad.

But the growing confidence Iraqi leaders have in handling their own security affairs was shown last week when Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki suggested that a timetable be set for the withdrawal of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

The level of U.S. troops is a key issue in November’s presidential election battle between Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama. McCain supports the Bush administration’s current strategy, while Obama wants a timetable for withdrawal.

The U.S. military said on Wednesday the last of five extra combat brigades sent to Iraq in 2007 would finish withdrawing next week. That will bring the so-called “surge” to an end, while leaving 140,000 U.S. troops in the country.

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By Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Tuesday a “single-minded” focus on Iraq was distracting the United States from other threats, and he promised to end the war and shift resources to fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Obama, embroiled in sharp debate with Republican White House rival John McCain over Iraq, said the lengthy commitment of combat troops there diminished U.S. security and standing in the world.

“By any measure, our single-minded and open-ended focus on Iraq is not a sound strategy for keeping America safe,” Obama said in a speech designed to lay out his views on the war ahead of his planned trip to Afghanistan and Iraq soon.

“As president, I will make the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban the top priority that it should be,” Obama said. “This is a war that we have to win.”

The future of Iraq promises to be a central issue in the November election battle for the White House between McCain, a staunch advocate of the war, and Obama, an early opponent of the U.S. invasion.

Obama criticized McCain, an Arizona senator, and U.S. President George W. Bush for making Iraq the center of the battle against terrorism and said he would pursue a new national security strategy to rebuild foreign alliances and regain global goodwill destroyed by the war.

“I am running for president of the United States to lead this country in a new direction — to seize this moment’s promise,” the first-term senator from Illinois said.

Obama also promised a renewed effort to seize nuclear materials from terrorists and “rogue” nations, and said he would be willing to use “all elements” of U.S. power to pressure Iran on its nuclear program.

McCain has suggested Obama is wavering on his pledge to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months, pointing to Obama’s recent comment he might “refine” his policies on Iraq based on consultations with military commanders.

But Obama emphasized that while he is open to tactical adjustments, the 16-month timetable remains his goal. He said their disagreement on Iraq was indicative of a different approach to diplomacy and national security.

“Senator McCain wants to talk of our tactics in Iraq; I want to focus on a new strategy for Iraq and the wider world,” he said.

The renewed debate on Iraq came as bombers killed around 40 people and wounded scores in several attacks in northern Iraq, days after the government vowed to expand a crackdown against militants in a region where al Qaeda retains influence.

Second Trip to Iraq

McCain criticized Obama for giving a speech on Iraq before traveling there. Obama has visited Iraq once, in 2006, and has never been to Afghanistan. His trip follows criticism from McCain that he should visit the area and talk to commanders.

“I note that he is speaking today about his plans for Iraq and Afghanistan before he has even left,” McCain said in New Mexico. “In my experience, fact-finding missions usually work best the other way around: first you assess the facts on the ground, then you present a new strategy.”

He said Obama had opposed Bush’s increase in troops in Iraq and predicted its failure, but now conceded it had reduced violence. “My friends, flip-floppers all around the world are enraged,” McCain said. “Today we know he was wrong. The surge has succeeded.”

A Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Tuesday found Americans evenly divided on the candidates’ positions on Iraq with 47 percent of those polled saying they trust McCain more to handle the war, and 45 percent having more faith in Obama.

Obama has proposed adding two U.S. combat brigades, about 9,000 troops, to the 36,000 troops already in Afghanistan and said this would be made possible by a drawdown of troops from Iraq.

In New Mexico, McCain also said the security situation had deteriorated in Afghanistan and promised to bolster the war effort there. An attack on a U.S. base near the Pakistan border by a resurgent Taliban on Sunday killed nine U.S. soldiers and wounded 15, the biggest single American loss there since 2005.
“That’s no way to run a war,” McCain said.

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Press Release from the Office of Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN-5th)

Washington, D.C. — Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minneapolis) introduced a Congressional Resolution today expressing the sense of Congress to accept the Iraqi Government’s stated goal of setting a timetable for withdrawal of American troops, and calling on President Bush to honor his pledge to leave Iraq when the Iraqi government asked us to do so.

“Mr. President, you have long said we would stay in Iraq until the day the Iraqis asked us to leave.  That day has come.  Three days ago, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki spoke before a gathering of Arab Ambassadors and called ‘either for the departure of (U.S.) forces or a memorandum of understanding to put a timetable on their withdrawal9,” Ellison stated.

The Iraqi Prime Minister further stated that any agreement regarding a United States military role in Iraq should be based on “respect for the full sovereignty of Iraq.”

Ellison’s resolution makes an unequivocal statement that the United States does not seek a long-term or permanent presence in Iraq would send a strong signal to the people of Iraq and the international community that the United States fully supports setting a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. Armed Forces from Iraq.

“Over four thousand of America’s best and brightest have given the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq in the last five years, and over 30,000 Americans have been gravely wounded.  We have borrowed over $535 BILLION from our children’s future to finance this war – over $340 MILLION per day – enough to fund over 2 Million elementary school teachers each year, or provide over 40 MILLION Americans with health care for one year.  It’s time to bring our brave troops home and start investing in America again,” Ellison said.

“While I do not agree with the Iraqi Prime Minister’s particular timetable, I am heartened that he too agrees with many of us in Congress that it is time for American troops to end U.S. military presence in Iraq on a timetable,” the 5th District Congressman stated.

“Mr. President, over four years ago, on April 13, 2004, you stated, ‘As a proud and independent people, Iraqis do not support an indefinite occupation, and neither does America.’  Mr. President, I couldn’t agree with you more and four years later is long overdue to fulfill that obligation.”  Ellison concluded.

Congressman Ellison was joined by twenty five Members of Congress as original co-sponsors to his Resolution (H Res 1329).

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Courtesy Kathy Gannon, Associated Press Writer

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan– In early June, about 300 fighters from jihadist groups came together for a secret gathering here, in the same city that serves as headquarters to the Pakistani army.

The groups were launched long ago with the army’s clandestine support to fight against India in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. But at the meeting, they agreed to resolve their differences and commit more fighters to another front instead: Afghanistan.

“The message was that the jihad in Kashmir is still continuing but it is not the most important right now. Afghanistan is the fighting ground, against the Americans there,” said Toor Gul, a leader of the militant group Hezb-ul Mujahedeen. The groups included the al-Qaida-linked Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, banned by Pakistan and branded terrorists by the U.S., he said.

The U.S. military says militant attacks in eastern Afghanistan have increased 40 percent this year over 2007. And for two straight months, the death toll of foreign troops in Afghanistan has exceeded that of Iraq. On Sunday, nine U.S. soldiers were killed in an ambush in Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province, the deadliest single attack for the U.S. since June 2005.

Pakistani military and European intelligence officials, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the information is sensitive, confirmed the June meeting and said it was the second such gathering this year. A senior military official described the inability to prevent the meetings as “an intelligence failure.”

Despite growing pressure on Pakistan to quell Islamic militancy, jihadist groups within its borders are in fact increasing their cooperation to attack U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, according to interviews with a wide range of militants, intelligence officials, and military officers.

Militants say they operate with minimal interference, and sometimes tacit cooperation, from Pakistani authorities, while diplomats say the country’s new government has until now been ineffectual in dealing with a looming threat.

“Where there were embers seven years ago we are now fighting flames,” a serving Western general told The Associated Press, referring to both Afghanistan and Pakistan’s border regions. He agreed to be interviewed on condition his identity and nationality were not revealed.

A Pentagon report released late last month described a dual terror threat in Afghanistan: the Taliban in the south, and “a more complex, adaptive insurgency” in the east. That fragmented insurgency is made up of groups ranging from al-Qaida-linked Afghan warlords such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s radical Hezb-i-Islami group to Pakistani militants such as Jaish-e-Mohammed, the report said.

Hekmatyar’s is the strongest rebel group in Afghanistan’s Kunar province, where Sunday’s deadly ambush occurred. His group has also had close contacts with jihadi groups in Pakistan.

In the past, the Taliban were suspicious of the mujahadeen groups with close associations to the Pakistani military and intelligence. But now Gul, who fights alongside Hekmatyar’s men in Kunar province, said they are united in the fight for Afghanistan. He told the AP he had been to Kunar in the last two months but refused to be more specific.

Mark Laity, NATO spokesman in Afghanistan, said Pakistan’s new civilian government has reduced its preventive military action and is trying to negotiate peace deals with the militants. He expressed concern that the deals were leading to “increased cross border activity.”

The Pakistani government also appears to be loosening its grip on the volatile northwest, where the influence of Islamic extremists is expanding. Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding somewhere along the rugged, lawless Afghan-Pakistan border.

Pakistan’s Mohmand and Bajaur tribal areas are emerging as increasingly strong insurgent centers, according to Gul, the militant. His information was corroborated by Pakistani and Western officials. Both those tribal areas are right next door to Afghanistan’s Kunar province.

“Before there were special, hidden places for training. But now they are all over Bajaur and Mohmand,” he said. “Even in houses there is training going on.”

A former minister in President Pervez Musharraf’s ousted government, who did not want to be identified for fear of reprisals, said insurgents were being paid between 6,000 and 8,000 rupees — the equivalent of $90 and $120 — a month in Mohmand and grain was being collected to feed them. He did not identify the source of the donations but said Pakistan’s army and intelligence were aware of them.

Maulvi Abdul Rahman, a Taliban militant and former police officer under the ousted hardline regime, said jihadist sympathizers in the Middle East are sending money to support the insurgents and more Central Asians are coming to fight. Rahman said under a tacit understanding with authorities, militants were free to cross to fight in Afghanistan so long as they do not stage attacks inside Pakistan, which has been assailed by an unprecedented wave of suicide attacks in the past year.

“It is easy for me now. I just go and come. There are army checkposts and now we pass and they don’t say anything. Pakistan now understands that the U.S. is dangerous for them,” he said. “There is not an article in any agreement that says go to Afghanistan, but it is understood if we want to go to Afghanistan, OK, but leave Pakistan alone.’”

The Taliban appears to have considerable latitude to operate. Last month Baitullah Mehsud, the chief Pakistani Taliban leader, held a news conference attended by dozens of Pakistani journalists in South Waziristan tribal region. Authorities did nothing to stop it, although the Pakistani government and the CIA have accused Mehsud of plotting the December assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto.

Journalists who attended said there were no security forces to be seen as a convoy of as many as 20 vehicles passed into the Mehsud’s hideout — not far from where the army itself had taken an entourage of foreign journalists just a week earlier.

Tensions in Pakistan’s anti-terror alliance with the United States are growing. U.S. airstrikes during a border clash with militants on June 10 killed 11 Pakistani paramilitary troops — the deadliest incident of its kind, prompting a sharp rebuke by Pakistan’s army to Washington.

Pakistan’s army vehemently denies giving covert aid to militants and points out that 1,087 of its soldiers have died in the tribal regions since 2002 — more than the U.S. military and NATO have lost in Afghanistan.

“If anyone says the army is providing sanctuary, nothing could be further from the truth,” army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said. He criticized the U.S. and NATO forces for failing to capture insurgents when they cross into Afghanistan or stop them from coming into Pakistan.

“Is it the responsibility of only one side to stop the border crossings?” he asked.

A senior government official also said Pakistan — which once backed the Taliban but formally abandoned its support after the Sept. 11 attacks on America — has become the scapegoat for U.S. and NATO failures in Afghanistan.

“They don’t want to tell their bosses that they’ve made a mess of it in Afghanistan, where there is no governance, corruption is everywhere and the Afghan government is involved up to the hilt in heroin smuggling, gun running,” said the official, who had the authority to speak only if his name was not used. He denied the army was helping militants.

“Maybe one or two individuals are allowing things to happen, but as a policy it makes no sense to me. Just because we were in bed with them once doesn’t mean we are today.”

However, the Afghan government has directly accused Pakistani intelligence of plotting a recent assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai and the July 7 bombing outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul that killed at least 58 people.

Such allegations are virtually impossible to substantiate. But retired Pakistani general Talat Masood said the army still treats militants and Afghan rebels as “assets” because of its deep conviction that India is expanding its influence in Afghanistan and using its consulates there to foment an ethnic rebellion in Pakistan’s troubled southwest Baluchistan province.

“There are certain (militant) groups that have the full blessing of the army, some to which they are neutral and some they are against,” he said.

Although Pakistan has received some $10 billion in mostly military aid since 2001, the army mistrusts the United States — worried it could one day abandon Pakistan and even turn its guns on a country where it has repeatedly voiced concern that al-Qaida’s leadership is regrouping.

“They still believe in the same thing — that America will leave them tomorrow,” Masood said. “And we’ll be left high and dry with India strong, and a hostile government in Afghanistan and that we will have no friends.”

10-30

The inner core of the Earth is a primarily solid sphere about 1220 km in radius. Its diameter is only about 70% that of the Moon, and it may be hotter than the Sun’s surface.

The inner core is a solid ball of nickel and iron, which has the pressure of the whole Earth, situated at Earth’s center.

The existence of an inner core distinct from the liquid outer core was discovered in 1936 by seismologist Inge Lehmann using observations of earthquake-generated seismic waves that partly reflect from its boundary and can be detected by sensitive seismographs on the Earth’s surface.

The outer core was thought to be liquid due to its inability to transmit elastic shear waves because only compressional waves are observed to pass through it. The solidity of the inner core has been difficult to establish, because the elastic shear waves that are expected to pass through it are very weak and difficult to detect.

Dziewonski and Gilbert established the consistency of this hypothesis using normal modes of vibration of Earth caused by large earthquakes. Recent claims of detections of inner core transmitted shear waves were initially controversial but are now gaining acceptance.

Based on the abundance of chemical elements in the solar system, their physical properties, and other chemical constraints regarding the remainder of Earth’s volume, the inner core is believed to be composed primarily of a nickel-iron alloy, with very small amounts of some other elements.

Because it is less dense than pure iron, Francis Birch judged that the outer core contains about 10% of a mixture of lighter elements, although these are expected to be less abundant in the solid inner core.

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By Steve Doughty, The Daily Mail (UK)

The most senior judge in England yesterday gave his blessing to the use of Shari’ah law to resolve disputes among Muslims.

Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips said that Islamic legal principles could be employed to deal with family and marital arguments and to regulate finance.
He declared: ‘Those entering into a contractual agreement can agree that the agreement shall be governed by a law other than English law.’

In his speech at an East London mosque, Lord Phillips signalled approval of Shari’ah principles as long as punishments–and divorce rulings–complied with the law of the land.

But his remarks, which back the informal Shari’ah courts operated by numerous mosques, provoked a barrage of criticism.

Lawyers warned that family and marital disputes settled by Shari’ah could disadvantage women or the vulnerable.

Tories said that legal equality must be respected and that rulings incompatible with English law should never be enforceable.

Lord Phillips spoke five months after Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams suggested Islamic law could govern marital law, financial transactions and arbitration in disputes.

The Lord Chief Justice said yesterday of the Archbishop’s views: ‘It was not very radical to advocate embracing Shari’ah law in the context of family disputes’.
He added there is ‘widespread misunderstanding as to the nature of Shari’ah law’.

Lord Phillips said: ‘Those who are in dispute are free to subject it to mediation or to agree that it shall be resolved by a chosen arbitrator. There is no reason why principles of Shari’ah law or any other religious code should not be the basis for mediation or other forms of dispute resolution.’

Lord Phillips said that any sanctions must be ‘drawn from the laws of England and Wales’. Severe physical punishment–he mentioned stoning, flogging or amputating hands–is ‘out of the question’ in Britain, he added. . .

10-29

Associated Press

WASHINGTON—The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial and ethnic groups.

Law enforcement officials say the proposed policy would help them do exactly what Congress demanded after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: root out terrorists before they strike.

Although President Bush has disavowed targeting suspects based on their race or ethnicity, the new rules would allow the FBI to consider those factors among a number of traits that could trigger a national security investigation.

Currently, FBI agents need specific reasons — like evidence or allegations that a law probably has been violated — to investigate U.S. citizens and legal residents. The new policy, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press, would let agents open preliminary terrorism investigations after mining public records and intelligence to build a profile of traits that, taken together, were deemed suspicious.

Among the factors that could make someone subject of an investigation is travel to regions of the world known for terrorist activity, access to weapons or military training, along with the person’s race or ethnicity.

More than a half-dozen senior FBI, Justice Department and other U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the new policy agreed to discuss it only on condition of anonymity, either because they were not allowed to speak publicly or because the change is not yet final.

The change, which is expected later this summer, is part of an update of Justice Department policies known as the attorney general guidelines. They are being overhauled amid the FBI’s transition from a traditional crime-fighting agency to one whose top mission is to protect America from terrorist attacks.

“We don’t know what we don’t know. And the object is to cut down on that,” said one FBI official who defended the plans.

Another official, while also defending the proposed guidelines, raised concerns about criticism during the presidential election year over what he called ‘‘the P word’’ — profiling.

If adopted, the guidelines would be put in place in the final months of a presidential administration that has been dogged by criticism that its counterterror programs trample privacy rights and civil liberties.

Critics say the presumption of innocence is lost in the proposal. The FBI will be allowed to begin investigations simply ‘‘by assuming that everyone’s a suspect, and then you weed out the innocent,’’ said Caroline Fredrickson of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey acknowledged the overhaul was under way in early June, saying the guidelines sought to ensure regulations for FBI terror investigations don’t conflict with ones governing criminal probes. He would not give any details.

“It’s necessary to put in place regulations that will allow the FBI to transform itself … into an intelligence gathering organization in addition to just a crime solving organization,” Mukasey told reporters.

The changes would allow FBI agents to ask open-ended questions about activities of Muslim- or Arab-Americans, or investigate them if their jobs and backgrounds match trends that analysts deem suspect.

FBI agents would not be allowed to eavesdrop on phone calls or dig deeply into personal data — such as the content of phone or e-mail records or bank statements — until a full investigation was opened.

The guidelines focus on the FBI’s domestic operations and run about 40 pages long, several officials said. They do not specifically spell out what traits the FBI should use in building profiles.

One senior Justice Department official said agents have been allowed since 2003 to build ‘‘threat assessments’’ of Americans based on public records and information from informants. Such assessments could be used to open a preliminary investigation, the official said.

However, another official said the 2003 authorities are limited, tightly monitored by FBI headquarters in Washington and, overall, confusing to agents about how or when they can be used.

Justice spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the guidelines are part of a ‘‘harmonizing’’ process that will not give the FBI any more authority than it already has. He and two other senior Justice officials would not deny the changes as they were described to AP by others familiar with the guidelines.

“Since we are still in the process of drafting the guidelines, we are unable to comment any further about timing or the specific outcome of the review,’’ Roehrkasse said in a statement. ‘‘It is important to note, however, that nothing in the attorney general’s guidelines can authorize what is prohibited by any statute or by the Constitution.’’

Although the guidelines do not require congressional approval, House members recently sought to limit such profiling by rejecting an $11 million request for the FBI’s security assessment center.

Lawmakers wrote it that was unclear how the FBI could compile suspect profiles ‘‘in such a way as to avoid needless intrusions into the privacy of innocent citizens’’ and without wasting time and money chasing down false leads.

The denial of funding could limit the FBI’s use of profiles, or ‘‘predictive models and patterns of behavior’’ as the government prefers to describe the data-mining results, but would not change the guidelines authorizing them. The guidelines would remain in effect until a new attorney general decided to change them.

Courts across the country have overturned criminal convictions when defendants showed they were targeted based on race. Racial profiling generally is considered a civil rights violation, and former Attorney General John Ashcroft condemned it in March 2001 as an ‘‘unconstitutional deprivation of equal protection under our Constitution.’’

President Bush also has condemned racial profiling as ‘‘wrong in America’’ and in a December 2001 interview had harsh words for an airline that refused to let one of his Secret Service agents board a commercial flight. The agent was Arab-American. ‘‘If he was treated that way because of his ethnicity, that will make me madder than heck,’’ Bush said.

Immediately after 9/11, hundreds of Muslims and Arabs were detained, deported and monitored as the government urgently sought information that could prevent another attack. Despite efforts to repair and nurture relationships with those groups, Muslim- and Arab-Americans still complain of being singled out by federal security practices.

Martin Redish, a constitutional and civil rights scholar at Northwestern University School of Law, said courts are likely to give the FBI a lot of leeway in deciding how to open national security investigations.

“But it’s a very fine line to be drawn when the basis of the investigation is dominated by the ethnic background of the subject,’’ Redish said. ‘‘And when the investigation results in harassment, you have a serious constitutional concern.’’ Citing Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski and Oklahoma City bomber
Timothy McVeigh — two white Americans — the ACLU’s Fredrickson said: ‘‘Profiling has sent us in the wrong direction. … I thought we learned our lesson in that regard.’’

10-29

Courtesy Bill Van Auken

The embrace of key elements of the Republican agenda and jettisoning of positions that he advanced during his “Change you can believe in” primary campaign have become a daily routine, as the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential candidate Barack Obama carries out a dizzying turn to the right.

In speeches and press appearances on Wednesday and Thursday, Obama continued to identify his campaign with support for American militarism, while backing away from his primary-campaign pledge to withdraw US combat forces from Iraq based on a definite timetable.

Appearing Wednesday in Colorado Springs, Obama delivered a speech on national service, which hailed the US military and vowed to swell its ranks.

While proposing the expansion of Americorps, the Peace Corps and other civilian entities, Obama made it clear that the main service to which he intended to call young Americans was the military.

He began by invoking the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington and lamenting the failure of the Bush administration to issue “a call to service” and “a call for shared sacrifice.”

“There is no challenge greater than the defense of our nation and our values,” he continued, praising the actions of US troops “fighting a resurgent Taliban” and “persevering in the deserts and cities of Iraq.”

What “values” are embodied in the systematic destruction of the Afghan and Iraqi societies and the killing and maiming of millions of civilians in the attempt to impose US hegemony over oil-rich regions of the planet, the Democratic candidate did not spell out.

Instead, he insisted on the “need to ease the burden on our troops, while meeting the challenges of the 21st century.” That these “challenges” entail the continuation of these wars and the launching of new ones is clear. As president, he said, he would “call on a new generation of Americans to join our military,” while vowing to increase US ground forces by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines.

With the military struggling to meet current recruitment quotas, this proposal raises the real question of whether the national service envisioned by Obama will involve the reactivation of the military draft.

Speaking at a press conference in Fargo, North Dakota Thursday before addressing a group of veterans, Obama allowed that he expected to “refine” his positions on Iraq during an upcoming trip to the US occupied country this summer.

Backing away from his earlier pledge to carry out a 16-month withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq, the candidate said, “I have always said I would listen to the commanders on the ground. I have always said that the pace of withdrawal would be dictated by the safety and security of our troops and the need to maintain stability.” Meanwhile, he couched his opposition to the continued occupation of Iraq at current levels in terms of what he posed as the more urgent necessity for sending troops to Afghanistan.

Obama’s advisors have been more explicit. His top foreign policy advisor, Anthony Lake, a former Clinton administration national security advisor, told the press that an incoming Democratic administration was committed to maintaining “a residual force for clearly defined missions” in Iraq, as well as “preparedness to go back in,” if needed. “That is not a ‘cut and run’ and let’s just see what happens,’” said Lake, one of the architects of the Clinton administration’s “humanitarian” interventions in Somalia, Haiti and the Balkans.

Meanwhile, there is growing speculation that Obama is prepared to keep current US Defense Secretary Robert Gates at his post and the campaign has agreed to participate in a series of transition teams being set up in military, intelligence and police agencies to assure the seamless continuation of the “global war on terrorism.”

Having won the Democratic primaries in no small part by posturing as an opponent of the Iraq war and indicting his opponent, Hillary Clinton, for voting to authorize it, Obama is now presenting himself as another “wartime president.”

The lurch to the right by the Obama campaign is so blatant that it has aroused substantial commentary in the bourgeois press, some of it gloating and some of it reflecting concerns that this maneuver is so naked that it may alienate substantial layers of the population from the electoral process and expose the fraud of the entire two-party system.

The Christian Science Monitor, for example, cited concerns Thursday that Obama’s lurch to the right posed “a particular risk among young voters, who have turned out and volunteered in droves for Obama and may be disillusioned by his display of old-style politics.”

In the gloating category was an editorial published Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Bush’s Third Term.” The Journal, whose editorial board has generally reflected the views within the right-wing sections of the Republican Party that dominate the Bush administration, pointed to Obama’s continuous warnings against McCain’s victory resulting in “George Bush’s third term.”

“Maybe he’s worried that someone will notice that he’s the candidate running for it,” the editorial affirmed.

It went on to note Obama’s announcement two weeks ago that he will vote for legislation legalizing the Bush administration’s sweeping domestic wiretapping program, while granting retroactive immunity to the telecom companies that helped it carry out this unlawful spying operation. It pointed to the pullback from campaign promises of a timetable for withdrawing US combat troops from Iraq. And it cited his embrace of government funding for “faith-based” social programs, as well as a series of calculated statements on so-called hot button issues of the political right, ranging from guns to the death penalty.

Another demagogic appeal that the Obama campaign has jettisoned is the previous pretense that he opposed NAFTA and sympathized with the protectionist outlook of the trade union bureaucracy. In a recent interview with Fortune magazine, the candidate declared, “I’ve always been a proponent of free trade,” and allowed that some of the primary rhetoric on the subject had been “overheated.”

“Now that he is in a general election,” the Journal commented, “he can’t scare the business community too much.” It would appear that the stock exchange is not at all frightened. According to figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, Obama has netted nearly $8 million in contributions from the securities and investment houses, almost double the amount received by his Republican rival, McCain.

The Journal editorial concludes cynically, though justifiably, that “the next President, whether Democrat or Republican, is going to embrace much of Mr. Bush’s foreign and antiterror policy whether he admits it or not.”

In the end, this right-wing voice of Wall Street criticizes Obama not for his policies, but rather for what it terms his questionable “political character,” meaning doubts about whether he can be trusted to carry through the wars abroad and attacks on the working class at home that the ruling elite requires.

Obama’s turn to the right is the manifestation of a system in which the policies of both major parties are determined by a small wealthy layer of the population, which holds the will and sentiments of the American population in contempt.

The right-wing agenda being spelled out by the Obama campaign sets the stage for yet another election in which the masses of working people in the US will find themselves politically disenfranchised, with no viable means to express their immense hostility to the policies of war, destruction of living standards, and political reaction identified with the Bush administration.

Obama’s rapid evolution in the wake of the primaries demonstrates the politics of deception and manipulation of public opinion that his campaign has embodied from the outset. It has never represented an insurgency from below, but rather a bid by elements of the ruling elite to effect certain definite but limited changes in policy, while using Obama to supply a fresh face for American imperialism under conditions in which it is discredited at home and abroad.

The attempt to use the Obama campaign to delude broad layers of the population seeking change enjoys the active and crucial support of most of what passes for the American “left.” They seek to cover up or apologize for the right-wing trajectory of the Democrats. Some put forward the cynical argument that Obama is merely doing what it takes to get elected—the American people, they would argue, are backward and right-wing. Others maintain that he is reacting to pressure from the establishment and must be pushed back on course through pressure from the left.

Typical of this second school is the left liberal journalist Arianna Huffington, who posted on her web site advice to Obama, warning him that “tacking to the center is a losing strategy.”

Instead, she called upon him to “appeal to the 82 million people who did not vote in 2004.” She continued, “Isn’t galvanizing the electorate to demand fundamental change the raison d’être of the Obama campaign in the first place?”

In reality, Obama is now running on his real program, that of a corrupt and reactionary big business politician. He will leave it to figures like Huffington, the Nation, and others on the so-called left to continue promoting illusions in his candidacy, while he makes his pitch to his key constituencies, the financial aristocracy and the forces of the state.

The Democrats have no interest in coming into office with a mandate for “fundamental change,” because they have no desire or intention of carrying out such transformations. In fact, Obama’s latest campaign swing is aimed in no small part at creating a new and decidedly conservative base for politics that will in key respects represent continuity with those of the Bush administration.

In the end, the promotion of illusions in Obama and the Democrats serves only to block the emergence of a genuine alternative based upon the independent political mobilization of the broad mass of working people.

One thing is certain. The policies of an incoming Obama administration will not be determined by the erstwhile populist posturing of the candidate or by the pressure exerted by the left liberals. Rather, they will be dictated by the enormity of the economic and political crisis confronting American capitalism and what is required under these conditions to defend the class interests of the ruling elite. The turn to the right on the campaign trail is preparation for this essential task.

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By Mahvish Akhtar, MMNS

A bomb blast on July 6th Sunday, in Islamabad near Melody Market, reminded the world that the people of Pakistan are frustrated and angry. 15 Policemen and two others were killed. 40 people were injured in this attack. This was right after a conference held in honor of the martyrs of Laal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa.

Many fiery speeches were made about avenging and getting justice for the spilled blood of innocent students of the Madarassahs. According to authorities and eyewitnesses, the suicide bomber who had a beard and was wearing white shalwar qameez threw him self on some 40 police officers who were deployed in the area to give protection to the people attending the conference.

The security has tightened in Islamabad and everyone is on high alert since the incident. But what it comes down to is that does it matter? No amount of security and high alerts can save the officials from the wrath of the angry frustrated people who have lost so much and keep losing more as time goes by. Every time something like this takes place it makes the world look at Pakistani people as uneducated terrorists. But that’s really not the reason why things like these take place in our country.

The twisted mentality that yields the ugly blossoms of bombings and terrorism ultimately comes from somewhere, and it is worth exploring what are the sources of the anguish and anger that these people express through such terrible means.

These are people who are poor and have no money even to feed their children. On top of that the few things that they could afford to eat are getting more and more expensive as time goes by. So, who do they complain to? Who is listening to them? No one!

And on top of all that they know that the government hurts and kills whoever and whenever they want. No one can ask questions or demand explanations. This is exactly what took place with Laal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa.

These are people who have lost family members in this terrible ordeal. They have no consolation for losing their loved ones. And then when they hear that their innocent children’s murder is falsely labelled an operation against terrorism, I don’t think any of us can imagine the kind of pain and rage it must cause them to have.

Without question, it is a crime to kill people no matter the reason or excuse. However, the people who are going as far as selling their own lives just to make a point must be very desperate and frustrated people and it bears mentioning that there are reasons for their frustration.

For them, their lives have no value any more. Living means having to eat and clothe oneself and one’s family. This, these poor people cannot afford to do any more. And then when they see their loved ones vanishing from in front of their eyes and they see their own screams falling on deaf ears, they lose all hope for a harmonious life.

At a time like this they feel that they could probably serve the ones they love better dead than alive. Of course this twisted mentality comes from a lack of education along with other things.

We don’t understand our religion well enough even to realize that Allah does not want people to kill their own selves and others in this manner. But who will explain any of this to those hungry homeless people who see chaos and sadness all around them? Who will go to them and say you may not have anything to eat or a place to sleep tonight but we want you to be educated so that you don’t kill yourselves and others out of despair?

We have identified the problem…actually we identified the problem a long time ago, but nobody really wants to talk about it. So, what is the solution? How do we stop this from happening?

As easy as it sounds or seems to read such things in a paper it is completely different when you are living it.

How can I convince a hot blooded 18 year old who has lost his sister in Jamia Hafsa and didn’t even get to see her body not to take revenge? How can you and I tell him that you shouldn’t take any action even though no one is coming to help you through this and get you justice?

What can you and I say to dry up the tears of a mother who has no idea where her son is because the government one day just picked him up and took him without any explanation. How do I tell her she shouldn’t hope for death and destruction for such a government?

So, you see the problem is much greater and complicated than we are able to comprehend.

There, however, is a solution and that solution will require those of us who are a little bit more privileged to work harder and spend much more time trying to help those who are not.

The burden is now on us to help them get the justice they deserve.

The responsibility is now ours to dry the tears so many have cried in vain. If we don’t do this today to help those who are underprivileged right now tomorrow we could join their ranks and have no one to help us.

Let’s take back control before this chaos ruins whatever little we have left in our lives. 

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