Let me emphasize that our new Sunni friends insist on being paid for their loyalty. I have heard, for example, a rough estimate that the cost in one area of about 100 square kilometers is $250,000 per day. And periodically they threaten to defect unless their fees are increased. You might want to find out the total costs for these deals forecasted for the next several years, because they are not small and they do not promise to end. Remember, we do not own these people. We merely rent them. And they can break the lease at any moment. At the same time, this deal protects them to some degree from the government's troops and police, hardly a sign of political reconciliation.
To sum up, we face a deteriorating political situation with an over extended army. When the administration's witnesses appear before you, you should make them clarify how long the army and marines can sustain this band-aid strategy. The only sensible strategy is to withdraw rapidly but in good order. Only that step can break the paralysis now gripping US strategy in the region. The next step is to choose a new aim, regional stability, not a meaningless victory in Iraq. And progress toward that goal requires revising our policy toward Iran. If the president merely renounced his threat of regime change by force, that could prompt Iran to lessen its support to Taliban groups in Afghanistan. Iran detests the Taliban and supports them only because they will kill more Americans in Afghanistan as retaliation in event of a US attack on Iran. Iran's policy toward Iraq would also have to change radically as we withdraw. It cannot want instability there. Iraqi Shiites are Arabs, and they know that Persians look down on them. Cooperation between them has its limits. General William Odom on Iraq: Immediate Withdrawal the Only Option that Makes Sense
His inner circle called him The Doctor, because of his Ph.D in mathematics. Some of his operatives called him Our Big Brother. The Central Intelligence Agency called him by a code name -- which intelligence sources reveal as Pulsar One. Whatever you call him, Ahmad Abdul Hadi Chalabi, a shrewd Iraqi Arab from a family of Shiite bankers, literally changed the world. The United States, which he referred to so respectfully as a "strategic ally," had sponsored him, flown him and his people to Iraq, even toppled Saddam Hussein for him, as he would boast. The Iraq War has many critics and some fierce defenders, but many insiders on both sides of the debate agree on this: without Chalabi there would have been no war. Ahmad Chalabi: Iraq's master manipulator -Aram Roston TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is urging OPEC members to form a joint bank and stop pricing oil trades in U.S. dollars. According to the Iranian government's Web site, Ahmadinejad told OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem el-Badri the cartel "should establish a joint bank as well as having joint currency." Oil is priced in U.S. dollars on the world market, and the currency's depreciation has concerned producers because it has contributed to rising crude prices and eroded the value of their dollar reserves.
Iran to OPEC: Stop Oil Sales in Dollars
I am astonished that this item of news has not been headlines since it happened 2 days ago. Public Security minister Avi Dichter was shot at broad daylight and the shooting was even filmed. One of Dichter’s top aids was injured and Dichter and his group spent nearly one hour ducking the bullets. If the Public Security minister of Israel cannot secure his own self, how exactly is he expected to provide security for the Israeli people? It has been claimed by media that Avi Dichter was not injured and did not believe that he was the specific target of the attack but that the Canadian group that was accompanying him was the real target. Anyone following Israeli and Arab media knows however that it is not the first time that Dichter or other highly placed Israeli officials for that matter, have narrowly escaped with their lives direct attacks while visiting Israeli settlements. As an Arab citizen who is not limited to Zionist controlled media in the US, I have witnessed on several occasions footage of Dichter, Peretz and Olmert running and ducking for cover because of an attack during their various visits of settlements. Dichter was the target and not his guests. Israel's 60th approaches, but Israeli Minister of Public Security can’t even secure himself! - Cherifa Sirry
(To endorse the following statement, please go to: petitiononline.com/Gaza/petition.html) New York City Labor Against the War joins the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions in denouncing Israel's recent massacres in Gaza, the victims of which include at least 130 Palestinians -- half of them civilians, including dozens of women and children -- since February 27.
US Labor and Gaza
“I was a creature out of place,” said the renowned author and anthropologist Amitav Ghosh, recalling his first visit to Egypt in the early 1980s. Ghosh was an anthropology student at Oxford University at the time and an aspiring novelist, conducting fieldwork in a small Egyptian town with the dual hopes of completing a thesis and inspiring a work of fiction. The eventual blooming of this inspiration, a novel titled
In an Antique Land , was the subject of Ghosh’s recent lecture on campus. After the book’s completion, Ghosh was forced to acknowledge the controversy and strife brewing around literature dealing with the interaction of religion, especially in the wake of the outrage that met Salmon Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. Hoping to avoid a similar fate, Ghosh changed the title of his book from
An Infidel in Egypt to
In an Antique Land . “It not only was not controversial; it attracted hardly any attention, sinking without a trace,” he said. “Yet, here I am, 15 years later, speaking about its writing.” The book, Ghosh noted, provides a window into contemporary social ills, divisions and strife, and also helps paint a new picture of the region’s past, one which he hopes will promote healing. “If writers cannot [summon such a history] in their imaginations, how are politicians supposed to do it in the real world?” he asked.
[thanks YA]
Author Recounts Novel-Writing Experience
I still vividly remember my father’s face - wrinkled, apprehensive, warm - as he last wished me farewell fourteen years ago. He stood outside the rusty door of my family’s home in a Gaza refugee camp wearing old yellow pyjamas and a seemingly ancient robe. As I hauled my one small suitcase into a taxi that would take me to an Israeli airport an hour away, my father stood still. I wished he would go back inside; it was cold and the soldiers could pop up at any moment. As my car moved on, my father eventually faded into the distance, along with the graveyard, the water tower and the camp. It never occurred to me that I would never see him again.
No Checkpoints in HeavenWhen the Ottomans took over Palestine in 1517 they recorded 955 villages in their dafteri-mufassal. In 1871 the Survey of Western Palestine listed a similar number of villages, most retaining the names they had used for centuries. Under the British Mandate over 1,000 towns and villages were recorded. The average distance between villages was two to three miles, though the differences in village life, between accent, dress and especially women's embroidery, were often marked. It was, and in some cases still is, possible to distinguish the origin of a person from his or her dress or speech. It was an unusual event for a girl to marry into a village 10 miles away. Thus they lived and survived for centuries. Dispersion, and the severance of this bond with the land, was an unforgivable blow. It was the fuel that turned the fellahin into revolutionaries.
In Praise of Al NakbaMost of us see maths as a science, but to some, numbers have hidden meanings that can be used to make decisions in matters as serious as recruiting staff. Numerologists believe the numbers one to nine each have a mystical meaning, and that if you add together the digits in a person's date of birth, the end result is a number which influences the path that person will take in life. They also believe the letters in the alphabet have corresponding numbers, so a person's name can be added up to produce a number with meaning as well.
Just what on earth is numerology?
Ultimately, Bolton stood for a short-term, opportunistic and confrontational approach based an ideologically motivated incapacity to deal with multilateralism. The UN that Bolton had to deal with was already so weakened that it was impervious to further damage. Bolton was not the man to improve multilateral relationships and, in hindsight, both he and Bush would have been better off following in the footsteps of George Bush Sr, in "keeping everything flowing smoothly and not getting anyone upset". Such a strategy might not have improved America's position in the UN system, but at least it would not have further degraded it. Surrender Is Not an Option by John Bolton
Chennai, India -- Five years ago, the Mylapore temple tank -- a man-made pond located at the ancient Kapaleeswarar Temple in the south Indian city of Chennai (formerly Madras) -- was little more than a vast, dry bed of cracked clay. Neighborhood boys traipsed down the symmetrical steps to the rectangular reservoir, the famed venue of religious "float" festivals, to play their evening game of cricket. "Capturing rainwater where it falls is a straightforward option -- environmentally sustainable and economically viable," says Prof. S. Janakarajan of the Madras Institute of Developmental Studies in Chennai. Engineering marvels such as desalination plants or huge dams have not given permanent solutions to the water problem, he says, because the real answer is simpler. No significant environmental costs accompany this water recycling technique, he points out.
One Thristy Town's Answer to Water ShortageBy Vijaysree Venkatraman
What they They can learn from Rajendra Singh- 2001 Ramon Magsaysay Award The water man of Rajasthan who has undertaken extensive water conservation efforts in drought-prone eastern Rajasthan, wins the 2001 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership.George Clooney was at home in Los Angeles one afternoon in mid-January, a few days before he flew to Sudan in his new role as a United Nations “Messenger of Peace” (an appointment that overlooked reports of a recent public scuffle with Fabio, the leonine model). Clooney, who is unusual in being both very famous and, apparently, at ease with the fact—he can sometimes look like a spokesman for celebrity itself—was sitting on a long pale sofa, alongside Sarah Larson, his girlfriend. Bowls of chopped salad were on the coffee table in front of them: when Clooney’s electronic pepper grinder was activated, it sent a beam of light shining down onto the lettuce, like a police helicopter.
Somebody Has to Be in Control - Ian Park 
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Reuters won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography on Monday for a picture of a Japanese videographer killed during a demonstration in Myanmar.
Adrees Latif [
Pakistan-born and Bangkok-based photojournalist]
of Reuters.won for "his dramatic photograph of the Japanese videographer, sprawled on the pavement, fatally wounded during a street demonstration in Myanmar," the Pulitzer Prize board said.
It is not everyday that someone's name becomes inextricably linked with God. But it is not everyday that someone comes up with a theory that could help to unify the many disparate forces of the universe. All the more strange, then, for the man behind the sub-atomic "God particle" to be an unassuming grandfather living in modest retirement in one of the more sedate districts of Edinburgh. Indeed, Professor Peter Higgs, 78, is modesty personified. A theoretical particle physicist, it took him 20 years before he could even bring himself to call the God particle by its more scientific name – the Higgs boson. Up to that point, he preferred the more prosaic term, "scalar boson". In search of the God particle
Books: Free download from Internet Archive
Containing a historical account of the origin, ceremonies, idolatry, manners, customs & of the various castes of the natives of British India Deduced from authentic manuscripts and particular enquiries. Published under the kind patronage of a liberal public (1838-)
Author: Rodrigues, Etienne Alexander
Author: Bergelson, D.Paul Jay presents RealNews
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All the president's zen
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