Misdunk-wetje: Aso verbiedt begrip terrorisme

[Henk Elegeert]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Dr. Marc-Alexander Fluks wrote:

> REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl
>
> Oh, m'n hemel, nu wil Aso weer 'begrip voor' het terrorisme strafbaar gaan
> stellen. Fraaie illustratie van wie-niets-begrijpt-weet-ook-niet-wat-begrip-
> -is. En van het strafbaar stellen van het denken.
>
> Leve Emmanuel Goldstein !
>
> Dus als iemand denkt dat psychiatrische regeringen als Aso, Bush en Blair
> verantwoordelijk zijn voor terroristische aanslagen, dan mag dat voortaan
> niet meer van de gedachtenpolitie van Aso.

Nou vooruit dan, nu het nog kan. :)

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=29639
U.S.: Civil War Spectre Spurs New Iraq Exit Plans

"
U.S.:
Civil War Spectre Spurs New Iraq Exit Plans
Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jul 25 (IPS) - Growing pessimism about averting civil war in
Iraq, as well as mounting concerns that the U.S. military presence there
may itself be fuelling the insurgency and Islamist extremism worldwide,
has spurred a spate of new calls for the United States to withdraw its
140,000 troops sooner rather than later.

Although resolutions to establish at least a timeline for withdrawal
have so far gained the support of only about a quarter of the members of
Congress, the absence of tangible progress in turning back the
insurgency is adding to fears on Capitol Hill that the administration's
hopes of stabilising the situation, let alone giving birth to a
pro-western democracy in the heart of the Arab world, are delusory.

”In January, we had Congressional staff hanging up on us when we called
to say that we want to discuss shifting U.S. policy from more guns and
more troops towards withdrawal,” said Jim Cason, communications director
of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a lobby group. ”Now
they want to talk about it.”

While the George W. Bush administration still insists that civil war
will be avoided and current negotiations to produce a new constitution
by the middle of next month remain on track, the continuing high level
of violence and the strength and sophistication of predominantly Sunni
insurgents and foreign fighters are clearly having an effect here.

That was made clearest in two New York Times articles published Sunday,
including one entitled ”Defying U.S. Efforts, Guerrillas in Iraq Refocus
and Strengthen,” and another, by John Burns, a veteran star Times
reporter who has spent considerable time in Iraq, entitled ”If It's
Civil War, Do We Know It?”

The latter story recounted the recent intensification of Sunni violence
against the Shia community that provoked even the ever-patient Shia
religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, to whom Washington has
increasingly deferred in guiding the political transition, to call on
the Shiite-led government to ”defend the country against mass annihilation.”

”From the moment American troops crossed the border 28 months ago,”
Burns wrote, ”the specter hanging over the American enterprise here has
been that Iraq, freedom (Saddam) Hussein's tyranny, might prove to be so
fractured...that would spiral inexorably into civil war.”

”Now, events are pointing more than ever to the possibility that the
nightmare could come true,” according to Burns, who noted that Shiite
militias and Shiite and Kurdish-led army and police units were
themselves taking increasingly aggressive counter-measures, including
abducting, torturing, and executing suspected insurgents and their
perceived sympathisers and defenders.

The second story, by two other Baghdad-based Times correspondents,
quoted unnamed senior military officers reiterating two big frustrations
that have been heard since July, 2003: that the insurgency appears to be
”growing more violent, more resilient and more sophisticated than ever,”
and that prosecuting the war is like sowing dragons' teeth.

”We are capturing or killing a lot of insurgents,” one ”senior (U.S.)
Army intelligence officer,” told the Times. ”But they're being replaced
quicker than we can interdict their operations. There is always another
insurgent ready to step up and take charge.”

Such assessments are spurring what rapidly has become a cottage industry
-- particularly from the Democratic side of the political spectrum --
one fuelled in part by the leak in early July of a British contingency
plan that called for halving the number of U.S. and British troops in
Iraq by the latter part of 2006.

Thus, on Jul. 15, former Central Intelligence Agency director John
Deutch published a column in the Times calling for a ”prompt withdrawal
plan,” with the initial drawdown set to coincide with the Iraqi
elections scheduled for Dec. 15, that would include a timetable for
reducing the scope of military operations, while maintaining a ”regional
quick-reaction force” in reserve, as well as ongoing intelligence and
training programmes.

At the same time, the U.S. would urge the Iraqi government and its
neighbours to recognise their common interest in Baghdad's peaceful
evolution without external intervention and commit itself to an economic
assistance programme to Iraq ”so long as it stays on a peaceful path”
and to the wider region that will encourage cooperation.

A more detailed plan emerged several days later from the Boston-based
Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA) calling for complete withdrawal,
except for the retention of a multi-national civilian and military
monitoring and training contingent of less than 10,000 (of which the
U.S. military presence would be limited to 2,000 troops), by September 2006.

The plan, to take effect Aug. 1, would begin with the adoption of a
withdrawal time line, a sharp de-escalation of the war in Sunni areas, a
shift of U.S. resources to its training mission, and the transfer of
foreign military control of localities to elected officials ”without the
interference of federal or coalition authorities.”

”The key to enabling total U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq within 400
days is achieving a political accord with Sunni leaders at all levels
and with Iraq's neighbours -- especially Syria and Iran,” according to
the report by defence analyst Carl Conetta. ”The proximal aim would be
to immediately lower the level of conflict inside Iraq by constricting
both active and passive support for the insurgency, inside and outside
the country.”

Like the two other authors, veteran Middle East analyst Helena Cobban
also believes that the continued U.S. military presence in Iraq is
counter-productive to longer-term U.S. interests and is effectively
fueling the insurgency. But she goes further than the other two authors,
calling for a withdrawal strategy that is ”total, speedy, and generous
to the Iraqi people.”

Her model is Israel's 2000 exit from southern Lebanon, noting that,
despite deep fears that that withdrawal would touch off ”mayhem and
revenge (in Lebanon), none came to pass.”

A prior announcement of ”imminent total withdrawal” would serve to
”focus the minds of Iraqis considerably,” particularly on reconstruction
if the U.S. and other countries are sufficiently generous, and ”make
them far less hospitable to insurgents, especially those who get their
impetus from the prospect of a prolonged foreign occupation.”

All the authors take issue with the conventional assumption that the
U.S. military presence is a stabilising factor without which Iraq's
descent into civil war would be more certain or bloody.

They also argue that the administration's argument that Washington's
global ”credibility” is outweighed by other considerations, including
the damage that the continued U.S. presence does to U.S. interests in
the Arab and Islamic world more generally and the reduced ability of the
U.S. to deal with other important security challenges while it remains
bogged down in Iraq.

As noted by Deutch, continued investment in a losing proposition could
result in ”an even worse loss of credibility down the road.” (END/2005)
"

Ik zie ook niet in wat 'wij' nog langer in Afghanistan doen.

Henk Elegeert

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********