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| December 22, 2003 |
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World Media Watch by Gloria R. Lalumia BUZZFLASH NOTE: Once again, these are the views and perspectives of the individual papers, not of BuzzFlash or Gloria. They offer BuzzFlash readers a way of reading what other nations are saying about the crisis, whether we like it or not. We repeat: This is not an endorsement of their viewpoints. * * * WORLD MEDIA WATCH FOR DECEMBER 22, 2003 1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--WHY THE RESISTANCE WILL INCREASE (The resistance will persist because Saddam was never its political, religious, spiritual or moral guide. The mukawama - resistance against foreign occupation - is now a full-blown nationalist, religious movement. The most popular political party on the sprawling campus of Baghdad University is not the widely-despised Ahmad Chalabi's neo-conservative-backed Iraqi National Congress. It is the Iraq Islamist Party...Asia Times Online has ascertained that at least 12 independent guerrilla organizations from different tribes are involved in the mukawama, all vaguely in touch with each other. This loose organization may be about to extend its reach nationwide. But the Iraqi guerrilla movement is extraordinarily complex.) 2//Deutsche Welle/dw-World.de, Germany--THERE'S STILL ROOM FOR EUROPEANS IN IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION (More than $100 billion will be needed to finance the reconstruction, but until now the US Congress has only approved $18.6 billion...But that still leaves a funding hole of more that $80 billion, which Germany and other European countries are free to plug. Considering the long history of the trade relationship between Europe and Iraq, it's likely many German, French and Russian firms will opt to do so, and transitional Iraqi leaders are eager to court their investment...Failing to secure European help could result in failure, according to Franz Reichwein, the Federal Agency for Foreign Trade and Payments correspondent responsible for the Gulf region. At a conference in September, he pointed out that a number of the reconstruction projects already undertaken by the Americans may fail because the technicians involved don't know enough about the systems. For example, the telecommunications network is based on European technology, which isn't compatible with that of the Americans.) 3//The Japan Times, Japan--GROUND TROOPS MAY GO TO IRAQ NEXT MONTH (Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has decided to send a unit from the main contingent of the Ground Self-Defense Force to Iraq late next month at the earliest to help with rebuilding efforts, government sources said Sunday...The government and the ruling coalition are now expected to speed up preparatory discussions in line with the Defense Agency's plan to send an advance GSDF team to Samawah in mid-January. It will be followed by a contingent from the main force in late January that will build lodgings, as well as other units between late February and late March.) 4//Gulf News Online, United Arab Emirates--US TROOPS 'TORTURED' MAN WITH RAP MUSIC (Lebanese Mohammed Jaber said he went to Iraq on a pilgrimage to Muslim holy sites, he ended up being "tortured" with loud rap music by US troops suspicious he might be a foreign fighter against Americans...But Jaber said he kept one secret from his captors, fearing the treatment could get worse. "I mean I like rap, just imagine them playing jazz."...The International Committee of the Red Cross said three of them were seriously injured while in US custody. Jaber said they had stepped on land mines while clearing up rubbish in a field for US soldiers.) 5//The Guardian, UK--AFGHAN DEADLOCK WEAKENS KARZAI (Karzai defends the powers he seeks by saying that anything less would lead to perpetual in-fighting. If the Jirga refuses to approve them, Karzai says he will step down before elections next year. That would be considered a disaster by America and Afghanistan's other donors. They see Karzai, a Western-friendly moderate of the Pashtun group, as the only man capable of bringing sanity to Afghanistan's factional politics...Two factors have fuelled the Taliban's return, say analysts. By allowing the Northern Alliance, which is composed of smaller ethnic groups including Tajiks and Uzbeks, to grab most government seats, the US deepened Afghanistan's ethnic rift. America's continuing military campaign against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan has enraged the Pashtuns further.) * * * 1//Asia
Times Online Dec. 20, 2003 THE ROVING EYE Part 1: How Saddam may still nail Bush BAKU - Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) asset Saddam Hussein is - already was - totally beside the point. Only in the past few months have we learned the extent to which the Saddam system sub-contracted a great deal of decision-making to different Iraqi elite - from tribal sheikhs to businessmen and Sunni and Wahhabi religious leaders. They may originally have been cajoled by Saddam with carrots and sticks to be incorporated into the Ba'athist regime. But now they are totally free to command their own agendas. To top it all, they really have a common agenda for the first time in their lives: a war against American occupation. The resistance will persist because Saddam was never its political, religious, spiritual or moral guide. The mukawama - resistance against foreign occupation - is now a full-blown nationalist, religious movement. The most popular political party on the sprawling campus of Baghdad University is not the widely-despised Ahmad Chalabi's neo-conservative-backed Iraqi National Congress. It is the Iraq Islamist Party. (SNIP) Breakdown: The Iraqi resistance The invasion of Iraq was widely perceived as an attack on the Arab world. That's why the resistance is turning pan-Arab. Once again: this is a nationalist and religious resistance movement. Asia Times Online has ascertained that at least 12 independent guerrilla organizations from different tribes are involved in the mukawama, all vaguely in touch with each other. This loose organization may be about to extend its reach nationwide. But the Iraqi guerrilla movement is extraordinarily complex. These in essence are the main actors: The former army. The majority of the 400,000 Iraqi soldiers demobilized by US proconsul L Paul Bremer were nothing but victims of the Ba'athist regime. Humiliated and frustrated, they inevitably turned to the resistance - and they were not being financed by Saddam Hussein, as Asia Times Online reported from the Sunni triangle. At least 100,000 soldiers from the Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard didn't even receive a meager financial compensation from the Americans. Big mistake: they were the best trained, the best equipped, the best motivated, and now they are totally engaged in the resistance. They are nationalists demonstrating in practice how the whole thing is not about Saddam's return to power, but about getting rid of a foreign invader. The tribes. An extremely complex tribal game is in play in Iraq. Saddam was a master in this business. An example: Ramadi and Fallujah, in the Sunni triangle, home to some of the most vicious anti-American attacks, are controlled by the huge Doulaiymi tribe - which always had a turbulent relationship with Saddam. The reason for the attacks were not $100 bills showered around by Saddam's henchmen, but repeated blunders and massacres of civilians by the 82nd Airborne Division. The Americans themselves fed the infernal cycle of violence with their string of arbitrary arrests and daily humiliations. Tha'ar (revenge) is the absolute norm for these extremely proud Bedouins. Meanwhile, local tribes around Kirkuk are attacking oil pipelines just as a means of finally getting paid for protecting them. The Americans then dissolved the so-called "oil police" and sub-contracted regional security to a South African private firm, which for its part sub-contracted security to - who else - the local tribes. Remnants of Saddam's regime. They are reduced to nothing more than the fedayeen of Saddam - the private militia established by his late son Uday - the surveillance apparatchik and the tribes in Tikrit. It's fair to expect much accumulated rage to explode in the form of attacks now that Saddam is in captivity. These people are armed to the teeth - with weapons caches dispersed all over the country. It still remains to be discovered how they connect with and how they provide logistical assistance to the professional jihadis that Hanning says are coming from Syria and Saudi Arabia. The jihadis. An elite among them comprise the instigators and perpetrators of the suicide bombings. There are a few dozen survivors of Ansar al-Islam who crossed to Iranian Kurdistan, fleeing American bombing last March: they don't make much of a difference. Most of all there may be a few thousand jihadis who came before, during and after the war. They are Yemenite, Lebanese, Sudanese, Syrian, Egyptian, Jordanian - the pan-Arab character of the resistance. They are loosely linked with local, small groups of salafis - an extremist interpretation of Sunni Islam. (SNIP) While Saddam awaits his trial, this is what the headlines will be about: a massive popular resistance movement fighting 21st-century colonization, while the new actors of jihad bet on a context of endless war. Saddam may be history, but it will be interesting to hear what he has to say. It ain't over till this desert "rat" sings.
THERE'S STILL ROOM FOR EUROPEANS IN IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION The US may be trying to prevent anti-war countries from bidding on US-funded reconstruction contracts, but the three naysayers - Germany, France and Russia - will continue to have strong business ties to Iraq. Until the downfall of Saddam Hussein - and for a long time before that - Europeans were among Iraq's traditional trade partners. Germany, France and Russia, in particular, were Iraq's most important trade partners outside of the Gulf region. And despite US efforts to block companies from countries opposed to the war from bidding on reconstruction contracts funded by US dollars, European businesses will be well represented in Iraq, according to the head of the Association of the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce. More than $100 billion will be needed to finance the reconstruction, but until now the US Congress has only approved $18.6 billion. Indeed, the Americans can and will decide how to spend their own money, and US President George W. Bush has made it perfectly clear that he'll only accept bids from those among the "coalition of the willing". European Know-How In a recent interview with Deutsche Welle, Jochen Münker, the head of the Association of the German Chambers of Industry and Commerce, said countries with a history of exporting equipment and systems to Iraq will certainly be sought after partners in the reconstruction. Failing to secure European help could result in failure, according to Franz Reichwein, the Federal Agency for Foreign Trade and Payments correspondent responsible for the Gulf region. At a conference in September, he pointed out that a number of the reconstruction projects already undertaken by the Americans may fail because the technicians involved don't know enough about the systems. For example, the telecommunications network is based on European technology, which isn't compatible with that of the Americans. (MORE)
GROUND TROOPS MAY GO TO IRAQ NEXT MONTH Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has decided to send a unit from the main contingent of the Ground Self-Defense Force to Iraq late next month at the earliest to help with rebuilding efforts, government sources said Sunday. The decision comes after New Komeito leader Takenori Kanzaki on Saturday effectively approved the dispatch of noncombat ground troops to the southeastern Iraqi city of Samawah after personally checking the security situation there. (SNIP) The SDF dispatch has been a politically sensitive topic due to the war-renouncing Constitution, and because overseas activities and weapons use by the SDF are strictly limited. There is also great public concern about the security situation in Iraq. The government and the ruling coalition are now expected to speed up preparatory discussions in line with the Defense Agency's plan to send an advance GSDF team to Samawah in mid-January. It will be followed by a contingent from the main force in late January that will build lodgings, as well as other units between late February and late March. (SNIP) Under the agency's plan, a 78-member unit will be dispatched Jan. 31 along with 33 vehicles, but this may be delayed to February depending on factors such as preparations to receive the advance team.
US TROOPS 'TORTURED' MAN WITH RAP MUSIC Lebanese Mohammed Jaber said he went to Iraq on a pilgrimage to Muslim holy sites, he ended up being "tortured" with loud rap music by US troops suspicious he might be a foreign fighter against Americans. Jaber said an Iraqi taxi driver handed him and three friends over to US troops for $100 each in April apiece as fighters for ousted president Saddam Hussain. "They asked us why we were there and if we came to fight them. But we said we came only to visit the holy sites in Karbala," he said. "They didn't torture us physically but they did psychologically by raising the volume of rap music all day until it became unbearable and by withholding food," he said. But Jaber said he kept one secret from his captors, fearing the treatment could get worse. "I mean I like rap, just imagine them playing jazz." US-led forces in Iraq freed Jaber and sent him and seven other Arab detainees home on Saturday. The International Co-mmittee of the Red Cross said three of them were seriously injured while in US custody. Jaber said they had stepped on land mines while clearing up rubbish in a field for US soldiers. (MORE)
AFGHAN DEADLOCK WEAKENS KARZAI James Astill in Islamabad It was supposed to be a triumph, a Grand Council to usher in Afghanistan's first ever elections next year. But when Malalai Joya, a delegate from western Farah province, stepped up to speak last week, she was not celebrating. With a steady hand, Joya pointed to the council leaders, or 'Loya Jirga', Afghanistan's new rulers since the Taliban's demise. 'These were the ones who destroyed our country,' she said. 'They should be tried in international and national courts. If our poor people forgive these criminals, history will never forgive them, their criminal activities have all been recorded.' (SNIP) 'In order to make her secure, I told her to get out of the tent,' explained the council's chairman Sibghatullah Mojaddidi. 'As you know, our Mujahideen are a different kind of people. Once they get upset, it's difficult to control them.' President Hamid Karzai knows that. The government he was bequeathed nearly two years ago is barely functioning, its members constantly squabbling for control. The 500 delegates of the Loya Jirga - politicians, businessmen and mullahs - are deadlocked over the new constitution. Nearly half the delegates are threatening sabotage if it is not rewritten. Most contentious is a last-minute revision scrapping a proposed Prime Ministership, to give Karzai almost unrivalled powers. The warlords, led by Burhanuddin Rabbani, want to install one of their own as Prime Minister. (SNIP) Karzai defends the powers he seeks by saying that anything less would lead to perpetual in-fighting. If the Jirga refuses to approve them, Karzai says he will step down before elections next year. That would be considered a disaster by America and Afghanistan's other donors. They see Karzai, a Western-friendly moderate of the Pashtun group, as the only man capable of bringing sanity to Afghanistan's factional politics. While the warlords squabbled last week, three rockets rained down on Kabul; a bomb was defused outside a Chinese restaurant frequented by foreign aid workers; and a German peacekeeper with the 5,000-strong Nato-led force policing Kabul was shot. The Taliban, resurgent in a sweep back from their bases in next-door Pakistan, are thought to be responsible. Dozens of civilians and 15 aid workers have been killed in recent attacks. Two factors have fuelled the Taliban's return, say analysts. By allowing the Northern Alliance, which is composed of smaller ethnic groups including Tajiks and Uzbeks, to grab most government seats, the US deepened Afghanistan's ethnic rift. America's continuing military campaign against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan has enraged the Pashtuns further. (MORE) | |||||
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