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The sensationally ignorant Charles Krauthammer has a new pro-Israel column in the Washington Post today. Krauthammer claims that the Palestinian intifada is over, due to two factors: The brilliantly effective Israeli strategy in attacking Hamas leaders with precision rockets, and the swell new barrier or wall or whatever it is. Krauthammer calls it a “separation fence”, a neat little turn of phrase.
The notion that Israel might be responsible for provoking the terrorism in the first place is completely off Krauthammer’s radar. To him, Arafat is unilaterally responsible, and Israel is only defending itself from his evil.
Amnesty International has continually issued reports critical of Israel for such things as destruction and confiscation of property, use of Palestinian children as human shields, murdering and arresting innocent people etc.
Ran HaCohen has written columns critical of Israel for their brutal tactics regarding the Hamas organization, and for building the peachy “separation fence”.
No matter, for Krauthammer, all that counts is Israel’s relentless drive for lebensraum.

We here at Antiwar.com are often very critical of Ariel Sharon, and rightly so. He has, after all, spent the last 50+ years killing civilians in a war few ever seem to get tired of. He’s directly responsible for tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths, and is now gleefully walling them in.

Indeed, its not terribly hard to find op/ed pieces that call him a genocidal madman. I’m not going to do that here, mostly because it makes it a lot harder to feel sorry for him.

But over the last few days, something interesting has happened. There exist those in Israel who are even further to the right than Mr. Sharon, and despite his past record, they really don’t feel he’s quite genocidal enough. In fact, they feel so strongly about this, some are plotting to kill him.

Although it may not look like it to those of us outside of Israel, Ariel Sharon has actually become something of a centrist, and in a society that has very strong opinions one way or the other on the Palestinian question, that is a very dangerous position to be in. He’s got to come down off the fence to save his own neck, and he knows it.

Two days ago when this story first started coming together, if you’d asked me which side he’d wind up on, I’d have guess the right. After all, this is Ariel Sharon we’re talking about. He’d probably decide he was going soft in his old age and get back to what he does best, killing Palestinians while the Right cheers. Miraculously though, it doesn’t look like that’s what is going to happen.

Instead, he has turned to one of his longtime rivals Shimon Peres, Labour Party Leader and founder of the Peres Center for Peace. The redoubtable Mr. Peres, to his credit, instead of taking the easy path to power has made his cooperation conditional, Israel must withdraw from the Gaza Strip, or he wants nothing to do with them.

Our Broken System
July 8, 2004

On Tuesday, July 6, 2004, Judge Reggie Walton made a decision and ruled on my case. Under his ruling, I, an American citizen, am not entitled to pursue my 1st and 5th Amendment rights guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States. The vague reasoning cited, without any explanation, is to protect “certain diplomatic relations for national security.” Judge Walton reached this decision after sitting on this case with no activity for almost two years. He arrived at this decision without allowing my attorney and I any due process: NO status hearing, NO briefings, NO oral argument, and NO discovery. He made his decision after allowing the government attorneys to present their case to him, privately, in camera, ex parte; we were not allowed to participate in these cozy sessions. Is this the American system of justice we believe in? Is this the due process we read about in our civics 101 courses? Is this the judicial branch of our government that is supposed to be separate from the other two branches in order to protect the people’s rights and freedom?

This court decision by itself would have been appalling and alarming enough, but in light of all other actions taken against my case for the past two years it demonstrates a broken system, a system abused and corrupted by the current executive, a system badly in need of repair.

Under this broken system the attorney general of the United States is being allowed to illegally gag the United States Congress regarding my case. And even worse, the United States Congress is readily complying with this illegal gag.

Under this broken system the attorney general of the United States is being allowed to hinder ongoing investigations such as the 9/11 Commission and the DOJ-IG.

Under this broken system the Attorney General of the United States is getting away with interfering and tampering with pending cases under the judicial process, such as my court cases, and the lawsuit by the 9/11 victim families.

John Ashcroft’s relentless fight against me, my information, and my case, on various fronts, from the Congress to the courts, and from the 9/11 Commission to the Inspector General’s Office, has been taking place under his attempt at a vague justification titled “Protecting Certain Foreign & Diplomatic Relations for National Security.”

On September 11, 2001, 3000 lives were lost. Yet this administration has hindered all past and on going investigations into the causes of that horrific day for the sake of this vague notion of protecting “certain diplomatic & foreign relations.”

As a result of the attack on 9/11, many thousands lost their loved ones and had their lives changed forever. Yet, this administration knowingly and intentionally let many directly or indirectly involved in that terrorist act go free – untouched and uninvestigated – by simply citing “protection of certain foreign & diplomatic relations for national security.”

Today, we are told that we are still under the threat of terrorists, and remain under various colors of the color-coded threat system invented and promoted by this administration. Yet, this same administration is relentlessly preventing any real investigations into finding out the facts, the real facts, regarding acts, semi-legit organizations, and people, involved in plots against this country and its people – under their sorry excuse of “protecting certain foreign & diplomatic relations.”

Isn’t it time to ask what diplomatic or foreign relations they keep referring to?

Isn’t it fair to demand that they should let the people know what kind of foreign relations are worth 3000 lives lost?

Isn’t it this administration’s obligation to justify these costs in lives and in our national security for the sake of maintaining certain foreign relations that benefit only the few?

Just take notice of the means this administration has used in my case alone to accomplish covering up and protecting those “foreign relations” in question, and to dodge any accountability themselves: illegal reclassifications, secrecy, gagging congressional inquiries, blocking court proceedings, stopping investigations, invoking the rarely invoked State Secret Privilege, asserting National Security.

It is apparent that this administration confidently expects us, the people, to sign blank checks unquestioningly. It is obvious that they believe they are entitled to unchecked power, unlimited authority, and unquestioning citizens’ support. To them, our Bill of Rights under the Constitution is nothing more than an inconvenient roadblock to overcome; our American system of checks and balances can be bypassed by overusing national security; and people’s dissent is a problem that can be diverted away by a culture of fear and complete submission to government authority.

As I have stated many times previously, I will continue this fight, since in taking my citizenship oath I pledged that I would support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Therefore, as an American citizen, I have the right and the obligation to defend the Constitution and laws of the United States against John Ashcroft’s assaults.

Three vigilantes have been reported arrested in Afghanistan, and the leader has been identified as an American. The nationality of the other two is unclear at this time, although early reports identified them as Americans also. BBC:

Three foreigners arrested in Kabul this week were on a freelance counter-terrorism mission, the Afghan government says.

They include at least one US national, Jonathan K Idema, a purported former US special services soldier who says he helped fight the Taleban in 2001.

The men were detained for illegally holding Afghans in a private prison.

The Interior Minister, Ali Ahmad Jalali, said their activities had no legal standing.

US officials say Mr Idema had tried to pass himself off as an American government or military official.

The BBC’s Andrew North in Kabul says this is the first official confirmation that Mr Idema and his group may have been acting beyond the control of US forces or the Afghan government in hunting alleged members of al Qaeda and the Taleban.

The interior minister said Mr Idema and his colleagues had arrested eight people from across Afghanistan and imprisoned them.

“They apparently said that their aims were to act against those carrying out terrorist attacks,” Mr Jalali told journalists in Kabul.

“But they did not have a legal relationship with anyone and the United States was also chasing them – they are actually rebels,” he said.

Warning

Earlier this week the US embassy warned journalists in Kabul about Mr Idema who says he helped anti-Taleban rebels fight the hard-line Islamic regime back in 2001.

“The public should be aware that Idema does not represent the American government and we do not employ him,” a US statement said.

Security sources have told the BBC that the US military circulated warning notices about Mr Idema some time ago, describing him as armed and dangerous and accusing him of interfering with military operations in Afghanistan.

Great. I wonder if they tortured their detainees and took pictures of them like the real US military did in Bagram and Abu Ghraib.

UPDATE: Well, does this shock anyone?

Afghan forces arrested three Americans on a freelance counter-terrorism mission after bursting into a private jail that the trio were allegedly running and finding prisoners hanging from their feet, officials said.

The US military, facing a widening investigation into prisoner abuse, quickly distanced itself from the three, who had been posing as American agents before their detention on Monday in Kabul.

UPDATE: Here’s lots of background on Idema. Thanks to commenter EC for the link.

The AP is reporting that the US military is now investigating the abduction of Wassef Ali Hassoun, who was even reported to have been beheaded, as an elaborate hoax. Apparently, Hassoun is safe at home in Beirut with his parents.

After the Islamic group Ansar al-Sunna Army denied abducting Hassoun and beheading him, reports began alleging that Hassoun was “safe” and had been released after promising to quit the US military. Conflicting stories from the family of Hassoun began surfacing. Now, it seems that the original story about the missing marine was probably correct:

Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, who is now being held hostage by militants in Iraq, was thought to have deserted his unit when he was first reported missing on June 21, military representatives told NBC News. The officials believed Hassoun was headed for Lebanon and a reunion with his wife, they said. Hassoun, who is of of Lebanese descent, was originally classified as a deserter because of this theory, a Pentagon official told NBC News.

The Straits Times reports:

The intrigue began on June 19, when Corporal Hassoun, who was serving his second stint in Iraq, disappeared from his unit near Fallujah.

Reports about him first surfaced on June 27, with Al-Jazeera television claiming that a group called the Islamic Response Movement had lured and kidnapped him from a US base.

The brief video aired showed a blindfolded man in army fatigues seated in a chair with a hand holding a sword above his head. An identity card named him as Wassef Ali Hassoun.

The plot thickened when the New York Times quoted a marine officer as saying that Corporal Hassoun was betrayed by the Iraqis he befriended at his base.

Emotionally traumatised by images of his sergeant being blown up by a mortar shell, he wanted ‘to go home and quit the game’.

Chances of official termination of his deployment, however, were slim so he enlisted the help of the Muslims he had befriended to sneak home.

So, Hassoun went so far as to fake his own abduction and death in order to get out of the Marines. While there is no evidence that Hassoun quit for any moral or principled reason, the Imperial Forces shrunk a bit. Good.

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