Call for Equitable World Order

Political Desk

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the current world order is based on exploitation and domination, and unable to resolve global crises.
Addressing a meeting of Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) in Tehran on Monday, the president reiterated the need for a new world order that is equitable and respects all nations.
"Everyone must play an active role in world management," the chief executive said, echoing calls he made during his address to the United Nations General Assembly in September, Presstv reported.
Ahmadinejad added that Asian countries have "more responsibility", since they can tap into their vast resources, manpower and culture. "This is what the world greatly needs," he added.
Created in June 2002, the ACD is a body that aims to promote Asian cooperation at a continental level. The body was founded originally by 18 states, but expanded to the current 31 members, including those of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council.
The next ACD session will be hosted by Kuwait and the 11th by Tajikistan.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said on Saturday foreign ministers from 31 Asian countries are expected to attend.

Asian Union
Addressing the meeting, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said an Asian union could be established by forging the spirit of solidarity and expanding regional cooperation.
“Iran believes that in the wake of systematic and group efforts, and by forging the spirit of solidarity, grounds could be paved for expanding regional collaboration aimed at ensuring the wellbeing and progress of regional countries. This will ultimately help establish an Asian union,” Mottaki was quoted as saying by Mehr News Agency.
The top Iranian diplomat said Asia has an important status in the global economy.
“Asia is a venue for producing products that have a global demand and also a great market for goods and services of other regions. Asia accounts for some 40 percent of international trade and over 50 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP). Above all, the Asian continent is the greatest source of energy for the international market.”
Mottaki noted that in recent years, economic convergence among Asian countries has become an important topic of discussion.
“ACD has 31 members and is the biggest regional institution. It includes some 16 percent of the UN members. Members of ACD conduct over $9 trillion of trade with the rest of the world and have over $22 trillion in GDP. The member-states possess very high potentials for transforming Asia into…an influential bloc in regional and international equations," he said.

Global Management
On the sidelines of the meeting, Mottaki also met with Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni on Monday.
Mottaki said the era of bullying has ended, calling on all countries to contribute to global management. He added that the world situation is undergoing serious and infrastructural changes, IRIB reported.
The top diplomat pointed to growing mutual relations in political, cultural and international fields following the independence of Bangladesh in December 1971.
"Officials and nations of the two countries are determined to promote Tehran-Dhaka ties," he said.
Moni, for her part, expressed her country's readiness to boost relations with Iran in all fields and called for upgrading the level of cooperation in trade, energy and joint ventures.
She said Tehran and Dhaka have constructive cooperation in the international arena and hold common stances on many regional issues.

The Bangladesh minister emphasized that Dhaka believes all countries, including Iran, have the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful applications.

Tajik Ties
The foreign ministers of Iran and Tajikistan also stressed the significance of bolstering cooperation, saying it will help promote peace in the region.
Mottaki and his Tajik counterpart Hamrokhon Zarifi discussed ways of promoting regional cooperation which, they stressed, will help establish stability and tranquility, fight extremism and prepare the ground for boosting development and welfare in the region.
The Iranian minister praised the deep-rooted friendly ties between Iran and Tajikistan, and said the two countries enjoy many commonalities, IRNA reported.
The top diplomat expressed the country’s readiness to implement joint projects with Tajikistan in the fields of transportation, infrastructure and development.
Mottaki also emphasized that private sectors of the two countries should carry out joint projects in new fields.
The Tajik foreign minister said linguistic and cultural commonalities have led to long-term political and cultural cooperation between Tehran and Dushanbe.
Zarifi hailed Iran’s policies on regional developments as well as its influential role in settling problems, expressing hope that the policies would help ACD to play an effective role in promoting regional cooperation.
Mottaki and Zarifi also exchanged views on bilateral cooperation in the Organization of Islamic Conference, Economic Cooperation Organization and ACD.
A troika meeting of the ACD was held in Tehran on Saturday attended by the previous, current, and future heads of the ACD.
Iran is the current head of ACD, Sri Lanka was the former one and Kuwait will be the next one.

Meeting With Omani FM
In a separate meeting with Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi on Sunday in Tehran, Mottaki discussed ways to improve bilateral relations.
The two also discussed regional and international issues, including developments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Omani foreign minister is in Tehran to take part in the 9th ministerial meeting of ACD.
He is also scheduled to attend a four-party summit on transit with officials from Iran, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Deep-Rooted Relations
In another development, Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Muhammad Al-Sabah Al-Salim said on Monday Iran-Kuwait ties are strong, historical and deep-rooted.
He made the remark prior to his departure for Tehran to attend the meeting of Asian Cooperation Dialogue.
Appreciating Iran’s initiative in hosting such an important meeting, he said ACD is the largest and most comprehensive Asian body since representatives of all Asian countries take part in the event.
The participating delegates will review regional and international issues during the two-day meeting.
The Kuwaiti minister hoped that obstacles on the way of expansion of Iran-Kuwait relations would be removed soon.

Iraqis Move to End Political Impasse

Iraqi political leaders began a series of talks on Monday that could break an eight-month deadlock over forming a new government and assure incumbent Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki of a second term.
The aim of the meetings, the first of which was hosted by Kurdish regional president, Masoud Barzani, in the Kurdish capital Irbil, was to agree to a government of national unity including Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds before a parliamentary session on Thursday, Reuters reported.
However, there were few signs in the first encounter, which was televised live, of a meeting of minds.
The session was adjourned after two hours and the talks would resume in Baghdad on Tuesday evening, the organizers said.
Iraq has been without a new government since an inconclusive election on March 7 which gave the cross-sectarian, Sunni-backed Iraqiya alliance an edge, fuelling tensions as the sectarian carnage unleashed after the 2003 US-led invasion recedes and US forces prepare to withdraw in 2011.
As Monday's meeting took place, two car bombs rocked the southern holy Shiite cities of Najaf and Karbala, killing at least 18 Shiite pilgrims, including Iranians.
While there was no immediate claim of responsibility, the attacks bore the hallmarks of a weakened but still lethal insurgency, which wants to reignite sectarian war and abhors what it sees as Iranian influence on Iraq's Shiite leaders.

The next government needs a component representing the minority Sunnis, if it is to try to heal old sectarian wounds. Excluding Iraqiya from power could anger its Sunni voters and reinvigorate the Sunni Islamist insurgency.
Addressing his counterparts, Iraqiya’s Leader Iyad Allawi called for a speedy formation of a new government strong enough to meet voters’ expectations.
“It is time to move with confident and daring steps to achieve an Iraq which everybody wants,” he said. “God willing, this meeting will succeed and we will come up with results that work out positively for the Iraqi population.”
Other members of his bloc demanded that the meetings also discuss and agree on issues such as the next government’s agenda and legislative and constitutional proposals.
Maliki said trying to reach a deal that covered every demand could delay the formation of the government even further.
“I don’t think we will reach an agreement before Thursday,” said Iraqiya member Saleh Al-Mutlaq, a prominent Sunni.
But other senior leaders of Iraqiya said on Monday they would ultimately agree to link up with Maliki while a group of disenchanted lawmakers within the bloc warned that they would split away if it did not.

Power Sharing
Maliki’s coalition has merged with other Shiite groups and reached deals with minority Kurds, paving the way for him to retain power. It also has assurances of support from small Sunni-based factions.
“There is a tendency to participate in the government,” Osama Al-Nujaifi, a senior Sunni Arab leader of Iraqiya told Reuters by telephone in Baghdad. “There are signs of a deal ... There are still discussions about reforms and power sharing.”
Under an expected deal, Maliki would remain prime minister and Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, would retain the presidency.
Iraqiya could be offered the speaker’s post, the foreign ministry and a role with possibly expanded authority over defense issues, the economy and foreign affairs.
Government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh said on Sunday a deal had been clinched the previous day between the National Alliance, which represents the main Shiite parties and the Kurdish coalition.
“An agreement was reached...among the political parties in which (the Kurdish) Jalal Talabani will continue as head of state, (Shiite) Nuri Al-Maliki will stay on as prime minister and Iraqiya will choose its candidate for parliament speaker,” Dabbagh told AFP.
Iraq’s Sunni vice president, Tareq Al-Hashemi, was pessimistic about the outcome of the three-day meeting, whose venue was moved to Baghdad from Tuesday.
Dabbagh said that despite outstanding issues, the parliament would meet on Thursday to choose a speaker, the first step towards forming a new government.

US Call
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a visit to Australia on Monday that Iraq should have a government that was representative of all groups.
“We have been consistently urging the Iraqis to have an inclusive government that reflects the interests and needs of the various sectors of the population, that there had to be legitimate power-sharing amongst groups and individuals,” Clinton said.

Israelis Jubilating

The victory of Republicans in securing the majority of seats in the US House of Representatives in the recent midterm congressional elections must have pleased Israel more than anybody else.
This is mainly because the lobby advocating for the Zionist regime can again become more powerful. Of course, Democrats and Republicans both support the Zionist regime, but the current pressures exerted by the US on Israel to stop building settlements will decrease.
The plain truth is that talks between Israel and Palestine have practically ended. US President Barack Obama’s demand for the continued freeze on building settlements was not agreed upon by Israel, which did not take any measures to arouse the sensitivities of Washington.
A former senior Israeli diplomat in Washington, Yoram Etinger, has said the result of the US midterm congressional race in general helps fortify the lobby that supports Israel in the US and will reduce the pressure on US president to denounce Tel Aviv.
A few minutes after the victory of Republicans in the ballot exercise, one of the pro-Israeli lobbies, The Israel Project, wrote on its website that the election's result will affect ties between the US and Israel, as well as Iran sanctions.
Former White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer said the domination of Republicans in the House of Representatives is good news for Israel and its supporters. He also said the new House speaker and almost all members of the Republican party staunchly support Israel.
This is not the entire story, as Obama can still go on to win the 2012 presidential election. Bill Clinton faced a similar situation in 1994, but was reelected two years later.
Concurrent with Obama’s Asian tour, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting the US to participate in the meeting of Jewish leaders. He has so far met Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Vice President Joseph Biden. Washington’s interests in the Middle East do not change with seasonal elections. This is while Obama has displayed a weak performance against Israel and the issue of settlements. What resulted in Democrats’ defeat in the midterm congressional race was not Obama’s Middle East policy.
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What influenced American voters were economic woes, internal issues and the tragedy of Afghan war.
At any rate, if Republicans can return the governing conditions to those of the George W. Bush era, Israel will be more than relieved.
The Obama administration will be active in foreign policy, especially Middle East policy, for another year at most and then it is expected to focus on the 2012 presidential election.
Under the circumstances, Israel will advance its plans for undertaking the complete judaization of Beit-ul-Moqaddas and construction of new settlements.
Historically speaking, the dominant notion is that Democrats pay more attention to human rights issues than Republicans. However, this parameter never impacted ties between Washington and Arab governments.
Arms agreements between the Obama administration and some Arab states, which were unprecedented in terms of value, reveal that no major changes should be expected.
Whether Democrats or Republicans wield power also does not cause any concern in Iran either. Obama’s Iran policy has not been different from that of neocons; only their vocabulary changes in the beginning.

Iran’s Surena Among Top Robots

Iran’s humanoid robot, Surena 2, has been placed among the world’s top robots by an international technology institute.
Iran’s humanoid robot, Surena 2, has been placed among the world’s top robots by an international technology institute.
Hamid Taahbaz Tavakkoli, the secretary of Development and Technology Institute of Iran’s Industries and Mines Ministry, also told IRNA on Sunday that the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has placed the name of Surena among the five prominent robots of the world after analyzing its performance.
Tavakkoli said IEEE, the world’s leading professional association for the advancement of technology, in a recent report examined the performances of the robots: Asimo (Japan), Reem-B (Spain), Justin (German), Charli (US) and Surena (Iran).
The official said IEEE has referred to Surena as “unexpected development”.
IEEE is an international non-profit, professional organization for the advancement of technology related to electricity. It has the most members of any technical professional organization in the world, with more than 395,000 members in around 150 countries.
Top Robotics Experts
Surena 2, developed by over 20 top robotics experts of Iran, was unveiled by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in July.
Over 10,000 man-hours have been spent to develop the new high-tech robot.
Weighing 45 kg and having a height of 1.45 meters, Surena 2 can walk like a human being, but at a slower pace.
Surena 1 was developed in Iran in 2008 through the collaboration of Center for Advanced Vehicles, University of Tehran and the R&D Society of Iranian Industries and Mines Ministry.
The humanoid robot had an 8 degree-of-freedom (8 DOF) and was able to move on a pre-defined trajectory with a tracking and remote control system.
Surena 2 has 22 DOFs, including 12, 8, and 2 at its legs, hands and head respectively.
The robot is equipped with various sensors such as a gyroscope and accelerometers that provide stable motion.
The Surena project is enhancing the ability to design robots that walk on two legs, under a feedback control system that provides dynamic balance, yielding a much more human-like motion.

Pakistani President:

India Rejected Peace Overtures

Pakistan's president has accused India of rejecting what he termed peace overtures made earlier this year, a sign of how far apart the neighboring countries remain two years after relations crumbled in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks.
Asif Ali Zardari made the remarks late Sunday just hours after US President Barack Obama urged the two nations to resolve their differences through dialogue. Obama was speaking to students in Mumbai where he was on the second day of a four-day visit to India, AP reported.
Better ties between India and Pakistan would help Washington in the war in Afghanistan, because it would allow Islamabad to shift troops to the western border to fight militants there.
"The democratic civil government went out of the way in our peace overtures toward India," Zardari said in a speech to a South Asian journalist association, a copy of which was released on Monday.
"It would have been most helpful if our initiatives had been welcomed and responded to in a positive manner."
Moreover, Pakistan's alleged support for the Taliban in Afghanistan is motivated partly by its fear of Indian influence there.
Pakistan and India have fought three wars since 1947, two over conflicting claims surrounding the Kashmir region.
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India accuses Pakistan’s intelligence agencies of supporting militants who carry out attacks in India, including the November 2008 attacks on its financial capital of Mumbai that killed 166. Tensions between the two nations spiked after those attacks and a slow-moving peace process was put on hold.
Pakistan wants to resume talks that include the Kashmir issue, but India says it has not done enough to punish the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks or ensure there will not be a repeat.
Islamabad invited India’s foreign minister for talks in July in Islamabad, but they achieved little except public recriminations on both sides.
Zardari said Pakistan was cooperating in bringing to justice those behind militant attacks.
Pakistan has arrested seven people in connection with the Mumbai attacks, but their trials have not begun yet. Its powerful army and spy agencies--which operate largely out of the control of Zardari’s government--have for years treated militants who attack India as allies, not enemies. Analysts say they have not fully severed their ties with such groups.
The United States has to play a delicate balancing act in its relations with the two nations. It cannot upset India, a growing economic and democratic giant, and must also strengthen ties with Pakistan, which it needs to stabilize Afghanistan.

10 Iranian Pilgrims Killed in Karbala, Najaf

Twin bombings in Shiite holy cities targeting Iranians killed at least 18 people on Monday, 10 of them pilgrims from Iran.
Police and local officials said the attacks also wounded 58 people, mostly Iranian pilgrims.
In Karbala, a suicide bomber pulled up his booby-trapped vehicle alongside a bus carrying pilgrims from neighboring Iran and then detonated his payload, police officials were quoted as saying by AFP.
The explosion killed 10 people, four of them Iranians, and wounded another 42, hospital officials said.
The bomber struck in the northern part of Karbala through which traffic headed to Karbala’s tightly-guarded shrines passes on the way down south from Baghdad.
The second attack targeted three buses carrying Iranian pilgrims, police said.
“A bomb blast killed eight people, six of them Iranians, and wounded 16 others,” said Khaled Jashani, a member of Najaf’s provincial council.
The buses and two other vehicles were gutted, he said.
About 1,500 non-Arab pilgrims a day from predominantly Shiite Iran visit the faith’s holiest shrines in Karbala and Najaf as well as in the capital of Iraq, a country with a Shiite majority.
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said last week that the surge of violence, including a hostage-taking by Al-Qaeda gunmen at a Baghdad church which left 46 worshippers dead on October 31, was due to the failure to form a government.
“The attacks and explosions...are due to the constitutional and political vacuum and the delay in the formation of the government, which gave the terrorists the opportunity to attack civilians,” he said.
Iran’s Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission on Wednesday held foreign forces accountable for the recent bomb attacks across the country.
On October 31, a group of armed men took dozens of worshippers hostage in Baghdad’s Sayidat Al-Nejat (Our Lady Salvation) Catholic Church.
The incident lasted four hours before police intervened. The interior ministry later said 52 people were killed and more than 60 were injured in the rescue operation. About 100 people were inside the church for an evening Mass.

US Rights Record

The United Nation’s Human Rights Council in Geneva reviewed the human rights record of the United States on November 5, on the occasion of the Ninth Session of the Universal Periodic Review.
The United Nation’s Human Rights Council in Geneva reviewed the human rights record of the United States on November 5, on the occasion of the Ninth Session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), November 1 to 12, 2010. The following is an edited version of the presentation given by Dirk Adriaensens in Geneva on November 3.
Just days after the devastating attacks of 9/11, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz declared that a major focus of US foreign policy would be “ending states that sponsor terrorism.” Iraq was labeled a “terrorist state” targeted for termination. President Bush went on to declare Iraq the major front of the global war on terror. US forces invaded the country illegally with the express aim of dismantling the Iraqi state. After World War II, the social sciences focused on state-building and development models. Little has been written about state destruction and development. We can now, after seven years of war and occupation, state for certain that state ending was a deliberate policy objective.
The consequences in human and cultural terms of the destruction of the Iraqi state have been enormous: notably the death of over 1/3 million civilians; the degradation in social infrastructure, including electricity, potable water and sewage systems; over eight million Iraqis are in need of humanitarian assistance, abject poverty: the UN Human rights report for the first quarter of 2007 found that 54 percent of Iraqis were living on less than $1 a day; the displacement of minimum 2/5 million refugees and 2,764,000 internally displaced people as to end 2009.
One in six Iraqis is displaced. Ethnic and religious minorities are on the verge of extinction. UN-HABITAT, an agency of the United Nations, published a 218-page report entitled “State of the World’s Cities, 2010-2011.” Prior to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the percentage of the urban population living in slums in Iraq hovered just below 20 percent. Today, that percentage has risen to 53 percent: 11 million of the 19 million total urban dwellers.

Destroying Education
The UNESCO report “Education Under Attack 2010 - Iraq,” dated 10 February concludes, “Although overall security in Iraq had improved, the situation faced by schools, students, teachers and academics remained dangerous.” The director of the United Nations University International Leadership Institute published a report on 27 April, 2005, detailing that since the start of the war in 2003, some 84 percent of Iraq’s higher education institutions have been burnt, looted or destroyed. Ongoing violence has destroyed school buildings and around a quarter of all Iraq’s primary schools need major rehabilitation. Since March 2003, more than 700 primary schools have been bombed, 200 have been burnt and over 3000 looted.

Eliminating Middle Class
Parallel to the destruction of Iraq’s educational infrastructure, this repression has led to the mass forced displacement of the bulk of Iraq’s educated middle class--the main engine of progress and development in modern states. Iraq’s intellectual and technical class has been subject to a systematic and ongoing campaign of intimidation, abduction, extortion, random killings and targeted assassinations. The decimation of professional ranks took place in the context of a generalized assault on Iraq’s professional middle class, including doctors, engineers, lawyers and judges as well as political and religious leaders. Roughly 40 percent of Iraq’s middle class is believed to have fled by the end of 2006. Few have returned.

Destroying Culture
All these terrible losses are compounded by unprecedented levels of cultural devastation, attacks on national archives and monuments that represent the historical identity of the Iraqi people. On America’s watch, we now know that thousands of cultural artifacts disappeared during “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. These objects included no less that 15000 invaluable Mesopotamian artifacts from the National Museum in Baghdad and many others from the 12000 archaeological sites that the occupation forces left unguarded. While the museum was robbed of its historical collection, the National Library that preserved the continuity and pride of Iraqi history was deliberately destroyed. Occupation authorities took no effective measures to protect important cultural sites, despite warnings by international specialists. According to a recent update on the number of stolen artifacts by Francis Deblauwe, an archaeologist expert on Iraq, it appears that no less than 8,500 objects are still missing, in addition to 4,000 artifacts said to be recovered abroad, but not yet returned to Iraq. The smuggling and trade of Iraqi antiquities has become one of the most profitable businesses in contemporary Iraq.

Destroying the Iraqi State
Rampant chaos and violence hamper efforts at reconstruction, leaving the foundations of the Iraqi state in ruins. The majority of western journalists, academics and political figures have refused to recognize the loss of life on such a massive scale and the cultural destruction that accompanied it as the fully predictable consequences of American occupation policy. The very idea is considered unthinkable, despite the openness with which this objective was pursued.
It is time to think the unthinkable. The American-led assault on Iraq forces us to consider the meaning and consequences of state destruction as a policy objective. The architects of the Iraq policy never made explicit what deconstructing and reconstructing the Iraqi state would entail; their actions, however, make the meaning clear. From those actions in Iraq, a fairly precise definition of state termination can be read.

Removal of State’s Head
The campaign to destroy the state of Iraq involved, first, the removal and execution of the legal head of state, Saddam Hussein, and the capture and expulsion of Baath figures. However, state destruction went beyond regime change. It also entailed the purposeful dismantling of major state institutions and the launching of a prolonged process of political reshaping.
Bremer’s 100 orders turned Iraq into a giant free-market paradise, but a hellish nightmare for Iraqis. The occupiers colonized the country for capital - pillage on the grandest scale. New economic laws instituted low taxes, 100 percent foreign investor ownership of Iraqi assets, the right to expropriate all profits, unrestricted imports and long-term 30-40 year deals and leases, dispossessing Iraqis of their own resources.

Not to Investigate Torture
The WikiLeaks documents first made public on October 22, 2010, show how the US military gave a secret order not to investigate torture by Iraqi authorities discovered by American troops.
The data also reveal how hundreds of civilians were killed by coalition forces in unreported events, how hundreds of Iraqi civilians - pregnant women, elderly people and children - were shot at checkpoints.
There are numerous claims of prison abuse by coalition forces, even after the Abu Ghraib scandal. The files also paint a grim picture of widespread torture in Iraqi detention facilities. Two revelations await the reader of the WikiLeaks section dealing with civilian deaths in the Iraq war. Iraqis are responsible for most of these deaths and the number of total civilian casualties is substantially higher than has been previously reported.
The documents record a descent into chaos and horror as the country plunged into so-called “civil war.” The logs also record thousands of bodies, many brutally tortured, dumped on the streets of Iraq.
Through the WikiLeaks files, we can see the impact the war had on Iraqi men, women and children. The sheer scale of the deaths, detentions and violence is officially acknowledged for the first time.
A thorough research of these documents will give us a further insight into the atrocities committed in Iraq. The WikiLeaks logs can serve as evidence in courts. They are important material for lawyers to file charges against the US for negligence and responsibility for the killing of thousands.

Ethnic Cleansing
It became clear after the invasion in 2003 that the Iraqi exile groups were to play an important role in the violent response to dissent in occupied Iraq. Already on January 1, 2004, it was reported that the US government planned to create paramilitary units comprised of militiamen from Iraqi Kurdish and exile groups, including the Badr brigades, the Iraqi National Congress and the Iraqi National Accord, to wage a campaign of terror and extrajudicial killing, similar to the Phoenix program in Vietnam, the terror and assassination campaign that killed tens of thousands of civilians.
The $87 billion supplemental appropriation for the war in November 2003 included $3 billion for a classified program, funds that would be used for the paramilitaries for the next three years. Over that period, the news from Iraq gradually came to be dominated by reports of death squads and ethnic cleansing, described in the press as “sectarian violence,” that was used as the new central narrative of the war and the principal justification for continued occupation. Some of the violence may have been spontaneous, but there is overwhelming evidence that most of it was the result of the plans described by several American experts in December 2003.

Dirty War
In January 2005, more than a year after the first reports about the Pentagon’s planning for assassinations and paramilitary operations emerged, the “Salvador Option” hit the pages of Newsweek and other major news outlets. The outsourcing of state terrorism to local proxy forces was regarded as a key component of a policy that had succeeded in preventing the total defeat of the US-backed government in El Salvador. Pentagon-hired mercenaries, like Dyncorp, helped form the sectarian militias that were used to terrorize and kill Iraqis and to provoke Iraq into civil war. In 2004, two senior US Army officers published a favorable review of the American proxy war in Colombia, “Presidents Reagan and Bush supported a small, limited war while trying to keep US military involvement a secret from the American public and media. Present US policy toward Colombia appears to follow this same disguised, quiet, media-free approach.”
It reveals the fundamental nature of dirty war, as in Latin America and the worst excesses of the Vietnam War. The purpose of dirty war is not to identify and then detain or kill actual resistance fighters. The target of dirty war is the civilian population. It is a strategy of state terrorism and collective punishment against an entire population with the objective of terrorizing it into submission.

Surge of Troops
In January 2007, the US government announced a new strategy, the “surge” of US combat troops in Baghdad and Anbar province. Most Iraqis reported that this escalation of violence made living conditions even worse than before, as its effects were added to the accumulated devastation of four years of war and occupation. The UN Human Rights Report for the first quarter of 2007 gave a description of the dire conditions of the Iraqi people. The violence of the surge resulted in a further 22 percent reduction of the number of doctors, leaving only 15,500 out of an original 34,000 by September 2008. The number of refugees and internally displaced rose sharply during the period 2007-2008.
The escalation of American firepower in 2007, including a five-fold increase in airstrikes and the use of Specter gunships and artillery in addition to the surge was intended as a devastating climax to the past four years of war and collective punishment inflicted upon the Iraqi people. All resistance-held areas would be targeted with overwhelming fire power, mainly from the air, until the US ground forces could build walls around what remained of each neighborhood and isolate each district.
US Forces in Special Operations
Another aspect of the surge or escalation appears to have been an increase in the use of American Special Forces assassination teams. In April 2008, President Bush declared “As we speak, US Special Forces are launching multiple operations every night to capture or kill Al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq.” The New York Times reported on 13 May, 2009: “When General Stanley McChrystal took over the Joint Special Operations Command in 2003, he inherited an insular, shadowy commando force with a reputation for spurning partnerships with other military and intelligence organizations. But over the next five years he worked hard, his colleagues say, to build close relationships with the CIA and the FBI ... In Iraq, where he oversaw secret commando operations for five years, former intelligence officials say that he had an encyclopedic, even obsessive, knowledge about the lives of terrorists and that he pushed his ranks aggressively to kill as many of them as possible.... Most of what General McChrystal has done over a 33-year career remains classified, including service between 2003 and 2008 as commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, an elite unit so clandestine that the Pentagon for years refused to acknowledge its existence.”

Systematic Crimes
When the public revelations of abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib prison created a brief furor in the world, the ICRC, Human Rights First, AI, HRW, and other human rights groups documented far more widespread and systematic crimes committed by US forces against people they extra judicially detained in Iraq. In numerous human rights reports, they established that command responsibility for these crimes extended to the highest levels of the US government and its armed forces.
The forms of torture documented in these reports included death threats, mock executions, waterboarding, stress positions, including excruciating and sometimes deadly forms of hanging, hypothermia, sleep deprivation, starvation and thirst, withholding medical treatment, electric shocks, various forms of rape and sodomy, endless beatings, burning, cutting with knives, injurious use of flexicuffs, suffocation, sensory assault and/or deprivation, and more psychological forms of torture such as sexual humiliation and the detention and torture of family members. The ICRC established that the violations of international humanitarian law that it recorded were systematic and widespread.

Recommendations
We learned that, on Tuesday the 26th of October, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay urged Iraq and the United States to investigate allegations of torture and unlawful killings in the Iraq conflict revealed in the WikiLeaks documents. We are very surprised by this statement. Does the high commissioner think it is appropriate for criminals to investigate their own crimes?
Although the UN did not authorize the invasion of Iraq, it did “legalize” the occupation a posteriori in UNSC resolution 1483 (22 May, 2003), against the will of the overwhelming majority of the world community which did not accept the legality or the legitimacy of that UN resolution.

Azerbaijan Elections

Azerbaijan’s ruling party on Monday won a large majority in parliamentary polls that cemented President Ilham Aliyev’s tight grip on power but were denounced by the opposition as a shameful fraud.
Azerbaijan’s ruling party on Monday won a large majority in parliamentary polls that cemented President Ilham Aliyev’s tight grip on power but were denounced by the opposition as a shameful fraud.
With votes from 99 percent of precincts counted from Sunday’s vote, Aliyev’s Yeni Azerbaijan Party had won more than 70 seats in the 125-seat parliament, with almost all the rest going to independent candidates loyal to Aliyev, AFP reported.
An electoral bloc that had been seen as the main opposition contender, bringing together the Azerbaijani Popular Front and Musavat parties, appeared to have won no seats, according to results posted on the Central Election Commission website.
Opposition leaders condemned the vote as a sham. “Yesterday’s (Sunday) events had nothing to do with elections, it was the most shameful kind of election,” Musavat Leader Isa Gambar told a press conference.
“This was a total falsification. The general opinion is that these elections were in no way free, transparent or democratic.”
Azerbaijani Popular Front Leader Ali Karimli condemned the international community for ignoring democratic violations in the country.
“International organizations carry moral responsibility for the falsifications which occurred during yesterday’s elections,” he said.
“International organizations have closed their eyes to the illegal actions of the authorities, to the anti-democratic actions that created the possibility for these falsifications.”

Protecting Interests
The opposition has accused western countries of tempering criticism of rights abuses to protect their strategic interests in the energy-rich former Soviet state, which has been courted since the collapse of the Soviet Union by foreign governments as a key source of oil and gas.
The mainly Muslim country bordering Iran is also a transit route for US troops and supplies headed to Afghanistan.
Critics had accused authorities of preparing to falsify the vote by rejecting the registration of dozens of opposition candidates, stifling media coverage and refusing to grant permission for opposition meetings.
Gambar said the opposition was considering holding mass protests against the result, but analysts have said it is unlikely the opposition would be able to muster much support on the streets.
Yeni Azerbaijan was quick to declare confidence in victory after polls closed and rejected accusations of fraud.
“Yeni Azerbaijan held a successful campaign and that makes us believe that our party will win the elections,” party executive secretary, Ali Akhmedov, told a press conference on Sunday.
“All candidates were given equal opportunities. Overall, the voting process was held in democratic conditions.”
The election saw about 700 candidates vying for seats in the country’s unicameral parliament, the Milli Mejlis.
About 4.9 million people had been registered to vote and final voter turnout was 50.1 percent, the election commission said.
Western observers from the OSCE said on Monday that Azerbaijan had failed to make any real democratic progress in the vote.

Gold as Forex Anchor

World Bank President Robert Zoellick has called on bickering G20 nations to bring gold back into the global monetary system as an anchor to guide currency movements.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick has called on bickering G20 nations to bring gold back into the global monetary system as an anchor to guide currency movements.
Ahead of a G20 summit this week in Seoul, Zoellick wrote in Monday’s Financial Times that an updated gold standard could contribute to retooling the world economy at a time of tensions over currencies and US monetary policy.
Zoellick said the world needed a new regime to succeed what he called the “Bretton Woods II” system of floating currencies, which has been in place since the fixed-rate currency system linked to gold broke down in 1971.
“Although textbooks may view gold as the old money, markets are using gold as an alternative monetary asset today,” Zoellick wrote in a commentary.
The new system “is likely to need to involve the dollar, the euro, the yen, the pound and a renminbi (Chinese yuan) that moves towards internationalization and then an open capital account”, he said.

Reference Point
Zoellick said the system should also consider employing gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values.
His comments came amid worries of a so-called currency war, when countries jostle for trade advantage by pushing their exchange rates lower.
The United States has led accusations that China cheats in world trade by artificially weakening its currency.
But Washington also stands accused of tolerating a weak dollar, roiling emerging markets whose own currencies are rising strongly and hurting their export competitiveness.
The complaints have intensified since the US Federal Reserve last week announced a $600-billion shot of monetary stimulus--in effect printing money that other economies worry will flood their markets.
Zoellick also called on the Group of 20, whose leaders meet in the South Korean capital on Thursday and Friday, to forge structural reforms, including more domestic demand in China and more debt-reduction in the United States.
“Major economies should agree to forego currency intervention, except in rare circumstances agreed to by others,” he added.
The G20 could work out tools to help emerging economies cope with the kinds of hot-money flows that are now driving up their currencies and creating fears of asset bubbles.
Zoellick said the G20 should support growth by focusing on supply-side bottlenecks in developing countries, such as infrastructure, agriculture and a lack of skilled labor.
“Perhaps most importantly, this package could get governments ahead of problems instead of reacting to economic, political and social storms,” the World Bank chief argued.

Record-Setting Pace
Gold settled at another record high as investors sought out its perceived safety while waiting to see how the Federal Reserve’s new economic stimulus program will unfold.
A positive jobs report also boosted industrial metals and, to a lesser extent, energy futures, AP wrote.
The dollar also rose, which is normally a negative for gold and other commodities, but traders remained focused on the potential of inflation with the Federal Reserve’s plan to buy $600 billion of bonds by the middle of next year.
The goal of the Fed’s plan, called quantitative easing, is to decrease already low interest rates in an effort to boost economic growth. Those low rates, however, also weaken the dollar against other currencies that have higher interest rates.
“The dollar may strengthen in the short run but the longer term, or bigger picture, impact is that more quantitative easing is going to weaken the dollar and that will be good for precious metals,” said William Rhind, strategic director for ETF Securities.
A weaker dollar tends to raise the value of precious metals and other commodities by making them cheaper for overseas portfolio managers. Since commodities are generally priced in dollars, investors who manage accounts in euro, yen and other currencies can buy more gold and other commodities when the dollar is weak versus their own currencies.
Gold for December delivery settled at a record high of $1,397.70 an ounce, up $14.60.
The Labor Department said a net gain of 151,000 jobs occurred in October, the best increase in five months. However, unemployment remained at a stubborn 9.6 percent.
The hint of an improving economy boosted industrial metals such as silver, copper, platinum and palladium. December silver added 70.5 cents to settle at $26.748 an ounce.
A weeklong rally in oil prices leveled off as a stronger dollar tempered investor enthusiasm.
Many analysts think oil prices could climb to $90 a barrel by the end of the year.

2010 Asian Games

In the opening game of the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, Iran’s U-23 performed their best game to rout
Turkmenistan 4-1.
By Alireza Nakhchi
Staff writer

In the opening game of the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, Iran’s U-23 performed their best game to rout Turkmenistan 4-1.
The four-time Asian Games champion was the better team of the pitch. The team, coached by Gholamhossein Peyrovani, created many scoring chances in the opening exchange.
Seyyed Jalal Hosseini broke the deadlock in the 27th minute of the game. Iran’s captain headed Karim Ansarifard’s flawless cross to the back of the net.
Three minutes later, Ansarifard missed a good opportunity to double Iran’s lead. He was one-on-one with Turkmen’s goalie but his shot was wide off the mark.
Iran continued its dominance, though Arash Afshin was not lucky to boost the score sheet before the break.
In the second half, Iran didn’t show a good performance. Five minutes into the second half, Turkmenistan tied the game through Hangeldiyev.
Two minutes into the hour mark, Hosseini doubled his tally with a nice header.
Iran dominated the pitch in the 84th minute of the match, when Mohsen Mosalman helped Ansarifard score Iran’s third goal.
In the dying minutes of the game, substitute Mehdi Daghaghele was on target as he netted the last goal for Iran.
Iran is in Group B of the competitions along with Turkmenistan, Bahrain and Vietnam.
Iran’s next match will be against Bahrain on Wednesday.
In this tournament, 24 teams have been lined up in the men’s competitions, which will end on November 25.
Iran has won the title in 1974, 1990, 1998 and 2002.

iran daily

Number 3822 ● Tuesday November 9, 2010 ● Aban 18, 1389 ● Zihajjeh 2, 1431 ● Price 2,000 Rials ● 12 Pages