Filipinos not backing junta, says Enrile - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

Filipinos not backing junta, says Enrile - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

Cites public scorn for military meddling By Norman Bordadora
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:41:00 03/29/2010

MANILA, Philippines—Take it from Marcos’ martial law administrator himself.

Filipinos won’t accept a junta even if the May elections fail and produce no successor to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, according to Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile.

Enrile acknowledged that a military takeover was possible in a tense situation, such as a failure of elections.

But the people have rejected the idea of a military-controlled government since EDSA I, said Enrile, the defense secretary when Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972 until he broke away from the dictator in 1986, which led to a popular uprising that toppled Marcos.

“A military junta that would grab power for itself would be totally unacceptable to our people because it is contrary to our longstanding democratic tradition,” the senator said in a statement sent to the Inquirer.

Backpedaling

Although a military takeover was possible, “our own experience since 1986 tells us that Filipinos do not take kindly to any form of military intervention in our political life,” Enrile added, backpedaling on the views he expressed a week before the 24th anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution.

Last month, he said that the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police could intervene and choose an acting head of government in case of a massive failure of elections.

Enrile mentioned Article II, Section 3 of the 1987 Constitution, which states that the AFP is the “protector of the people and the State.”

Should elections fail, Enrile said in February there would be no civilian authority on June 30 when Ms Arroyo’s term ends because there would be no President, Vice President, Senate President and Speaker.

“The only authority that you have are those with guns except they are the most organized people in the bureaucracy,” he told ABS-CBN last month.

They are the “permanent institutions” and the only ones who could “control the country at that point,” he added.

Enrile said the AFP chief of staff and the PNP director general then could pick a civilian authority “to administer the government in transition.”

“The Constitution is just a piece of document and if it is not enforced, nothing will happen,” he said. “Who will enforce the Constitution? It is the police and the military if there is no civilian authority that can enforce.”

Speculation of a plot to extend Ms Arroyo’s stay in power with the support of the newly named AFP chief of staff, Gen. Delfin Bangit, and other generals loyal to him was fueled when the President’s deputy spokesperson cited Enrile’s statement of a possible military takeover.

Charito Planas said on March 19 that a military takeover could take place in case of a power vacuum due to a failure of elections.

Turnaround

In a turnaround, Enrile, who is seeking reelection under Joseph Estrada’s political party Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino (PMP), said on Sunday the military and the police would remain under civilian authority even if the President’s term ended on June 30 with no clear elected successor.

“The continuing government in the Philippines is the Cabinet. That is not replaced until the next President replaces it even if (Ms Arroyo’s) term ends,” Enrile told reporters who followed the PMP sortie in Cotabato City.

He said the defense secretary, a civilian, would continue to oversee the military while the interior secretary and concurrent chair of the National Police Commission, also a civilian, would supervise the police.

Enrile said people should stop talking about failed elections and the military taking over as this would only cause divisiveness.

“In the first place, there’s no legal justification for the military to intervene in the unlikely possibility that the May elections would fail. The line of succession would still be intact until June 30,” he said.

New Senate president

Enrile earlier said that in case of an election failure, he would call for a joint session of Congress during which he would resign to pave the way for the election of a new Senate president whose term would go beyond June 30. (Twelve senators, or half of the 24-seat Senate, are serving until 2013.)

Enrile’s term, like those of Ms Arroyo, Vice President Noli de Castro and Speaker Prospero Nograles, ends on June 30.

The Vice President, Senate president and the Speaker are mandated by the Constitution to be in line to succeed the President if he or she is no longer able to discharge the functions of his or her office.

With De Castro, Enrile and Nograles’ terms all due to end on June 30, only a newly elected Senate president whose term runs through 2013 could take over as the country’s acting President in case of failed elections.

Military support

Enrile indicated that the Senate president as acting President should have the support of the military and the police in the tense aftermath of an election failure.

“If he is not respected by the military, he will be inutile. If he is not respected by the police he will be inutile. He will be a stepping mat,” Enrile said.

He said former Presidents, and business and religious leaders should have a hand in choosing the acting President. “At least there is a semblance of popular will,” he said.

The scenario would hold “until an election is held again to select the true President of the country,” Enrile said.

“But as I said we will know that after the May 10 elections. Right now, nobody can say that there is a failure of election. It’s all speculation,” he said.

Enrile called on the Commission on Elections, the government and the opposition to ensure that the country’s first automated elections would be clean, peaceful and orderly.

He urged all political parties, electoral watchdogs and civil society to maintain vigilance so that the true will of the people would be reflected in the election results.

“If we can pull off the nationwide automated elections, we mark another phase in the development and maturation of Philippine democracy. There can be no turning back,” Enrile said.

Define failure

History will judge Ms Arroyo “unkindly” should a junta arise if the May 10 polls end up a failure, Sen. Joker Arroyo said Sunday.

And this early, the senator wants the Comelec to “define what constitutes” an election failure under the first automated polls in the country.

Interviewed over dzBB radio and by the Inquirer later, Arroyo said the Comelec should define what constitutes “failure of election” to spare Congress from debating on the matter in the event it happened.

Congress is scheduled to hold sessions from May 31 to June 4 to canvass election returns for the presidential and vice presidential races, and proclaim the winners.

“Otherwise, there will be no end to the debates in Congress,” Arroyo said. With a report from Christine O. Avendaño

Iraq PM Reiterates Call for Recount as Stalemate Looms -- News from Antiwar.com

Iraq PM Reiterates Call for Recount as Stalemate Looms -- News from Antiwar.com

by Jason Ditz, March 21, 2010

With just a few days of counting left in Iraq’s parliamentary election, the lead seems to be changing hourly, and after retaking and losing the lead earlier in the day, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s Iraqiya bloc has once again seized a narrow lead over current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law bloc.

In Iraq’s parliamentary system, the raw vote totals are actually of minor consequences, however, as the number of seats is determined on a provincial basis and the party with the most seats, not the most votes, gets first crack at forming a new government. In that regard the two blocs are running virtually neck-and-neck, and the final result will likely be no more than a 1-2 seat swing one way or another.

To that end, Prime Minister Maliki has been pressing for a full recount of the vote, echoing calls from President Jalal Talabani. Iraq’s election commission has already rejected the recount, but Maliki continues to reiterate this call.

These recounts seem again to be with an eye not so much on the raw vote totals, but at picking up an extra seat here or there in a province. State of Law is reportedly disappointed in their relatively modest victory in Baghdad (counts showing them scarcely ahead of Iraqiya and the Iraqi National Alliance (INA) also picking up a large portion of the vote). Allawi, whose strength has come from dominant performances in Sunni-majority provinces, seems keen to get the count settled as quickly as possible.

Once the final count is certified and the number of seats is finally settled, the real battle begins, as Iraqiya and State of Law vie for the number of partners they would need to form a coalition government, with the bloc with the most seats going first. This is certain to be a long, messy process that will take months and could even end with a deadlock and a new election.

To that end both blocs will be courting the seats of the Iraqi National Alliance, the bloc once dominated by the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC). Smaller factions with seats will include the Kurdistan Alliance, the Gorran Party, the Iraqi United bloc and the Iraqi Accord Front. Eight seats will also go to religious minorities.

Exactly how many of the seats any bloc is going to come up with is unclear, but the Kurdistan Alliance, once a dominant power throughout the north, seems to have lost mightily in this vote, losing to Iraqiya in Kirkuk and Nineveh and even failing to net a plurality in its own stronghold of Sulamaniyah, where Gorran looks to net several seats. Once seen as a certain “kingmaker,” the Kurdistan Alliance runs the very real risk of getting cut out in a coalition now, severely weakening the bargaining position of the Kurdistan Regional Government they dominate.

Instead the new kingmaker seems to be anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who just weeks ago was facing reports that the Maliki government had sworn out an arrest warrant against him. An impressively organized campaign has put the Sadr loyalists into a commanding position, poised to seize control of the INA from the increasingly irrelevant SIIC and putting some of his controversial allies in position of increased influence, as it seems all but certain that any coalition will need to go through him.

The Shi’ite religious INA overall is seen as a more natural ally to the Shi’ite religious State of Law, but Sadr’s very public problems with Maliki have somewhat poisoned the well for this relationship. If State of Law is to court Sadr, it may require enormous concessions, including putting up Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani as a replacement Prime Minister.

And an INA alliance with the secularist Iraqiya is not out of the question either, as Sadr’s long-standing nationalist tendancies could make him more inclined to join with Allawi, and Iraqiya’s comparative rivalry with the Kurdistan Alliance would make getting his bloc on board all the more vital, and mean Iraqiya would be willing to pay all the more in the form of additional ministerships.

The uphill battle toward anything resembling a ruling coalition could also provide a pretext for slowing or even stalling the US drawdown in the nation, as the months of political wrangling leaves a caretaker government with little authority in power. For an Obama Administration already under pressure to abandon its “no more combat troops after August” pledge, the election deadlock seems a tailor-made excuse.

Sea of protesters demand new elections in Thailand

Sea of protesters demands Thailand's government call new elections or face more demonstrations

THANYARAT DOKSONE
AP News

Mar 14, 2010 16:18 EDT

As many as 100,000 people demonstrated peacefully against Thailand's government at a party-like rally Sunday, but the capital was being kept on edge by their threat to continue protesting until Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva calls new elections.

Loud pop music and rural delicacies such as spicy papaya salad competed with fiery rhetoric for the attention of the crowd, many of whom had come from provinces in the countryside. The festive tone was aided by hundreds of new arrivals disembarking from boats festooned with red banners on the Chao Phraya River.

The so-called Red Shirts — comprising followers of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and their allies — rallied along a boulevard that is a traditional venue for political protests.

The protesters, formally grouped as the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, have been flexible in their tactics and deadlines, but are demanding Abhisit dissolve Parliament and call new elections, which they believe will restore their political allies to power.

They believe Abhisit took office illegitimately with the connivance of the military and other parts of the traditional ruling class who were alarmed by Thaksin's popularity, particularly among the poor. Thaksin, who became prime minister in 2001 and whose party easily won two elections, was ousted by a 2006 military coup for alleged corruption and abuse of power.

The Red Shirts set a deadline of noon Monday for Abhisit to heed their call, or face disruptive street protests. They said they would go Monday morning to an infantry base on Bangkok's outskirts to confront Abhisit, who has taken the precaution of sheltering there.

Abhisit indicated Sunday that for now, he had no plans to dissolve Parliament.

Thaksin spoke to the rally by video link Sunday night, urging the crowd to continue their struggle peacefully, and emphasizing that he considered the so-called ammart, or elite, the enemy. Thaksin himself is a billionaire businessman who fled Thailand in 2008 ahead of being convicted for a conflict of interest violation and sentenced to two years in jail.

"The people who caused the problems in the country these days are the ruling elites," declared Thaksin, speaking from an undisclosed location outside of Thailand. "To solve problems related to democracy, equality and justice — the ruling elites won't be able to do that because they don't have the conscience. The people will have to do it."

He accused his opponents of keeping Thailand in a state of underdevelopment, and suggested that if he returned to power, he would redistribute wealth, stop flooding in Bangkok, and keep Thailand economically competitive with its neighbors.

Other speakers employed crude personal invective, especially against 89-year-old Prem Tinsulanonda, a former prime minister who is the top adviser to King Bhumibol Adulyadej. The demonstrators blame Prem for orchestrating the 2006 military coup that toppled Thaksin.

The protest had been billed as a "million man march," though organizers had said they hoped for a turnout of 400,000-600,000. Protest leader Natthawut Saikua, said he believed more than a half million people turned up, while estimates from the police and other government agencies ranged from 50,000-150,000. Associated Press reporters said it was one of the biggest turnouts in the past five years of frequent protests, which would put it over the 100,000 mark.

There had been widespread worries ahead of the protest about possible violence, and a force of 50,000 soldiers, police and other security personnel was mobilized in the capital area. The Red Shirts' last major protest in Bangkok last April deteriorated into rioting that left two people dead, more than 120 people injured and buses burned on major thoroughfares before the army quashed the unrest.

"We are being vigilant. We are still concerned about the third hand that might instigate troubles. But the Red Shirts are adamant about keeping their rally peaceful, and so far they have been peaceful. Everything has been done step by step. Every side is cautious," government spokesman Panithan Wattanayakorn said Sunday night.

Thailand has been in constant political turmoil since early 2006, when anti-Thaksin demonstrations began. In 2008, when Thaksin's political allies came back to power for a year, his opponents occupied the prime minister's office compound for three months and seized Bangkok's two airports for a week.

___

Associated Press writer Grant Peck and photographer David Longstreath contributed to this report.

Source: AP News

Thai protesters converge on Bangkok - Times Online

Thai protesters converge on Bangkok - Times Online

Swelling crowds of anti-government protesters swarming in central Bangkok cheered and rattled their plastic clappers this afternoon as one of their leaders told the Thai Government to dissolve parliament within 24 hours or face the consequences.

Tens of thousands of protesters from the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, better known as Red Shirts, filled streets around the protest site yesterday to demand the resignation of Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Prime Minister.

They had arrived by boat, van, bus, coach and pick-up truck from all over Thailand to insist on political change and fresh elections, and many said they were ready to stay on the streets until they achieved their aim.

“We demand the Government give up administrative power by dissolving the parliament and returning power to the people,” said Veera Musikapong, one of the protest leaders, from a central stage at the site, warning that demonstrators would march to key locations in Bangkok if their demands were not met.

Pisanoo Limpiwan, a delivery man from a village 350 miles (400km) south of Bangkok, said he had come to Bangkok because “the Government is not correct”.

The "Red Shirts" believe the Government, led by Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Prime Minister, is illegitimate because it came to power by virtue of defections from the opposition, rather than by winning an election.

Mr Pisanoo said it had taken him six hours to get to Bangkok on the bus, and his wife had stayed at home. She did not agree with Mr Pisanoo’s political views, and she was worried that the neighbours did not either. “She said this is not acceptable,” Mr Pisanoo said, waving has arm at the thronging red shirts. “She thinks differently from me.”

Mr Abhisit used his weekly television programme this morning to tell Thais that he had no intention of using force to deal with the Red Shirts, and would not declare a state of emergency.

He said that he did not mind if the rally lasted for a week, or even a month, as long as it was peaceful. At the demonstration it looked as though the Red Shirts were hunkering down for the long haul – portable lavatories, tents, hammocks, food stalls, shade pavilions, and two stages have been positioned along roads adjacent to the monument.

The protest site in central Bangkok is surrounded by tourist attractions, banks and offices, and a prolonged protest would further damage Thailand’s already battered international reputation. This morning the streets around the site were quiet, with shuttered shops and few vehicles on the roads.

Mr Suthin Joseph Lee, a retiree from Bangkok, said he had slept at the site last night, and he planned to stay until the Government was ousted.

“We want our country to have justice and democracy; the true and the real democracy,” he said.

Red Shirts had swarmed in from all over Thailand, enduring traffic jams and hours-long waits at military checkpoints to make their voices heard, he added. None were armed, except with plastic bags filled with fermented fish sauce to throw at the enemy.

“We will throw it at those who support Abhisit. We don’t like him. We don’t want him. The military carried him to power,” he said.

The Red Shirts consider Mr Thaksin, ousted in 2006 and now living in exile in Dubai after fleeing Thailand, as a hero of the poor and dispossessed despite his conviction for corruption last year. The UAE authorities have in recent days reportedly warned Mr Thaksin to stop using Dubai as a base for political agitation, but he is nevertheless expected to address his supporters via video link.

Somchart Pihit-Arksorn, a 45-year-old lawyer from Pattani in Thailand’s far south, said he could not stay away from the rally, which was the last hope for a democratic nation. “I just want democracy,” he said.

Sitting with him was Adul Kirdsil, a cattle farmer from Khorat in the east, who had come to Bangkok with his wife to join the demonstration.

“We will be here until we win,” he said. Jaid Chuntaoon, 40, an electronics lecturer from Chiang Rai in the far north, said that he had driven to Bangkok because Mr Thaksin had tried to help the poor.

“I want to pay back Mr Thaksin,” he said. “His policies helped us, the poor people. I don’t think he was guilty. We have no justice here, no justice for poor people. They use the law like it’s martial law. It’s just not fair. The rich can do anything.”

More than 50,000 security personnel have been deployed to deal with any unrest, including 30,000 from the Army, 10,000 police officers and 10,000 “civil defence volunteers”, and the Government has invoked the Internal Security Act, giving security forces wide-ranging powers to institute curfews, ban gatherings, and deploy troops.

Suvarnabhumi airport is on high alert as the authorities are determined to avoid a repeat of the occupation in 2008, when pro-government “Yellow Shirts” seized the airport to force political change.

Leaders of the Red Shirts dubbed their protest the “million-man march”, but yesterday Thai security agencies were estimating crowds of about 80,000, likely to swell further today.

Thai protest march starts with Buddhist chants - Times Online

Thai protest march starts with Buddhist chants - Times Online

Times Online, March 12, 2010

The mass protest intended to paralyse Bangkok and topple the Thai Government began at exactly 12.12 pm today with a huge round of applause followed by the sound of gongs and Buddhist chanting.

Anti-government protesters from the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship gathered in their thousands at strategic locations around the country ready to start streaming toward central Bangkok.

At Lak Si, on the edge of Bangkok, about 2,000 UPD protesters, known as Redshirts, stood in the sun, waving their plastic handclappers as they waited to start the protest, which has been organised to protest the ruling by the Thai Supreme Court last month to freeze most of the assets - valued at 76 billion baht (£1.52 billion) - of Thaksin Shinawatra, the ousted prime minister.

Mam Angkana, a self-employed health food saleswoman said the huge rally planned for cenral Bangkok on Sunday would show the world exactly how much the current Thai Government is despised by ordinary Thais.

"I don't love this Government," Ms Angkana said, adding that it had done nothing for Thailand's poor. "I don't love this Prime Minister."

Ms Mam said she expected violence to erupt in Bangkok over the next few days. "The Redshirts only have handclappers but the Government has troops," she said. "Abhisit wants to kill people," she added, referring to Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. "He wants to kill Redshirts."

As the protesters, uniformly dressed in red and bearing placards with the words: "No justice, no peace," and "We need true democracy," dispersed to carry their message through the capital in a convoy of pickup trucks and vans, tens of thousands of soldiers and police officers were deployed to maintain calm.

The Thai Government warned of unrest as 50,000 security personnel, including 30,000 from the army, 10,000 police officers and 10,000 civil defence volunteers lined streets and highways armed with water cannon, “sound wave” machines, tear gas, and batons to deter "unruly protesters", according to government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagom.

Government insiders have warned of gun and mortar attacks, and senior government leaders will be based at a temporary military command centre during the protest.

The Government has invoked the Internal Security Act, giving security forces wide-ranging powers to institute curfews, ban gatherings, and deploy troops. “The sheer number of people planning to come makes the imposition of the ISA almost automatic,” Mr Panitan said.

The Redshirts say they expect “hundreds of thousands” of the rural poor to join the sit-in from Thailand’s north and northeast.

But with crowd estimates ranging wildly from 300,000 to one million, UDD spokesman Sean Boonpracong conceded that a turn-out of fewer than 100,000 protestors would be deemed a failure. He said the protest could last for as long as five days from Monday, and that there were undisclosed plans for each day’s actions.

The Government, he said, was doing everything it could to deter protesters from coming to Bangkok, including setting up huge military check-points on the highways, threatening to shut down petrol stations, banning farm vehicles and out-of-state taxis, invoking the “draconian” ISA, and demonising the Redshirt movement.

The UDD Redshirts, their leaders say, simply want to change an age-old system of privilege that is still in force in Thailand, entrenching the wealth of the elite, urban, few.

“Reds are Thai people,” said Sean Boonpracong. “Inequality in Thai society – that’s a fact. We’ve lived it.”

Major roads in the city are expected to be closed, and boat traffic down the Chao Phraya river disrupted. Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport is on high alert with authorities determined to avoid a reprise of the occupation in 2008, when “Yellow Shirt” supporters, aligned with Thailand’s current government, seized the airport to force political change.

Thailand has been periodically shaken by political unrest since Mr Thaksin was ousted from power in 2006. His Redshirt supporters insist the current Thai Government, led by Mr Abhisit, is illegitimate, and they demand its dissolution and fresh elections.

“Our goal is dissolution. If dissolution was announced tomorrow, there would be no movement,” Sean Boonpracong said.

Now living in exile in Dubai after jumping bail and fleeing Thailand in 2008, Mr Thaksin has been urging his supporters to join the protest. His wife and children have reportedly already left Thailand, but Mr Thaksin is expected to address his supporters rallying in central Bangkok via video-link.

Redshirt protests in Bangkok a year ago saw public buses commandeered, standoffs between protesters and the Thai military, and riots that ended with scores injured and two dead.

Mr Abhisit yesterday said that fresh elections, and his resignation, were possible options to quell dissent – but not at gunpoint.

“I will not hold on to power,” he told a sitting of Parliament. “If the House dissolution or my departure will make things better, I have no problem at all. But a coup is totally unacceptable to me.”

House Votes Against Ending Afghan War -- News from Antiwar.com

House Votes Against Ending Afghan War -- News from Antiwar.com

H. Con. Res 248 Defeated 65-356

by Jason Ditz, March 10, 2010

It may have produced hours of fiery debate, but in the end Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s (D – OH) House Concurrent Resolution 248, which would have mandated the end of the US military presence in Afghanistan by December 31 ultimately failed, as was widely expected.

The vote was 65-356, with vast majorities from both parties opposing the resolution to end the war. Rep. Kucinich and his 19 co-sponsors delivered impassioned pleas to end the conflict, but they appear to have ultimately fallen on deaf ears.

In fact, much of the debate from the “no” side came in the form of questioning whether the debate should have happened at all, including speculation that Rep. Kucinich and others had “forgotten about 9/11″ and that they were deliberately trying to undermine America in seeking to end the eight and a half year war.

Since the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, the US military presence has increased dramatically, with President Bush announcing a massive escalation in 2008 and President Obama announcing two further escalations in 2009. By summer it is expected that over 100,000 American troops will be in Afghanistan, along with tens of thousands of international forces.

Dredging Up the Israel/Apartheid Question

by Glenn Greenwald, Published on Tuesday, March 2, 2010 by Salon.com

In addition to everything else they are, the scribblings on The Washington Post Op-Ed Page are often wildly out of touch. They often have the feel of having been written a decade ago, stuffed under a mattress somewhere, and then arbitrarily hauled out and dusted off for publication. With seemingly no trigger, Richard Cohen woke up today and decided to write about a long-standing though not particularly relevant (and largely semantic) controversy: whether the word "apartheid" is properly applied to Israel due to its control of the West Bank and Gaza, whose non-Jewish residents have no democratic rights in the country that rules over their land. Cohen, for whatever reasons, focuses on Jimmy Carter's use of the word in his book from four years ago, and takes the standard, predictable position: the term is false, deliberately inflammatory, and often the by-product of anti-semitism, etc. etc. But in dredging up this debate, Cohen completely omits a very recent, highly significant event: the use of the term by Israel's own hawkish Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, just four weeks ago:

Israel's defense minister warned Tuesday that if Israel does not achieve a peace deal with the Palestinians, it will be either a binational state or an undemocratic apartheid state. . . .

"The simple truth is, if there is one state" including Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, "it will have to be either binational or undemocratic. . . . if this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state."

Writing about the Israel/apartheid controversy without mentioning Barak's recent statement would be like writing a column about the Senate reconciliation process without mentioning health care, or writing about the U.S. military's counter-insurgency doctrine without mentioning Afghanistan. But Cohen's glaring omission is understandable: there has been an intense campaign to demonize those who analogize Israel's treatment of the Palestinians to apartheid (as Carter did, in the same way as Barak). That demonization campaign becomes impossible if Israel's own Defense Minister makes exactly the same point. So Cohen just shuts his eyes tightly and pretends the whole thing never happened. Beyond that, Barak's willingness to explicitly raise the comparison that is all but off-limits in American political discussion once again illustrates the bizarre fact that debates over Israeli policies are far more permissive and open in Israel than they are in the United States.

© 2010 Salon.com

Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book "How Would a Patriot Act?," a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, released in May 2006. His second book, "A Tragic Legacy", examines the Bush legacy.

US: Drug money may affect RP elections - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

US: Drug money may affect RP elections - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos

Philippines’ narcotics trade placed at $8.4B

By Cynthia Balana
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:02:00 03/03/2010

MANILA, Philippines—The US State Department has expressed deep concern that drug money could affect the outcome of the May 10 elections in the Philippines.

In its 2010 international narcotics control strategy report released in Washington on Tuesday, the state department said the Philippines’ drug problem continued to pose a significant national threat, despite reports of a possible decline in the supply and demand of illegal drugs in parts of the country.

The annual report to the US Congress, prepared in accordance with the Foreign Assistance Act, said that foreign-based drug trafficking operations remained the biggest challenge to Philippine law enforcement.

“With the upcoming 2010 elections there is fear that illicit narcotics funds may affect election results,” the 668-page report said on the section on the Philippines.

“The Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) has publicly expressed fears that illicit narcotics money could influence the 2010 elections, and has pledged to pursue any evidence of such influence in order to be able to carry out arrests,” it said.

The report described the efforts of key countries to attack all aspects of the international drug trade in 2009, covering drug and chemical control activities, as well as money laundering and financial crimes.

The value of illegal drugs trafficked in the Philippines was placed at $6.4 billion to $8.4 billion annually. The top three areas most affected were Cebu, northern Mindanao and Metro Manila.

Down to 1.7M drug users

The number of drug users in the Philippine, however, was estimated to have dropped from a high of 6.7 million to 1.7 million.

The average age of drug abusers is 28 of whom 57 percent are single, and 34 percent are unemployed. Male drug users outnumber females 9:1.

The report said the production of methamphetamine hydrochloride or “shabu,” in the Philippines was now primarily carried out in kitchen-type clandestine laboratories, rather than the large “mega-labs” previously seen.

While marijuana remains the second choice of drug users behind methamphetamine, Ecstasy users have increased in Manila, and usage has spread to other regions of the country where there are affluent families and tourists, it said.

The report likewise noted that transnational drug groups such as the West African drugs syndicate continued to infiltrate the Philippines and recruit overseas Filipino workers as drug couriers to smuggle and transport illegal drugs to China, Malaysia and Vietnam.

Transit point

Also, traffickers increasingly took advantage of the Philippines’ long and porous maritime borders to use the country as a transit point for high-grade cocaine and heroin shipments, primarily from India and Pakistan, the report said.

The report further said that the Philippines was a likely source of methamphetamine for other countries in East Asia and Oceania such as Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea.

In addition, the Philippines was described as a primary source of methamphetamine for Guam and Hawaii. It said the Philippines “produces, consumes and likely exports marijuana,” which is currently the second most-used drug in the country.

Marijuana remains the “starter drug,” and is also considered as an alternative choice when crystal methamphetamine is not available.

The report said that corruption continued to pose a problem in Philippine law enforcement due to low pay and lack of training, although law enforcement officials were trying to address this problem.

“The slow judicial process not only demoralizes law enforcement personnel, but also enables drug dealers to continue their drug business between court dates,” the report said.

It added that a dearth of financial resources had also hampered PDEA’s efforts to curb the illegal drug menace.

Iraq Civilian Deaths Spiked in February -- News from Antiwar.com

Iraq Civilian Deaths Spiked in February -- News from Antiwar.com

Violence on the Upswing as Poll Looms

by Jason Ditz, March 01, 2010

Speaking today at Vanderbilt University, Gen. David Petraeus lauded the security situation in Iraq as “greatly improved,” saying that violence had dropped but serious threats remain.

Yet while the narrative of the improving situation in Iraq is a very popular one, Iraqi civilian deaths actually jumped dramatically over the past month, with 211 civilians killed in February alone, up from 135 in January.

In addition to the civilian deaths, Iraqi ministers say that 141 members of the nation’s security forces were killed, also a major increase over the previous month. Civilian violence mostly centered around Shi’ite pilgrims and Iraq’s small Christian minority.

Violence is expected to continue to rise this month, as militant groups look to disrupt next weekend’s parliament election. Once the election is over, officials are predicting another surge in violence as the various factions bicker over the formation of a coalition government.