Anglo-Saxon news dump

Lazy sunday afternoon, i've got no mind to worry...


The weekly round up of English language press articles that have caught my eye ... not much fun this week i'm afraid

So, heeuum who do we bomb first ? Turkey ? The Kurds ? Ir** ? :

Iranian forces enter Iraq, shell Kurdish guerrillas

BAGHDAD (AFP) - Baghdad has accused Iranian forces of having over the last 24 hours entered Iraqi territory and shelled Kurdish PKK guerrillas in the northern Arbil province

"Iranian forces hit a border area called Haj Umran and then entered five kilometers into Iraqi territory and hit the area of Lollan with heavy artillery with 180 shells targeting PKK positions," it said Sunday.
No casualty figures were immediately available....

More propoganda Here if you can stand it


Reminds me of the scene in alien - 'whaddya mean no live rounds ? What do we do ... use harsh language on them ?' :

British troops in Iraq are afraid to open fire, secret MoD report confirms

British troops in Iraq "lack the confidence to open fire" because of a "fear of prosecution", says a confidential Ministry of Defence (MoD) report seen by The Sunday Telegraph.

It confirms that soldiers believe that if they shoot dead insurgents they will become embroiled in a "protracted investigation" and if prosecuted will receive "no support from the chain of command".

Read_it_and_weep_here


Looks like it's going to be a busy week for the Nou Yawk cops next week :

Thousands in New York march against war

NEW YORK (AP) -- Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters marched Saturday through Manhattan to demand an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq just hours after an American soldier died in a roadside explosion in Baghdad -- the 70th U.S. fighter killed in that country this month.

"End this war, bring the troops home," read one of the many signs lifted by marchers on a sunny afternoon three years after the war in Iraq began. The mother of a Marine killed two years ago in Iraq held a picture of her son, born in 1984 and killed 20 years later.

Cindy Sheehan, a vociferous critic of the war whose 24-year-old soldier son also died in Iraq, joined in the march, as did actress Susan Sarandon and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. One group marched under the banner "Veterans for Peace," while other marchers came from as far off as Maryland and Vermont.

Full_story_here


I think we've got every right to be worried with articles like this :

Time Runs Out for Iran at the U.N. Now What?

Analysis: Tehran has failed to heed the deadline on its nuclear program. But U.N. action appears to be no closer

With the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog having reported on Friday that Iran has failed to meet a Security Council demand to cease uranium enrichment, the Islamic Republic ought to be feeling the heat. But if it is, Tehran certainly isn't showing it.

Not only did Iran fail to heed the 30-day deadline, it has actually announced new breakthroughs in its enrichment experiments and warned that it plans to expand its activities and perhaps even export its know-how to other countries.

International Atomic Energy Agency chief Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei told the Security Council on Friday that Iran had not answered the questions that would satisfy concerns over its nuclear intentions.

But Iran's defiance, which has included saber-rattling about how it would respond to any potential U.S. military action , may actually be based on a sober diplomatic calculation: The U.S. has been unable to forge a U.N. consensus behind any steps to pressure Iran, partly because of skepticism over Washington's own intentions.

More


But you know, sometimes Pictures are stronger than words.


An interesting interview with Madeleine Allbright from Time magazine :

TIME: You argue in the book that "we can't and we shouldn't" keep religion out of our foreign policy. Was that a conclusion you expected to reach when you set out to write?

Albright: One of my premises was that, whereas before, as a practical diplomat we tried to keep God and religion out of foreign policy, it was evident to me even as I was completing my time as Secretary of State that religion was playing a larger and larger part in what was going on in the world...

-snip-

Time: What's the single biggest thing the President could do to counter Islamic extremism?

I see major parts of the Muslim world who do not condone or support terror, violence or extremism. There has to be a way that the President can indicate that change that comes from within religion itself is the best way to go and not to try to impose our value systems on them. One of the reasons I'm so troubled by the war in Iraq is that it's imposing our system and making it much more complicated for those within Islam to adopt a moderate view and evolve that religion even further so that the violent elements are not the ones seen by rest of the world...

-snip-

Time : Speaking of problems, you say in the book that the Administration has botched the fight against al-Qaeda and made a huge strategic mistake with the war in Iraq. If that's true, shouldn't someone be held accountable [for that]? Should the President fire, say, the Secretary of Defense?

I have resisted calling for people to be fired. Having been a person in one of those jobs, you realize the person you're responsible to is the President. But I think there needs to be more general accountability. The President needs to be more responsive to what happened here. One thing I find very difficult to deal with is that there's no admission of mistakes, of changing course. It's more, let's stick with the course we're on because we're doing the right thing. That's what is troubling — the lack of accountability by the Administration as a whole...

-snip-

Time : Speaking of Iran, if diplomacy fails, should the U.S. use military force to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities?

I believe having face-to-face talks is essential before we consider other options. What the Iranians feel is a certain sense that the U.S. is not dealing with them. You can't take the military option off the table, but I have to say that everything I've seen would indicate it's not a definitive military mission because of the way nuclear facilities are distributed and hidden. As a policy maker we've always said you can't take the military option off the table, but it doesn't seem like a very good one to me.

Time : What should the U.S. be prepared to offer Iran?

What we should be looking at are ways we can engage with them — first of all by giving them some sense of respect, recognizing them for what they are, which is a considerable power in the region. I would probe to see if there were any areas of common interest. We lost opportunities at the beginning of the Afghan war to work with them on definitions of terrorism and trying to figure out how to get some common lines on a variety of diplomatic issues.

That's where we should be looking. I know people sometimes see that negotiations are appeasement, but I don't see it that way. It's a way of delivering tough messages about what's expected and at the same time making it possible to develop a broader relationship on a variety of cultural issues, on trade issues and on some diplomatic issues.

Much more Here


Which model for Yurp ? :

Why Europe should reject U.S. market capitalism

Paris : The specter of Anglo-American market capitalism dominated France's student unrest in March and April, and motivated popular rejection in France a year ago of the proposed new European Union constitution.

The election that has just given Italy a fragile center- left coalition, and recent conflict in German industry, involved the same question: how to remodel national economies, or whether to remodel them at all.

Advocates of the new model capitalism, and the globalization project that goes with it, like to present it as an expression of historical necessity, rooted in classical economics and embodying irrefutable laws.

It is progress itself, they say.

Those who do not conform to the rules of modern market capitalism, and do not offer the human sacrifices of lost employment and diminished living standards that the market demands, will fall by the wayside of history.

-snip-

In the United States, the new model of corporate business has evolved toward a form of crony capitalism, in which business and government interests are often corruptly intermingled, the system resistant to reform because of the financial dependence of both major political parties on contributed money.

Frequently described by its supporters as a progressive step in the development of a new international economy, the political-economic system that has evolved in the United States has proved regressive in crucial respects, as well as inefficient and abusive of the public interest.

-snip-

Europe, one would think, should be looking for social and economic evolution on its own terms. It is perfectly capable of doing so, as a modern industrial society that in aggregate terms is larger and wealthier than the United States, as well as less shackled by obsolescent ideology and entrenched special interests - its problems with union corporatism notwithstanding.

In the longer term, for Europeans to embark on this project, instead of conforming to the currently received wisdom concerning the globalized economy, would serve the international interest as well as that of the European Union.

It might even prove a service to the United States, whose future is now jeopardized by economic error and excess, as well as unachievable global political and military ambitions.

Full article here