Sunday Round-up

The War on Terror appears to be going well: On Friday (slow news day) the pentagon released a report desribing growing sectarian violence is making Iraq decend further into civil war. But Bush tells us not to worry - its all rosy!

Meanwhile, the opium growers in Afganistan have a bumper year. This NY Times article quotes an official blaming it on the resurgance of the Taliban in the South of the country. Hmm, but what about this UN report which shows that the cultivation of opium is highest in the south, but is growing more rapidly in the Northern parts of Afganistan. While the South produced 1, 749 metric tons last year, the north produced 1098 metric tons - an increase of over 100% from the previous year. I guess since these provinces are governed by US-backed regional strongmen, that issue isnt so newsworthy. The report goes on to say that “The proportion of Aghanistan in global opium production is likely to remain at around 87%.” And estimates the number of families to be involved in growing the opium at over 300,000, representing 2 million people, or about 9% of the total population.

Meanwhile, the heat continues to be put on in Mexico. The BBC reports that President Vicente Fox was stopped from giving a speech yesterday by left-wing MPs. The MPs were chanting “vote by vote” - US Investigative reporter Greg Palast has an interesting take on whether the elections were stolen or not. His report is here as well.

A lot of leftist commentary is taken up with taking stock of the recent past. Noam Chomsky places the recent invasion of Lebanon in historical context - rightly pointing out that the core issue is Israel-Palestine. And here is an interesting take on the failure of the Lebanese government to act in the best interest of its citizens during the war - “some politicians use Hizbullah as a card to create an atmosphere of fear among Christians to cover up for their own mistakes and misdemeanours.” The New York Review of Books also takes a step back to review to debris.

Peter Galbraiyh, former US ambassador to Croatia, discusses Rumsfeld’s short memory for apeasement. We’ve heard it all before, but its interesting given his recent statements equating criticism of the war in Iraq with appeasement of facism. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is investing more than US$1.5 billion on landmines.

Monbiot has an interesting article on British arms exports, fascilitated with commissions - a Foreign Office euphemism for bribes. Stanley Heller reports on when criticism of cluster bombs becomes anti-semitism. Interestingly, a new report is due to come out in the UK stating that criticism of Israel is serving as a pretext for spreading hatred against British Jews. I find this statement completely shocking. Europe does have a terrible tradition, which continues to the present day, of anti-semitism against Jews, but saying that this means that Israel’s occupation of Palestinine and the invasion of Lebaneon should pass without criticism from the Western press is completely outrageous. There may be more subtlety in the report, I’ll have a look when its released.