From The "Religion Of Peace" Files

By Cernig

Here's one you won't find the Malikinites hyping.

STOCKHOLM - The head of a Swedish newspaper has received death threats after publishing a drawing of the devil defecating on Jesus, he said Tuesday.

"I have been exposed to various threats ... and I have interpreted several of them as death threats," said Ola Sigvardsson, editor in chief for Ostgota Correspondenten daily.

He said one person had left a message saying he wanted to see the editor's throat slit and that "if no one dealt with it, then Jesus would do it".

The drawing, published March 1, was part of a poster for a punk festival in Linkoping in southern Sweden. Shortly before the festival began, municipal employees pulled the poster off the city's information boards.

Sigvardsson decided to publish the drawing because he saw the removal of the poster as an act of "censorship".

"It was our duty to tell what happened, and to do it we had to also show the image," he said.

Sigvardsson has filed a complaint with the police. No special security measures have been put in place for the editor, though police are taking the threats seriously, said police inspector Mats Allard.

I half expect hordes of rightwing trolls in comments telling me why this is any different from religious nuts of an Islamic persuasion sending death-threats to cartoonists who depict Muhammed in unflattering style. But the simple truth is that every religion, and plenty of non-religious ideological positions, attract nutcases who will happily threaten and kill for their own pet cause. It's part of the human condition.

Iran to Offer Enrichment Halt In Return For Cash?

By Cernig

Iran appears to be signalling that it is ready to offer a "halt for compensation" deal to Western nations worried about its uranium enrichment activities.

Today, Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad-Ali Hosseini said (again) that Iran now considered the Modality Plan agreed with the IAEA successfully completed - but also said that Tehran was ready to hold talks with the Group 5+1 members states about specific issues.

And yesterday the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili also offered further talks on co-operation in "fields like security, energy, and economy" with the international community and also said that Iran will ask for compensation in return for the halt of its nuclear activities for at least two years. At a conference on the topic of "Iran's peaceful Nuclear Activities", he said:

"those who made us stop uranium enrichment based on false accusations will have to pay for compensations as a result."

He added that he would not recieve Condi Rice for negotiations.

Both together might indicate a willingness by Iran to finally do a real deal - or it might indicate a plan by Iran to split off Europe from the U.S. on the issue by pointing out the Bush administration's belligerent rhetoric and roadblock manouvering in terms of international diplomacy.

But, oddly enough in the face of new sanctions and a America's determination to isolate Iran financially, the World Bank has just approved a new $250 million loan to Iran for water and sewage works. This under the presidency of Bush-appointee Robert Zoellick, who was previously Condi's deputy at State.

Signs of a break-through, maybe?

Update Then again, maybe not. Andy, in comments, offers his own translation of a Fars report and suggests that Kuna mistranslated the tense - which would mean Iran was demanding compensation for it's past enrichment halt from 2004-2006 rather than offering a new deal. Pity. A new deal of some kind really is what's needed.

Socialists Win In France, Spain

By Cernig

Remember how French President Sarozy's triumph in last years election was hailed (in the U.S. and by rightwing pundits) as a turning point for the Right in Europe, who would now proudly march forward into a European fatherland of the future?

Not so much.

Spain's socialist majority party have not just increased the size of their majority, but seem to be preferred by big business over their conservative rivals. That's something we've seen elsewhere in Europe and in the UK too - even big corporations prefer some rules and government oversight to temper their opposition's dirty tricks and democratic socialist governments provide that where conservative's don't.

Spain's governing Socialist Party won Sunday's election and may have secured enough extra seats for an absolute majority, exit polls indicated.

With both parties' policies broadly similar for tackling a sharp slowdown in economic growth, financial markets would be likely to welcome a clear outcome as a sign of stability.

An exit poll published by Spanish state television gave Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's party 172-176 seats in the 350-seat lower house, and the conservative opposition Popular Party (PP) 148-152 seats.

Three other polls for private media gave the Socialists between 163 and 178 seats, with the PP on 142-152. In the 2004 elections, which Zapatero won in a last-minute turnaround, the Socialists won 164 seats and the PP 148.

An absolute majority requires 176 seats so if the Socialists manage to keep at the top of the exit poll ranges, Zapatero may not need to court smaller parties to pass laws over the next four years, as he did in the last legislature.

"All the exit polls agree the Socialists have won. It is the leading party in terms of votes and seats," Socialist party organisation secretary Jose Blanco told reporters.

Meanwhile, in France, Sarkozy's party and the playboy president himself have a few problems.

President Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right UMP party faced big losses after the first round of French local elections on Sunday in a vote that could dent his political standing less than a year after he took office.

An initial projection by the CSA pollsters showed the opposition Socialists and other left wing parties heading for 47.5 percent of the overall vote, with the UMP and other right wing parties heading for just 40 percent.

"These are naturally not good results," said Patrick Devedjian, secretary general of the UMP party.

...Sarkozy, elected triumphantly last May on a pledge to reform the French economy and modernize its institutions, has seen his popularity plunge as worries about the cost of living and disenchantment with his glitzy personal life have grown.

Latest polls have showed his approval ratings as low as 37 percent against highs of more than 65 percent posted in the aftermath of his convincing election victory last May.

Another American rightwing narrative bites the dust. They've been trying to write off the European Left since Thatcher took office at the very least - each time they've been wrong. That they've been so consistently wrong says more about their own antiquated and McCarthyist notion of what socialism or the left comprises nowadays than it says about Europe. A little broadening of horizons and a little less navel-gazing and echo chamber are most definitely in order.

Europe Is Winning The Space Race

By Cernig

As the U.S. pours billions into a missile defense system which is great at shooting down rogue U.S. satellites but of questionable utility as a method of ensuring international stability, and has to make do with aging space shuttles that are falling apart at the seams, Europe is quietly winning the space race. Even the space tourism venture which is to be based in Arizona is European, a venture by UK billionaire Richard Branson.

Yet five years ago, there was a very different picture.

Back in 2003, the European Space Agency was on its knees following some spectacular failures of its Ariane booster. The company that made the booster was facing bankruptcy. But a reconstruction and refinancing package has, in just five years, brought Arianespace a bulging order book and a clear position as the top dog in the commercial satellite launching business. It is now engaged in a massive expansion of its launch complex in French Guiana to accomodate Soyuz and the new Vega boosters and also has another Soyuz launchpad at Baikonur, the old Soviet cosmodrome.

And then there's this:



It's the massive new ATV unmanned "space truck" from the European Space Industry, the product of a 1.3 billion euro program by a consortium of European companies led by EADS Astrium and launched atop an Arianespace booster. The first launched yesterday from French Guiana on a mission to deliver five tons of cargo to the International Space Station - to the almost complete silence of the American media.

The U.S. is pouring its development money - both federal and that of the main aerospace companies - into development of new military technologies which will enable hypersonic killing of individual terrorists by multi-billion ramjet vehicles launched from the other side of the world. That development money is short in any case because of the multi-trillion cost of the Iraqi misadventure.

You could call Europe's success a peace dividend of sorts - the kind that comes from refusing to get too involved in Bush's personal crusade against Saddam. And mayhap you could make the case that out-producing the terrorists in good capitalist style is at least as much an effective tactic in the War on Terror as any Iraq distraction.

Kurdish Intel Chief Arrested?

By Cernig

Via Michael Rubin at NRO, of all people, comes a rumor and more than a rumor that Masrour Barzani, intelligence chief for the Iraqi Kurdish semi-autonoumous region and son of the region's president, has been arrested in Vienna on charges that he and his bodyguards assaulted and beat "a leading Kurdish critic of corruption in the Kurdistan Regional Government".

Rubin notes that Barzani the Younger hasn't been seen in public in weeks and that the Austrian press is reporting the arrest.

Nice people we're keeping as friends, eh?

Sarko Killing Franco-German Alliance

By Cernig

For years, the strongest element in European politics has been a deep co-operation between France and germany on the direction of the EU, as both worked together to strengthen the Euro, common policies and common economics. But it looks like Sarkozy has other ideas.

To cancel one high-level Franco-German meeting is unfortunate. To cancel two in less than a week implies a bank of freezing fog is descending over the Rhine.

French and German officials sought yesterday to play down the significance of the abrupt postponement – both by Paris – of two meetings between the countries' most senior politicians.

Privately, and not so privately, the talk in both capitals is of a serious rift in the single most important national partnership in Europe. Officials blame an increasingly difficult relationship between President Nicolas Sarkozy and Chancellor Angela Merkel.

With France scheduled to take the presidency of the European Union in July, the Franco-German tiff could not be timed worse.

...At the heart of the quarrel – not yet an overt crisis – is the strained relationship between the two leaders.

German officials say that the hyperactive and boastful behaviour of the French President – and his over-familiar personal style – has irritated Ms Merkel. French officials suggest M. Sarkozy finds Ms Merkel too cautious and too ponderous. French diplomats also complain that M. Sarkozy – in his determination to shake up all aspects of French government – wants to play down the Paris-Berlin relationship that has been the bedrock of France's domestic and European policy for half a century. "For Sarkozy, the West very much means UK and the US," one French source said.

Whereas Merkel's initial love affair with the Bush administration seemed to disappear after one infamous occasion when Dubya got overly-familiar.

The answer for Germany, it seems to me, is to somehow arrange for Bush and Sarkozy's new supermodel wife to be in the same room together and wait for the inevitable diplomatic incident.

IAEA Iran Report Released Today (Updated)

By Cernig

There's no doubt about it - scary stories about Iran's nuclear program sell newspapers and encourage internet click-throughs. But the bubble of scary stories in advance of today's IAEA report has been unusually lurid.

Several hawkish blogs today are referencing an article from Der Spiegel magazine's science correspondent which purports to discuss a European study saying iran could have a nuclear weapon far more quickly than suggested by the recent American NIE or by the IAEA. In fact, Der Spiegel claims the study shows Iran could have a nuke by the end of the year. The key graphs:

As part of a project to improve control of nuclear materials, the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy set up a detailed simulation of the centrifuges currently used by Iran in the Natanz nuclear facility to enrich uranium. The results look nothing like those reached by the US intelligence community.

For one scenario, the JRC scientists assumed the centrifuges in Natanz were operating at 100 percent efficiency. Were that the case, Iran could already have the 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium necessary for an atomic device by the end of this year. Another scenario assumed a much lower efficiency — just 25 percent. But even then, Iran would have produced enough uranium by the end of 2010.

For the purposes of the simulation, the JRC modelled each of the centrifuges individually and then hooked them together to form the kind of cascade necessary to enrich uranium. A number of variables were taken into account, including the assumption by most experts that Iran isn’t even close to operating its centrifuges at 100 percent efficiency. What is known, however, is that the Iranians are operating 18 cascades, each made up of 164 centrifuges. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad himself said last April that the country had 3,000 centrifuges in operation. At the time, most Western observers discounted the claim as mere propaganda. But the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed Ahmadinejad’s assertion in November.

But there are a couple of problems with Der Spiegel's account.

Firstly, it sidesteps entirely the IAEA surveillance and seal on Iran’s centrifuges and LEU product. The IAEA guarantees those cannot be redirected to HEU production without its knowledge. It also says that the study produces a worst case estimate based on 100% efficient centrifuges when we know from IAEA reports that Iran has never managed better than 20% efficiency. You cannot get there (enough HEU for a bomb in the timeline the study suggests) from here, so any such estimates are working from null data.

But secondly, there are reasons at the moment to doubt Der Spiegel's characterisation of this study. The JRC is committed to a promise that reports are meant "to be accessible to interested non-specialists and the media," yet I cannot find any such study on their website.

The only "project to improve control of nuclear materials" currently ongoing is one run from their Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen (IPSC), which is indeed based in Ipsa, Italy. The webpage for that program - the 4th ESARDA Nuclear Safeguards and Non Proliferation course - doesn't mention any such program either. It's described as "a chance to all students to learn more about the general background of safguards legislation, nuclear fuel cycle, verification technologies and the evolution of safguards." That doesn't exactly sound like something such a major study would be prepared for, but it's the only current program which fits Der Spiegel's description.

The nearest I can find to any study like the one Der Spiegel describes is is a reference to study papers referencing an imaginary state and based on various actual nations’ nuclear programs - intended as an exercise for students of non-proliferation techniques in preparing an inspection regime to prevent said hypothetical nation from producing a weapon. Could Der Spiegel, in a zeal to print "news" have so mischaracterised a fairly innocuous study? I've emailled the JRC asking them if they can identify and provide a copy of the study the Spiegel article referenced. If they reply, I'll let you know.

In the meantime, I noted the other day that there's been other lurid accusations over Iran's nuclear program in the past week. At the UNSC, unaligned nations want to take the IAEA report into consideration before drafting the UNSC's next resolution on Iran's program, but the US and European nations have already drafted the resolution they want voted on before seeing the IAEA's report. It may well be that this rash of accusations is part of a PR program to gain US and European public acceptance for such a move.

The IAEA's report itself is pretty much as expected. It says that Iran has been co-operating more fully but not fully enough and that questions still remain. However, it also says - yet again - that no smoking gun or even damp squib has been found. The report doesn't seem to be available online just yet but El Baradei's statement is.

"Our task in Iran is to make sure that the Iranian nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes. We are at it for the last five years. In the last four months, in particular, we have made quite good progress in clarifying the outstanding issues that had to do with Iran´s past nuclear activities, with the exception of one issue, and that is the alleged weaponization studies that supposedly Iran has conducted in the past. We have managed to clarify all the remaining outstanding issues, including the most important issue, which is the scope and nature of Iran´s enrichment programme. We have made good progress, with still one issue on our agenda and I call on Iran to act as actively as possible, as fast as possible, for me to be able (to ensure) that all issues, that have to do with Iran´s past nuclear activities, have been clarified.

"In addition to our work, to clarify Iran´s past nuclear activities, we have to make sure, naturally, that Iran´s current activities are also exclusively for peace purposes and for that we have been asking Iran to conclude the so called Additional Protocol, which gives us the additional authority to visit places, additional authority to have additional documents, to be able to provide assurance, not only that Iran´s declared activities are for peaceful purposes but that there are no undeclared nuclear activities. On that score, Iran in the last few months has provided us with visits to many places, that enable us to have a clearer picture of Iran´s current programme. However, that is not, in my view, sufficient. We need Iran to implement the Additional Protocol. We need to have that authority as a matter of law.

Those alleged weaponization activities are the ones contained on the dodgy laptop US intelligence gained when an Iranian walked in with it, after supposedly getting it from a burglar. That, according to El Baradei, is pretty much all that's left available to those who continue to demonise Iran.

David "Judy In Drag" Sanger at the NYT describes that information as having "strongly suggested the country had experimented with technology to make a nuclear weapon". But other reports are more sceptical.

The newest U.S nuclear information, including some intelligence declassified for sharing with the agency, was handed over to IAEA Deputy Director Oli Heinonen last Friday, just a few weeks after a first batch of material was forwarded by the U.S., said the diplomats.

But much of it shed little new light on what the U.S. says have been attempts by Iran to develop nuclear weapons. "It's not the amount but the quality that counts," said one of the diplomats who was dismissive of the new U.S. file.

Another diplomat said senior agency officials also had dismissed the information as relatively insignificant and coming too late.

Several of the diplomats suggested the U.S. was disingenuous in providing such a large amount of what they described as questionable information just days before ElBaradei was to complete his report. But a diplomat familiar with the U.S. position said Washington was acting in good faith and trying to help the agency.

For its part, Iran did not respond to an invitation issued by Heinonen to its experts to look at some of the information the U.S. approved for sharing with Tehran, despite earlier pledges to do so.

One has to wonder whether that Iranian refusal points to skullduggery or just to Iranian hardliners being stupidly hardline. I'd suggest the latter simply on the basis of Occam's Razor.

Update Andy Grotto at The Arms Control Wonk has kindly provided a link to a PDF copy of the IAEA report. Andy's take is worth a read, as are the comments to his post.

I want to flag up what for me were key graphs in the report, though.

54. The one major remaining issue relevant to the nature of Iran’s nuclear programme is the alleged studies on the green salt project, high explosives testing and the missile re-entry vehicle. This is a matter of serious concern and critical to an assessment of a possible military dimension to Iran’s nuclear programme. The Agency was able to show some relevant documentation to Iran on 3–5 February 2008 and is still examining the allegations made and the statements provided by Iran in response. Iran has maintained that these allegations are baseless and that the data have been fabricated. The Agency’s overall assessment requires, inter alia, an understanding of the role of the uranium metal document, and clarifications concerning the procurement activities of some military related institutions still not provided by Iran. The Agency only received authorization to show some further material to Iran on 15 February 2008. Iran has not yet responded to the Agency’s request of that same date for Iran to view this additional documentation on the alleged studies. In light of the above, the Agency is not yet in a position to determine the full nature of Iran’s nuclear programme. However, it should be noted that the Agency has not detected the use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies, nor does it have credible information in this regard. The Director General has urged Iran to engage actively with the Agency in a more detailed examination of the documents available about the alleged studies which the Agency has been authorized to show to Iran. [Emphasis Mine - C]

I'm going to suggest something a bit off the wall here - the infamous smoking laptop contains details of Iran's old weapons program, the one the NIE said had been shut down in 2003. It's been doctored by those who "donated" it to US intelligence to make it appear more contemporary and relevant. The pre-2003 program never got further than the beginnings of on-paper studies (for instance, the re-entry vehicle wouldn't actually work), which is why the IAEA have found no use of nuclear material which could be associated with these allegations. The Iranians, knowing all this, are now willing to play hardball because they know there are no new damaging revelations going to come out of investigations of the laptop data, even by accident - and so the hardliners have decided to be hardliners and cock a snook at the US. It's a theory that seems to fit the data and squares the circle between US and Iranian allegation and denial cycles.

If so, then at this point the hardliners in both camps need to climb down out of their trees. As Andy Grotto writes:

I can’t imagine Iran ever coming fully clean—or adopting the kinds of transparency measures needed to verify the peaceful nature of its program, such as the IAEA Additional Protocol—unless it is given a face-saving way out of this mess. Such a pathway cannot emerge until the United States gets serious about meaningful multilateral diplomacy with Iran that includes credible incentives to accompany the sanctions.

I'd only add that both camps need a face-saving way out of the corners they've painted themselves into - US hawks are just as unlikely to ever come clean about the ways they've spun the anti-Iran narrative or back off their insistence that Iran's program isn't now peaceful without one. That's probably going to take someone high up with the courage to change the game.

Don't Poke The Bear

By Cernig

SecDef Bob Gates told reporters today that he believes Russia wants to resolve sensitive security disputes with the United States, including proposed missile defenses in central Europe.

``I think that regardless of what's said in public, I think there is still an interest (in Moscow) in pursuing the dialogue, and we are doing that,'' he said.

And you know what? He's right.

Western media outlets have been full of how Russia is "ditching Cold War pacts" like the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE) from 1992 and threatening to stop adhering to the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987. Bad Russkis, bad!

But Vlad Putin, whatever one may think of his authoritarian streak, is plain right when he says that ""It is already clear that a new phase in the arms race is unfolding in the world...It is not our fault, because we did not start it." Undermentioned or ignored by Western media are the following:

- it all started because Bush withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty so he could build his missile shield. Of course the Russians are worried about this. For one thing, Russian Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov is correct when he says that this expansion of the US missile defense system from American territory to northeast Asia and to European nations close to Russia's borders looks very like an attempt to encircle Russia and reduce it's own deterrent ability. It doesn't look good that influential neocon think-tanks are pushing for the Bush administration to overturn treaties against weaponry in space either.

- Bush has said he won't renew the INF treaty either, which is partly why the Russians won't. The Russians say they are happy to renew the treaty if the US will re-ratify the ABM treaty and this one.

- NATO nations never ratified the CFE treaty and Russia has only said it will pull out until NATO does ratify it. The eastern bloc nations which include Russia been keeping to it unilaterally since 1999.

Despite it being the Bush administration and NATO nations who began all the recent tension, if Gates pulls of any deal at all he'll get the credit for taming the Bear and have have won the easiest PR victory in history. All because the media didn't remember Putin's admonishment: "Let's not talk as if on one side we are dealing with pure, white and fluffy partners and on the other side with a monster that has just left the forest."

Update Who's the adult in the room here?

Russia and the United States must take leadership in discussions on a new international arms regime, Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Sunday.

Speaking at a security conference in Munich, Ivanov referred to the control and reduction of nuclear weapons, adding it was time to replace an existing SALT 1 arms limitation treaty with a new regime:

"As I see it, this is precisely an area of international relations where Russia and the United States not merely could, but are directly obliged to show leadership.

"Sooner or later, we will have to start working in a multilateral format since none of us here, I am sure, has any doubts about the importance of multilateral barriers to WMD (weapons of mass destruction) proliferation," he said.

Poland Agrees Missile Defense Sites In Principle

By Cernig

The Polish government has agreed in principle to allowing US missile interceptors to be based in their country - and Russia has threatened an "atomated response" to any launch.

Under the agreement, announced by Poland's foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, America will help bolster Polish air defences in return for permission to place 10 interceptor missiles on the country's Baltic seaboard.

"There is still a great deal of work for our experts," said Mr Sikorski on his first trip to Washington since Poland's centre-right government came to power in November. "But yes, I am satisfied that the principles that we have argued for have been accepted."

I'm guessing that the Poles are gambling that the Iranian threat is nothing like a real one, and in return for hosting US paranoia they will receive all kinds of military largesse. It's probably a good bet - but the bear on the horizon isn't happy. Russia sees the US anti-missile program as a threat to their own nuclear deterrent.

Russia's ambassador to Belgium said last week the programme could trigger an inadvertent nuclear holocaust.

"The trajectory of any American missile from Poland would be south-south-east and the speed would be very high," Vadim Lukov said at a seminar in Brussels. "In this situation any notion of an early warning evaporates. Poland is just six and a half minutes from Moscow and in this situation the Russians would rely on an automated response. I am sure you may all well imagine the unfortunate consequences."

Whoops, Apocalypse! Of course, to the religious nuts haunting the GOP and the White House, this might be a feature rather than a bug.

As for Condi Rice, she's in "flat-out lying" mode:

US officials have tried to soothe Russian fears, saying the system would be impotent against Russia's huge nuclear arsenal. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice later played down its links to the programme known as Star Wars, originally conceived under Ronald Reagan, which was intended to deflect missiles fired by the Soviet Union.

"This is not that programme," she said. "This is not the son of that programme. This is not the grandson of that programme."

There isn't a single person who knows how much the neoconservative lobby has influenced this administration, and who reads neocon position papers on their think-tank websites, who believes that. The neocons want space-based interceptors next, the old "Brilliant Pebbles" program resurected. The Russians certainly read these reports and their reaction to Condi's lying can be easily guessed at.

So here's the calculus - is it worth tempting mutally assured destruction when, even if the Iranians do lob a missile at Europe, the instant an interceptor launches the Russians will join in with an "automated" launch of their own? I think the answer is an obvious no. Either the Bushies and neocons are still living in their own reality where the rules of blowback don't apply to them or they know this is all window dressing for extending US instead of Russian influence in Eastern Europe.

(H/t Kat)

President Blair?

By Cernig

I have spent a long time regretting my one and only vote for Tory Blur, in his first election victory. I started to regret it the moment I saw that his first action on election was to run to Margaret Thatcher's side for advice - not the signature move of anyone who honestly believed the kind of thing Blair had been saying. Nowadays the man's lust for power and money and willingness to say or do anything to attain it gives me the dry heaves.

Today the Guardian reports:

Tony Blair has been holding discussions with some of his oldest allies on how he could mount a campaign later this year to become full-time president of the EU council, the prestigious new job characterised as "president of Europe". Blair, currently the Middle East envoy for the US, Russia, EU and the UN, has told friends he has made no final decision, but is increasingly willing to put himself forward for the job if it comes with real powers to intervene in defence and trade affairs.

I've a word of advice for my European friends.

Nooooooooooooooooooooo.

Dutch Woman Faces Murder-By-Abortion Charge

By Cernig

Is this insane or what?

A Dutch woman is being prosecuted for murdering her unborn child in an unprecedented case after she travelled to Spain for an abortion when she was already 27 weeks pregnant.

Today a judge rejected the 24-year-old woman's request for an injunction ordering an end to the Dutch murder probe, her lawyer Gerard Spong said.

Spong believes his client has done nothing wrong because Spain has a provision in its abortion legislation that allows late-term abortions, "if there is a psychological need for it," he said in a telephone interview.

"My view was and is that as long as Spanish judicial authorities do not make any decision that this woman has committed an offense ... the Dutch judicial authorities should abstain (from investigating)," he added.

Abortion is legal in the Netherlands up to the 24th week of pregnancy and it is extremely rare for Dutch authorities to file murder charges linked to such a procedure. The fact that the woman is being prosecuted for an abortion carried out overseas makes the case unprecedented.

I mean, wtf? I know the E-Christian crowd will be happy about this, but is this really the way the rest of us want to go?

German Conservatives' Immigration Card May Backfire With Voters

By Cernig

The BBC is reporting that Bush ally Angela Merkel may have problems coming, with state elections showing how nest year's federal race may be run.

German voters are voting in two state elections, in Lower Saxony and Hesse.

Opinion polls suggest Angela Merkel's party, the conservative CDU, may lose its majority in Hesse - a politically and economically important state.

The current governor of Hesse, the CDU's Roland Koch, is running for a third term in office.

Mr Koch has provoked a storm of protest with calls for tougher sentences and the deportation of what he called "young criminal foreigners."

Mr Koch is known as the "crown prince" by conservatives.

But his campaign, which has focused on crime and immigration, has recently alienated many voters.

According to the latest opinion polls, support for the ruling conservatives has dropped, paving the way for a victory by the Social Democrats (SPD).

Professor Hajo Funke, a political scientist, says the conservatives' anti-foreigner campaign may have backfired.

"If Roland Koch wins, it will have effects not only for this election, but for the next state elections and the next federal elections," he told the BBC.

"Because then you will have a different CDU, with more foreign hatred, with more national conservative elements - in the party, and in the strategy."

Parallels with the US are obvious, where hardline conservatives are absolutely determined that the Democratic nomination contest be framed as race-based and that the coming presidential fight be framed as who will best keep the brown people from America's door.

Let's all remember one thing that's been proven time and again over decades. It doesn't matter what party sign they hang around their neck - if they're banging on about race wars and fear of foreigners, they're conservatives.

Laying Down With Dogs

By Cernig

I've been deriving some quiet amusement from the way in which Islamophobic American rightwing bloggers have been under fire over the last couple of weeks from their kissing-cousins at Europe's neo-nazi groups. Having spent so long telling Europeans that they should beware the Islamic menace - something these groups rightly took as code for "hate the brown people" - people like Little Green Footballs, Jawa report and Jihad Watch are under fire from European Belang-ites and BNPers. After pointing out that the neo-nazis' attendant anti-semitism is too rich even for their Muslim-hating blood, the U.S. wingnuts are now being called "leftists" and worse. The potential irony of the situation is too rich. What's a Zion-supporting white supremacist to do?

I wonder what Islamophobe guru Mark Steyn would say about it all?

U.S. Missile Defense Chief Hypes Iran Threat

By Cernig

On Wednesday, U.S. missile defense honcho Lt. Gen. Henry Obering, in a statement at the Czech Republic Foreign Ministry, told Europeans sceptical about the Bush administration's missile defense plan that Iran is "developing missiles today in an accelerated pace":

Obering, director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, said Iran was the third most active country in flight testing missiles last year, behind Russia and China.

"They're developing ranges of missiles that go far beyond anything they would need in a regional fight, for example, with Israel," Obering said.

"Why are they developing missiles today that ... will be possible to reach Europe in few years?" he asked.

...Iran recently announced it manufactured a new missile — the Ashoura — with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) that was capable of reaching Israel and U.S. bases across the Middle East.

"They also made statements that once you reached that range, getting beyond that is fairly easy," Obering said.

Now, there are three claims in there that really need examining, and no-one in the mainstream has done so. let's break them down.

1) "missiles that go far beyond anything they would need in a regional fight" - If you're going to question Iran about this, then perhaps it would be fair to question other nations with similar capabilities about the same thing. Why does Israel need the 3,000 Km range of it's ballistic missiles, why do the Saudis need their Chinese-bought long-range missiles or for that matter why is Pakistan developing a missile that can reach Tel Aviv when it already has one that can reach every part of India or even as far as Dubai? If non-global powers don't need such missiles after all, why is the U.S. not pressuring it's allies to scrap these missiles? Mainly because every military responds not just to current threats but to possible future threats, no matter how unlikely, I suppose. But concentrating on one demonised nation while ignoring others who have attained or are developing similar capabilities is hype, pure and simple.

2) Iran was the third most active country in flight testing missiles last year - I asked a well-regarded arms control expert about this (I don't as yet have permission to use his name) and he responded by email to say that it was possible, but unverifiable since the administration doesn't unclassify much on its knowledge of various nation's tests. However, he also said, essentially, that if Iran was indeed the third most prolific tester then it was a pretty close race and may not be indicative of any kind of acceleration in their program. In his email, he wrote:

in 2006, there were 51 foreign space launches (Russia 33, Europe 5, Japan, 6, China 6, India, 1).

That leaves 25 ballistic missile launches in press reports (Russia 9, North Korea 7, India 3, Pakistan 3, Iran 2, China 1 and France 1) plus one test by Iran said to include "dozens" of missiles but I don't believe that.

I can imagine that Iran would be third, but I am not 100 percent about how Obering got there. It is very interesting.

Israel tested a new long-range ballistic missile this week. Both Israel and India have also tested antiballsitic missiles in the last six months, something Iran has shown no indication of ever doing. Which is more likely to ignore mutual deterrence, the one without such a defense or the one with it?

3) "[The Iranians] also made statements that once you reached that range, getting beyond that is fairly easy." - You'll note Oberling didn't say whether he believed the Iranian claim. That's probably because he knows it to be a false boast.

Iran's medium-range Shahab-3 missiles are modeled after the North Korean Nodong missiles which are, in turn, based on an early Soviet model. Most experts agree that the Iranian missile system has reached its maximum potential and cannot be stretched into developing longer range missiles. Iran would need to master the extremely complex "multistage" missile technology in order to build them. So far, only a few countries have been able to reach this advanced stage of missile development and some of them, i.e., India and Israel, reportedly have had significant difficulty manufacturing reliable long-range missiles.

That multi-stage technology requires a whole new range of expertise, as Prof. Stephen Fetter explained to one interviewer back in 1996 when the same set of suspects were last hawking ballistic missile defense.

NARRATOR: There is a huge technological jump from building short-range ballistic missiles to intercontinental ballistic missiles. While 24 developing countries now have short-range ballistic missiles, the only countries that can threaten the US homeland are China, Russia, Great Britain and France.

Professor STEPHEN FETTER (press briefing): "Successfully developing long-range multi-stage missiles would require qualitative leaps in technical knowhow along several dimensions, including engine re-entry vehicle and guidance technology.

By the way, those named four nations are still the only ones capable of lobbing a missile at CONUS, over ten years later.

Overall, then, Lt. Gen. Obering didn't tell any flat-out lies to the Europeans. Instead by carefully parsing what he did say, he managed to make Iran look far more of a uniquely expert bogeyman than it actually is and so hyped the threat Iran presents to Europe. However the Russians, unlike the stenographers of the press, already know that it is hype. No wonder they suspect the ABM system may be aimed at them and see it as a threat to the delicate balance of deterrence between the two greatest nuclear powers. In their eagerness to demonise Iran, the Bush administration are playing carelessly with matches in a dynamite factory.

Update Five minutes after I hit "post" I saw this:

Russia's military chief of staff said Saturday that Moscow could use nuclear weapons in preventive strikes to protect itself and its allies, the latest aggressive remarks from increasingly assertive Russian authorities.

Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky's comment did not mark a policy shift, military analysts said. Amid disputes with the West over security issues, it may have been meant as a warning that Russia is prepared to use its nuclear might.

"We do not intend to attack anyone, but we consider it necessary for all our partners in the world community to clearly understand ... that to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia and its allies, military forces will be used, including preventively, including with the use of nuclear weapons," Baluyevsky said at a military conference in a remark broadcast on state-run cable channel Vesti-24.

According to the state-run news agency RIA-Novosti, Baluyevsky added that Russia would use nuclear weapons and carry out preventive strikes only in accordance with Russia's military doctrine.

The military doctrine adopted in 2000 says Russia may use nuclear weapons to counter a nuclear attack on Russia or an ally, or a large-scale conventional attack that poses a critical risk to Russia's security.

Baluyevsky spoke amid persistent disputes between Moscow and the West over issues including U.S. plans for missile defense facilities in former Soviet satellites, NATO members' refusal to ratify an updated European conventional arms treaty, and Kosovo's bid for independence from Serbia.

See what I mean about playing with matches in a dynamite factory?

Update 2 And the House, with a Dem-sponsored bill, goes right on enabling this idiocy. They should be more worried about the current face-off between Russia and the U.S. brought about by neoconservatives who still want Reagan's Star Wars program rather than about hypothetical Iranian nukes on hypothetical long-range missiles.

Oh, you EuroLeaders, you must choose!

by shamanic

Here's a crazy dude: Scott Ott, who seems to want to mask his lunacy by using a very tiny font, warns the leaders of Europe that after Benazir Bhutto, the caliphate is coming for them!

Interestingly (and for no apparent reason), he reels off a short list of European countries, but fails to mention the one where a leader actually was killed for his views on limiting Muslim immigration: Holland, where in 2002, Pim Fortuyn was assassinated by -- well, here's where the narrative caves a bit -- a Dutchman who didn't want to see the "weak parts" of society demonized for political points.

It probably also doesn't help the TownHall.com narrative that Fortuyn was openly and proudly gay.

And that Holland ended up adopting most of his immigration policy proposals after his death.

Ah, but you EuroLeaders, your democracy will not stand! The rising tide of Muslim bullets to the necks of blah blah blah. Whatever. This guy's way off his rocker.

Polish-German Border Dissolves

As of midnight today, central European time, the Germany/Poland border - one of the most fought over borders on earth - is no more.

While across the bond American doomsayers talk about the supposed coming Caliphate of Europe, they fail to mention that most European nations' immigrants technically aren't immigrants at all, coming as they do from a united Europe. Where Poles used to be illegal immigrants to Britain, for instance, now they're neither illegal nor, technically, immigrants. Such a move redefines a kneejerk non-problem of artificial categories into insignificance and those who travel to settle elsewhere are responsible for growth in economies at home (by sending money, opening new trading markets, creating a mobile labor market) as well as where they end up. It's a great argument for an open borders out-of-the-box answer to illegal immigration.

EU Accuses US Of Blocking Climate Talks

By Cernig

The member nations of the European Union seem surprised that a Bush administration which has for years denied scientific consensus so they could better serve corporate interests is still dragging its feet.

The European Union accused the United States on Thursday of blocking goals for fighting climate change at U.N. talks in Bali and threatened to boycott U.S. talks among top greenhouse gas emitting nations.

The December 3-14 Bali talks are split over the guidelines for starting two years of formal negotiations on a deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, a U.N. pact capping greenhouse gas emissions of all industrial nations except the United States until 2012.

"If we would have a failure in Bali it would be meaningless to have a major economies' meeting" in the United States, Humberto Rosa, Portugal's Secretary of State for Environment, said on the penultimate day of the talks.

...The EU wants Bali's final text to agree a non-binding goal of cuts in emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 for industrial economies. The United States, Japan and Canada are opposed, saying any figures would prejudge the outcome.

...Washington submitted a new text to the talks around midnight on Thursday that stressed voluntary goals for greenhouse gases rather than binding Kyoto-style caps for developed countries.

The Bushies moved the goalposts at the last minute to throw a spanner in the works? Yah don't say!

For those who have been following the diplomatic obstructionism practised by the White House over Iran's nuclear program - where the Bush administration demands that Iran stop enrichment before negotiations can begin on whether Iran should stop enrichment - will love this bit of hypocrisy:

"Those who are suggesting that you can magically find agreement on a metric when you are just starting negotiations, that in itself is a blocking element," said James Connaughton, Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

This from the same James Connaughton who pressured the EPA to dramatically weaken the wording of its public statements about the air quality in New York City in the days after the September 11, 2001 attacks and who is a former lobbyist for the power industry and various large electricity users. Has there ever been a Bush administration apparatchik who opened his or her mouth in good faith?

The Euros are asking for a non-binding agreement on a goal, to show willing. If only the Bush administration would take lessons on understanding the diplomatic process when it comes to Iran. But what the EU needs to realise is that a European boycott of any further talks would be regarded as a success by the White House.

Those Rioting French

By Cernig

Dave Schuler at The Glittering Eye gets it almost exactly right:

Once again, I think it’s important to understand the actual nature of the problems. The two young men who were killed in the collision that touched off the rioting were said to have been of North African descent. We don’t know where they were born. In all likelihood their grandparents emigrated from Algeria or another French department. We don’t know if they or those who’ve been rioting are Muslims. Nominally, they probably are but we have no idea if they were particularly religious.

This is not about religion; it is not about culture. That’s not at the root of the problem here. There is a problem and it’s not unique to France but one that will be of increasing significance to all of the (traditionally) ethnic states of Europe. How are those who’ve lived in France all their lives but aren’t Français de souche to be considered? Right now they’re neither fish nor fowl.

That’s why I’ve emphasized the importance of our birthright citizenship over here. It at least has a chance of giving the descendants of immigrants a stake in the country that’s the only one they’ve ever known.

That's pretty much it - but it's the grinding poverty and bigoted discrimination attendant on their status (by deliberate if unstated policy) that creates a recipe for violence. Pretty much the same recipe that gave rise to the U.S. riots of the 60s or the UK riots of '81, 85, '95 and '01.

Some European wingnuts are calling for the French military to be used to put down these rioters, who it is reported have used shotguns against police in some instances. It's unclear, however, that the army could accomplish any more than the 25,000 paramilitary riot police of the well-trained and equipped CRS and the Mobile Gendarmerie are doing already. France has a long history both of protest riots and of putting down those riots, which is why it has these units already. It's ludicrous to suggest that current events are anything more than a law enforcement problem in that respect - it's certainly no war. Treating the underlying causes would be more of an option than sending in the tanks.

Update In an excellent post BJ at Northman's Fury worries, as do I, that tough-guy Sarkozy is the wrong person to deal with the underlying causes:

I don't envy the French police the job they have ahead of them to get order restored once again, but I'm fairly sure they'll be able to do that without putting tanks onto the streets. That's when the real work should begin.

They have to find a way to make the people there trust them; to make them feel like they're being treated in a fair manner and not like some second-class citizens. Find some way, some fashion, to properly integrate the immigrant-descended population into the rest of society. Given the current French leadership, I'm not so certain there will be any attempt to do so, which is unfortunate.

Because when your only response is to use force to keep a population under control, the amount of force you need to use keeps rising, as do the costs and retaliations.

However, I'm encouraged that, so far at least, Sarkozy is far more soft-touch in his handling of the situation now that he actually is the guy in charge than his rhetoric back when he simply wanted to be the guy in charge suggested. I'm sure the wingnuts are equally as disappoined as I am encouraged.

French Surrender On Rummie Prosecution

By Cernig

As I expected, French prosecutors have taken the most politically expedient course and bent French and international law all out of shape to let Rumsfield off the hook on charges of ordering torture.

The Paris prosecutors' office has dismissed a suit against Donald Rumsfeld accusing the former U.S. defense secretary of torture, human rights groups who brought the case said on Friday.

The plaintiffs, who included the French-based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) and the U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), said Rumsfeld had authorized interrogation techniques that led to rights abuses.

The FIDH said it had received a letter from the prosecutors' office ruling that Rumsfeld benefited from a "customary" immunity from prosecution granted to heads of state and government and foreign ministers, even after they left office.

It said in a statement it was "astonished at such a mistaken argument" and said customary immunity from prosecution did not exist under international law.

I'm just going to repeat the substance of my comment over at Michael van der Galien's place. (Michael today reads as if he has suddenly and belatedly joined the pro-torturers after years of advocating otherwise - I hope I'm wrong and misreading his post in this respect.)

There is little doubt that at least one inmate at Gitmo, KSM, was waterboarded and that others were subjected to treatments the US has redefined as not being torture despite the Nuremberg court finding said techniques were exactly that and holding commanders responsible for ordering them. There is little doubt that Rumsfield personally ordered “enhanced interrogation techniques” as a command authority.

Saying that Rumsfield should benefit from a ‘customary’ immunity from prosecution that past orderers of torture didn’t get the benefit of - most recently including Pinochet in Spain - is an absurd mangling of international law.

Still, Rummie did his own impression of a "French surrender monkey" when the charges were brought, turning tail and fleeing for the safety of a U.S. air base in Germany. That's small comfort right now, but shows he at least knows what the law actually says.

The Problem With Liberal Dictators

By Cernig

Robert Kagan accurately nails the problem with the American love of installing autocrats who promise to bring democracy - they never, ever do.

There always seems to be a good reason to support a dictator. In the late 1970s, Jeane Kirkpatrick argued that it was better to support a "right-wing" dictator lest he be replaced by communists. Right-wing dictatorship -- today some call it "liberal autocracy" -- was in any case a necessary way station on the road to democracy. Communist totalitarians would never give up power and stifled any hope for freedom, but our friendly dictators would eventually give way to liberal politics.

The Reagan administration, and history, actually repudiated both sides of this doctrine. It turned out that right-wing dictators such as Ferdinand Marcos and the South Korean military junta, as other dictators before them, would only leave power if forced. Ironically, a communist leader in the Soviet Union was actually willing to take the steps that ultimately proved his system's undoing.

During the Cold War, Kirkpatrick and many others, including most leading neoconservatives and many in the American foreign policy establishment, bought the dictator's self-serving sales pitch. The dictator always argued that the choice was to support him or give the country to the communists. And he always made sure that this was the choice.

...Today, Pakistan's Gen. Pervez Musharraf is playing the old game, as is Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, and it appears to be working. Substitute radical Islamists for communists, and the pitch is the same: Apres moi, le deluge. If you force me out, the radical Islamists will win. And Musharraf is busily trying to ensure that this is the only option. He cracks down on moderates with good democratic credentials, and with far greater zeal than he has cracked down on al-Qaeda. If he can hold on long enough, he may so radicalize the opposition that no reasonably moderate alternative will be available.

It's archetypal Cold War thinking, something Cheney must be very comfortable with. Kagan argues that if America cannot ditch the Bush administration's fondness for dictators (and, recall, the original plan was to install one in Iraq too - a plan that was over-ruled by Iraqi pressure but is still resurrected from time to time by neocon pundits) then it must get used to a greater Middle East where "there are only two types of regimes: radical Islamists and stubborn dictatorships." Of course, it makes nonsense of rhetoric about loving democracy and freedom but then again most of the world has seen that rhetoric as transparently self-serving rubbish intended mainly for American domestic consumption for some time now. Certainly longer than Bush has been in power. Reagan ditched it because it served his interests to do so in certain situations, not from some ideological imperative.

However, what's good for the goose is also good for the gander. Left wing populist rulers like Chavez of Venezuela are no more helping their people by riding that popularity into a lifetime dicatorial sinecure than right-wing dictators help their people by promising democracy yet never delivering. Gorbachev was a one-in-a-million visionary and Chavez is no Gorby. It may well be that Chavez can, by dint of his popularity with the people up to now, get a vote proclaiming him president for life. But he shouldn't, and if he does then his motives cannot be unselfish. While he may be popular and helping his people with his policies now, there is no guarantee that he will always do so or that his people will always wish to have him as their lifelong ruler - even if they say they do right now.

In the end, that's the epiphany that European socialism came to several decades ago - the interests of the people will always be better served by the ballot box than by rulers-for-life. Thus the rise of democratic socialism and its close cousin social democracy, which are now the predominant European political currents even if pundits in the U.S. and dictators in South America are still living in socialism's past. For this reason, I reject any attempt to associate Chavez with my kind of "lefty" and respectfully disagree with my colleague Libby. Chavez may well have massive popular support for what he wishes to do, but the responsibilities of a progressive socialist nation go both ways. If his motives were pure, he would know that he is as fallible as any human being and never ask the Venezualan people to do what he is asking them to do - gamble that he will always be as popular, as good for them, as he is now and bet their own political voice on that gamble.