Aftermath News

Related: Study says almost all cluster bomb victims are children

Associated Press | Jul 7,  2008

Pentagon aims for less deadly cluster bombs

by LOLITA C. BALDOR

WASHINGTON - Faced with growing international pressure, the Pentagon is changing its policy on cluster bombs and plans to reduce the danger of unexploded munitions in the deadly explosives.

The policy shift, which is outlined in a three-page memo signed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, would require that after 2018, more than 99 percent of the bomblets in a cluster bomb must detonate.

Limiting the amount of live munitions left on the battlefield would lessen the danger to innocent civilians who have been killed or severely injured when they accidentally detonate the bombs.

Also, by next June the Defense Department will begin to reduce its inventory of cluster bombs that do not meet the new safety requirements.

The new Defense Department plan comes more than a month after 111 nations, including many of America’s key NATO partners, adopted a treaty outlawing all current designs of cluster munitions. The agreement also required that stockpiles be destroyed within eight years.

Opponents have complained that the Pentagon has moved too slowly to reduce the cluster munitions from its inventory.

Cluster bombs scatter hundreds of smaller explosives over a large area, where those bomblets can sit for years until they are disturbed and explode.

U.S. leaders boycotted the May talks, as did Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan, all leading cluster bomb makers who cite the military value of the deadly explosives.

At the time, Cmdr. Bob Mehal, a Pentagon spokesman, said the elimination of cluster bombs from the U.S. stockpile “would put the lives of our soldiers and those of our coalition partners at risk.”

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who has led efforts to outlaw cluster munitions, said the Pentagon’s move is a step back. A defense policy issued by then-Defense Secretary William Cohen in early 2001, Leahy said, called for a similar reduction in submunitions from the cluster bombs by 2005.

“Now the Bush administration’s ‘new’ policy is to wait another 10 years,” said Leahy, calling it “another squandered opportunity for U.S. leadership.” He said that in wake of the international treaty agreement, the Pentagon’s plan to wait another decade before requiring the 99 percent detonation rate cannot be justified.

The use of cluster bombs has seen opposition in Congress, which last year passed a one-year ban on U.S. exports of such munitions to other countries. It is expected that the ban, which received bipartisan support, will be extended again by Congress.

The new Pentagon policy appears to plan for a possible end to that ban. The memo states that until 2018, the Defense Department would seek to transfer cluster munitions that don’t meet the new 1 percent failure rate to other foreign governments. Any transfer would require that the foreign government not use them after 2018, and the sale would have to be “consistent with U.S. law,” according to the memo.

The policy defends the use of the cluster bombs as effective weapons that “provide distinct advantages against a range of targets and can result in less collateral damage” than other weapons.

And the memo concludes by saying that “blanket elimination of cluster munitions is unacceptable” and commanders will use them in accordance with the law and international agreements “in order to minimize their impact on civilian populations.”

A June report by the Congressional Research Service questioned whether it is feasible to design a bomb that will indeed detonate to the planned level of more than 99 percent.

“While such a high level of performance might be achievable under controlled laboratory conditions,” the report said, other uncontrollable circumstances, such as landing in soft ground or getting caught in a tree or vegetation, could result in more unexploded duds.

According to the congressional report, the U.S. dropped more than 1,200 cluster bombs — containing nearly 250,000 submunitions — in Afghanistan from 2001-2002. And the U.S. and British forces used about 13,000 of the bombs — with more than 1.8 million bomblets — during the first three weeks of combat in the Iraq war.

When the international treaty was adopted, backers predicted that the U.S. would never again use the weapons, and it left open the possibility that European allies could order U.S. bases within their borders to remove cluster bombs from their stocks.

International leaders expect to sign the treaty in December.

Only al-Qaeda and Iran pose bigger danger

The Times | Jul 4, 2008

Philip Webster, Political Editor

Vital resources are having to be diverted to deal with industrial and military espionage by the Russians

Britain’s security services have identified Russia as the third most serious threat facing the country, it has emerged before Gordon Brown’s first meeting with President Medvedev.

Security officials say that only al-Qaeda terrorism and Iranian nuclear proliferation are greater menaces to the country’s safety than Russia.

The services are understood to fear that Russia’s three main intelligence agencies have flooded the country with agents, The Times understands.

There is reported to be deep irritation within the services that vital resources are having to be diverted to deal with industrial and military espionage by the Russians.

The disclosures come as Mr Brown prepares to hold his first meeting with Mr Medvedev on Monday amid rising anger about Russia’s treatment of foreign investors such as BP.

Russian agents were accused of the murder of the émigré Alexander Litvinenko in London, as well as other attempted killings, and relations between the two countries have deteriorated fast, culminating in a row between Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin, the former President, at the G8 summit last year.

As Mr Brown and Mr Medvedev prepare to meet in Hokkaido, Japan, on Monday before the opening of this year’s G8, Russia has displayed signs of wanting to end the rift with Britain. In an interview with foreign correspondents Mr Medvedev said that international relations always required people to come together.

Reflecting the sensitivity of the encounter, senior British officials declined to give details of the issues that Mr Brown intends to raise, clearly not wanting to raise the temperature in advance. One said: “We will talk about that meeting after it has happened.”

He added that the Government agreed with Mr Medvedev’s comments about international relations and that Mr Brown looked forward to a “constructive discussion”.

Mr Brown seems certain, however, to raise the continuing fallout from the Litvinenko killing, the heightened tension between the security services, and the treatment of BP and its staff in Russia. The FSB, the successor agency to the KGB, raided the Moscow offices of BP and a joint venture, TNK-BP, this year.

The Prime Minister will use his first G8 summit to call on his colleagues to do more to meet their pledges to double aid to Africa. British officials said that the G8 was not on track to meet commitments made at the Gleneagles summit in 2005 to double aid to £50 billion a year worldwide and aid to Africa to £25 billion.

They expect the summit to reaffirm that commitment - although the words are not yet in the summit communiqué - but officials said that several G8 countries were not meeting their targets, and only Britain, the United States and Germany were doing so.

Mr Brown will say that the richer countries should be doing more at a time of economic downturn as part of the overall solution to the problems facing the world, including food and oil prices. “Too many donors are not keeping the promises they made,” a senior official said.

Mr Brown wants a G8 commitment to helping countries to increase the number of health workers to 2.3 per 1,000 people and providing $60 billion (£30 billion) for health over a set period. He and other leaders want the summit to give much-needed momentum to the world trade talks, which are close to failure.

Appearing before a Commons committee yesterday, Mr Brown spoke of the “great responsibility” on the leaders of the G8 to pave the way for a deal by trade ministers at a crucial meeting on July 21. Mr Brown said: “We are a few minutes before midnight. If we can’t get a trade deal within the next few weeks it may elude us for many, many months, if not longer.

“I think we have got to show, in a world that is becoming increasingly protectionist, that we are capable of standing up to that and show that the world is capable of reaching an agreement on trade.”

Mr Brown made plain that his old adversary Peter Mandelson, the EU Trade Commissioner, had his full confidence in his battle with President Sarkozy of France over his handling of the trade talks.

Pascal Lamy, the director-general of the World Trade Organisation, said yesterday that an agreement on the main points of the world trade liberalisation talks was “feasible” this month, despite the pessimism surrounding the round and significant reservations on the part of France, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency.

“I called for a ministerial meeting because I think it is feasible [to come to a framework agreement] but it is not a done deal,” he said.

Claims and disputes

November 2006 Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian security officer and fierce critic of the Kremlin, dies in a London hospital after being poisoned

May 2007 Russia refuses a British request to hand over the prime suspect in the killing, Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB officer who is now a Russian MP

July 2007 Britain expels four Russian diplomats in response to refusal to extradite Mr Lugovoi

July 2007 Boris Berezovsky, the exiled Russian billionaire, claims that British intelligence thwarted a plot to kill him

August 2007 President Putin reinstates Cold War-style long-range air patrols by strategic bombers

April 2008 The MoD reveals that RAF fighter jets have been scrambled at least 21 times in 12 months to respond to Russian military aircraft encroaching on Nato airspace

Air Force Times | Jul 3, 2008

By Rick Maze

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama included a pitch to enlist in the military in a speech here Wednesday about the need for Americans to be volunteers in all walks of life.

Speaking before an audience that included military veterans, families of current service members and at least one military officer in uniform, Obama said Americans expected a call to serve after the 9/11 terrorist attacks “but the call never came.”

Obama said he has met thousands of people who joined the military after 9/11, but the burden of serving the U.S. “has fallen exclusively … on the backs of people in the military and their families, even though they have not received the care and support they deserve.”

Part of Obama’s national security plan calls for a 65,000-person increase in the Army and a 27,000 increase in the Marine Corps.

“We need to ease the burden on our troops while meeting the challenges of the 21st Century,” he said. “That is why I will call on a new generation of Americans to join our military.”

But, in a related call that might diminish the number of people headed to military recruiters, Obama also said he wanted to increase the size of AmeriCorps, the program for domestic national service, to 250,000 people — a proposal that drew more applause than his call for military recruits from the audience at the campus of the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. AmeriCorps has just 75,000 slots for volunteers today.

Obama aides said they did not see the AmeriCorps programs as competition with the military because AmeriCorps is open to people of all ages, and Obama proposes an aggressive program to recruit veterans who have already served in the military. Additionally, aides said that pay and benefits for service members, including the newly improved veterans’ educational benefits program, are far more generous than anything promised to volunteers for domestic service.

Obama also said that as president, he would try to ease the burden of military service, with his boost in personnel levels a key part of that plan.

“There is no challenge greater than the defense of our nation and our values,” he said.

“A call to service must be backed by a sacred trust with anyone who puts on the uniform of the United States,” he said. “A young person joining our military must know that we will only send them into harm’s way when we absolutely must,” he said.

Obama pledged that “we will provide them with the equipment needed to complete their mission safely, and deployments that allow adequate time back home. They must see that we will care for our military families while they are deployed and that we are providing our veterans with the support, benefits and opportunity that they have earned when they return home.”

Former US Ambassador to UN says Obama victory in November will prompt Israeli raid on Iranian nuclear facilities prior to inauguration. Arab nations will be ‘positive, privately’ about strike, says Bolton

Israel News | Jun 24, 2008

By Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON - Former US Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, said on Tuesday that he believes Israel will stage a raid against Iran’s nuclear facilities if Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama wins the upcoming presidential elections.

Bolton said the IAF would likely strike in the interim term between election day (November 4th) and the inauguration (January 20th 2009) – while George W. Bush is still in office.

“I think if they are to do anything, the most likely period is after our elections and before the inauguration of the next President,” Bolton said in an interview with FOX News.

“I don’t think they will do anything before our election because they don’t want to affect it. And they’d have to make a judgment whether to go during the remainder of President Bush’s term in office or wait for his successor.”

“I don’t think they will do anything before our election because they don’t want to affect it. And they’d have to make a judgment whether to go during the remainder of President Bush’s term in office or wait for his successor.”

In a related interview with the British ‘Daily Telegraph,’ Bolton said he believed the Arab world would be “pleased” by an Israeli strike.
Their reaction, he told the paper “will be positive privately. I think there’ll be public denunciations but no action.”

Bolton believes that Israel may consider postponing the attack if Senator John McCain emerges as the victor in the race, and said apprehension of Obama’s foreign policy in Jerusalem would likely be the motivating factor behind an early strike.

The former ambassador, often labeled a resolute neo-conservative, said he found McCain’s stance on Iran far more realistic than that of the Bush administration.

Bolton said he doubted Iran would respond immediately with a counterstrike of its own, partially because Tehran would fear an American reprisal.

UPI | Jun 30, 2008

NEW DELHI, June 30 (UPI) — Thirty-seven personnel of India’s elite anti-Maoist force are missing and feared drowned after an attack by rebels on the force’s motor launch in Orissa state.

The members of Andhra Pradesh state’s elite anti-Naxalite force, the Greyhounds, were missing, feared drowned, when Maoists launched a major attack on a motor launch carrying the police officers. They were on a two-day combing operation in Orissa. The vessel was sunk in a reservoir, a state Interior Ministry official said.

The official said the launch, carrying 60 Greyhounds, two Orissa constables and two boatmen, came under fire from the Maoists’ rocket launcher, mortar and light machine gun from a hilltop in Orissa’s Malkangiri district Sunday. Maoists are called Naxalites in Indian context, as they started their armed struggle in 1970s from a place called Naxalbari.

“The attack took place near Alampetta village when the Greyhounds were sailing to Chirakonda across the Balimela reservoir on the Andhra border for a joint operation against the Maoists,” said Gopal Nanda, director general of police of Orissa.

The launch capsized immediately and its driver was among those killed. Many others sustained bullet injuries. While 25 on board swam ashore, the fate of 37 others is unknown. The federal government rushed 125 men of Central Reserve Police Force for rescue, Nanda said.

Reuters | Jun 28, 2008

WEST POINT, New York (Reuters) - Climbing ropes and crawling in the mud under barbed wire, dozens of American high school kids at an unusual summer camp vied to see who could get most dirty as they tackled an Army obstacle course.

And as they ran between obstacles in the woods, the kids shouted Army chants. Asked by a cadet if they were motivated, they shouted back in unison: “Motivated, motivated, downright motivated. Ooh, aah, ooh, aah, I want to kill somebody.”

Each summer, 800 high school kids hoping to become soldiers spend a week at West Point to see what life is like at the prestigious U.S. military academy for future army officers.

With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan straining the U.S. military and public support low for the Iraq war, recruiting future officers might seem a tough sell. But officials say applications to the summer program are at a record high.

West Point says it recruits “scholars, leaders and athletes.” Kids at the Summer Leadership Seminar, a week-long residential program held over two sessions, have top grades and are strong in sports and extra-curricular activities.

Alex Imbriale, a 17-year-old from North Carolina who is captain of his school’s rifle team, attributed his interest in West Point to his father, who is in the army. But there were plenty of students on the program who are not “army brats.”

Kathleen Engle, 16, from Fairfield, California, said she had looked into the Peace Corps and other options but decided on the military.

“I was in fifth grade when 9/11 happened and that’s when I decided the best thing I could do for my country was this,” she said, playing a video game called “America’s Army.”

“I guess it’s going to be hard to kill someone, but if that’s your job and that’s what our commander tells us we need to do, I’m going to do that in order to protect my country.”

IMMIGRANTS AND ADVENTURERS

Mario Vazquez, 17, from El Paso, Texas, hopes to be a neurosurgeon but first he says he has a duty to America.

“My Mom is actually the one that found out about it,” he said of the West Point summer program. “My mother is from Mexico … she said it’s a good place to get discipline.”

“I owe a lot to this country because of what it’s given me, because of what it’s given my family, but I also have fears because it’s a lot of sacrifice,” he said. “You put your country before yourself and you sacrifice your family and a lot of other privileges.”

Austin Fullmer, 17, from Las Cruces, New Mexico, said he was attracted by the prospect of moving around the world and seeing new places, and although he would be nervous about deploying to a combat zone, “it’s just another adventure.”

“I didn’t quite realize there were this many kids like me,” he said, grinning as he sat in the doorway of Blackhawk helicopter parked in a field.

Graduates of the academy founded in 1802 include former President Dwight Eisenhower, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who led U.S. forces in the first Gulf War, and astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin.

During their week at the picturesque campus on the banks of the Hudson river in New York state, the high-school students are immersed in cadet life.

They are woken at 5 a.m for physical training, they march in formation under the command of current cadets, take academic workshops and spend a day in the field.

“We’re able to pick the most competitive students,” said Lt. Col. Dean Batchelder, who handles admissions. There were 3,674 applications for 800 places on the high-school program.

Those who attend are not guaranteed admission to the academy — which offers a four-year college education in return for a commitment of five years active duty and three years as a reservist — but they stand a good chance, he said.

“I’m not here to screen them,” Batchelder added. “We’re not trying to weed out the weak, we’re trying to give them the information so they can make a better choice.”

NATION AT WAR

Her jeans and pink shirt caked in mud, her face daubed with camouflage cream, 17-year-old Elise Fink put on a flak jacket, stuffed her blonde ponytail under a helmet, and climbed up into the gun turret of a Humvee to check out the machine gun.

“In Iraq you’ll be carrying about 40 pounds more than that,” Specialist Justin Fletcher, a 10th Mountain Division soldier who returned from Iraq late last year, told her.

The grand-daughter of two brigadier generals and daughter of a lieutenant colonel, Fink says her family was supportive of her interest in West Point or the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC). Her friends in Wilton, Connecticut, less so.

“My town doesn’t do military,” Fink said. “My town is very anti-war right now, so to join the military means you’re pro-war, and a lot of my friends are anti-war.”

“When I said that I was planning on doing ROTC or coming to West Point, they said ‘I don’t want you to get killed.’”

Fink says support or disapproval of the war in Iraq is irrelevant to her military ambitions. “I feel it’s my duty, and it’s people’s duty to serve their country in some way,” she said. “This is the way I chose.”

Lt. Col. Jeffrey Wilson, who runs the summer academic program, said applications for the Summer Leadership Seminar were at a record high this year.

“I’m not sure how the fact that we’re a nation at war has influenced the motivation of any particular student to apply,” he said. “I think that there is a strong sense of service in this generation.”

YELLING AND HAZING

Life as a cadet at West Point is highly regimented, with every detail from how to fold your underwear to the position of personal items on your desk dictated by regulations.

Jordy Kronshag, a 17-year-old from Callumet, Michigan, whose skill at the pole vault made her the equal of much larger males on the obstacle course, said she enjoyed the teamwork and leadership training but was still unsure about applying to become a cadet.

“This is the fun part,” she said, her clothes muddy from the low crawl under barbed wire. “But also a part I don’t like is all the yelling and the hazing, that’s going to be tough.”

On a day set aside for academic workshops, students in one group staged a mock murder trial. Others built a light-seeking robot in an electrical engineering class.

A third group played “Double Philosophy Jeopardy,” with pop culture categories showing how characters in “Star Wars” or “The Simpsons” illustrate stoicism or the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche.

At a panel discussion with 10 current cadets one evening, the students asked about free time, punishments for alcohol use, how much cadets work out, whether they have online courses, how cold winters are and how much sleep cadets get.

Cadet John Williams said he applied to West Point for the wrong reasons and didn’t know much about it in advance.

“I know a lot of you are doing it for the wrong reasons,” he told the students. “You want people to be proud of you, it’s pretty prestigious, you don’t want to let people down,” he said. “That might not be a bad thing.”

“I came for the wrong reasons, I’ve definitely stayed for the right reasons.”

Reuters | Jun 29, 2008

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. congressional leaders agreed late last year to President George W. Bush’s funding request for a major escalation of covert operations against Iran aimed at destabilizing its leadership, according to a report in The New Yorker magazine published online on Sunday.

The article by reporter Seymour Hersh, from the magazine’s July 7 and 14 issue, centers around a highly classified Presidential Finding signed by Bush which by U.S. law must be made known to Democratic and Republican House and Senate leaders and ranking members of the intelligence committees.

“The Finding was focused on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and trying to undermine the government through regime change,” the article cited a person familiar with its contents as saying, and involved “working with opposition groups and passing money.”

Hersh has written previously about possible administration plans to go to war to stop Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons, including an April 2006 article in the New Yorker that suggested regime change in Iran, whether by diplomatic or military means, was Bush’s ultimate goal.

Funding for the covert escalation, for which Bush requested up to $400 million, was approved by congressional leaders, according to the article, citing current and former military, intelligence and congressional sources.

Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. U.S.  Special Operations Forces have been conducting crossborder operations from southern Iraq since last year, the article said.

These have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in Bush’s war on terrorism, who may be captured or killed, according to the article.

But the scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which include the Central Intelligence Agency, have now been significantly expanded, the article said, citing current and former officials.

Many of these activities are not specified in the new finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious questions about their nature, it said.

Among groups inside Iran benefiting from U.S. support is the Jundallah, also known as the Iranian People’s Resistance Movement, according to former CIA officer Robert Baer. Council on Foreign Relations analyst Vali Nasr described it to Hersh as a vicious organization suspected of links to al Qaeda.

The article said U.S. support for the dissident groups could prompt a violent crackdown by Iran, which could give the Bush administration a reason to intervene.

None of the Democratic leaders in Congress would comment on the finding, the article said. The White House, which has repeatedly denied preparing for military action against Iran, and the CIA also declined comment.

The United States is leading international efforts to rein in Iran’s suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, although Washington concedes Iran has the right to develop nuclear power for civilian uses.

Report: Climate change linked to national security

Associated Press | Jun 25, 2008

By PAMELA HESS

WASHINGTON - Global warming probably will mean more illegal immigration and humanitarian disasters, undermining shaky governments and possibly expanding the terrorism threat against the U.S., intelligence agencies say.

“Logic suggests the conditions exacerbated (by climate change) would increase the pool of potential recruits for terrorism,” said Tom Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence for analysis.

Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Central and Southeast Asia are most vulnerable to warming-related drought, flooding, extreme weather and hunger. The assessment warns of a global spillover from increased migration and water-related disputes, Fingar said in prepared remarks Wednesday to a joint hearing of a special House committee on global warming and a House Intelligence subcommittee.

Climate change alone would not topple governments, he said. But it could worsen problems such as poverty, disease, migration and hunger, creating conditions that could destabilize already vulnerable areas, Fingar said.

But he warned that efforts to reduce global warming by changing energy policies “may affect U.S. national security interests even more than the physical impacts of climate change itself.”

“The operative word there is ‘may,’ we don’t know,” Fingar said.

The assessment of global climate change through 2030 is one in a series of periodic intelligence reports that offer the consensus of top analysts at all 16 spy agencies on foreign policy, security and global economic issues. Congress requested the report last year. The assessment is classified as confidential.

It predicts that the United States and most of its allies will have the means to cope with climate change economically. Unspecified “regional partners” could face severe problems.

Fingar said the quality of the analysis is hampered by the fact that climate data tend not to focus on specific countries but on broad global changes. For that reason, the intelligence agencies have only low to moderate confidence in the assessment.

Africa is seen as among the most vulnerable regions. An expected increase in droughts there could cut agricultural yields of rain-dependent crops by up to half over the next 12 years.

Parts of Asia’s food crops are vulnerable to droughts and floods, with rice and grain crops potentially facing up to a 10 percent decline by 2025.

As many as 50 million additional people could face hunger by 2020. The water supply, while larger because of melting glaciers, will be under pressure from a growing population and increased consumption. Between 120 million and 1.2 billion people in Asia “will continue to experience some water stress.”

Latin America may experience increased precipitation, possibly cutting tens of millions of people from the ranks of those in need of water. But from 7 million to 77 million people could be short of water resources because of population growth.

Fingar’s statement strikes a considerably less ominous tone than a report issued a year ago by the Center for Naval Analyses.

Rep. Edward Markey, the chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, accused the White House of trying to “bury the future security realities of global warming” in Fingar’s prepared statement. Markey, D-Mass., received a briefing on the classified assessment, which he said is “first-class.”

Fingar said no one in the White House changed any of his public testimony.

The center’s report, by retired military leaders, drew a direct correlation between global warming and the conditions that lead failed states to become the breeding grounds for extremism and terrorism.

“Climate change will provide the conditions that will extend the war on terror,” said Adm. T. Joseph Lopez, who commanded U.S. and allied peacekeeping forces in Bosnia in 1996.

“Weakened and failing governments, with an already thin margin for survival, foster the conditions for internal conflicts, extremism and movement toward increased authoritarianism and radical ideologies,” the center’s report said. “The U.S. will be drawn more frequently into these situations,” according to the report, which drew on 11 retired generals and admirals.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the request for the intelligence agencies’ report was “a dangerous diversion of intelligence assets.” He said the issue should be studied by climate scientists, not intelligence agencies.

Republicans used the hearing to argue for domestic oil drilling and nuclear power to reduce reliance on foreign energy.

They’ve created a monster: Robert Mugabe pictured with the Queen during his state visit to Britain in 1994, when he was awarded the honorary knighthood. Mugabe was made a Knight Grand Cross in the Order of Bath on the advice of John Major’s government.

Daily Mail | Jun 26, 2008

By Benedict Brogan

Robert Mugabe was stripped of his honorary knighthood as a statement of ‘revulsion’ last night as Gordon Brown ordered tougher sanctions against his increasingly violent regime.

The Queen approved the rare step of removing the award, issued 14 years ago, to mark British anger at human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.

With international outrage growing, Mugabe was condemned for terrorising the people of Zimbabwe by one of his former allies.

South African archbishop Desmond Tutu said: ‘He has mutated into something quite unbelievable. He has turned into a kind of Frankenstein for his people.’

And former South African president Nelson Mandela broke his silence over the situation in Zimbabwe, expressing ‘deep concern and sadness’, according to a source.

At the same time the England Cricket Board decided to scrap next year’s cricket tour and suspend relations with Zimbabwe.

The removal of Mugabe’s knighthood was authorised by the Prime Minister as a symbolic gesture following opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s decision to pull out of Friday’s presidential election in the face of escalating violence.

Organised thugs from Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party have embarked on a reign of terror aimed at sealing their stolen victory over Mr Tsvangirai’s beleaguered MDC.

A statement from the Foreign Office said: ‘This action has been taken as a mark of revulsion at the abuse of human rights and abject disregard for the democratic process in Zimbabwe over which President Mugabe has presided.’

The Government had been reluctant to hand Mugabe a propaganda coup in the election campaign by taking a step that would allow him to claim he was being victimised by his country’s former colonial masters.

But with his position now unopposed and worldwide condemnation growing by the day, the Queen agreed to make him only the second world leader after Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu to have an honour removed.

Ceaucescu lost his knighthood in 1989, the day before he and his wife were executed after being removed from power in a popular uprising.

Mugabe was made a Knight Grand Cross in the Order of Bath on the advice of John Major’s government during a state visit in 1994.

Leaders on such visits are routinely offered an honour by the Queen on the advice of the Foreign Office.

Mr Brown is in talks with other countries about tougher sanctions against Zimbabwe to mark international revulsion at the way Mugabe has trampled democracy in what was once one of Africa’s most successful countries.

In the Commons yesterday he called on other countries to help bar Zimbabwe from cricket’s Twenty 20 World Cup being hosted by England next year.

The ECB ban will apply to two Test matches and one-day fixtures planned for next year’s tour, but the International Cricket Council has to approve the team’s bar from the Twenty 20 series.

‘We want to ensure that Zimbabwe does not tour England next year,’ Mr Brown said at Prime Minister’s question time.

He said the whole world had woken up to the ‘evils’ of Mugabe’s ‘criminal cabal’. He called for a ‘peaceful transition’ government as soon as possible.

David Cameron urged Mr Brown to act against British companies with investments in Zimbabwe that could be propping up the regime.

But firms led by Tesco, Barclays and mining giant Anglo American defended their involvement as crucial to the people of Zimbabwe and their chances of rebuilding their economy if Mugabe goes.

Downing Street confirmed it was looking at ways of applying sanctions to the key figures around Mugabe who are orchestrating his terror campaign.

Full Story

REUTERS | Jun 25, 2008

by Steve Holland

COSTA MESA, California (Reuters) - Only World War III would prompt Republican presidential candidate John McCain to bring back the military draft, McCain said on Tuesday.

Many Americans are fearful the U.S. government will be forced to reinstitute the draft given the prolonged Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Asked about that possibility by a potential voter in Florida during a telephone “town hall meeting,” McCain said: “I don’t know what would make a draft happen unless we were in an all-out World War III.”

The United States ended its last military draft in 1973 in the waning years of the Vietnam war, moving to an all-volunteer military force.

McCain, a Vietnam veteran, said the draft during that conflict weighed most heavily on lower-income Americans, and that this should not be repeated.

“I do not believe the draft is even practicable or desirable,” McCain said.