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Fearing Iraq Pullout, State Boosting Private Chopper Force August 01, 2007 4:59 PM Kirit Radia Reports: Fearing an imminent drawdown of U.S. troops and equipment from Iraq amid escalating violence, the State Department is hiring its own private helicopter squad to ferry its personnel around the country. Government military contractors Blackwater, DynCorp and Triple Canopy are the only three companies competing for the contract, possibly valued at more than $100 million a year for up to the next five years, sources tell ABC News. The requirements call for approximately 20 helicopters with maintenance, storage and crew to ensure 24-hour availability....

The List: The World's Top Immigrant Smuggling Routes Posted June 2007 Wars, famine, and poverty drive hundreds of thousands of people each year to pull up stakes and head for greener pastures. But those seeking a better life don’t always find themselves welcome in their prospective homes. For this week’s List, FP takes a look at the dangerous routes migrants are using in order to stay one step ahead of the authorities. The Long Road from Guatemala to the United States Trends: Mexicans are still by far the largest group of illegal immigrants to the United States: In 2005, 86...

Gaza sources say Hamas ambushed US convoy, seized stockpile of weapons aimed for Fatah militias Hamas ambushed a convoy in the Gaza Strip on Sunday and seized a stockpile of US weapons transferred in recent months to militias associated with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party, according to Hamas and Fatah sources. Gaza Violence "We obtained the US weapons and will keep hijacking any assistance the Americans provide to Fatah. Our fighters are aware of the American and Israeli conspiracies to topple our government. We're trained and well prepared to defeat the American-backed (Palestinian) agents," said a top member...

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's most senior adviser on Iraq is leaving the State Department to return to his teaching job. Philip D. Zelikow is the best-known member of Rice's academic brain trust at the State Department, and the author of sometimes contrarian appraisals of the Iraq conflict and reconstruction effort. He holds the title counselor, a sort of adviser without portfolio. In a resignation letter dated Monday, Zelikow said he will return to teaching at the University of Virginia in January. He cited a "long-standing debt to my family" and "truly riveting obligation to college bursars," for...

U.S. policymakers need to avoid two mistakes, while seizing two opportunities. The first mistake would be an overreliance on military force. As the United States has learned to its great cost in Iraq -- and Israel has in Lebanon -- military force is no panacea.... The second mistake would be to count on the emergence of democracy to pacify the region. It is true that mature democracies tend not to wage war on one another. Unfortunately, creating mature democracies is no easy task, and even if the effort ultimately succeeds, it takes decades. In the interim, the U.S. government must...

Shift in Harvard Curriculum Reflects Larger Trend Toward Global Law Leigh Jones The National Law Journal 10-24-2006 Harvard Law School's recent announcement that it is making the most sweeping changes to its first-year curriculum in 100 years heralded a major shift in legal education, including a new emphasis on global law. But some of its competitors say that they already have revamped their programs in similar ways. Harvard will begin requiring first-year students to take three new courses, including a class on legislation and regulation, another covering global legal systems and a third focusing on problems and theories. The school's...

On July 14, 2003, a Robert Novak column in The Washington Post outed the CIA-agent wife of vociferous Bush administration critic, Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson. Thus was born the "Plame Affair" which quickly became a morality tale of how an out of control Bush Administration would do anything to justify its war in Iraq. A mere three days later, journalist David Corn, summarized the allegations that would color reporting on the Iraq War for the next three years and eventually lead to the indictment of a top aide to the vice president for lying to a grand jury: ((((THE OLD...

Draw your own conclusions from the fact that Armitage’s best friend Colin Powell called Dick Cheney’s supporters (including Scooter Libby, Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz) the “Gestapo Office” (quite insulting considering that there is a history of relatives lost in the Holocaust among them). Factor in that Powell called Doug Feith “a card-carrying member of the Likud Party” and referred to the Likudnicks in the White House controlling policy during his “exit interview with Bush” (see Assassin’s Gate: America in Iraq) – thereby showing his support for anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists.

WASHINGTON Robert Zoellick intends to resign as deputy secretary of state after barely 15 months on the job, according to aides and associates. From his first days at the State Department, Zoellick has chafed at his subordinate position, frequently remarking that he was finding the adjustment difficult after running his own office during four years as U.S. trade representative, which is a

A State Department reorganization of analysts involved in preventing the spread of deadly weapons has spawned internal turmoil, with more than half a dozen career employees alleging in interviews that political appointees sought to punish long-term employees whose views they considered suspect. Senior State Department officials deny that and say an investigation has found that the proper personnel practices were followed. But three officials involved in the reorganization, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, acknowledge that a merger of two bureaus reduced the influence of employees who were viewed by some...

The Year in Hatred: Virulent Anti-US Cartoons from the PA Press 20:06 Dec 18, '05 / 17 Kislev 5766 By Scott Shiloh It was a banner year in the PA press for pernicious material attacking the U.S. led coalition in Iraq. A selection of poltical cartoons, inciting against U.S. forces in Iraq, are reproduced here. Before the Iraq war, the Palestinian Authority was one of Saddam Hussein’s staunchest allies. Since the United States led coalition toppled Saddam’s regime, the PA media regularly publishes material supporting the Iraqi insurgents, calling for killing American soldiers fighting in Iraq. Ironically, the Bush Administration,...

TEL AVIV, Nov 13 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Israel on Sunday declaring a Palestinian state would enhance the Jewish state's security. Speaking to reporters en route from Saudi Arabia, Rice said she would use a speech later on Sunday to demonstrate that change was taking place rapidly in other parts of the Middle East and Israel and the Palestinians should follow suit. "I will talk about the changed context in the Middle East," she said, referring to Libya's decision to abandon weapons of mass destruction, Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon, the ousting of Saddam Hussein...

Cheney 'cabal' hijacked US foreign policy Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday. In a scathing attack on the record of President George W. Bush, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January, said: gWhat I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld,...

Insurgent violence has taken a heavy toll on the U.S. in Iraq. A series of attacks earlier this month pushed the total of American fatalities past 1,800. The mounting casualties have shaken American confidence. Terrorism has hit Iraqis even harder. On Capitol Hill, there are bipartisan calls for the White House to establish a timeline for withdrawal. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has been floating trial balloons. Senior military officials and diplomats, meanwhile, seek to deflate the insurgency. They urge Iraqis to embrace and engage former Baathists, Islamists, and Arab Sunni rejectionists. If the Sunnis can be brought into the fold,...

"Real Men Moisturize." So begins an article on "Sharp Dressed Men" that appeared in a State Department funded magazine aimed at youth in the Arab world. The magazine, called "Hi" is published in Arabic and English. A State Department website explains that Hi is published "with the hope of building bridges of greater understanding among our cultures."

WASHINGTON — When John R. Bolton charged into the State Department in 2001 as President Bush's top arms control official, he thought of himself as a loyal Republican soldier on a mission into hostile political territory, according to friends and colleagues. That assessment became a self-fulfilling prophesy. In the course of the four years Bolton ........he had a succession of ideological and personal clashes with subordinates, colleagues and superiors. Eventually, Colin L. Powell, secretary of State at the time, ordered his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, to keep tabs on Bolton and prevent him from alienating allies, three current and former...

CAIRO, April 3, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – The US State Department has drawn up a memo calling for direct and permanent political dialogue with the banned Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, a leading Arabic newspaper reported on Sunday, April 3. The US administration sees the Muslim Brotherhood as one of the most powerful opposition movements in Egypt, unnamed Western diplomatic sources in the Egyptian capital told Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. The memo recommends inviting the group’s representatives to the United States for better communication and common grounds on Egypt’s reform policies and the pressing issues in the region, they added. The State Department believes...

Bush gave a transformational speech Tuesday at the National Defense University at Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC. I am sure we will see the Europeans and their like minded US compatriots in the Democratic Party and the Main Stream Media claim what he said there was just blather and nothing new if they comment on it at all. But this speech was quite a thing, really. Along with affirming that the USA has entered into a new century with a new foreign policy direction that Bush is not going to waver from, he also aimed a shot across the...

MIDDLE EAST REPORT Nightmare at Foggy Bottom: Arabists panicked at prospect of Rice's appointments U.S. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns stands in front of a picture of late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on Nov. 21. Colin Powell has long operated on the principle, "Don't rock the boat." It was his credo at the State Department where he usually sidestepped appointments and diplomacy. But Powell is gone, to be replaced by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Foggy Bottom is scared. Nowhere is the fear more palpable than in the department's Near...