The first anniversary of Barack Obama's historic election finds many of his supporters already grousing. Fair enough: Obama has been more vigorous in some areas than others. But one essential question goes unasked: How much can any president accomplish against the wishes of recalcitrant power centers within his own government?

Americans harbor a quaint belief that a new US president takes charge of a government that eagerly awaits his next command. Like an orchestra conductor or perhaps a football coach, he can inspire or bludgeon and get what he wants. But that's not how things work at the top, especially where "national security" is concerned. The Pentagon and CIA are powerful and independent fiefdoms characterized by entrenched agendas and constant intrigue. They are full of lifers, who see an elected president largely as an annoyance, and have ways of dealing with those who won't come to heel.

Compound that with the Bush-Cheney administration's aggressive seeding of its staunch loyalists throughout the bureaucracy, and you have a pretty tough situation. Obama, then, has to contend not only with the big donors and corporate lobbies. His biggest problem resides right inside his "team."

The internal battles between American presidents and their national security establishments are not much reported. But if it is an invisible game, it is also a devious and even deadly one. Our civilian leaders end up mirroring the chronically nervous chiefs of state of the fragile democracies to our south.

Those who do not kowtow to the spies and generals have had a bumpy ride. FDR and Truman both faced insubordination. Dwight Eisenhower, who had served as chief of staff of the US Army, left the White House warning darkly about the "military industrial complex." (He of all presidents had reasons to know.) John Kennedy was repeatedly countermanded and double-crossed by his own supposed subordinates. The Joint Chiefs baited him; Allen Dulles despised him (more so after JFK fired him over the Bay of Pigs fiasco), and Henry Cabot Lodge, his ambassador to South Vietnam, deliberately undermined Kennedy's agenda. Kennedy called the trigger-happy generals "mad" and spoke angrily to aides of "scattering the CIA to the wind." The evidence is growing that he suffered the consequences.

In the 1950s, the late Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, a high-ranking Pentagon official, was assigned by CIA Director Allen Dulles to help place Dulles's officers under military cover throughout the federal government. As a result, Dulles not only knew what was happening before the president did, but had essentially infiltrated every corner of the president's domain. One Nixon-era Republican Party official told me that in the early 1970s, there were intelligence officers everywhere, including the White House. Nixon was unaware of the true background of many of his trusted aides, particularly those who helped drive him from office. Remember Alexander Butterfield, the so-called "military liaison," who told Congress about the White House taping system? Years later, Butterfield admitted to CIA connections.

In December 1971, Nixon learned of a military spy ring, the so-called Moorer-Radford operation, that was piping White House documents back to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Chiefs were wary of secret negotiations the president and Henry Kissinger were conducting with America's enemies, including North Vietnam, China and the USSR, and decided to keep tabs on this intrusion upon their domain. Jimmy Carter came into office as revelations of CIA abuses made headlines. He tried to dismantle the agency's dirty tricks office, but wound up instead a victim of it -- and a one-term president.

Those who avoided problems -- Johnson, Reagan, Bush Sr. and Jr. -- were chief executives that made no problems for the Pentagon and intelligence chiefs. All embraced military and covert operations, expanded wars or launched their own. The agile Bill Clinton was a special case -- no babe in the woods, he focused on domestic gains and pretty much steered clear of the hornets' nest.

As for the Bushes, their ascension represented a seizure of power by the national security state itself. Their family had profited from arms manufacturing for decades. The patriarch, Prescott Bush, monitored US assassination plots against foreign leaders as a senator; and records indicate that the elder George Bush had been a secret agency operative for decades before he became CIA director -- and then, 12 years later, president.

Obama seems to understand his narrow range of movement, and to be carefully picking his fights. He retained many of Bush's top military brass, and even Bush's Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who himself had served as a CIA director for Bush's father. He has trod very carefully with the spy agency and has declined to aggressively investigate Bush administration wrongdoing on torture and wiretapping. Obama's campaign rhetoric about disengaging from Iraq seems a long time ago, and the war in Afghanistan is taking on the hues of permanency.

The old boys' network is very much in place, and it is hard at work to force Obama's hand, a la Vietnam. Witness the leaking of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's supposedly "confidential report" calling for escalation in Afghanistan. The leak was, not surprisingly, to the reliable Bob Woodward. The reporter was himself in Naval Intelligence shortly before he went to work at the Washington Post, where he soon built a career around leaks from the military and spy establishment. The White House was furious at the McChrystal release. But what could it do? Presidents come and go, and the security folks have ways to hasten the latter.

Covert alliances and payments to corrupt foreign allies continue, making creative diplomacy more difficult. In late October came a front-page story that the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, suspected of being a major figure in that country's opium trade, has been on the CIA's payroll for eight years. Anyone who finds this shocking should go back and read about the CIA and the drug trade in Southeast Asia.

Throughout its six-decade history, the CIA has resisted accountability, with even some of its own nonspook directors kept in the dark about the agency's most troubling activities. As for the public's elected representatives, Nancy Pelosi is the most recent in a long line of legislators to accuse the CIA of deliberately misleading Congressional overseers.

None of this is likely to change soon, and not without a huge fight. Half a century after Ike's famous admonition, conflict and intrigue remain the engine of our economy, and everyone from private equity firms to missile makers to car and truck manufacturers count on that to continue. The homeland security industry, the most recent head to grow on this hydra, is now seeking permanency.

So Barack Obama is boxed in. But so are the American people, and so, really, is democracy itself. Bringing this inconvenient truth out in the open is the essential first step toward taking back control of our government -- and our future. For all the reasons laid out here, Obama will need help. He may, in the rote formulation, hold "the most powerful office in the world." However, the extent to which he controls the government he heads, is another matter.

Imagine a schoolboy who shows a lot of promise in academic terms, is well-behaved and popular to boot. Based on these virtues, he makes considerable impression on his peers and elders in school. He is then awarded the school’s top prize – even before the exams and still early in the term without any tangible yields. When the crunch came, he did so-so in the finals.

Does that make sense?

The Nobel Prize Committee in Norway thinks so. It has just awarded one of the world’s most prestigious but contentious prizes to US President Barak Obama. Citing Obama’s "hope for a better future" and striving for nuclear disarmament”, the committee’s decision perplexes me. This was on the same day that Obama met for a council of war in Washington to consider sending 40,000 more US troops to Afghanistan. Not to mention stepping up missile attacks by drones on the Pakistan side of the border.

He is barely in his eighth month in his term. Of course he has made a slew of pledges. But talking about making the world a better place to live in is far removed from resolving festering issues.The best that can be said is that Obama seem to bring hope initially, but recent developments in the world’s hot spots and even domestic issues have taken the shine on the youthful president.

Many point out that America’s new president hasn’t changed anything on the global stage, apart from his modest demeanour, amicability and apparent tolerance compared to his predecessor W Bush. He shied away from being a real honest broker in the West Asia conflict. Note that Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu has ignored Obama’s insistence of halting new Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian territory, much to the frustration of the Arabs, who received promises from Washington on it’s commitment to be fair. Israel just carried on with it’s intrusion of Palestinian land and oppressing the Arabs just as it did during the previous US administration. Not to mention US’ failure to engage with the democratically-elected Hamas government. No real peace here, at least not yet.

Just declaring to make the World free of nuclear weapons just doesn’t cut it with nations who live in fear of nukes. Especially as the US and Russia have 90 % of those weapons of mass destruction and looks as it those stockpiles will remain for a long time, supposedly as a “deterrent”. And forcing nations who want to develop their nuclear capabilities as a replacement for fossil fuel looks really dodgy when Obama has recently agreed to officially turn a blind eye to Israel whom is generally acknowledged to possessing its own atomic arms for decades. Peace cannot be made with such double standards.

And what about Obama’s domestic problems? Americans are just as polarized now – if not more – as it had been when the Republicans ruled the roost. Admittedly, part of the problem could be the due to the age-old racial divide in America. But Obama refuses to deal with race relations, citing reasons that he is a “  President for All Americans “.

 While the economy and Health services remain contentious issues, the angry voices in both opposing camps of the debate have become even more shrill. Despite promises to extend hands of friendship to nations deemed “ axis of evil” by Bush jr, the long-standing sanctions against Syria, Cuba and Iran remain in place as if to take the cue from America’s warmongering ultra-conservatives. So much for the international understanding and reconciliation.

 

Nevertheless, around the World, those who want to curry favour with Obama will congratulate him. Don’t expect honest public opinions from leaders who rely on being sycophantic, as they always have done with regards to ties with the US no matter who lives in the White House. It’s the communities who genuinely hope for American positive leadership globally who will express disappointment, because they fear it will make Obama’s efforts so much more difficult in current international issues

The Peace Prize will be mill-stone around his neck. Too much will be expected from Obama because of the accolades, and so far the results have not been encouraging. Maybe it’s still too early to dismiss the efforts as failures. But a prize as this point of time is premature. There is a real risk of him not being able to live up to those promises. Awards should be given in recognition of a lifetime of achievements, not prospective but retrospective.

In the final analysis critics of the Peace Prize would say that the Nobel foundation in particular and Europeans in general are still starry-eyed about Obama without waiting for the results. Winning something because of style over substance is not enough.

 

 

 

If ever there was a wish which I would want to be granted when I grow really old – this is not to say that I am not already old, it is just that I am not that old, yet – that would be a wish that I could be given the wisdom of knowing when to keep my mouth shut.

Because really, people who are past their “best-before” date could really sound curious and funny, especially when what they are saying now goes against what they have been saying and doing while they were younger.

Amidst all the grief and disbelief caused by the tragic lost of life of an innocent son of Malaysia in the past week, two Tuns were also hogging the headlines over what they said.

In a way, these two Tuns had almost connived to provide me – and many others, I believe – with much needed comic relief in times when such relief was really needed.

And so, I should have perhaps thanked both of them but for the fact that their statements were laced with so much irony and insidiousness.

Stand-up comic No 1

Firstly it was Tun Abdullah. He was apparently conferred an Honorary Doctorate in Democracy by Universiti Utara Malaysia.

It is now of course fashionable within the ruling elite to have the prefix “Dr” somewhere between the array of prefixes preceding their name. Like Tun Tan Seri Datuk Seri Dr Hj So and so. It gives them the comfort of being in possession of something extra. Something which others do not have. Or so they think. Like when they buy a Mercedes, they must buy a Brabus. Things like that. Sorry, I digress.

Anyway, yes, Tun Abdullah was conferred an Honorary Doctorate in Democracy by UUM. I would not go into whether or not such conferment was justifiable – because this article would be too long otherwise – but what he said during his acceptance speech was what, in my opinion, precipitated the saying “silence is golden”.

Upon being conferred, our newly minted Doctor in Democracy proceeded to the microphone and, in what was believed to be nothing short of an astounding moment, called for the abolishment of the ISA. I really hope he had read his prepared speech before delivering it. And if he had read it, I hope he understood what he was saying. If anything, I hope he was awake while he was doing so.

That call would have, in the normal course of things, been met with jubilant celebrations of orgasmic proportion. However, coming from an ex Premier under whose administration there were 82 arrests; 76 new detention orders and 87 renewal of detention orders under the ISA as at the end of 2007 (figures are from the SUARAM’s Human Rights Report 2007), that call was as funny as – if not funnier than – a drunken kangaroo spinning like a top on its tail while shouting “kangaroo boleh!”

Added to that, under his administration, the ISA was abused beyond anything which was thought possible when Raja Petra Kamaruddin and Teresa Kok were arrested for apparently “insulting Muslims and Islam”.

Raja Petra, as we all know, was later detained at Kamunting before a brave Judge, Justice Dato’ Syed Helmi of the Shah Alam High Court, released him (the government’s appeal against that release is still pending in the Federal Court).

To top it up, it was under Tun Abdullah’s administration that the ISA, an Act which was designed to protect the security of the nation, had managed to morph itself into PSA – short for Personal Safety Act – without sanction of the Parliament, when a journalist of Sin Chew Jit Poh, Ms Tan Hoon Cheng, was arrested under the Act in order to protect her own safety.

Not enough with killing the audience with that call, the good Tun said he felt compelled to now give his “honest view” on the matter. Which begs the question, has he been dishonest about the matter all these while, particularly when he was the PM?

He then was reported to have said that the ISA should be replaced with a law which allows preventive detention and – hold on to your seats guys and gals – “at the same time protects fundamental rights.”

It’s like saying Hitler should be allowed to kill the Jews in a way which protects their fundamental rights to live. Awesome. I suppose only great minds could understand the depth of this statement. I must confess I can’t.

A day later, the good Tun continued by saying that he would have reviewed the ISA had he been given more time. Which begs the question, how long did he need? And what was he doing all those time?

Then he was reported by NST to have said:

“There was not much pressure to abolish the system at that time but if I had continued my term up to the next general election, I would have eventually reviewed it (ISA) myself,”

Thank you Tun for finally revealing to us that you were a man of “reaction” rather than “action”. That you only worked when you were pressured to do so.

If I had the ability to invent something useful, I would love to invent a “Talk-Cock Eater”, which would work in the same manner as an odour eater. I would spray it on Tun Abdullah and watch him disappear after a few seconds.

Stand-up comic No 2

The next stand-up comic over the past few weeks was none other than Tun Mahathir.

Firstly, this doyen of listen-to-the-people-movement started a poll on his blog in order to find out what the public thought about the present government’s move to abolish the teaching of Maths and Science in English in 2012.

During your time as Prime Minister dear Tun, how many times have you sought public opinions over anything?

Did you hear the public outcry over the Cheras toll? How about the public outcry over Operasi Lalang? Or Bank Bumi scandal? Or the Tun Salleh Abas’ dismissal and the subsequent molestation, rape and sodomy of the judiciary?

And speaking of sodomy, did you ever notice what the public said and continue to say about Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy case?

About Konsortium Perkapalan having to be rescued by MISC and later, Petronas? About Putrajaya? About the removal of judicial power from the Courts? About whoever whatever and howsoever?

Now that you have retired and become insignificant, you are turning back to the people. The very people whom you ignored, time and time again, during 22 years of you being the Prime Minister.

Not enough with that, he recently bemoaned the fact the Malays are apparently not the “real masters (Tuan)” in their “own” country.

He lamented that after 39 years of the NEP, the Bumiputeras only hold 20% of corporate wealth when Bumiputeras form 60% of the total population while the non-Bumis hold 50% of the wealth while they only form 26% of the total population.

Let me tell you, dear Tun, that the 39 years of the NEP’s life consisted of a good 22 years of your rule, which amounts to 56.5% of the whole time the NEP was implemented. Thank you for telling us that you have failed Tun, Sir.

I have one question. As far as I know, every corporate exercise involving the public listing of corporations and also involving privatised projects under your famed EPU, at least 30% of the shares (wealth?) must go to the Bumis. If so, how come 20% are now being held by the Bumis? Where have the 10% gone to? They (the Bumis) disposed them?

You see, you don’t teach people to drive well by giving them Ferraris and expect them to transform themselves into the Schumachers of the world.

You have got to teach them how to drive, how to take corners, when to brake, when to change gear and appraise them on things like a smooth weight transfer, the danger of over-steering and under-steering, counter steer and the likes. You give them Ferraris and what will they do? They will sell it!

That was what happened Tun. The Chinese gets better and better because they were the ones who actually did all the works, the very works which under your policy, were dished out to some well known Bumis, who would make a quick buck by promptly sub-contracting those works to the Chinese. Why are you screaming now?

Speaking of categorisation, Malaysia is not only divided into Bumis and non-Bumis. There were also, under your rule, registered Bumis (registered with the MoF) and non-registered Bumis. Only registered Bumis will be able to share in this so called “corporate wealth” of yours.

What happened to the actual Bumiputeras on the buses, in the LRTs, riding bicycle in the kampungs, in the rubber estates, in the sawah bendang in Kedah, who toil under the sun in their small rented perahu in the middle of the sea, who “kais pagi makan pagi and kais petang makan petang”?

Compare them to the Tajuddin Ramlis of the world. The Halim Saads of the world. The Amin Shah of the worlds. The Daims of the world. I wonder out of the meager 20% of the “corporate wealth” which the Bumis have, how many percent are held by these people?

Oh, the non-Bumis (non-Malay?) are the one who are the real “Tuan”? How about 22 years of you being the PM? Are you saying that you are not a Malay?

 

It is rather odd.

 

The Malaysian government seem to have some double standards as to who which members/ insurgents of the infamous ex-PKM can recieve amnesty. And yet the Malaysian government had no hesitation to fully embrace Japan and China after independence. The Japanese killed many Malayans during the occupantion, beheading innocent Malay villagers  including thousands of fellow Malayan soldiers and colonial soldiers. The Japanese also insulted our monarchs and encouraged them to take opium so that the locals would lose respect for the royals. They looted buildings, invaded premises and took whatever they wanted.

 

After all that, the first Matsushita company - MELCOM - was established in Malaysia in 1965 (20 years later). We even allowed their cars in. Later we signed a memorandum of understanding with Mitsubishi which gave birth to Proton. Even the ex-prime minister Mahathir said: "Look East", so that we can learn from the Japanese.

 

Is it also parochial racism? Malay Communist who were active in the insurgency were eventually allowed to return home years ago and die in peace in their kampungs. They took advantage of the 1988 pact between the Malaysian government and the rump Parti Komunis Malaya, which was a legally binding agreement in which the  present Prime Minister has not honoured. Chin Peng led the signing on behalf of the insurgents who had laid down their arms, while the then Deputy IGP Datuk Rahim Noor sealed the landmark armistice in Thailand 1988 for the Royal Malaysian Police.

 

Furthermore, the PM Najib and the UMNO-controlled mainstream media are singing the praises of Malaysia's diplomatic links with Beijing. China is seen by the government as an important equation in Malaysia's socio-economic-development, even wooing investors from Shanghai. And yet Cin Peng can't come home, purportedly because he was doing the bidding of China's communists.

 

Those who came back with much fanfare over the years were Shamsiah Faqih, Abdullah CD and the most notorious of them all - Rashid Maidin. Unlike Chin Peng they were not required to prove with a copy of their birth certificates that they were born in the federation. What raised eye-brows further was that they all lived in China before relations were normalised in 1973.So it's not fair to claim that only Chin Peng fraternised with the Maoists.

 

They all did.

If we can forgive the Japanese who do not belong here, why can't we forgive our own people? Plaing the racial and Communist card rings hollow, as it appears that those in power in Malaysia have no clear principles - just emotional gripes. Not forgiving is the same as invoking the confrontations of WW2. Even the Japanese government has forgiven the American government.

If Malaysia aspires to move ahead, we must learn to to come to terms with our recent history. Otherwise , we're still stuck with the baggage of having a third class mentality. The sad truth is that we discriminate qualities based on ethnicity.

 

 

 

 

Something very questionable is happening in US President Barak Obama’s Department of Justice. I don’t know if it is simply institutional loyalty that is the reason for a once admired office of justice to simply abdicate from its official duty. Whatever the reason, there is one question that no one will answer and this question only grows more urgent as new developments are made public.

Why is no one being held accountable? It is one thing to overlook a series of bad choices made in good faith. But the issues at hand have nothing to do with good faith or even bad choices. The allegations of criminal activity and extreme and willful abuses of power by officials of the Bush administration fall directly under the very definition of high crimes. The crimes are not small ones either.

The Watergate break-in, for example, appears insignificant against the backdrop of the Bush-Cheney legacy. No, the crimes are not small or even limited to a single genre or type of crime. From the outing of a CIA officer for political payback, to the massive illegal domestic surveillance program, to a policy of torture that resulted in multiple homicides; high crimes were committed and more startling, no one has been held to account.

Why?

The Manipulation of Language

In all other times in the past, when a crime occurred involving officials in the highest positions of government, no one thought to dare argue the necessity for committing the crime or how truly patriotic the crime was. Now we are told that we were spied on for our own good, that torture saves lives, that outing a CIA officer is okay, that starting an illegal war was just a series of decisions based on bad intelligence.

The debate over these various crimes has been drawn in such a way as to make it seem too complicated for the average American, too steeped in national security for the average American to understand, and missing in important details because those are too classified for the average American to see.

What of the domestic political prosecutions then and the victims who were targeted for political reasons? Why is no one being held accountable? Worse still, why is Obama’s DOJ seemingly engaging in payback given the latest news?

Over 1 million records on US government’s combined watch list

The US government’s consolidated terrorist watch list has exceeded an estimated 400,000 “unique” records of “known or suspected terrorist identities,” according to a Justice Department report released today.

The controversial list, according to the report issued by the Office of the Inspector General Audit Division, is a combined database of various federal law enforcement agencies, administered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) via its Terrorist Screening Center (TSC).

As of 31 December 31 2008, 1.1 million records exist on the government’s combined watch list, according to the Inspector General’s report. That number, however, includes duplicate files and aliases and does not reflect the actual number of people on the terrorist watch list.

The TSC estimated, as of 9 September 2008, that the total number of “unique” individuals on the watch list was approximately 400,000.

The report is the result of an investigation by the Audit Division and discusses findings related to three objectives:

(1) [D]etermine whether subjects of FBI terrorism investigations are appropriately and timely watchlisted and if these records are updated with new identifying information as required; (2) determine whether subjects of closed FBI terrorism investigations are removed from the consolidated terrorist watchlist in a timely manner when appropriate; and (3) examine the FBI’s watchlist nomination practices for individuals that were not associated with current terrorism case designations.

What about those wrongly listed?

The current report does not, however, address issues where individuals have been flagged as a result of mistaken identity or due to various other reasons not related to terrorism or any form of illegal activity.

James Moore, a Texas journalist who wrote two searing books on former Bush White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, found himself included on a no-fly list, a component of the combined terrorist watch list, and has not been able to get his name removed. It is unclear why Moore was listed and why he remains on the list — but Moore told RAW STORY that the list hasn’t made anyone safer.

“The terrorist watchlist is an icon for government malfunction and abuse,” Moore wrote in an email message Wednesday. “Politicians can seemingly nominate their enemies for the list or have it done by proxy using their bureaucratic influence. And the lists are maintained using outdated matching software that is incapable of finding discrepancies in all of the various data formats used by federal agencies. The list has made a lot of work for a lot of bureaucrats but it hasn’t caught a single terrorist or made safer one American soul.”

According to a March 2004 USA Today article, “51,000 have filed ‘redress’ requests claiming they were wrongly included on the watchlist.” USA Today also noted at that time that in the vast majority of cases reviewed so far, it had turned out that the petitioners were not actually on the list, with most having been misidentified at airports because their names resembled others on it.

There have been 830 redress requests since 2005 where the person in question was, in fact, confirmed to be on the watch list. Further review by the screening center led to the removal of 150, or 18% of them.

The most visible case of consequences for an individual wrongly placed on the watchlist was Canadian software engineer Maher Arar. In 2002, Arar was detained at a New York City airport, then rendered without a court order to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured—all because Canadian officials had wrongly asked for his name to be included on a watchlist.

More often, however, those wrongly identified have merely had to endure the hassles of being on the no-fly list. In 2004, it was reported that both Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) had been inconvenienced in this manner.

These misidentifications are generally explained as affecting only individuals with common names which they might share with actual terrorism suspects. However, last year Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) called for a probe after learning that the name of CNN correspondent Drew Griffin had appeared on the no-fly list shortly after he had done an investigative report on weaknesses in the federal air marshal system. A TSA spokesperson insisted that any connection between the two events was “absolutely fabricated.”

Griffin’s case raises questions similar to Moore’s. Both seemingly ended up on the no-fly list after publishing something unfavorable about the Bush administration or administration officials.

The ACLU has called for the list to be reviewed and pared down to only “credible” threats.

Calls to the TSC for comment were not returned.

The government’s consolidated terrorist watch list was created in March 2004 by Homeland Security Presidential Directive 6, issued by then-President George W. Bush.

Internally the consolidated database of “known or suspected terrorists” is called the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB). It acts as the central registry for various federal departments and state agencies.

The Inspector General’s report released today reaffirms the findings of the Government Accountability Office’s report from February of last year, with a slight difference in the non-unique individuals count.

 

Reporters covering the press conference after the leaders met at the presidential palace were refused permission to ask about the case of 17-year-old Indonesian-American model Manohara Odelia Pinot. --

 

 

JAKARTA - Prime Minister Najib Razak dodged questions about the alleged abduction of a young model by a Malaysian prince as he met Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta on Thursday.

Reporters covering the press conference after the leaders met at the presidential palace were refused permission to ask about the case of 17-year-old Indonesian-American model Manohara Odelia Pinot.

As they fielded approved questions about closer bilateral relations and economic cooperation, Miss Manohara's mother held an emotional press conference of her own to plead with Mr Najib for help in finding her socialite daughter.

Miss Manohara married last year to Tengku Temenggong Mohammad Fakhry, the prince of Malaysia's Kelantan state.

Her mother, Daisy Fajarina, said her daughter had suffered 'emotional and physical abuse' at the hands of her husband, who was holding her against her will in Malaysia.

She said she had been refused entry to Malaysia to see her daughter, who was crying and distraught when she last spoke to her Indonesian family by phone from Malaysia on March 21.

'As the new prime minister of Malaysia I urge Najib to investigate to defend our rights and the truth,' Mdm Fajarina told reporters at the offices of the national human rights commission.

'I just want my daughter to be set free... As a mother I have a right to see my daughter.'

She fainted when she was mobbed by journalists from Indonesia's celebrity press, who have written extensively about Miss Manohara's plight. -- AFP

 Malaysia has been identified as a destination for human trafficking, according to the 2008 Human Rights Report released by the US State Department last week.

 

 

Barely a month after the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) was formed after much controversy and dissatisfaction on both sides of the political divide, it looks like even PM Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s party is openly resisting  recent apparent moves to crack down on graft in UMNO.

In an unprecedented and brazen act of defiance against the very top party leadership a group of people turned up to protest against the MACC for arresting Umno members, and against the party’s disciplinary board.

They  turned up on Thursday evening  at the main entrance to Menara Datuk Onn, the building where party leaders were scheduled to hold a supreme council meeting.

They held up placards that read “The Disciplinary Board is senile,” “Don’t take away our rights” and “We reject the MACC, butt out!”

The group shouted out their demands at Umno leaders and supreme council members as they arrived at the building, and handed over a memorandum to party president Datuk Seri Abdullah  when he arrived at about 8.35pm.

This open show of dissatisfaction is just the latest event of internal turmoil  within UMNO as the present leadership is percieved to be weak. The various factions against any change have become bolder and bolder, especially after the major setback in the general election less than a year ago.

While some UMNO members may want  a status quo in the party ( i.e. allow corruption to continue as usual ) the opposition had expressed misgivings about the MACC, pointing out that it is not truly independent. Over the past five years the Prime Minister had backed down from several attempts of what he called reform, under intense internal pressure.

It looks as if his anointed successor Najib Razak  will have his hands full, as Abdullah has increasingly passed on all the unpleasant tasks to the deputy prime minister. Najib and the other UMNO leaders will hard-pressed to answer why those arrested for alleged graft are the relatively unknown while the big fish and sharks aspiring for the top posts have not been nabbed despite accusations and complaints of money being exchanged for nominations in the past three months.

 

Imagine a man who loved his house;took care of it and looked forward to a long and fruitful stay in his home.

 

Then one day circumstances dictated that he was about to lose his home due to some unspecified reasons. He became bitter and felt betrayed by those whom he trusted and who would eventually acquire the abode.

 

Just before he was evicted, he scarred the structure;damaging the interiors, breaking windows and scrawling graffitti on the walls. And yet he loved the house which was no longer his but would pass to his one-time friend left fuming with a wreck. 

 

I was reminded of such an aanalogy by the recently concluded Kuala Terengganu by-election. As with the Permatang Pauh by-election  four months ago, outgoing Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi entrusted the task of directing the Barisan Nasional election team against Pakatan Rakyat/PAS. This was after Abdullah was pressured to stand down earlier than what he wanted. In the past the task of by-elections would usually be done by the UMNO information chief or a security council member.

But as it turned out Najib Razak was again in the spot.

 

Against the counsel of Najib and other BN leaders, someone who was aloof and tainted by financial scandal in Terengganu was selected  as the candidate for the coalition, much to the chagrin of state UMNO bigwigs. But  Najib and co put on a brave face even as the grassroots lamented the decision. The man who made the call Abdullah even burnt Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh's bridges, declaring that he would not get any senatorial post if he loses. Things looked grim for UMNO imdeed, as if the strategy seemed deliberately to make it as hard as possible for the party to retain the seat.The die-hards who wanted to ensure an UMNO victory resorted to veiled threats and intimidation on the minority Chinese community. It backfired

 

But Abdullah was was not about to stick around when the carnage happened. After the surprising choice of personality and the electoral shenanigans on the ground; with claims of attempted vote-buying and promises of oil royalties being restored, the top man himself was as far away from the dusty and rural backwater as he could be. In the Gulf states of West Asia to be exact. It looked as if the by-election never existed, with Abdullah becoming physically distant just as the rout occured. KT was left far behind by Abdullah who unwillingly has to step down in just over a month's time. UMNO's problems wouldn't be his anymore anyway.

 

In any case, it was Najib who was left holding the bag, not Abdullah.

 

 

 

 

 

Despite his country's close relationship with the United States, Rais Yatim's government has always opposed the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq.

Now Mr Rais has talked in laudatory terms about Muntadar al-Zeidi, whom he called "that remarkable reporter who gave President Bush his final farewell last week".

He went on to say: "That shoe-throwing episode, in my view, is truly the best weapon of mass destruction to the leader who coined the phrase 'axis of evil' to denote Iran, Iraq and North Korea."

His speech, delivered at a dinner to mark the founding of the United Nations, was notable for its lack of diplomatic tact.

Mr Zeidi, who was subsequently arrested amid allegations he was beaten by Iraqi police, hurled his shoes at Mr Bush on Sunday during a press conference.

As his missiles hurtled through the air, he yelled "This is your farewell kiss, you dog".

With his actions taken up by opponents of US foreign policy across the Muslim world, Mr Zeidi has become something of a street hero.

In Ankara, about 50 protesters gathered outside the American embassy, waving their shoes in the air to demand Mr Zeidi's relese from prison.

Malaysia has slipped to its lowest ranking ever in the Reporters Sans Frontieres (RSF) press freedom index to the 132nd position in 2008 from 124th position last year.

The report said aside from New Zealand and Canada, the first 20 positions are held by European countries. The other is the very respectable ranking achieved by certain Central American and Caribbean countries. Jamaica and Costa Rica are in 21st and 22nd positions, rubbing shoulders with Hungary (23rd). Just a few position below them are Surinam (26th) and Trinidad and Tobago (27th). These small Caribbean countries have done much better than France (35th), which has fallen again this year, this time by four places, and Spain (36th) and Italy (44th), countries held back again by political or mafia violence. Namibia (23rd), a large and now peaceful southern African country that came first in Africa, ahead of Ghana (31st), was just one point short of joining the top 20.

The bottom three rungs are again occupied by the “infernal trio” of Turkmenistan (171st), North Korea (172nd) and Eritrea (173rd) . It also concluded that the international community’s conduct towards authoritarian regimes such as Cuba (169th) and China (167th) is not effective enough to yield results.

The New Strait Times reported Suaram executive director Yap Swee Seng said that the drop in Malaysia’s ranking was no surprise.

“For the first time, we saw bloggers being charged with sedition and criminal defamation. Freedom of expression was most severely repressed this year,” said Yap.

The Survey reported that Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has still not fulfilled the promise of openness which he made when he came to power in 2003. Censorship and self-censorship have not gone away and media concentration in the hands of the families of government members has been further boosted this year.

On 7 December 2006, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who was also internal security minister, told parliament that he planned to intervene regularly with the media to warn them off certain subjects. “If the media persist in not respecting the law, the ministry will send a caution, which could turn into a suspension or withdrawal of a licence”, he said. The government, which is extremely vigilant on issues which might provoke tension between the country’s different communities, regularly puts the press under pressure. Sensitive subjects are censored or avoided completely. For example, in March, demonstrations against a hike in the price of petrol went off without any coverage in the main media. In June, the presenter of a radio talk show in Chinese was replaced and the phone-in section of the programme was axed. In the same way, in November, police summoned several journalists to tell them to cut back their coverage of a particularly grisly murder in which police officers were implicated.

The rare independent publications are to be found online, including Malaysiakini which did not suffer any official harassment in 2006. On the other hand, bloggers and discussion forums did find themselves in the government’s sights.

The following some incidents that might pushed Malaysia backward :

14 August 2008 – Court orders online newspaper editor to identify visitors to website

10 November 2008 - Two journalists and a blogger arrested as police violently break up rally

7 November 2008 - Leading blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin finally released

23 October 2008 - Authorities accused of bad faith as Habeas corpus hearing held for detained blogger

6 October 2008 - Blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin goes on trial for “sedition”

23 September 2008 -Interior minister orders blogger held for two years under draconian security law

20 September 2008 - Blogger Kickdefella released

16 September 2008 -Use of internal security law is serious press violation, interior minister told

12 September 2008 - Two leading journalists arrested under Internal Security Act

28 August 2008 -Authorities order ISPs to block access to Malaysia Today news website

Indian government sources say Britons from the north of England were among the Mumbai terrorists, as the death toll rose to at least 155.

As many as seven of the terrorists may have British connections and some could be from Leeds and Bradford where London's July 7 bombers lived, one source said.

Two Britons were among eight gunmen being held, according to Mumbai's chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh. At least nine others are reportedly dead.

The eight arrested were captured by commandos after they stormed two hotels and a Jewish centre to free hostages today. Despite the Indian authorities' assurances that the situation was under control, the siege continued at the Taj Mahal hotel and explosions could still be heard in central Mumbai.

One security official said: 'There is growing concern about British involvement in the attacks.'

The information seems to be contrary to earlier claims by the Indian government that Pakistan was responsible for the attacks.

But British PM Gordon Brown has urged caution. He emerged from a conversation with India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to say there was no suggestion of a British link.

'At no point has the prime minister of India suggested to me that there is evidence at this stage of any terrorist of British origins, but obviously these are huge investigations that are being done and I think it will be premature to draw any conclusions at all,' Mr Brown said.

Calm: One of the young gunmen with his weapon, looking for more victims. Indian authorities say two of the arrested militants were British-born Pakistanis

Loss: Bollywood actor Ashish Chaudhary is consoled outside Mumbai's Trident-Oberoi Hotel after learning about his sister's death

Gone: US citizen Alan Scherr and daughter Naomi, pictured with his wife Kia, were killed in Mumbai's Oberoi hotel. They were in India with religious group Synchronicity Foundation, which was hosting a meditation program at the hotel

Senior Whitehall sources said it was too early to say whether there had been any involvement by British nationals but that security services, working with overseas partners, would be looking at any potential links to the UK.

British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith also said UK authorities had "no knowledge" of any British links with the massacre, while Foreign Secretary David Miliband said it was "too early to say" whether any of the terrorists were British.

As authorities tried to piece together the identities and motivations of the attackers, special forces were still battling with gunmen.

At the five-star Taj Mahal Hotel, officers were still locked in combat with up to six militants believed to be holed up in the ballroom.

The Indian authorities thought they had ended the siege there last night after they shot dead three terrorists and released hundreds of hostages, but it raged again today.

In a major army operation, soldiers threw grenades at the walls in a bid to smoke out the militants. Four bystanders were reported wounded in the crossfire.

Mumbai officials say more than 155 people in total have now died in the attacks. Another 370 were wounded.

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Terror: Indian special forces prepare to take back the Taj Palace Hotel in Mumbai

The tragic figures include the bodies of another five hostages who were found dead inside the Nariman House Jewish Centre this afternoon after commandos finally secured the building.

Two militants were also killed. It is not known whether the Rabbi and his wife who were believed to be among the hostages are dead or alive.

Are we witnessing the re-emergence of the far right as a power in American politics? Has John McCain, inadvertently perhaps, become the midwife of a new movement built around fear, xenophobia, racism and anger?

 

McCain has clearly become uneasy with some of the forces that have gathered around him. He has begun to insist, against the sometimes loud protests from his crowds, that Barack Obama is, among other things, a "decent person."

Yet McCain's own campaign is playing with powerful extremist themes to denigrate Obama. When his running mate, Sarah Palin, first brought up Obama's association with 1960s radical Bill Ayers, who has become a centerpiece of McCain's attacks, she accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists." What other "terrorists" was she thinking about?

Because Obama was a child when Ayers was part of the Weather Underground, and because even Republicans have served on boards with Ayers, this is classic guilt by association.

Ayers has been dragged into this campaign because there is a deep frustration on the right with Obama's enthusiasm for shutting down the culture wars of the 1960s.

Precisely because Obama is not a Baby Boomer, he carries none of that generation's scars. Most Americans (including most Boomers) are weary of living in the past and reprising the 1960s every four years.

Yet culture war politics are relatively mild compared with the far right appeals that are emerging this year. It is as if McCain's loyalists overshot the '60s and went back to the '50s or even the '30s.

What we are now witnessing is the mainstreaming of the far right, a phenomenon that began to take shape with some of the earliest attacks on Bill Clinton in the 1990s.

False claims that Obama is a Muslim, that he trained to overthrow the government, that he was educated in Wahhabi Muslim schools, are a standard part of the political discussion. These fake stories come from voices on the ultra right that have dabbled in other forms of conspiracy, including classic anti-Semitism. McCain and his campaign do not pick up the most extreme charges. They just fan the flames by suggesting that voters don't really know who Obama is, hinting at a sinister back story without filling in the details. That is left to the voters' imaginations.

The tragic irony here is that McCain was the victim of some of the very same extremist forces in the 2000 South Carolina primary.

To bring McCain down, some of President Bush's supporters on the far right peddled all manner of falsehoods about McCain, raising despicable charges about his time as a POW and suggesting (again falsely) that he had fathered an illegitimate child of color. In the past, McCain publicly condemned some of the very people who are now going after Obama.

McCain cannot be blamed for all of the crazies who see in Obama a chance to earn fame and fortune by concocting lies about him. And yes, we should defend the speech rights even of those whose views we find abhorrent.

But the angry McCain-Palin crowds, and particularly those who threaten violence or shout racist epithets, should be a wake-up call to McCain. The dark hints about Obama that McCain's campaign is dropping dovetail too nicely with the nasty trash floating around the Internet and the airwaves.

We are in the midst of what could become - and here's hoping it doesn't - the worst economic downturn in decades. The last thing we need is a campaign that strengthens fanaticism, tarnishes the authority of the next president, and whips up the worst kinds of prejudice. This works both ways: Obama should not be delegitimized if he wins, and McCain should not want to win in a way that would undermine his own capacity to lead.

When Christopher Buckley, a novelist and former speechwriter for George H.W. Bush, announced last week that he would vote for Obama (his first vote ever for a Democrat), he referred to words once spoken to him by his late father. "You know," the conservative hero William F. Buckley Jr. said, "I've spent my entire lifetime separating the right from the kooks."

McCain has an obligation, to his own legacy and the country he has served, to separate himself and his campaign from the kooks. Extremism in defense of liberty may be no vice, but extremism in pursuit of the presidency is as dysfunctional as it is degrading.

Former prime minister, Dr Mahatir Mohamad, has urged his successor to resign immediately.

The current prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, announced last week he would be stepping down in March 2009.

But Dr Mahatir told Radio Australia the prime minister should not wait till then to step down.

"As far as I'm concerned, he should resign now because we have a lot of work to do before we can revive the party and the next election is only fours years from now."

Malaysia's deputy prime minister, Najib Razak, is slated to take over the reins next year and head the ruling party, UMNO.

Dr Mahatir, however, believes Mr Razak will need help to manage the country.

"At this moment the administration of the country is in a very critical phase.

"He needs a lot of advice and ff he has a number of poeple advising him, people who have some experience expertise, I'm quite sure he would be able to manage.

Despite losing an unprecedented number of seats to the opposition coalition, led by his own former deputy, Dr Mahatir says the ruling UMNO party is still stable.

"There is nothing really wrong with the party," he said.

"The system is very good and has delivered for the past 50 years.

"But when you have a leadership that's not competent enough to run the party well, then the reaction is against the leader, not against the party."

Dr Mahatir says there is much to be done to revive UMNO's popularity in Malaysia.

Fri, Sep 26, 2008 The Star

Umno has postponed its annual general assembly and supreme council elections to March next year to facilitate "an early transition of power". Umno president Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he would decide by Oct 9, which is only 12 days away, whether to defend his post in the party. "I have not announced any decision as far as this particular point is concerned. And I intend to do it before the divisional meetings begin," he said Friday after chairing a special supreme council meeting. He was asked if an "early transition" meant that he would not be contesting in the party elections. Abdullah said reporters could go on guessing whether he would be standing "but the decision would be mine" to make. To a question, he said, the original June 2010 plan to hand over power as Prime Minister and Umno president was now off. "We are talking about an early transition so the 2010 plan does not arise anymore," he added. In the middle of this year, the Prime Minister had announced that he would hand over power to his deputy Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in June 2010 but later said it could be sooner. At Friday's press conference, Abdullah also said the Umno divisional meetings will go on as planned from Oct 9 to Nov 9. This is where the divisions will make their nominations for the president, deputy president and the other supreme council posts. To be eligible to contest the presidency, a candidate needs to secure a minimum of 30% or 58 nominations from the 191 divisions. There has been talk earlier that these divisional meetings could be postponed to next year. Abdullah said the council decided against a postponement of the divisional meetings as this would cause difficulty and adversely affect the divisional elections. Denying that he was under tremendous pressure to quit, he said, he had work to do and things to implement. On whether his colleagues in the supreme council were pushing him to make an early exit, Abdullah said, maybe there were two or three people who felt that way. "But there is no reason to pressure because they know my relationship with Najib is a good one and that we have a good understanding in all matters." The Prime Minister also denied that he was going on leave. "I have a lot of work to do. I am not going on leave," he said, when asked about the rumours. Asked if he was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for Umno and step down if it would help the party, Abdullah pointed out that he loved the party and even under the most difficult times he never left the party. "I did not join (now defunct) Parti Melayu 46. I did not join any other political party. I have never been on the platform of the opposition party to speak against Umno. I have no record of going against the party at any time,? he said. Friday's meeting by the 25-member Umno supreme council was the latest in a fast-moving chain of events in Umno politics since the fasting month began. After last week's supreme council meeting, several state Umno chiefs were said to have convened at Abdullah's official residence for a meeting during which they urged Abdullah to get a firmer commitment from Najib regarding the coming party elections. Some of them were concerned that Najib had, on the one hand, expressed support for the transition plan but on the other, had said he would leave the final decision to delegates attending the Umno division meetings next month. The meeting took place between 1am and 3am on Tuesday. That same evening, Abdullah and Najib had a four-eyed meeting. On Wednesday afternoon, Najib chaired a hastily convened Umno management committee meeting, presumably to brief them and get a consensus on what had transpired between him and the Prime Minister. The management committee, chaired by Najib, comprises key Umno leaders including vice-presidents, secretary-general, treasurer, information chief and leaders of the Wanita, Youth and Puteri wings. Members of the committee have been extremely tight-lipped about the meeting following Najib's stern warning on confidentiality. On Thursday morning, another four-eyed meeting took place between Abdullah and Najib. It is understood that the meeting was to convey what transpired among the management committee members. It was Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin who lit the spark when he urged Abdullah to consider an earlier exit plan. That spark became a flame when Najib announced he would let the division meetings decide on the transition of power. His statement was widely read as an indication that he would be open to being nominated for the top party post. However, he has also repeatedly stressed that he is opposed to a "takeover of power" and was looking instead at a "handover of power".

Amid controversy over an apparent attempt to stifle critics,  Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi faces mounting pressure from an opposition alliance and increasing dissent within his own political party that could presage an internal challenge to his leadership.

A three-party opposition alliance led by Anwar Ibrahim has pledged to topple Abdullah by luring enough government members of parliament to its ranks to win a no confidence vote against the Barisan Nasional.

The opposition is expected to miss its initial target date of Sept. 16 to vote out Abdullah's government. But  Anwar claimed Sunday that his alliance already "has the numbers" to defeat the National Front. "My personal target is within September," he said.

At the same time, Abdullah has to deal with increasing opposition within his own party, the United Malays National Organization. International Trade Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, an UMNO vice president, last week publicly questioned Abdullah's plan to stay in office until mid-2010 before handing leadership to Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak -- hinting that he should step down sooner. Najib had earlier stated - in an about-face - that party members should be allowed to debate the handover plan.

Muhyiddin also said that 83 year-old former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, a fierce critic of Abdullah, is prepared to rejoin UMNO after resigning in May. Some political analysts speculate that the developments signal a move by party dissidents to push Mr. Abdullah from power at UMNO's annual meeting in December, if not before.

Even the grassroots are favourable to Najib's call, as UMNO leaders and even party information chief Muhammad Muhammad Taib agreed that the grassroots should be consulted as to whether Abdullah's transition plan should be complied with.

"Abdullah's options are fast decreasing," said Malaysian political commentator Karim Raslan.

The squeeze on Abdullah came as political tension escalated over the weekend over a crackdown aimed at government critics. On Friday, the government used Malaysia's tough Internal Security Act -- which permits detention without charges for up to two years -- to arrest a well-known anti-government blogger, Raja Petra Kamaruddin, and a popular opposition member of parliament, Teresa Kok.

Persons held under the ISA have limited access to legal counsel, but key opposition figures allied with Anwar -- including influential Muslim politician Hadi Awang -- challenged the detention of Ms. Kok, who was accused of complaining about noise from a mosque in her constituency. One opposition leader called the allegation "ludicrous."

Also detained under the ISA was Tan Hoon Cheng, the local journalist who first reported racist remarks by UMNO politician Ahmad Ismail aimed at Malaysia's minority ethnic Chinese population. The remarks caused a natitional uproar and forced the party to suspend Ahmad for three years. Ms. Tan was released Saturday; Malaysian Home Affairs Minister Syed Hamid Albar contended that she had been detained to ensure her "safety" after threats had made been against her.

The government also moved against the media, threatening to close three news media outlets -- including Ms. Tan's influential Chinese-language newspaper, Sin Chew Daily -- for allegedly stirring unrest by reporting on "sensitive" issues such as race relations in Malaysia, where politically dominant ethnic Malay Muslims make up about 60% of population.

On Saturday,Syed Hamid defended the actions, saying they were necessary to preempt racial conflict. He also denied the crackdown was intended to hamper Mr. Anwar's bid for power.

But the measures prompted widespread criticism against Abdullah's government. Malaysia's National Union of Journalists, the national Bar Council, opposition parties and several members of the prime minister's own coalition all condemned the ISA arrests. On Sunday, Zaid Ibrahim, a lawyer and the government's minister in charge of legal affairs threatened to quit Abdullah's cabinet to protest the ISA arrests, online newspaper Malaysiakini reported.

"This kind of selective persecution is not acceptable to the public," said political analyst Khoo Kay Peng, pointing to the backlash against the arrests.

In a statement on the ISA detentions, the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur said: "We expect that democratic countries that advocate free expression of political views will not curtail such freedoms."

Anwar said opposition leaders will seek a meeting with Abdullah to protest the ISA detentions and to discuss what he called a "peaceful transition" to a new government led by the Pakatan Rakyat, as the opposition alliance is known. Mr. Abdullah hasn't responded to that initiative so far.

The opposition alliance has been gathering strength since it scored unprecedented gains in a parliamentary election in March. The grouping -- comprised of Anwar's People's Justice Party, Democratic Action Party and the Parti Islam se-Malaysia  PAS -- is trying to recruit at least 30 BN  members of parliament to defect to their side

That would allow the opposition to vote Abdullah's government out of office and, presumably, install Anwar to head a new government.

So far, no Barisan Nasional MPs have publicly disclosed their intention to join the opposition, however.

Meanwhile, the deepening political uncertainty -- combined with a gloomy global economic outlook -- has hit Malaysian financial markets hard. The Kuala Lumpur stock market's Composite Index has slipped more than 28% since beginning of the year; the country's currency has depreciated more than 10% against the dollar since April. Jittery foreign investors have heavily dumped Malaysian stocks and bonds in recent months.

 

GHANI KHIEL, Afghanistan (AP) — The bearded, turbaned men gather beneath a large, leafy tree in rural eastern Nangarhar province. When Malik Mohammed speaks on their behalf, his voice is soft but his words are harsh. Mohammed makes it clear that the tribal chiefs have lost all faith in both their own government and the foreign soldiers in their country.

Such disillusionment is widespread in Afghanistan, feeding an insurgency that has killed 195 foreign soldiers so far this year, 105 of them Americans.

"This is our land. We are afraid to send our sons out the door for fear the American troops will pick them up," says Mohammed, who was chosen by the others to represent them. "Daily we have headaches from the troops. We are fed up. Our government is weak and corrupt and the American soldiers have learned nothing."

A strong sense of frustration echoed through dozens of interviews by The Associated Press with Afghan villagers, police, government officials, tribal elders and Taliban who left and rejoined the religious movement. The interviews ranged from the capital, Kabul, to the rural regions near the border with Pakistan.

The overwhelming result: Ordinary Afghans are deeply bitter about American and NATO forces because of errant bombs, heavy-handed searches and seizures and a sense that the foreigners do not understand their culture. They are equally fed up with what they see as seven years of corruption and incompetence in a U.S.-backed government that has largely failed to deliver on development.

Even with more foreign troops, Afghanistan is now less secure.

"It certainly is a mess. Security is the worst that it has been for years. Corruption is out of control. It impacts every single Afghan," says Doug Wankel, a burly 62-year-old American who coordinated Washington's anti-drug policy in Afghanistan from 2004 until 2007 and is now back as a security consultant. "What people have to understand is that what ordinary Afghans think really does matter."

The fear and fury is evident among the neighbors at Akhtar Mohammed's walled home deep within Nangarhar province, reached by a dirt road along a dirty brown canal. A dozen men lie on traditional rope beds beneath a thatched roof. Some wear the full-bodied beard of the devout, with a clean-shaven upper lip. Others have dyed their gray beards a flaming orange with henna to show that they have made the pilgrimage to the holy site of Mecca.

They live barely an hour's drive from an errant bombing last month that hit a wedding party and killed about 50 people. Khiel Shah says his home was raided two months earlier, and troops killed his nephew, a high school student.

An old man sits by moaning, "No, no, they weren't Taliban. They were going to the bathroom. They weren't even carrying guns."

Villagers want to know why people who give false information are not arrested, and they say American soldiers still can't sift the good intelligence from the bad.

"But now this is seven years. I am hopeless. They haven't learned until now," says Akhtar Mohammed.

NATO's top Gen. David D. McKiernan blames civilian deaths on insurgents who hide among the population. But the problem could also be one of strategy, says Robert Oakley, a former U.S. ambassador and National Security Council staff member.

"There is a contradiction between wanting to minimize Afghan civilian casualties and minimizing U.S. military casualties," he says. "For the former, we should go on the ground. For the latter, go in from the air."

An air strike in Herat province about two weeks ago killed dozens of people. A U.S. investigation concluded that most were Taliban, but the Afghan government and the United Nations say up to 90 civilians died, including children.

Villagers say the U.S. does not understand how complex alliances, violence and even drugs play out in their culture. The eyes of elderly Malik Bakhtiar well with tears as he recalls his brother's arrest by U.S. troops for apparently running a drug laboratory in his home. In certain regions of Afghanistan, people grow opium for their livelihood.

"They don't understand us," Bakhtiar says. "Every house has a gun. Every house has opium."

Inside the walled compound of the Independent Human Rights Commission in Kabul, workers are knee-deep in statistics that measure the dissatisfaction of Afghans. An army of workers crisscrossed 33 of the country's 34 provinces and took the opinions of 15,200 people, mostly in rural areas. The survey has not been released, but Ahmad Nader Nadery, the commissioner, gave The AP a preview.

The survey, done annually for the past three years, shows a steady deterioration in the social and economic stability of Afghans, Nadery says. Average debt last year was $1,000 and is now 20 percent higher. And up to 73 percent of Afghans say they cannot go to the government for help unless they have money or power.

"Elders say when they go to government officials, they face humiliation," Nadery says in his cramped ground floor office.

Najib, a policeman who asks not to be identified beyond his first name for fear of losing his job, reflects the general anger.

Since he joined Afghanistan's police force in 2001, he has been mistakenly bombed by a U.S. airplane that killed seven of his colleagues. He has paid bribes to government officials, he says, and taken bribes to balance his books. He recalls watching a friend buy a police job for $2,000, and notes that posts with better opportunities for bribery are available for upward of $10,000.

Corruption has made it easier for the Taliban to infiltrate police ranks and carry out lethal attacks, according to Najib.

"The president is crying, but nothing has changed," says Najib, who still walks with a limp from the U.S. bombing. "People are unhappy, and more and more it will become difficult for the Americans and good for the Taliban. These people (U.S. troops) are not making one mistake, but they are making one thousand mistakes and they are killing many people."

In an exclusive interview with the AP, President Hamid Karzai said the mistakes of troops are seriously undermining his government. But he also spoke candidly about what he described as his failure and gave a frank assessment of his track record, as he prepares to run for re-election next year. He said he had achieved some but not all of his goals for Afghanistan.

"Afghanistan does not have a properly functioning government yet," he said. "With regard to corruption, it's a deeper problem, it's an Afghan problem. It's the problem of an inefficient government machinery. ... It's a problem of so much money coming into Afghanistan, it's a problem of the international presence."

It is now so dangerous outside the capital that Afghans are afraid to travel hundreds of miles of newly-paved roads, and most international aid groups have forbidden their staff to do so altogether. Truck drivers who have no choice often say thieves and thieving police are a bigger worry than the Taliban.

"An Afghan trucker put it succinctly: 'Forget the Taliban, our biggest problems are with the police,'" says Seth Jones, an analyst with the U.S.-based RAND Corporation and author of a report on the rise of Afghanistan's insurgency.

Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashery puts the corruption level at barely 20 percent of the force, and says efforts are being made to tackle it. But many Afghans think otherwise.

Kidnappings in Kabul are in the double digits this year, according to the attorney general's office, and Afghans suspect police involvement. Most are for ransom rather than because of politics.

In the meantime, the Taliban is advancing.

Moiabullah, a black-bearded Taliban from the troubled province of Ghazni, fled to Iran after the Taliban collapsed in 2001 but returned several months ago.

"People are fed up with this government," he says. "No one is working honestly. If you provide a good life, factory or jobs, of course no one will follow Mullah Omar (the Taliban leader)."

Out at the heavily fortified, sprawling U.S. military base at Bagram, north of Kabul, Brig. Gen. Mark Milley says the Taliban and al-Qaida are enemy number one, and corruption is enemy number two. But he claims the troops are inching forward in bringing security to the country.

"The western forces, international forces, Americans in particular are the most disciplined in our use of deadly force," says Milley, the deputy commanding general of operations. "We think we are succeeding."

Back at the tribal council, or shura, in Nangarhar, the eldest of the elders disagrees.

"It is a shame for them," says Abdul Samad, a tall, lanky man in his seventies with a silver beard on his gaunt face. "It was a good opportunity after the Taliban. But it is gone."

 

The U.S. military has secretly handed over more than 200 militants to the intelligence services of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other countries, nearly all in the past two years, as part of an effort to reduce the burden of detaining and interrogating foreign fighters captured in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to U.S. military officials.

The system is similar in some ways to the rendition program used by the Central Intelligence Agency since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States to secretly transfer people suspected of being militants back to their home countries to be jailed and questioned.

But there are significant differences; the prisoners can block their transfers to home countries, military officials say.

Officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross interview all detainees before they are returned to their home countries, said Bernard Barrett, a Red Cross spokesman.

These militants are initially held, without notification to the Red Cross, sometimes for weeks at a time, in secret at a camp in Iraq and another in Afghanistan run by U.S. Special Operations forces, the military officials said. They said that foreign intelligence officers had been allowed access to these camps to question militants there, as a prelude to the transfers.

In interviews, the military officials said the transfers represented an effort by the United States to find a better way to detain and interrogate the militants.

The U.S. military's prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and the secret prisons abroad run by the CIA have drawn criticism, and there have been concerns over the use of Iraqi and Afghan jails. Some have questioned whether those facilities should play any future role in housing terrorism suspects.

As a rationale for the approach, the U.S. officials said that language skills and cultural knowledge in most cases made the Saudis, Egyptians and others best suited to question the captured suspects, and best equipped to act on any intelligence they provide about militant networks in their countries.

The effort was described in interviews over the past six weeks with more than a dozen current and former U.S. military, intelligence and foreign policy officials, some of whom would speak only on condition of anonymity.

Unlike in Afghanistan, where many prisoners captured by U.S. forces were sent to Guantánamo Bay in the first five years after the Sept. 11 attacks, prisoners captured by the United States in Iraq have never been sent to U.S. detention centers outside Iraq, and until The New York Times began to conduct interviews for this article in July, military officials had not acknowledged that any had been repatriated.

U.S. military officials said the transfers required assurances that the prisoners would be well taken care of, but they would not specify those assurances, and human rights advocates questioned whether compliance could be monitored.

While the militants are in U.S. custody, Pentagon rules allow them to be held at the Special Operations sites in Balad, Iraq, and Bagram, Afghanistan, for up to two weeks, with extensions permitted with the approval of Defense Secretary Robert Gates or his representative, military officials said. About 30 to 40 foreign prisoners are held at the Iraq camp at any given time, the officials said; they did not provide an estimate for the Afghan camp but suggested that the number was smaller.

Saudi and Egyptian intelligence officers have been permitted to interrogate militants at the camps, although U.S. military officials say that the foreign interrogators who operate in the U.S. camps are monitored by American soldiers and that they must follow American rules.

They said restrictions on interrogation techniques and on the length of secret detentions were carefully regulated, a response to problems within the U.S. military detention system, including the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the Special Operations site in Balad, Iraq, that emerged beginning in 2004.

The officials said the prisoners who were repatriated were sent home only after being moved into the general U.S.-run prison population, a step that meant that their names were reported to the Red Cross. In all, they said, 214 prisoners in Iraq and at least two more in Afghanistan have been transferred to the custody of their home countries over the past four years, and while the Iraqi government has helped to facilitate some of the transfers, they were not subject to the approval of either the Iraqi government or the Afghan government.

Henry Crumpton, who in 2006 was the State Department's top counterterrorism official, said that the decision to begin repatriating detainees was driven "by the realization that Guantánamo was a strategic failure."