Titles:

• World economy ‘one shock away’ from crisis
• Warning of a ‘new Vietnam’ in Libya as British military advisers go in
• Saudi cleric attacks Iranian “hypocrisy and deception”
• Did Donald Rumsfeld Whitewash Massacre in Uzbekistan?
• Pakistan: US won’t abandon Predator campaign

News Details:

World economy ‘one shock away’ from crisis
The world economy is just “one shock away from a full-blown crisis”, according to the head of the World Bank. Speaking at a joint meeting of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Robert Zoellick said that sharp rises in commodity prices, particularly food, had put poorer countries in a uniquely vulnerable position. The World Bank says that wheat prices increased by 69 per cent between the first quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011, while maize prices increased by some 74 per cent. Meanwhile IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn highlighted the rising levels of youth unemployment around the world. He described the gradual upturn as “a recovery with not enough jobs.”

Warning of a ‘new Vietnam’ in Libya as British military advisers go in
David Cameron was accused this week of risking a Vietnam-style quagmire in Libya by sending military advisers to help the country’s rebels. The first official deployment of troops on the ground marks a significant escalation in the war and immediately invited charges of ‘mission creep’. A ten-strong team of intelligence, signals and logistics experts will help set up an opposition headquarters to take on Colonel Gaddafi’s forces. The Prime Minister approved the move amid frustration that Nato’s no-fly zone has failed to shield civilians properly. But Libyan deputy foreign minister Khalid Kaim branded the move an ‘act of war’ and senior MPs and former commanders warned of echoes of America’s first steps in Vietnam. They said Britain risked getting bogged down in Libya for years and one demanded a recall of Parliament. Major General Patrick Cordingley, commander of the Desert Rats in the 1991 Gulf War, said he feared the deployment could be the ‘thin end of the wedge’. ‘The danger of putting advisers on the ground is that you are making it crystal clear that you are supporting the rebels and stoking up a civil war,’ he added. ‘It is sad that we don’t appear to think we can bring sufficient pressure on Gaddafi to leave him isolated without having to up the ante in terms of supporting the opposition with military advice.’

Saudi cleric attacks Iranian “hypocrisy and deception”
Saudi Arabia’s top cleric accused Iran of interfering in the internal affairs of the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and attacked its “hypocrisy and deception”, a Saudi newspaper said on Friday. Gulf Arab countries are concerned over what they see as the ambition of non-Arab Shi’ite power Iran to extend its influence in Arab countries mostly under Sunni rule. Saudi Arabia follows a brand of Sunni Islam that views Shi’ites as heretics. “We must guard against their (Iranian) intrigues and we have to be wary of them and be careful of their deceits and not fall for their claims about Islam, which are all hypocrisy and deception,” Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh was quoted as saying in the daily Okaz. The paper said he condemned “Iranian interventions” in the GCC and described Iranians as “Zoroastrians” — followers of the pre-Islamic Persian religion — in language Saudi clerics often use to attack Iranians and Shi’ites.

Did Donald Rumsfeld Whitewash Massacre in Uzbekistan?
In interviews and in his memoir, the former Secretary of Defense defends the Uzbek government — and himself — over a 2005 incident that left hundreds of unarmed protesters dead. In his door-stopper of a memoir, Known and Unknown, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld spends just three pages recounting what he calls “one of the most unfortunate, if unnoticed, foreign policy mistakes of our administration.” The episode he describes took place not in Iraq or Afghanistan but, rather, in Uzbekistan. Yet Rumsfeld’s account of what happened and why appears wildly out of sync with the public record. Rumsfeld’s account of the tragedy at Andijon is jarringly different from what most international observers say happened. “It appeared that the goal of the assault was to release members of an Islamic extremist group accused of seeking to establish an Islamic state, a caliphate, in eastern Uzbekistan,” Rumsfeld writes of the prison break. And of the massacre: “This was not a simple case of soldiers slaughtering innocents, as had been widely alleged and misreported.” His version is at odds with that of seemingly everyone: human rights groups, international media, eyewitnesses, U.S. intelligence, even the State Department. Everyone, that is, except the Karimov regime. Information provided by Rumsfeld himself contradicts his own narrative. According to a memo prepared by the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, helpfully posted on Rumsfeld’s website and even cited in the text of his memoir, “The popular perception was that these businessmen were upstanding community members — not Islamic extremists.” Unable to assess the regime’s “evidence” allegedly connecting the businessmen to insurrection, the memo’s author, DIA Director L.E. Jacoby, concluded that the thousands of protestors who had gathered to demand their release were provoked by legitimate grievances against a corrupt and abusive regime, not a desire to impose an Islamic caliphate. “Their motivation almost certainly was anger and frustration over poor socioeconomic conditions and repressive government policies rather than a unifying extremist ideology,” Jacoby wrote. “There are no indications that Karimov understands that a deep sense of injustice was at the center of the unrest.”

Pakistan: US won’t abandon Predator campaign
The United States will not abandon its drone programme in Pakistan but how it goes forward is a matter for US and Pakistani intelligence and military officials to determine, a US official said on Wednesday. “The programme is something that we have said we go ahead on. The question is how. And that process is going to be something that’s going to be one of the main tasks that our intel and our military guys have,” the official said, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity. The comments came as Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Pakistan in the highest level trip by a US official since ties were badly strained over the case of CIA contractor Raymond Davis, who shot dead two Pakistanis in Lahore on Jan. 27. “I’ll pause from my normal optimism and say this is a tough one. This is a real tough one,” the official said. “Because that has been so inflamed in the public that the ability of our intelligence and our military guys to get together and say ‘what’s our common ground here?’ is limited.” US officials have privately said in the past that Washington would not consider demands by some Pakistani officials for sharp cuts in drone attacks or suggestions the United States should return to a Bush-era policy limiting the strikes to “high-value” militant targets.

19 Jumada I 1432
2011/04/22