Revolt continues in Libya - more massacres

More horrible news from Libya: Libya defiant as hundreds of protesters feared dead. Qaddafi and his evil family are determined not to give in.

Oliver Miles, a former British ambassador to Libya, writes on the Guardian's Comment is Free site: "Assuming that the Libyan protesters have the stamina and determination of those in Tunisia and Egypt , even in the face of gunfire, the resolution of the conflict seems to depend on two factors: will the disturbances spread to the different urban environment of Tripoli? And will the army – composed of Libyans, not foreign mercenaries, and therefore open to tribal influences which are largely unknown – continue to be willing to fire on unarmed civilians?"

Report in the New York Times on the battle for Benghazi:

Several residents of Benghazi described an ongoing battle for control of the city, Libya’s second-largest, with a population of more than half a million. By Sunday, thousands of protesters had occupied a central square in front of the courthouse, which some call their Tahrir Square after the epicenter of the Egyptian revolt, and they were chanting the same slogans that echoed through the streets of Tunis and Cairo, “The people want to bring down the regime.”

By evening, two witnesses said, the protesters had stormed the security headquarters, and, these witnesses said, a few members of the security forces had defected to join the protesters. “These young men are taking bullets in their chests to confront the tyrant,” Mr. Hadi said, speaking by phone from the siege of the security building.

But more than a thousand other members of the security forces had hardly surrendered. They were concentrated a few miles away from the courthouse in a barracks in the neighborhood of Berqa. Witnesses said young protesters were attempting suicidal attacks on the barracks with thrown rocks, stun grenades usually used for fishing, or occasionally vehicles stolen from the security forces. But the security forces responded by shooting from the cover of the fortified building, while others shot from vehicles as they cruised the side streets....

Benghazi, the traditional hub of the country’s eastern province, has long been a center of opposition to the Qaddafi government centered in Tripoli. In 1996, it was the site of a massacre at the Abu Slim prison, when security forces shot more than 1,000 prisoners. Those killings have since become a major rallying point for Qaddafi critics there.

Afghanistan - Politics

Central power does not mean a great deal. It means the promise of dividing up aid money. Two opposite dynamics are at work in Afghanistan’s government: on the one hand, the central government must gain control over de facto autonomous regions, in order to maintain order. On the other hand, those regions are de jure subordinate parts of a highly centralized state, and reformers eventually must find a way to increase rather than decrease their role in governance.
By early 2003 Afghanistan's northern parts were engulfed in the same factional rivalries that plagued the area in the 1990s. General Abdul Rashid Dostum's Junbish-e Melli-ye Islami party (National Islamic Movement) was battling former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani's Jami'at-e Islami party (Society of Islam) in several northern provinces. A splinter group within Hizb-e Wahdat and loyal to Planning Minister Mohammad Mohaqeq was also battling Jami'at loyalists in Balkh Province. And the self-proclaimed "amir" of western Afghanistan, Herat Governor Mohammad Ismail Khan, was battling Pashtuns in his own province and in neighboring Badghis Province. Moreover, the Islmai'li Shi'ites had begun quarreling in Baghlan Province.
The Emergency Loya Jirga was held from 11-19 June 2002. The Loya Jirga, Afghanistan's "grand assembly," concluded nine days of meetings in June 2002, electing Hamid Karzai as President. The delegates - including over 220 women - elected by secret ballot the Head of the Transitional Administration, and confirmed ministers and other key figures. After decades of war, this marked the nation's first tentative steps towards a system where political decisions are made by a representative assembly of the people of Afghanistan at large and not based on military force. The process for the selection of delegates involved mass popular participation in a political exercise unrivalled in Afghanistan's history.
Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun selected as the interim head of the country at the Bonn Conference of November 2001, delivered major posts to several regional warlords in hopes of buying their allegiance. Some foreign observers found it more worrisome that the two most powerful warlords refused the posts they were offered. The warlords were brought in as vice-presidents, but a couple of them refused the vice-presidential posts because they wanted to retain their regional authority uncontested.
Whereas individuals such as Ismail Khan in the past have been essentially positive forces, two leaders seen as posing serious dangers to the authority and effectiveness of the Karzai government were Dostum, the ethnic Uzbek commander in the north, and ethnic Tajik Atta Mohammad of Jamiat-e Islami.
Dostum, considered Afghanistan's top ethnic Uzbek commander, previously sided with the Soviet Union during their occupation of the country in the 1980s. More recently he was one of several military leaders in the opposition Northern Alliance, also known as The United Front, attempting to regain territory lost to the Taliban. The Taliban's capture of Dostum's fortress and airfield in Mazar-e-sharif in 1997 forced him into exile in Uzbekistan and Iran. He returned in 2000 to join the Alliance, seeking to avenge that defeat. Dostum's force of some 20,000 militia fighters was composed mostly of ethnic Uzbeks who are members of his political group, Junbish-e Melli. Karzai appointed Dostum as his special adviser on security and military affairs, with effective control over security affairs in the northern Afghan provinces of Balkh, Jowzjan, Sar-e Pol, Samangan, and Faryab.
Atta Mohammad, from the rival ethnic Tajiks, fought against the Soviet invasion, and at the time of the fall of the Taliban commanded some 20,000 troops. Mohammad had close ties with Afghan Defense Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim, with whom he was a member of Jamiat-e Islami, a predominantly ethnic Tajik political grouping.
Both Dostum and Mohammad joined the Northern Alliance, fighting alongside other Afghan commanders, as well as US forces, to help defeat the country's strict Islamist Taliban regime in 2001. But in the years since the Taliban was ousted from power, the same militias have turned on each other repeatedly in hit-and-run battles that have brought instability and lawlessness to parts of five northern Afghan provinces.
The involvement of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) helped bring Dostum and Mohammad towards an agreement in May 2002 to hold regular meetings between their factions. This worked to lessen active conflict, but fighting still occurred in Faryab province and Dar-I-Souf.
Since May of 2003, provincial governors have not been allowed to hold a military title. In Herat, in August 2003, President Karzai removed Governor Ismail Khan from his command of the 4th Corps.
In a 13-point declaration signed on 20 May 2003 by Afghan Transitional Administration Chairman Karzai and 10 provincial governors, one deputy governor, and two military commanders, the provincial authorities agreed to "follow and implement the laws, regulations, and legislative documents of the country and their job descriptions," Radio Afghanistan reported on 20 May. The provincial authorities also pledged to implement internal and external policies as directed by the central administration; not to interfere in the affairs of other provinces; and not to hold military and civilian posts simultaneously. Further, Article 11 of the declaration abolished special titles that some of the regional leaders had adopted for themselves, such as "special envoy of the head of state" or "amir," adopted by Dostum and Herat Governor Mohammad Ismail Khan, respectively.
Signatories to the 20 May 2003 Agreement:

• General Mohammad Ismail Khan, Governor of Herat Province
• General Abdul Rashid Dostum, Deputy Defense Minister
• Lieutenant General Atta Mohammad, Commander of Army Corps No. 7
• Lieutenant General Gol Agha [Sherzai], Governor of Kandahar Province
• Haji Din Mohammad, Governor of Nangarhar Province
• Abdol Latif Ebrahimi, Governor of Konduz Province
• Sayyed Mohammad Ali Jalali, Governor of Paktika Province
• Mohammad Abdul Karim Barawi, Governor of Nimroz Province
• Abdol Hayy Ne'mati, Governor of Farah Province
• Mohammad Eshaq Rahgozar, Governor of Balkh Province
• Sayd Ekramoddin Masumi, Governor of Takhar Province
• Abdul Hakim Taniwal, Governor of Khost Province
• Afzali, Deputy Governor of Badakhshan Province

In a decree issued on 21 May 2003, Karzai appointed Deputy Defense Minister General Abdul Rashid Dostum as a special adviser on security and military affairs. Dostum was instructed to dismantle Army Corps No. 7, commanded by his Jami'at rival, General Atta Mohammad. Mohammad, however, stated that he would not relinquish his command of the Army Corps No. 7, effectively challenging Dostum's job description. In a related development, Mohammad resigned from his post as "first deputy head of the Leadership Council of the northern provinces of Afghanistan," Balkh Television reported on 20 May 2003.
In late September 2003 troops belonging to the longtime rival commanders Dostum and Mohammed clashed in northern Afghanistan's Sar-e Pul province. The two commanders are nominally aligned with the central government, but are considered independent warlords, autonomously ruling the areas occupied by their troops. Their forces frequently engage each other in efforts to take control of Afghanistan's north. The United Nations and other mediators have repeatedly sought a regional truce, on several occasions brokering meetings between Dostum, Mohammad, and other local commanders.
In October 2003 the Afghan central government deployed police in northern Afghanistan in an effort to bring an end to the recurring battles between the rival groups. About 300 police officers from Kabul were deployed in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif to help monitor a cease-fire between the forces of the two feuding warlords.
The police force was token in size against the tens of thousands of militiamen loyal to each of the warlords. And yet, the deployment had enormous symbolic significance because it appeared to signal the start of a serious effort by Karzai and his international backers to extend the authority of the Kabul-based government.
Dostum and Mohammad signed an agreement on 11 October 2003 to extend their shaky cease-fire into other areas that have suffered from factional violence since the collapse of the Taliban regime nearly two years ago. Those areas include the provinces of Balkh, Samangan, Jowzjan, Sar-i-Pul, and Faryab. Dostum and Mohammad last signed an initial cease-fire on 9 October that involved only their private militia forces close to Mazar-i-Sharif. That deal came after a fierce tank and artillery battle advanced to within 20 kilometers of Mazar-i-Sharif. Some reports said as many as 60 militia fighters were killed.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was in Afghanistan 4 December 2003 on a one-day visit, during which he met with Dostum, whose forces had been accused of acting too slowly in disarming. Defense officials said that while Dostum's faction had handed over three tanks to Afghan security forces, his rival Mohammad had turned in more than 50.

Remembering Gerry Ferraro

She was one tough lady.

It really wasn’t so long ago that having a woman one breath from the presidency was essentially a fantasy. Geraldine Ferraro, who made it to the top of the Democratic ticket in 1984, almost made that dream come true.

Hers was a life of firsts: First woman to chair the Democratic Platform Committee. First female vice-presidential nominee. First major-league Italian-American on a presidential ticket.

As unflinching as she was as a crimefighting assistant district attorney, as indomitable as she was while representing New York in Congress, Ferraro was also -- unapologetically -- a dedicated mother of two daughters and a son.


For her, parenting and politics were both vital parts of her existence-- and through her actions, she proved to America’s women that they did not have to choose a life consisting solely of one or the other.

Ferraro didn’t give up her feminine or maternal sensibilities to make it in a political world dominated by men. That said, if they hadn’t let her into the old boys’ club, she might’ve kicked the door down.

Even during a long battle with the cancer that finally took her, Ferraro did not turn her back on the events of the day.

She stepped up to help another woman who captivated America, Hillary Clinton, during her 2008 White House run, and later proved her loyalty during the candidacy of Andrew Cuomo for governor. She saw and took a chance to give another woman, Leslie Crocker Snyder, a leg up in the 2009 Manhattan district attorney’s race.

Geraldine Ferraro was not a saint. However, with a candor rare and valuable in politicians, if not always gracefully worded, she didn’t try to present herself as one.

She, like all of us, was imperfect. But she, like few of us, became a role model and a symbol. Ferraro was honest enough to say that at the time that she might not have reached the civic heights she did had she not been a woman, but she damn well made the most of it.

As President Obama said of his daughters upon this trailblazer’s death, “Sasha and Malia will grow up in a more equal America because of the life Geraldine Ferraro chose to live.”

They’re not the only ones.

A public service broadcaster propagates some strange economics

On the ABC "Green" site, unsurprisingly. The writer obviously has some grasp of economics but makes some elementary blunders. Take the first sentence in the excerpt below: If that were true, why are forests and stands of trees bought and sold?

And take the last paragraph reproduced below, the claim that burning down cities would benefit the GNP. It is an old fallacy. The writer has obviously never read Bastiat. In summary, the available economic energies (labour etc.) would not change. It would produce much the same in sum with or without a conflagration. Instead of building new houses (say), it would have to rebuild old ones. There would be no necessary impact on GNP at all -- but there would of course be a great loss of assets. See also here for a another refutation of this old fallacy

I suspect that the writer just liked the idea of burning down houses. Greenie forest management policies frequently accomplish just that -- via their opposition to bushfire prevention

A tree growing in a forest has no standing in economics. As far as conventional economics is concerned, it has no "economic" role. Of course, it provides a vital role in the earth's life support system, but this is of interest to scientists and not economists.

As soon as the tree is cut down, it acquires status in economics. Its significance grows as the tree is broken up into smaller components, such as paper or match sticks. The more it is destroyed, the more important it becomes to economic calculations.

Gross National Product (GNP)

Economic and political life revolves around the GNP or Gross National Product. GNP is the measure of financial transactions within a country's economy - the total flow of goods and services produced by the economy over a specified time (usually a year) - and it is derived from calculating the total income of a country's residents, whether the incomes come from production in that country or from production abroad. There is also a calculation of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) but this distinction is not very important for the main argument here: the inadequacy of conventional economics to take the environment into account.

The GNP is simply a measure of financial transactions; it makes no value judgment on whether the transactions were socially useful or what impact there may have been on the environment.

Crime and car accidents increase the GNP because of the increased work for police, ambulances and prisons. A reduction in crime reduces the GNP. Similarly, a good way to increase Australian GNP would be to burn down Sydney and Melbourne each year. GNP would grow because of the extra work for fire brigades, undertakers, architects, builders, and plumbers. There would be little to show for all this annual effort - but there would be a higher GNP.

Too much going on!

Perhaps this is just my problem, but I feel that too much is happening in too many places to keep track of it all. And almost all of it is unexpected. When Barack Obama was elected in 2008 did anyone expect him to approve American airstrikes on another Muslim country? And that those airstrikes would begin on the eighth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War in 2003? And that there would be a loud, resounding silence from the American left?

As Michael Totten wrote today - No one could have predicted any of this in January.

We should all resist trying to predict what will happen next in the Middle East because so much of what happens makes no sense at all in advance of it actually happening.

Who would have thought two months ago that France would lead a Western military coalition, that the United Nations would pass a Chapter VII resolution authorizing the use of force against a country that was elected to its own Human Rights Commission, that Barack Obama would fire missiles at an Arab country when less than thirty percent of Americans approve, and that Qaddafi loyalists would burn Lebanese rather than American or Israeli flags in the capital?

And it's not as if the US is being consistent. Where has been our voice for the democratization of Bahrain? In Bahrain, a proxy battle between Saudi Arabia and Iran. In the beginning of the protests in Bahrain we urged the king to stop attacking the protesters - but now, of course, he's called in troops from Saudi Arabia to support him in ruthlessly putting down the protests. I understand that the situation and location of Bahrain are different than Libya - but the principle is the same, of supporting democracy and human rights for the people of all the Arab countries. If we did not depend on oil from Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries, we could stand much more forthrightly for democracy.

Update - is the Arab League really supporting the attack on Libya?

The head of the Arab League has criticized international strikes on Libya, saying they caused civilian deaths.

The Arab League's support for a no-fly zone last week helped overcome reluctance in the West for action in Libya. The U.N. authorized not only a no-fly zone but also "all necessary measures" to protect civilians.

Amr Moussa says the military operations have gone beyond what the Arab League backed. Moussa has told reporters Sunday that "what happened differs from the no-fly zone objectives." He says "what we want is civilians' protection not shelling more civilians."

But have civilians been shelled? What did Amr Moussa think would be the result of the resolution approved on Thursday? He was at the meeting in Paris yesterday where the attacks were discussed. It seems to me that he's trying to play both sides, perhaps because he's running for the presidency of Egypt. See today's report from the New York Times: "In a field of flowers, the wreckage of war in Libya." The article is about the wreckage from air attacks on Libyan loyalist troops attacking Benghazi.

Littered across the landscape, some 30 miles south of Benghazi, the detritus of the allied airstrikes on Saturday and Sunday morning offered a panorama of destruction: tanks, charred and battered, their turrets blasted clean off, one with a body still caught in its remnants; a small Toyota truck with its roof torn away; a tank transporter still on fire. But it did not end there.

For miles leading south, the roadsides were littered with burned trucks and burned civilian cars. In some places battle tanks had simply been abandoned, intact, as their crews fled. One thing, though, seemed evident: the units closest to Benghazi seemed to have been hit with their cannons and machine guns still pointing towards the rebel capital.

Terrorist attack in Jerusalem

There has been a terrorist attack in Jerusalem today - at 3 p.m. Israel time a bomb exploded at a bus station across the street from the Central Bus Station. One person was killed and many were wounded.

From the Jerusalem Post:

A 60-year-old woman died and 39 were injured after a bomb exploded at a bus station in central Jerusalem Wednesday afternoon. Police said the explosion took place outside Egged bus number 74 at a station opposite the Jerusalem Conference Center (Binyanei Ha'uma) in the center of town.

According to the Magen David Adom spokesperson, 39 people were injured in the attack. Three were injured seriously from the explosion itself, five moderately from shrapnel packed into the explosive device and the remainder were in light condition.

The injured were taken to Hadassah Ein Kerem, Hadassah Mount Scopus, Bikur Holim and Shaare Tzedek hospitals. All hospitals in the area were opened to receive casualties. One woman, 60, died from injuries sustained in the blast.

Police said that this was the first terrorist attack in four years that involved an explosion. Police were looking for one specific person who left the bag that contained the bomb.

There were reports that witnesses were able to identify the man who left the bag and police were searching for him. Police suspected that an explosive device inside a bag was left at the bus stop, which then exploded. Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch said that the explosive device was between one and two kilograms and was packed with shrapnel.

War in Libya

To my considerable surprise, the UN Security Council has just approved a no-fly zone in Libya, which would also permit air strikes on Libyan military defenses.

The United Nations Security Council approved a measure on Thursday authorizing “all necessary measures” to protect Libyan civilians from harm at the hands of forces loyal to Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi.

The measure allows not only a no-fly zone but effectively any measures short of a ground invasion to halt attacks that might result in civilian fatalities. It comes as Colonel Qaddafi warned residents of Benghazi, Libya, the rebel capital, that an attack was imminent and promised lenient treatment for those who offered no resistance.

“We are coming tonight,” Colonel Qaddafi said. “You will come out from inside. Prepare yourselves from tonight. We will find you in your closets.”

Speaking on a call-in radio show, he promised amnesty for those “who throw their weapons away” but “no mercy or compassion” for those who fight. Explosions were heard in Benghazi early Friday, unnerving residents there, Agence-France Presse reported.

The United States, originally leery of any military involvement in Libya, became a strong proponent of the resolution, particularly after the Arab League approved a no-fly zone, something that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called a “game changer”

With the recent advances made by pro-Qaddafi forces in the east, there was a growing consensus in the Obama administration that imposing a no-fly zone by itself would no longer make much of a difference and that there was a need for more aggressive airstrikes that would make targets of Colonel Qaddafi’s tanks and heavy artillery — an option sometimes referred to as a no-drive zone. The United States or its allies might also send military personnel to advise and train the rebels, an official said.

In the most strident verbal attack on Colonel Qaddafi to date by an American official, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday that the Western powers had little choice but to provide critical military backing for the rebels. “We want to support the opposition who are standing against the dictator,” she told an applauding audience in Tunisia on Thursday. “This is a man who has no conscience and will threaten anyone in his way.”

The Qaddafi government responded to the potential United Nations action with threats. “Any foreign military act against Libya will expose all air and maritime traffic in the Mediterranean Sea to danger and civilian and military facilities will become targets of Libya’s counter-attack,” it said in a statement carried on Libyan television and the official news agency, JANA, Reuters reported. “The Mediterranean basin will face danger not just in the short-term, but also in the long-term."

This has come as a real surprise to me. I thought the Obama administration was acting very cautiously about Libya, and had no real intention to support this UN resolution. Secretary of Defense Gates only a couple of weeks ago was pointing out that a no-fly zone was an act of war, since it meant destroying Libya's air defenses. What changed the administration's mind? And why has there been so little public discussion of this rather momentous step? Read Andrew Sullivan's Some Questions on the Imminent War. As Kevin Drum says, this is Our Shiny New War in Libya. Norm has a lot to say about Libya - Libya Now.

The Guardian live-blogged the UN vote and has some additional information. Voting for the resolution: Permanent members: United States, Britain, France. Non-permanent members: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, Gabon, Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal, South Africa. Abstaining: Permanent members: Russia, China. Non-permanent members: Germany, Brazil, India.

I think that if all our attention were not directed towards what is happening in Japan, this would be a much bigger public deal in the U.S. I'm watching the PBS Newshour right now, and they haven't yet addressed the UN decision.

Israelis seize boat loaded with arms intended for Gaza

One wonders what Alice Walker and the other naifs of US Boat to Gaza think about this attempt to break the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza: Israel: Seized ship carried sophisticated weapons that could change balance of power in Gaza. Somehow they don't mention these things in their heartrending emails to me about the sufferings of the people of Gaza and the evil nature of the Israeli regime. Their latest missive to me was entitled "To Gaza with love" and consisted of an invitation to Americans to write letters to the people of Gaza that they would take with them on the boat. Wouldn't it be easier simply to mail them?

Further disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactor

Bad news from Japan: there have been explosions at 3 of the 4 nuclear reactors at Fukushima, and there is currently a fire at No. 4 reactor (which wasn't operating at the time of the earthquake and tsunami on Friday). Very scary article in the New York Times:

Japan faced the likelihood of a catastrophic nuclear accident Tuesday morning, as an explosion at the most crippled of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station damaged its crucial steel containment structure, emergency workers were withdrawn from the plant, and a fire at a fourth reactor spewed large amounts of radioactive material into the air, according to official statements and industry executives informed about the developments....

Government officials also said the containment structure of the No. 2 reactor had suffered damage during an explosion shortly after 6 a.m. on Tuesday. They initially suggested that the damage was limited and that emergency operations aimed at cooling the nuclear fuel at three stricken reactors with seawater would continue. But industry executives said that in fact the situation had spiraled out of control and that all plant workers needed to leave the plant to avoid excessive exposure to radioactive leaks.

If all workers do in fact leave the plant, the nuclear fuel in all three reactors is likely to melt down, which would lead to wholesale releases of radioactive material — by far the largest accident of its kind since the Chernobyl disaster 25 years ago.

If you'd like to hear the news directly from a Japanese broadcaster, the English service of NHK is available at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nhk-world-tv.

For information about how nuclear reactors work, see http://allthingsnuclear.org/ of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Partial meltdown in Japanese nuclear plant?

According to the Washington Post, a "Partial meltdown is likely under way at power plant" in Japan. CNN has more details:

A meltdown may have occurred at at least one nuclear power reactor in Japan, the country's chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, said Sunday, adding that authorities are concerned about the possibility of another meltdown at a second reactor.

"We do believe that there is a possibility that meltdown has occurred. It is inside the reactor. We can't see. However, we are assuming that a meltdown has occurred," he said about the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility. "And with reactor No. 3, we are also assuming that the possibility of a meltdown as we carry out measures," Edano said.

Edano's comments confirm an earlier report from an official with Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, who said, "we see the possibility of a meltdown."

"There is a possibility, we see the possibility of a meltdown," said Toshihiro Bannai, director of the apan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency international affairs office, in a telephone interview from the agency's headquarters in Tokyo. "At this point, we have still not confirmed that there is an actual meltdown, but there is a possibility."

An AP story is much more illuminating about what happened at the No. 1 reactor:

TOKYO (AP) -- Inside the troubled nuclear power plant, officials knew the risks were high when they decided to vent radioactive steam from a severely overheated reactor vessel. They knew a hydrogen explosion could occur, and it did. The decision still trumped the worst-case alternative - total nuclear meltdown.

At least for the time being.

The chain of events started Friday when a magnitude-8.9 earthquake and tsunami severed electricity to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex 170 miles (270 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, crippling its cooling system. Then, backup power did not kick in properly at one of its units.

From there, conditions steadily worsened, although government and nuclear officials initially said things were improving. Hours after the explosion, they contended that radiation leaks were reduced and that circumstances had gotten better at the 460-megawatt Unit 1. But crisis after crisis continued to develop or be revealed.

Without power, and without plant pipes and pumps that were destroyed in the explosion of the most-troubled reactor's containment building, authorities resorted to drawing seawater in an attempt to cool off the overheated uranium fuel rods.

Robert Alvarez, senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and former senior policy adviser to the U.S. secretary of energy, said in a briefing for reporters that the seawater was a desperate measure. "It's a Hail Mary pass," he said.

He said that the success of using seawater and boron to cool the reactor will depend on the volume and rate of their distribution. He said the dousing would need to continue nonstop for days. Another key, he said, was the restoration of electrical power, so that normal cooling systems can be restored.

Officials placed Dai-ichi Unit 1, and four other reactors, under states of emergency Friday because operators had lost the ability to cool the reactors using usual procedures. An additional reactor was added to the list early Sunday, for a total of six - three at the Dai-ichi complex and three at another nearby complex. Local evacuations have been ordered at each location. Japan has a total of 55 reactors spread across 17 complexes nationwide.

Officials began venting radioactive steam at Fukushima Dai-ichi's Unit 1 to relieve pressure inside the reactor vessel, which houses the overheated uranium fuel. Concerns escalated dramatically Saturday when that unit's containment building exploded.

It turned out that officials were aware that the steam contained hydrogen, acknowledged Shinji Kinjo, spokesman for the government Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency. More importantly, they also were aware they were risking an explosion by deciding to vent the steam.

The significance of the hydrogen began to come clear late Saturday:

• Officials decided to reduce rising pressure inside the reactor vessel, so they vented some of the steam buildup. They needed to do that to prevent the entire structure from exploding, and thus starting down the road to a meltdown.

• At the same time, in order to keep the reactor fuel cool, and also prevent a meltdown, operators needed to keep circulating more and more cool water on the fuel rods.

• Temperature in the reactor vessel apparently kept rising, heating the zirconium cladding that makes up the fuel rod casings. Once the zirconium reached 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit (1,200 Celsius), it reacted with the water, becoming zirconium oxide and hydrogen.

• When the hydrogen-filled steam was vented from the reactor vessel, the hydrogen reacted with oxygen, either in the air or water outside the vessel, and exploded.

A similar "hydrogen bubble" had concerned officials at the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear disaster in Pennsylvania until it dissipated.

If the temperature inside the Fukushima reactor vessel continued to rise even more - to roughly 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,200 Celsius) - then the uranium fuel pellets would start to melt.

According to experts interviewed by The Associated Press, any melted fuel would eat through the bottom of the reactor vessel. Next, it would eat through the floor of the already-damaged containment building. At that point, the uranium and dangerous byproducts would start escaping into the environment.

At some point in the process, the walls of the reactor vessel - 6 inches (15 centimeters) of stainless steel - would melt into a lava-like pile, slump into any remaining water on the floor, and potentially cause an explosion much bigger than the one caused by the hydrogen. Such an explosion would enhance the spread of radioactive contaminants.

If the reactor core became exposed to the external environment, officials would likely began pouring cement and sand over the entire facility, as was done at the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Ukraine, Peter Bradford, a former commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said in a briefing for reporters.

At that point, Bradford added, "many first responders would die."

The New York Times reports that in reactor no. 3 at the Fukashima Daiichi plant the nuclear fuel rods were exposed. "On Sunday morning, officials injected water and boric acid into the second reactor and released radioactive vapor to ease pressure, said Yukio Edano, the chief cabinet secretary. The reactor’s fuel rods had become exposed, he said, which called for the extraordinary measures."

The Times also commented that the initial report by officials of the power company that owns the plant was misleading. "Late Saturday night, officials said that the explosion at Daiichi occurred in a structure housing turbines near its No. 1 reactor at the plant, rather than inside the reactor itself. But photos of the damage did not make clear that this was the case. They said that the blast, which may have been caused by a sharp buildup of hydrogen when the reactor’s cooling system failed, destroyed the concrete structure surrounding the reactor but did not collapse the critical steel container inside. This pattern of damage cast doubt on the idea that the explosion was in the turbine building."

The BBC has more on reactor no. 3 -

The plant's operator says pressure is rising inside reactor No. 3 after it lost its emergency cooling system....

The Japanese government has sought to play down fears of a meltdown at Fukushima 1, but media reports say radiation has now risen above safety limits at the plant.

On Sunday morning, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) revealed that the cooling system of a second reactor had failed....

But later Kyodo news agency quoted Tepco as saying radiation levels around the plant had risen above permissible limits....

But the BBC's Chris Hogg in Tokyo says the second reactor is a different type which uses MOX (plutonium plus uranium) fuel and the consequences of a problem there are potentially more severe. Quoted by Kyodo, Tepco said the tops of the MOX fuel rods were 3m above water.

Names of family killed in Itamar released

The names of the Israeli family murdered at Itamar were released today. These are their faces (from Ynet):
 

Yoav Fogel, 11

Ruth Fogel, the mother

Udi Fogel, the father

Hadas, three months old.

Elad Fogel, 4

The names of the five family members who were killed in the West Bank settlement of Itamar were released Saturday.The victims are Udi Fogel, 37, Ruth Fogel, 36, Yoav Fogel, 10, four-year-old Elad Fogel, and three-months old Hadas Fogel.

The Fogel family was killed Friday night when a suspected terrorist broke into their home in the West Bank settlement of Itamar and stabbed them all to death.

According to police, the suspect broke into the house armed with a knife and stabbed parents Udi and Ruth, along with three of their children, Yoav, Elad, and Hadas Fogel. Magen David Adom rescue services arrived at the scene and found them all dead.

The family's 12-year-old daughter, who was at a youth group activity, returned to her home at approximately midnight and her calls for the door to be opened for her went unanswered. With the help of a neighbor, they managed to open the door and came upon the horrible murder scene.

While many mourn, some depraved people rejoice. From Getty Images today, in Rafah, Gaza:

A Palestinian man distributes sweets in the streets of the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah on March 12, 2011 to celebrate an attack which killed five Israeli settlers at the Itamar settlement near the West Bank city of Nablus.

Fears and Hopes

I woke up this morning (actually, noon....) and turned on the computer and saw that there had been an explosion at one of the Japanese nuclear power plants that has been badly damaged by the earthquake and tsunami. Very scary. I hope all the officials who are trying to calm the Japanese people that there won't be a nuclear meltdown are telling the truth.

When I turned on CNN to get their typical minute-by-minute coverage, one of their more witless anchors was on, telling me no more than the online NYT coverage. So much for cable news.

In Middle East news, the Arab League to officially request UN impose no-fly zone on Libya. One wonders - will the UN do anything? And if the UN Security Council does approve it - who will enforce it? The Obama administration doesn't appear very keen on getting involved in yet another war with a Muslim country. And as Secretary of Defense Gates has said, enforcing a no-fly zone does require acts of war - like destroying the Libyan air defense system.

Egyptian state television said the Arab League had decided to open channels of communication with a Libyan rebel council based in Benghazi. The League said the council represented the Libyan people, the channel reported.

The Arab League decided on Saturday that the "serious crimes and great violations" the Libyan government had committed against its people had stripped it of legitimacy, Secretary General Amr Moussa said. Earlier Saturday, Moussa called for a no-fly zone over Libya in an interview with a German magazine, ahead of the group meeting in Cairo on Saturday to discuss the proposal. "I am speaking of a humanitarian action," he said in comments to Der Spiegel released on Saturday. "It is about assisting the Libyan people with a no-fly zone in their struggle for freedom against an increasingly inhuman regime." "The Arab League can also play a role," said Moussa, who is stepping down as secretary-general after a decade, intending to contest the Egyptian presidency later this year.

European states hope the Arab League will lead the way in shaping policy, particularly over a no-fly zone, towards the revolt against Muammar Gaddafi.

In his opening remarks to an Arab League meeting Saturday, the foreign minister of Oman said, "What is needed now is Arab intervention using mechanisms of the Arab League and at the same time in accordance with international law." "Based on this we must look at various options that [the] circumstances in Libya need," he said.

Oman Foreign Minister Youssef bin Alawi bin Abdullah also said that the Libyan crisis poses a threat to the stability of Arab states, and that Arab inaction on the Libyan crisis could lead to "unwanted foreign intervention" and fighting among Libyans.

And then there's the terrible terrorist attack against a family in the Israeli settlement of Itamar on the norther West Bank: Horror in Samaria: Terrorist murders family of 5

A terrorist infiltrated the West Bank settlement of Itamar, southeast of Nablus, early Saturday and stabbed five family members to death. The shocking attack occurred around 1 am as the terrorist entered the family home and murdered three children aged 11, 3, and a baby girl along with their parents. The victims were apparently sleeping as the killer came in.

Three other children at the home, a 12-year-old girl and her two brothers, aged 6 and 2, were able to escape to a nearby house and inform their neighbors of the attack.

A later article says that apparently two terrorists carried out the attack, and "Authorities also estimate that the attack was carried out by a local cell not directly affiliated with Hamas or any other organization, and that the murder was motivated by growing friction with settlers, growing incitement against the settlements on the Palestinian street, and a desire to avenge 'price tag' acts."

One of the Haaretz articles on the attack also says the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade took responsibility for the attack. The English article didn't have any details, but below is my translation of the relevant Hebrew article.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, by the name of Imad Mughniyah, from the military arm of the Fatah movement, took responsibility for the terrorist attack. An announcement by the organization said that "The attack was a heroic action and a natural response to the murderous actions of the Israeli occupation against our people in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip." Despite this, the reliability of the announcement was not yet clear, because in the past the organization has rushed to take responsibility for actions that they had no connection to. Hamas expressed support for the terrorist attack, but denied that its men were involved in carrying it out.

Israeli war criminal at NYU?

I'm on the email list of the "US Boat to Gaza" group, for some reason (I didn't sign up), and they've just sent an "urgent alert" that an "Israeli war criminal has been invited to speak at an American university." The university is NYU. The alleged "war criminal" is one of the Israeli commandos who landed on the Mavi Marmara (part of the Gaza flotilla) last year.

According to the Facebook site for the NYU "Students for Justice in Palestine," he was invited by students at NYU who are putting on an "Israel Peace Week" to counter the "Israel Apartheid Week" that anti-Israel students have organized. The SJP is organizing a counter-demonstration outside the hall where the presentation will occur. They write, "During that brutal attack on unarmed human rights activists nine people were killed, including a Turkish American and over fifty wounded." Yes, nine people were killed by the commandos - but they were not unarmed human rights activists. They were part of the IHH and came armed. I wrote a lot about it on my blog at that time - see my articles at Gaza flotilla.

I hope that the NYU students who have invited the speaker are aware of the opposition this has aroused among the anti-Israel organizations, and have planned accordingly.

Representative Peter King, Hypocrite

Rep. Peter King of New York, who is hosting the bogus series of hearings this week on radicalization of American Muslims, has an awkward past - he was a passionate supporter of the IRA.

Long before he became an outspoken voice in Congress about the threat from terrorism, he was a fervent supporter of a terrorist group, the Irish Republican Army.

“We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry,” Mr. King told a pro-I.R.A. rally on Long Island, where he was serving as Nassau County comptroller, in 1982. Three years later he declared, “If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it.”...

A judge in Belfast threw him out of an I.R.A. murder trial, calling him an “obvious collaborator,” said Ed Moloney, an Irish journalist and author of “A Secret History of the I.R.A.” In 1984, Mr. King complained that the Secret Service had investigated him as a “security risk,” Mr. Moloney said.

In later years, by all accounts, Mr. King became an important go-between in talks that led to peace in Northern Ireland, drawing on his personal contacts with leaders of I.R.A.’s political wing, Sinn Fein, and winning plaudits from both Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, the former president and the British prime minister.

But as Mr. King, 66, prepares to preside Thursday as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee at the first of a series of hearings on Muslim radicalization, his pro-I.R.A. past gives his many critics an obvious opening. The congressman’s assertions that 85 percent of leaders of American mosques hold extremist views and that Muslims do not cooperate with law enforcement have alarmed Muslim groups, some counterterrorism experts and even a few former allies in Irish-American causes.

Mr. King, son of a New York City police officer and grand-nephew of an I.R.A. member, offers no apologies for his past, which he has celebrated in novels that feature a Irish-American congressman with I.R.A. ties who bears a striking resemblance to the author.

Of comparisons between the terrorism of the I.R.A. and that of Al Qaeda and its affiliates, Mr. King said: “I understand why people who are misinformed might see a parallel. The fact is, the I.R.A. never attacked the United States. And my loyalty is to the United States.”

But the IRA did attack one of our closest allies, Britain. And in fact, his loyalty was not to the United States, but to the terrorist IRA.

He said he does not regret his past pro-I.R.A. statements. The Irish group, he said, was “a legitimate force” battling British repression — analogous to the African National Congress in South Africa or the Zionist Irgun paramilitary in British-ruled Palestine. “It was a dirty war on both sides,” he said of I.R.A. resistance to British rule....

The I.R.A. was responsible for 1,826 of 3,528 deaths during the Northern Irish conflict between 1969 and 2001, including those of several hundred civilians, said the historian Malcolm Sutton

I grew up in Cambridge, Mass., and went to the St. Patrick's Day parade in Boston a number of times when I was a teenager, in the 1970s. One year I saw a contingent from Noraid - Northern Irish Aid, which raised money for arms for the IRA. I didn't go back to the parade again.

Omar Barghouti, poster boy for Israel Apartheid Week

Elder of Ziyon has created some great posters to mock Israel Apartheid Week, and this one is the best. One of the leaders of the BDS movement is Omar Barghouti, who lives in Ramallah but is getting his PhD from Tel Aviv University!

 For more on Barghouti, see Richard Millett's account of a recent talk he gave in London: "Omar Barghouti: The non-Israel-boycotting Israeli boycotter."

Leftist rulers who support Qaddafi?!

Update: Another supporter of Qaddafi (3/2/11 at 10:35 pm): Louis Farrakhan has just come out in support of Qaddafi, according to a press release from the ADL.

Included among his conspiratorial messages was the allegation that "Zionists" are goading the United States into "a military offensive against Libya," whose leader, Muammar Qaddafi, he praised as "my brother" and "my friend."

"President Obama, if you allow the Zionists to push you, to mount a military offensive against Qaddafi and you go in and kill him and his sons as you did with Saddam Hussein and his sons, I'm warning you this is a Libyan problem, let the Libyans solve their problem among themselves."

Further update on Chavez (3/1/11 at 7:02 pm): An Al Jazeera blog by Imran Garda has Chavez's latest comments on Libya:

As my colleague Gabriel Elizondo recently pointed out, tiny Nicaragua has rushed to show solidarity with the man who has given it over $300 million and who still claims, “they love me, all my people are with me” despite losing almost every town and city in his country barring the capital, to the protesters. Protesters - he claims - who are being drugged by “Osama bin Laden” who has put “things in their Nescafe.” Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega said Gaddafi is "waging a great battle" for his country.

Prior to February 28 there was still room for doubt as to the extent of Hugo Chavez’s support for Gaddafi. He had refused to openly weigh in on the issue, and the only evidence for his support had been a tweet of his saying “…viva Libya and its independence! Kadafi is facing a civil war!!”

Even that was open to interpretation. However, his latest take on the crisis has been unequivocal, "A campaign of lies is being spun together regarding Libya...I'm not going to condemn him. I'd be a coward to condemn someone who has been my friend."....

But the man who models himself on Latin America’s liberator Simon Bolivar, and projects himself as an heir to his legacy (and sometimes to Fidel Castro’s) - is finding himself in a changing world.

He may see himself as a leader of the global “Left” - but what left is he claiming to lead?

The enemy-of-my-enemy “Left”, of hollow, mud-slinging slogans, in support of anything or anyone who claims to oppose imperialism in all its forms in this Yankee-dominated world, no matter how monstrous his policies?

Or a principled “Left” based on respecting the values entrenched in the universal declaration of human rights, democracy and most importantly, the “Left” which places its support squarely on the part of the people tormented, rather than their tormentor.

Chavez’s open support for Gaddafi (who he presented with a replica of one of Bolivar’s swords in 2009) despite his outrageous disregard for his own people, disturbing intent to “open the arms depots” and let his country “burn,” rather than listen to the demands of Libyans, at this crucial point in the history of the region - sounds vacuous and adolescent.

In fact, it’s starting to sound like he’s been drinking some of that hallucinogenic Nescafe that Gaddafi was talking about...

Update (2/26/11 at 4:00 pm): Although I would hardly call him a leftist, Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (who received Qaddafi's farcical human rights award in 2010) thinks it's all about Libya's oil, and that the UN should not impose sanctions.

"You cannot secure world peace by resorting to sanctions in each and every incident. We call on the international community to approach Libya not with concerns about oil but with conscience, justice and universal human values," Erdogan said. In an apparent reference to Western interests in oil-rich Libya, he said the region's people "are fed up with being used as pawns in oil wars".

Update (2/24/11 at 11:04 pm): Chavez has now come out in support of Qaddafi. The report is from Al Jazeera's live blog on Libya:

5:01am: Venezuela's top diplomat on Thursday echoed Fidel Castro's accusation that Washington is fomenting unrest in Libya to justify an invasion to seize North African nation's oil reserves.

Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan Foreign Minister said:

They are creating conditions to justify an invasion of Libya.

4:27am: Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has backed Muammar Gaddafi on Twitter.  Chavez twitted:

Gaddafi is facing a civil war.
Long live Libya. Long live the independence of Libya

Original Post, 2/22/11 So, who is supporting Qaddafi these days?

The protests sweeping across Libya have created challenges for the Latin American allies of Moammar Gadhafi. Leftist governments in the Americas have long embraced him as a fellow fighter against U.S. influence in the world. Gadhafi has responded over the years by awarding the Moammar Gadhafi International Human Rights Prize [sic!] to Castro and Ortega, as well as to Presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, [and] Evo Morales of Bolivia.

1. Nicaragua president Daniel Ortega called Gaddafi to express support.

Nicaragua's leftist President Daniel Ortega says he has telephoned Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to express his solidarity. Ortega says he has called several times this week because Gadhafi "is again waging a great battle" to defend the unity of his nation.

To my embarrassment now, in the 1980s I was one of the defenders of Ortega and the Sandinistas when they ruled Nicaragua.

2. Fidel Castro, who says that "unrest in Libya may be a pretext for a NATO invasion."

European governments and U.S. leaders have denounced the crackdown, but Castro used a column published Tuesday by Cuban state news media to say it was too early to criticize Gadhafi. "You can agree or not with Gadhafi," Castro said. "The world has been invaded by all sorts of news ... We have to wait the necessary time to know with rigor how much is fact or lie."

But he did urge protests of something he says is planned: A U.S.-led invasion of the North African nation aimed at controlling its oil. "The government of the United States is not concerned at all about peace in Libya and it will not hesitate to give NATO the order to invade that rich country, perhaps in a question of hours or very short days," Castro wrote. "An honest person will always be against any injustice committed against any people in the world," Castro said. "And the worst of those at this instant would be to keep silent before the crime that NATO is preparing to commit against the Libyan people."

3. And what about Hugo Chavez?

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, on the other hand, has stayed mute. Bolivia came closest to criticizing the government in Tripoli, issuing a statement expressing concern over "the regrettable loss of many lives" and urging both sides to find a peaceful solution....

While Chavez has not commented publicly on the unrest in Libya, Venezuela's foreign minister issued a statement Monday saying he had phoned his Libyan counterpart to express hopes that Libya can find "a peaceful solution to its difficulties ... without the intervention of imperialism, whose interests in the region have been affected in recent times."....

Others [Venezuelan opponents of Chavez] said Chavez's silence suggests he might be trying to distance himself from his North African friend. The two leaders have had such warm ties that on Monday, rumors swept the world that Gadhafi was fleeing to Venezuela. Gadhafi took to television to deny them.

"Our garrulous president is keeping a thunderous silence," the director of the newspaper Tal Cual, Teodoro Petkoff, wrote in an editorial. "Now that the democratic rebellion has reached Libya, Chavez is looking the other way and even abandoning his disgraced 'brother.'"

Will Libyan rebels ask for foreign intervention?

Libyan Rebels Debate Asking for U.N. Airstrikes to Dislodge Qaddafi

This is remarkable:

BENGHAZI, Libya — In a sign of mounting frustration among rebel leaders over Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s diminished but unyielding grip on power, the revolutionary council here is debating whether to ask for Western airstrikes under the United Nations banner, according to four people with knowledge of the deliberations.
By invoking the United Nations, the council, made up of lawyers, academics, judges and other prominent figures, is seeking to draw a distinction between such airstrikes and foreign intervention, which the rebels said they emphatically opposed.
“He destroyed the army; we have two or three planes,” the council’s spokesman, Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, said. He refused to say if there would be any imminent announcement about such strikes, but he wanted to make it clear: “If it is with the United Nations, it is not a foreign intervention.”

What should Jews think or not think about the overthrow of Mubarak?

Interesting debate over at Harry's Place on what Jews should or should not feel about the overthrow of Mubarak, sparked by a stupid article in the Guardian's Comment is Free entitled On the side of the Pharoahs? by Rabbi Howard Cooper. Cooper writes, "I was saddened by the predominantly muted and apprehensive response to these uplifting events from many of my fellow Jews in the UK and in Israel."

I personally was happy when Mubarak fell, but I'm apprehensive about what will happen next.

I particularly liked the comments by Lamia -

Of course, had Jews in large numbers or Israel itself made approving noises about the events in Egypt, or take a close an interest, the conspiracy mongers would have gone into overdrive claiming that the interest of Jews was suspicious (if predictable), and that they were interfering in a sovereign Egyptian matter, and that their support for the revolution showed it was all a zionist plot.

Obama – of whom I’m not the greatest fan – has been in a similar ‘Heads I’m a hypocrite, tails I’m a hypocrite’ situation, especially regarding Iran. And regarding Libya, there are those who will criticise the west for standing by and not intervening there while hundreds or thousands are dying, but who are poised to jump all over any actual sign of intervention or support for the revolutionaries as ‘imperialism’. As another thread has pointed out, there are still those on the left who view Gaddafi as a good socialist hero.

What this boils down to is motivism, the self-righteous paranoia which defines the world view of so much of the left in the post-Soviet world. It’s a lazier form of conspiracy theory, in that it’s not even interested in suggesting that what appears to have happened is not what has really happened. That would take no less madness or dishonesty, but would require at least some imagination.

Motivism doesn’t dispute the facts so much as start with an assumption that whatever Jews or zionists or the west or NATO do or say has a malign motiviation, and then ascribes the same pre-ordained end interpretation to whatever they do or say or don’t do or don’t say.

The main thing is that Pilger and co are always right, no matter their own inconsistency, and Blair amd co are always wrong, no matter their own inconsistency.

In due course it will become an orthodoxy of the left that whatever they said or didn’t say at the time, ‘the zionists’ got exactly what they secretly wanted from the Arab revolutions. Or if they didn’t, it will still be their fault for whatever bad consequences there may be for any Arabs and anyone else. because it always is.

Even if Israel didn’t exist, ‘the zionists’ always will. They will be everywhere behind the scenes (and rocks, and trees) because they are needed. The Pilgerists may have, unlike the Islamists, stopped believing in God, but they still believe in the same devil.

Can the world stop the massacres in Libya?

Interesting article by Marc Lynch in Foreign Policy about the reasons to want, and to fear, Intervening in the Libyan tragedy.

The appropriate comparison is Bosnia or Kosovo, or even Rwanda where a massacre is unfolding on live television and the world is challenged to act. It is time for the United States, NATO, the United Nations and the Arab League to act forcefully to try to prevent the already bloody situation from degenerating into something much worse.
By acting, I mean a response sufficiently forceful and direct to deter or prevent the Libyan regime from using its military resources to butcher its opponents. I have already seen reports that NATO has sternly warned Libya against further violence against its people. Making that credible could mean the declaration and enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya, presumably by NATO, to prevent the use of military aircraft against the protesters. It could also mean a clear declaration that members of the regime and military will be held individually responsible for any future deaths. The U.S. should call for an urgent, immediate Security Council meeting and push for a strong resolution condemning Libya's use of violence and authorizing targeted sanctions against the regime. Such steps could stand a chance of reversing the course of a rapidly deteriorating situation. An effective international response could not only save many Libyan lives, it might also send a powerful warning to other Arab leaders who might contemplate following suit against their own protest movements.

Update
Andrew Sullivan has an interesting roundup of ideas on this question.

Will Qaddafi Fall?

Is Qaddafi going to fall? It seems like he might. Benghazi is in the hands of the protesters, while Tripoli is in chaos. Senior diplomats are resigning, and apparently two Libyan pilots flew to Malta because they refused to bomb protesters.

The New York Times reports that warplanes and militia fire on protesters in Libyan capital. "Tripoli descended into chaos in less than 24 hours as a six-day-old revolt suddenly spread from Benghazi across the country on Sunday. The revolt shaking Libya is the latest and most violent turn in a rebellion across the Arab world that seemed unthinkable just two months ago and that has already toppled autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia."

More news on Libya

Apparently protests have also broken out in Tripoli, Libya (capital of the country). Libya protests (From BBC News).

Al Jazeera also reports that protests have spread to Tripoli, and that some tribal leaders have begun to support the protesters.

Security forces have shot dead scores of protesters in Libya's second largest city, where residents said a military unit had joined their cause.

While Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi attempted to put down protests centred in the eastern city of Benghazi against his four-decade rule, Al Jazeera began receiving eyewitness reports of "disturbances" in the capital Tripoli early on Monday as well. There were reports of clashes between anti-government protesters and Gaddafi supporters around the Green Square.

"We are in Tripoli, there are chants [directed at Gaddafi]: 'Where are you? Where are you? Come out if you're a man," a protester told Al Jazeera on the phone.

A resident told the Reuters news agency that he could hear gunshots in the streets and crowds of people. "We're inside the house and the lights are out. There are gunshots in the street," the resident said by phone. "That's what I hear, gunshots and people. I can't go outside."

An expatriate worker living in the Libyan capital told Reuters: "Some anti-government demonstrators are gathering in the residential complexes. The police are dispersing them. I can also see burning cars."

There were also reports of protesters heading to Gaddafi's compound in the city of Al-Zawia near Tripoli, with the intention of burning the building down.

Meanwhile the head of the Al-Zuwayya tribe in eastern Libya has threatened to cut off oil exports unless authorities stop what he called the "oppression of protesters" [and], the Warfala tribe, one of Libya's biggest, has reportedly joined the anti-Gaddafi protests.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Shaikh Faraj al Zuway said: "We will stop oil exports to Western countries within 24 hours" if the violence did not stop. The tribe lives south of Benghazi, which has seen the worst of the deadly violence in recent days. Akram Al-Warfalli, a leading figure in the Al Warfalla tribe, one of Libya's biggest, told the network: "We tell the brother (Gaddafi), well he's no longer a brother, we tell him to leave the country." The tribe lives south of Tripoli.

Protests have also reportedly broken out in other cities, including Bayda, Derna, Tobruk and Misrata - and anti-Gaddafi graffiti adorns the walls of several cities.

Anti-government protesters in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi have reportedly seized army vehicles and weapons amid worsening turmoil in the African nation. A local witness said that a section of the troops had joined the protesters on Sunday as chaos swept the streets of the city, worst hit by the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi's 42-year old rule.

Mohamed, a doctor from Al Jalaa hospital in Benghazi, confirmed to Al Jazeera that members of the military had sided with the protesters. "We are still receiving serious injuries, I can confirm 13 deaths in our hospital. However, the good news is that people are cheering and celebrating outside after receiving news that the army is siding with the people," he said. "But there is still a brigade that is against the demonstrators. For the past three days demonstrators have been shot at by this brigade, called Al-Sibyl brigade."

The witness reports came on a day in which local residents told Al Jazeera that at least 200 people had died in days of unrest in Benghazi alone. The New York-based Human Rights Watch on Sunday put the countrywide death toll at 173. The rights group said its figure was "conservative".

'Massacre'

News of the rising death toll came as residents of Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, reported renewed gunfire from security forces in the city. Sadiq al Ghiryani, a Libyan religious leader, told Al Jazeera a "massacre" was under way in the city and troops firing shots were mostly mercenaries. Kamal Hudethifi, a judge, described the killings as "ethnic cleansing".

The Reuters news agency said at least 50 people had been killed in Benghazi since Sunday afternoon. Moftah, a Benghazi resident , who requested Al Jazeera use only his first name, said the city had become a "war zone" in recent days. Residents have barricaded the streets with overturned trash cans and debris, and security forces have largely confined themselves to two compounds, though snipers continue to target protesters, he said. The forces who remain are "thugs" loyal to Gaddafi, Moftah said, and they are firing high-calibre ammunition at protesters.

The eyewitness report came a day after security forces opened fire at a funeral in the eastern coastal city on Saturday, killing at least 15 people and injuring scores more.

A group of six alleged mercenaries - reportedly brought in from Tunisia and other African nations to bolster pro-Gaddafi forces - were captured and arrested by demonstrators in the city of Shahat.

For an eyewitness report on Libya of a few years ago, Michael Totten has posted his account of visiting Libya on his blog - In the Land of the Brother Leader.

Protests in Libya - horrendous massacre

Libya protests: 140 'massacred' as Gaddafi sends in snipers to crush dissent

The five-day uprising in eastern Libya has been the greatest challenge to the 42-year rule of Col Gaddafi, the world's longest-serving ruler. With internet and phone lines to the outside world disrupted, it was unclear whether the revolt inspired by the revolutions in neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt was spreading from the impoverished east of Libya to the capital Tripoli, or whether it was being successfully extinguished.

Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian writer and activist, has been sending many tweets (@monaeltahawy) about the situation in all the Arab countries where there are protests.

Nicholas Kristoff is in Bahrain and has been reporting and tweeting from there (@NickKristoff).

Mahmood Al-Yousif (Bahraini blogger) on the protests there

A Bahraini blogger whom I used to read (I fell out with him over the second Lebanon war) has posted some very interesting remarks about the protests in Bahrain: "One thing is for sure: Bahrain before the 14th of February 2011 is most definitely different from the Bahrain after it."

"I have never witnessed protests such as these in my life in Bahrain. I’ve most certainly did not witness the level of determination to wrest those demands either. And from what I can personally see, people no longer care if they’re killed while trying, so much so that they are more than happy to get their wives, sisters, mothers and children accompanying them while protesting. I’ve personally seen disabled people at the Pearl Roundabout, some on crutches, in wheelchairs or pushing their Zimmer frames. All of whom didn’t come out to have a picnic, they, instead firmly believe in the sanctity and genuineness of their rightful demands."

The determination and courage of people in Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya is simply astonishing and puts us Americans to shame.

The occupation is not benign

Interesting article by Michelle Goldberg of Tablet on the soldiers of "Breaking the Silence" - exposing how the Israeli occupation brutalizes the soldiers who enforce it and the Palestinians who suffer from it.

Website of Breaking the Silence: Shovrim Shtika.

Article by Mikhael Manekin, co-director of Shovrim Shtika, in +972 (web magazine), against the Knesset investigation into NGOs.

"Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth" (!)

I just stumbled upon a website called "Patriots Question 9/11" - people who deny the official report of the 9/11 Commission and accuse the Bush administration either of knowing the attacks were coming and allowing them to happen, or of outright planning the attacks, arguing that the World Trade Center towers could not have been destroyed by the airplanes that flew into them, but were felled by "controlled explosions."

I started scrolling through the names and what these people had to say, and came across the names of several well-known academics in the study of religion and theology. Another website, "Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth" lists the names of more academics (as well as a lot of ministers) who agree with this position.

On the Patriots Question 9/11 site, the first person listed is David Ray Griffin, emeritus professor in the philosophy of religion at Claremont, who has written several books denying the official story of 9/11. From a Publishers Weekly review of one of his books his viewpoint is apparent: "He offers two mind-numbing versions of an 'alternative conspiracy theory': that the Bush administration 'deliberately' failed to prevent the attacks or, more chillingly, 'was actively involved in the planning and execution of the attacks.'"

Others who commend Griffin or who signed various "9/11 truth" statements include:

• The late William Sloane Coffin

• Rosemary Ruether

"Griffin writes in a precise and careful fashion, avoiding inflammatory rhetoric. He argues for a high probability for the Bush's administrations complicity with allowing and facilitating the attacks, based not on any one conclusive piece of evidence, but the sheer accumulation of all of the data. He concludes by calling for a genuinely independent investigative effort that would examine all this evidence. ...

"I personally found Griffin's book both convincing and chilling. If the complicity of the Bush Administration to which he points is true, then Americans have a far greater problem on their hands than even the more ardent anti-war critics have imagined. If the administration that would do this, what else would they do to maintain and expand their power?"

• John Cobb, also of Claremont (from the "Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth" statement)

"A significant moral challenge has emerged due to glaring discrepancies between the official version of the events of September 11, 2001, and the results of extensive independent research by individuals with relevant scientific or professional expertise. . . . As a result of this extensive research carried out by scientists and professionals, it can now be seen that the official account of 9/11 is false beyond any reasonable doubt. ... Because the false account of 9/11 has led to [numerous] evils, it is incumbent on religious leaders, once they realize that the official account is a lie, to speak out."

• Joseph Hough (Union Theological Seminary)

• Fr. Daniel Berrigan - signatory of the "War is Illegal" statement.

Faced with the choice between a war, that according to some western leaders, will last for many years or a possible peaceful transformation we support the following demands: ...

International investigation of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. They are used as the central justification for the "War on Terror", but well documented evidence shows that the official explanation of 9/11 cannot be correct.

• Carter Heyward, Professor Emerita, Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass., who writes about Griffin:

Are we brave enough to read this nerve-wracking book, one of the most important theological texts of our time? Rooted in the longstanding belief that Christians share responsibility for shaping a more justice-loving world, Griffin makes a strong case that the real "conspiracy theory" about 9/11 is the Bush Administration’s silly notion that nineteen young Arab men could have pulled it off. Griffin helps us wrestle with questions that are almost too much to bear, yet which may empower us, if we dare, to build a more truthful and, over time, more deeply moral nation and world.

• Robert Ellwood, emeritus professor of religion at USC.

• Richard Horsley (University of Massachusetts), who writes about one of Griffin's books:

Do American Christians want the United States to act like the New Rome, invading other countries to impose its imperial rule and its control of other peoples’ resources? That is just what the U.S. is doing, increasingly so since 9/11, explains David Griffin. In this gripping summary of evidence for the truth behind 9/11 and the 9/11 Commission report, Griffin makes a compelling case that the imperial practices of the American government have become a destructive force in the world. And he clarifies the biblical and theological basis for Christians to challenge the resurgent American imperialism that often claims divine blessing on its destructive actions.

• Walter Wink, professor emeritus, Auburn Theological Seminary, who is a signatory of the Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth statement

• Mahmoud Ayoub, emeritus professor, Temple University, who also signed the Religious Leaders for 9/11 truth statement

• Carol P. Christ (signed the Religious Leaders for 9/11 truth statement)

I've mentioned these names either because I've heard of them, they are prominent in certain areas of religious studies, or because they had a personal impact on me when I was a student. I'm shocked to find that they applaud Griffin's shoddy scholarship and convoluted conspiracy theories. Rosemary Ruether's book on Christian anti-semitism,"Faith and fratricide: the theological roots of anti-Semitism" had a great influence on me in graduate school. I first encountered Carol Christ's work when I was an undergraduate at University of California, Santa Cruz, in the late 1970s, and I attended an electrifying feminist spirituality conference where she was the keynote speaker. Carter Heyward was another feminist theologian who influenced me when I was in graduate school. Horsley and Wink are both well-known New Testament scholars. John Cobb is one of the founders of Process Theology.

How could these people fall into the illogical trap of such conspiracy theories? Couldn't they oppose the Bush administration and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq without adhering to such nonsensical theories? I simply don't understand, and I'm at a loss to explain their thought processes.

My article on magical knowledge in 1 Enoch published

An article of mine was published in the Festschrift for Rachel Elior, the John and Golda Cohen Professor of Jewish Philosophy and Jewish Mystical Thought at the Hebrew University, who was one of the advisers on my dissertation.

The Festschrift is entitled With Letters of Light (אותיות של אור): Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Early Jewish Apocalypticism, Magic, and Mysticism in Honor of Rachel Elior. My article is "'They Revealed Secrets to Their Wives': The Transmission of Magical Knowledge in 1 Enoch."

Congressman Gary Ackerman - Mubarak should step down

Congressman Gary Ackerman, who is a strong supporter of Israel, has come out with a statement urging Mubarak to step down.

"Like all Americans I have been watching events in Egypt and it has become clear that it's time for America to step off of the rhetorical tightrope and stand clearly with the people of Egypt in their struggle for freedom. The Egyptian people are in the midst of a crisis, and like anyone in crisis, they need to know who their friends are.

"While initially it may have been prudent for the Obama Administration to walk that rhetorical tight rope to keep the confidence of regional leaders, that moment has surely passed. By their passion, courage and sacrifice in the streets, Egyptians have proven beyond question that they are taking their government back and that the Mubarak-era of rule is ending.

"President Mubarak has been a valuable partner for the United States, but he has, by his own decisions and successive phony elections, shorn his rule of any mandate or legitimacy beyond that provided by force and arms. His last act of service to Egypt should be to facilitate a fast transfer of power to a transitional government that can prepare for free and fair elections.

"Accordingly, I believe the United States must suspend its assistance to Egypt until this transition is underway.

"The Egyptian people have made their wishes very clear: it is time for President Mubarak to step down and allow Egypt to move forward into a new era of democracy, human rights and the rule of law."

Big news from Egypt

The New York Times is reporting that the Egyptian Army has announced that it will not fire on the protesters, as long as they use peaceful means.

The political forces aligned against President Hosni Mubarak seemed to strengthen on Monday, when the Army said for the first time that it would not fire on the protesters who have convulsed Egypt for the last week. The announcement was followed shortly by the government’s first offer to talk to the protest leaders....

The Army’s announcement — delivered on state TV with no elaboration by its official spokesman — declared that “freedom of expression through peaceful means is guaranteed to everybody,” and promised to recognize the “legitimate demands” of the protesters.

While the carefully worded statement was seen by some as a veiled threat to use force against those who do not use peaceful means, an associate of Mr. Mubarak’s said it should be taken at face value.

“The Army is not a puppet in the hands of anybody,” including Mr. Mubarak, said Mahmoud Shokry, a retired diplomat and a friend of Mr. Suleiman. “The Army does not want to make any confrontation with the youth.” He said the generals would “ask Mr. Mubarak to leave” before they would accept orders they think could lead to civil war or risk their credibility with the public.

Still, opposition leaders said they were not prepared to celebrate the announcement as the turning point it proved in Tunisia, where the government collapsed after the military refused to shoot at its own people.

Although I'm apprehensive for Israel about what could happen if Mubarak does finally resign and a new government is established, it is very exciting to see thousands and thousands of people demonstrating for freedom and democracy.

The report I'm hearing tonight described members of the Muslim Brotherhood involved in the demonstration in Tahrir Square in Cairo. I hope that any government that's formed after Mubarak falls (if that happens) will not be dominated by the MB. My main apprehension about them would be what would they do with the peace treaty with Israel. Also, of course, if they get into power, would democracy continue in Egypt? Would they be willing to leave power if they lost an election? Questions that I don't think anyone has the final answers to.

Brave Egyptians

What will happen tomorrow, when the protesters have called for a "day of rage"? The first two photos below are from Cairo, and the last one is from Suez - both from yesterday.