The AP says preliminary estimates show that the coalition led by the current prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is doing well in Baghdad and in the Shiite south of Iraq.

In the capital’s green zone, ballot boxes were delivered today to the independent election commission as the counting process began.

Despite a wave of violence Sunday that killed at least 26 people, 62 percent of 19 million eligible voters turned out — lower than during the last Iraqi parliamentary election.

Both the top U.S. general and the American ambassador praised the election process, echoing what President Obama said yesterday. And General Ray Odierno re-affirmed the phased withdrawal of the 96,000 U.S. troops currently in Iraq.

For more, Daljit Dhaliwal speaks with Michael Wahid Hanna, a fellow at the Century Foundation.

Mike Hanna of Al Jazeera English followed one elderly woman who was voting for the future.

An Iraqi woman votes in Nasiriyah. Photo: Flickr user DVIDSHUB

According to Iraq’s 2005 constitution, women are granted a quarter of the seats in the nation’s 325-member Parliament.

Iraq remains a male-dominated society, but women have nevertheless made significant progress in the post-conflict society.

The parliamentary elections were held Sunday, the day before International Women’s Day. This year’s theme has been dubbed: “Equal rights, equal opportunities: Progress for all.”

In an interview with NPR, Professor Christina Asquith of the University of Vermont explains how the quota for female parliamentarians has a positive impact on the Iraqi political arena:

I hands down would say the quota has been absolutely fantastic for women. Because I think we have to imagine what the situation would be like if not for the quota. I think we would see almost no women running. It would be just difficult for women to get an edge in, get a foot in the door.

You see all of the candidates talking about the same thing, which is basically security, stability, rule of law. So, I think that, you know, the women, while they may have been quote, unquote “used” the first time around, that’s happening less and less now as women are able to reemerge. They’re really coming forward. And if not for the quota, I just don’t think we would see women at all.

One Iraqi candidate for Parliament is against this quota but remains an inspirational figure for women in Iraq. Jenan Mubarak is the founder of Iraq’s first all-female political party.

The Institute for War and Peace Reporting writes, “She has a dream: that women’s representation in parliament should be equal to that of men.” Mubarak elaborates:

I want to tell women, ‘You can do a lot.’ I want them to know they have choices; that they can be whatever they want. ‘Your achievements are who you are.’ That’s my message to women.’

Mubarak has thousands of female supporters who back her position on increasing the quota for female seats in the Iraqi Parliament. She continues:

Only a few women have been active in decision-making during the former legislatures because they are members of political parties run by others, and they can’t express their own opinion…We need a strong woman’s voice that has the ability to convince others in parliament.

Salama al-Khafaji, one of 1,801 female candidates up for election, told EuroNews:

The vision is still a masculine one and parties still nominate men rather than women to the high positions due to the fact that these positions are always given to men who assume ministerial positions and are nominated by their parties or political bloc.

But Maysoun al-Damlouji, a prominent Sunni lawmaker, explains:

The politicians who worked mostly against women’s rights and the quota are now introducing another vision that women have to take part in the political development as well as economic and every other development that Iraq needs.

- Stephanie Savage

We also examine what has changed in the Middle East in the seven years since the Iraq invasion.

Daljit Dhaliwal interviews Gideon Rose, managing editor of Foreign Affairs magazine, and Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University.

Just a few years ago, Iraqi women running for parliamentary seats didn’t show their pictures on any campaign signs because of Iraq’s conservatism. But that’s different now.

Al Arabiya also highlights the story of so-called “forgotten Iraqis” — desert Bedouins.

Worldfocus’ Mohammad Al-Kassim translated this report.

View a montage of Iraqi election advertisements compiled by Al Jazeera English.

With national elections now only days away, today saw three separate suicide bombings, which killed at least 30 people in the the northeastern provincial capital of Baqouba today.

For more on Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Iraq and what they mean for the country’s long-term stability, Daljit Dhaliwal interviews Michael Wahid Hanna, a fellow at the Century Foundation. Hanna discusses the key players in the upcoming elections and the influence of sectarian rivalry on the process.

Anita McNaught of Worldfocus partner Al Jazeera English reports on the violence.

The branding of U.S. corporations has nothing on some political factions in the Middle East when it comes to advertising and marketing. How can you compare anything to Nasrallah’s head on a plush pillow or the Hezbollah perfume called “Perfume of the Martyrs?”

How about that little throw pillow, doorbell that chimes a Hezbollah speech or leather wallet with Bashars’ head on it?

Saida Zeinab in Damascus, Syria has the areas greatest Shi’a shrine. There is a ton of shopping in a labyrinthine souk, a big hotel, and a surrounding Iraqi area where you can get Iraqi goods fresh from Iraq, sweets, great fresh Iraqi bread made in front of you. The architecture is amazing, and it’s no surprise to find small shops of political souvenirs tucked among the ancient buildings.

In another area of Damascus named Yarmouk there are no pilgrims only refugees and generations of refugees. This is a Palestinian area and the souvenirs from this area are fully behind Hamas and Palestine. The area is considered a slum and the UNHRW provides many of the services.

This neighborhood is also home to what are known as ‘China stores’, where you can buy knockoffs of American products made in China on the cheap

- Cari Machet

Influential al-Qaeda-linked Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Worldfocus takes a look at the evolution of al-Qaeda into a fragmented network of jihadi terrorist elements, often united more by philosophy than by concrete linkages between AfPak and cells in Iraq, Yemen, North Africa and beyond.

The escalated drone war in northwest Pakistan has brought attention to the attenuated al-Qaeda core that moved from Afghanistan in late 2001.

But two events in late December — a failed Christmas Day bombing and a suicide attack on CIA operatives in Afghanistan — have led analysts to re-assess al-Qaeda’s perceived decline in popularity and power.

The somewhat resurgent organization is highly decentralized and relies more on a brand name and local franchises than on ideological, communications and operations control by the group’s top leaders.

An Asia Times commentary article from 2004 addresses the al-Qaeda brand name:

Legitimized by President George W Bush’s administration’s declaration of war, al-Qaeda has now become a global phantom, plagued by its own reputation and in need of solid ground. Indeed, the post-September 11 security environment finds al-Qaeda lacking not only a physical safe haven as it had in Afghanistan, but also the critical manpower and expertise that it had in the moments prior to September 11.

This, by any means, is not the end of al-Qaeda, however. The ultimate power in such groups is not necessarily the leadership, but always the cause that defines the legitimacy of the group and the leadership that guides it. Bin Laden’s existence, perhaps as it always has been, is largely political and symbolic - but will nevertheless remain a powerful source of his straining influence on various members of the global umma. Thus the “war on terror”, although controversial in many minds, has undermined both the conventional and unconventional abilities of al-Qaeda and its global entities…

In sum, the power of the al-Qaeda cause, once inherited and customarily altered from the Muslim Brotherhood, has remained close to the political spirit of many radical variations of Islam. The twist here is that the elimination of the “physical” al-Qaeda nexus and the resulting decentralization of its regional elements into like-minded, local leadership groups may ultimately prove more of stratagem advantage versus US policy than a vulnerability.

Then a 2005 BBC article examined the terrorist organization as a global, corporate franchise:

Most newspaper reports encourage us to visualize al-Qaeda as an army, with a high command; or perhaps as a multinational organization, with bin Laden as its chief executive officer and men like Ayman al-Zawahri as his senior management.

We are told that the Bali bombings, like those in London, Madrid and half a dozen other places since the attacks of 11 September 2001, “bear all the hallmarks of” al-Qaeda - formulaic language that has not varied since the days when the violence of the IRA and ETA was at its peak.

The implication is that its senior figures order these attacks, and that local operatives carry them out…

Just as you can buy the franchise for, say, a Holiday Inn or an Intercontinental Hotel, so you can adopt the principles of Osama bin Laden and set up your own deadly group, murdering those you identify as the enemies of the faith - and anyone else, of course, who happens to be passing at the time.

And an AP article from July 2009 compares al-Qaeda’s expansion to fast food franchising:

The al-Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, is perhaps the best example of how al-Qaeda is morphing and broadening its reach through loose relationships with local offshoots. The shadowy network of Algerian cells recruits Islamist radicals throughout northern and western Africa, trains them and sends them to fight in the region or Iraq, according to Western and North African intelligence officials who asked to remain anonymous because of the nature of their jobs. In turn, AQIM gets al-Qaeda’s brand name and some corporate know-how.

“The relationship with the al-Qaeda mother company works like in a multinational,” says Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France’s former top counterterrorism judge and an expert on North African networks. “There’s a strong ideological link, but the local subsidiary operates on its own.”

Another Western intelligence official compares AQIM to a local fast food franchise, “only for terrorism.”

The cover of The Guardian Weekly from September 11, 2009. Photo: Wikipedia

The Guardian published a piece in September 2009 — on the 8th anniversary of the September 11 attacks — about the organization’s perceived decline:

Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida is under heavy pressure in its strongholds in Pakistan’s remote tribal areas and is finding it difficult to attract recruits or carry out spectacular operations in Western countries, according to government and independent experts monitoring the organization…

Its activity is increasingly dispersed to “affiliates” or “franchises” in Yemen and North Africa, but the links of local or regional jihadi groups to the center are tenuous; they enjoy little popular support and successes have been limited.

Lethal strikes by CIA drones – including two this week alone – have combined with the monitoring and disruption of electronic communications, suspicion and low morale to take their toll on al-Qaeda’s Pakistani “core,” in the jargon of western intelligence agencies.

Interrogation documents seen by the Guardian show that European Muslim volunteers faced a chaotic reception, a low level of training, poor conditions and eventual disillusionment after arriving in Waziristan last year.

“Core” al-Qaida is now reduced to a senior leadership of six to eight men, including Bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, according to most informed estimates. Several other Egyptians, a Libyan and a Mauritanian occupy the other top positions. In all, there are perhaps 200 operatives who count.

Yet, after a failed Christmas Day bombing and a successful Khost attack on CIA operatives, The Economist ran a piece last month that refuted assumptions about al-Qaeda’s imminent demise:

ONLY a few months ago, intelligence experts were saying that al-Qaeda and its allies were in decline, both militarily and ideologically. But two bombs less than a week apart, one failed and the other successful, have put an end to such optimism.

The talk of al-Qaeda’s downfall did not come from thin air. In the view of many analysts, the network’s central leadership had been decimated through drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal belt; al-Qaeda’s Saudi branch was all but defeated; its brethren in Iraq were marginalized; and those in other regions could mount only local attacks. Al-Qaeda had failed to land a blow in the West since the London bombs of 2005. Funds were dwindling, and more Muslims were eschewing global terror.

Though still dangerous, “al-Qaeda is under more pressure, is facing more challenges and is a more vulnerable organisation than at any time since the attacks on 11 September 2001,” declared Mike Leiter, the director of America’s National Counterterrorism Center last September.

Such assessments are being hurriedly revised. Mr Leiter, Barack Obama’s favorite spook, is now among those having to explain why his newish organization, which is supposed to fuse all information on terrorist threats, failed to connect several partial warnings about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The Nigerian student, who moved from London to Yemen last year, tried to set off explosives sewn into his underpants on board a Northwest Airlines flight, carrying 290 people from Amsterdam, as it prepared to land in Detroit on Christmas Day.

For more on al-Qaeda in Yemen, listen to Worldfocus Radio: Yemen’s Multiple Wars.

- Ben Piven

In our Worldfocus original video, Charity Tooze reports on a family of Iraqi refugees struggling to survive in Syria, where they have no legal right to work.

The father, a gold medal-winning Para-Olympian, was forced to take his family out of Iraq when militia groups moved into their neighborhood in 2006.

This video is an excerpt from a multimediadocumentary project about the plight of Iraqi refugees that freelance journalist Charity Tooze is launching this summer.

Listen to Worldfocus Radio: Iraqi Refugee Crisis.

And see more multimedia work by Charity Tooze.

A U.S. soldier and 3 children in the Mashtal area of East Baghdad. Photo: USArmy on Flickr

Almost 7 years after the start of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the international community still struggles to help the 2 million refugees and almost 3 million internally displaced persons who have not been able to return home.

Under the U.S. Refugee Admission Program, 19,000 Iraqis were offered sanctuary and resettled in 2009 alone. Yet, critics allege that these refugees have not been afforded decent opportunities in their new home — and that resettling thousands may be just a drop in the bucket.

To explore the Iraqi refugee crisis in more depth, Martin Savidge hosts Aidan Goldsmith and Sawsan Al-Sayyab. The show addresses:

• Post-Invasion situation: refugee numbers, host countries, and NGOs
• Humanitarian progress: social challenges, educational uplift, and extremism
• Big picture/U.S.: future displacement, sectarian strife, and policy change

Guests:

Aidan Goldsmith is the country director for the International Rescue Committee in Baghdad, Iraq. Originally from Australia, he previously worked for the IRC in Nepal.

Sawsan Al-Sayyab is an Iraqi refugee who spent two years in Jordan before arriving in Baltimore, MD, in 2008. She is currently an advocate for the International Rescue Committee.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producer: Ben Piven
Researcher: Cari Machet

The Defense Department actually posts its drone attack footage on YouTube via DVidsHub. Some of the videos have caught the attention of millions, but critics ask whether the videos are newsworthy — or just lowbrow entertainment.

And while the drone strikes have undoubtedly taken out militants in many places that soldiers just can’t go, there is disagreement about whether UAVs are an effective anti-terror deterrent.

The military’s Predators and Reapers routinely strike Iraq, Afghanistan — and increasingly in Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere. Additionally, the C.I.A. is using drones to hit al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in northwest Pakistan.

The most watched “drone porn” segments are from Iraq. This video of Baghdad has over 1 million views:

Blogger Keith Thomson writes on Alternet about drone porn’s impact on the news media.

“In researching remotely piloted aircraft, I visited the stretch of Southern Nevada desert that has become to UAVs what Silicon Valley is to the device on which you’re reading this column. In 2007, Creech Air Force Base was made the home of the 432d Air Expeditionary Wing, the first Air Force wing dedicated to unmanned aircraft systems. Its daily missions in Afghanistan and Iraq could provide the military version of a SportsCenter highlight reel.

With an aim of promoting UAVs domestically as well as “enlightening” our enemies, the Defense Department recently began placing the Predator and Reaper mission clips on YouTube. Ranging from relatively detached wide shots of bombings taken by onboard cameras to startlingly graphic close-ups, the so-called “drone porn” has been a smash hit, as it were, tallying over 10 million views.

Perhaps best explaining its popularity are the thousands of YouTube commenters. Some marvel at the new technology and discuss the resulting paradigm shift in warfare. Some raise questions, including whether it’s principled, dignified or otherwise in America’s best interest to post drone prone in the first place. Most comments are along the lines of, “Hell yeah HOOOAH BABY!”

This video shows footage of a drone that destroyed two rocket rails in the Sadr City section of Baghdad:

Now, I don’t want to launch into a “kids these days” diatribe about how the human race is de-evolving into a pack of bloodthirsty, warmongering savages. I don’t believe video games, or violent films, make kids any less human or more prone to attack each other. However, I do blame a disconnection from the consequences of battle for this kind of war fetishism.

The drone footage looks like a video game (admittedly a shitty one), and of course the footage doesn’t show the targets’ lives (if they had a family, what their favorite book is, when they had their first kiss, etc.) The clips don’t even really show their faces. They are anonymous targets. The US military tells us these are The Bad Guys, so they are guilty, and deserve to die. Trials: unnecessary. Evidence: superfluous…

But the drone aspects of war are also clearly appealing to young people. The “point and shoot” video games are all the rage right now, which is partly why drone porn exists. Yet, the moral hazards of such extrajudicial killings are never explored in video games, or drone attacks, and all the usual human safeguards against killing during a ground invasion (namely that you have to look your target in the eye while killing them with your bare hands) are no longer an obstacle. Long ago, hand-to-hand combat gave way to guns, which gave way to better guns, which gave way to human-navigated aerial assault that has now been replaced by robotic drones.

The next video shows an aerial weapons team, also in Sadr City:

Nick Turse, associate editor of TomDispatch.com, writes about drone attacks in AfPak and modern warfare:

What were once unacknowledged, relatively infrequent targeted killings of suspected militants or terrorists in the Bush years have become commonplace under the Obama administration. And since a devastating December 30th suicide attack by a Jordanian double agent on a CIA forward operating base in Afghanistan, unmanned aerial drones have been hunting humans in the Af-Pak war zone at a record pace. In Pakistan, an “unprecedented number” of strikes — which have killed armed guerrillas and civilians alike — have led to more fear, anger, and outrage in the tribal areas, as the CIA, with help from the U.S. Air Force, wages the most public “secret” war of modern times.

In neighboring Afghanistan, unmanned aircraft, for years in short supply and tasked primarily with surveillance missions, have increasingly been used to assassinate suspected militants as part of an aerial surge that has significantly outpaced the highly publicized “surge” of ground forces now underway. And yet, unprecedented as it may be in size and scope, the present ramping up of the drone war is only the opening salvo in a planned 40-year Pentagon surge to create fleets of ultra-advanced, heavily-armed, increasingly autonomous, all-seeing, hypersonic unmanned aerial systems (UAS).

See our Worldfocus map of U.S. drone attacks in northwest Pakistan.

The topic on Al Jazeera Arabic’s controversial yet highly popular talk show “Opposite Direction” this week was the Obama presidency, one year later.

The host questioned the sincerity of President Obama’s outreach to Arabs and Muslims. Faisal al-Qasem, the Syrian host of al-Itijah al-Mo’akis, likened President Obama to a wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing.

Al-Qasem accused Obama of speaking from both sides of his mouth and alleged that the Arabs’ problem was believing Obama’s sugar-coated words:

Al Arabiya news channel reported on the upcoming African Cup football match between Egypt and Algeria. Egypt beat Cameroon 3-1 to set up a repeat of the intense World Cup playoff against Algeria.

The last time these two teams faced each other was in Khartoum, Sudan, which was followed with violence and enormous tension across the Arab world.

Today’s lead headline in Israeli center-left newspaper Haaretz was about Israeli president Shimon Peres’ speech to the German parliament. Speaking on the anniversary of the Auschwitz death camp’s liberation, Peres called for the surviving perpetrators of the Holocaust to be brought to justice.

Abdel al-Bari Atwan, the editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, published in London, wrote an op-ed yesterday on the stalled Middle East peace process — in light of U.S. envoy George Mitchell’s recent visit to the region.

Atwan, who was born in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, is an outspoken critic of many Arab governments. He attributes Mitchell’s lack of progress to:

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to retain Jewish settlements in the West Bank and keep complete control of those areas.

• The refusal of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table again without an Israeli commitment to a freeze on settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

• U.S. President Barack Obama giving in to Israeli pressure on the settlements.

Atwan argues that another intifada is likely because of the stalemate in the peace process. He also thinks Fatah and Hamas may be forced to reconcile if progress is not made.

- Mohammad Al-Kassim

An American soldier in Kandahar. Photo: Flickr user

Ambassador S. Azmat Hassan is a former Ambassador of Pakistan to Malaysia, Syria and Morocco and Deputy Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations. He is currently an adjunct professor at Seton Hall University and is a contributing Worldfocus blogger.

Mankind has engaged in violent extremism since Biblical times. Cain became the world’s first terrorist by slaying his brother Abel. Voltaire pessimistically characterized human history as nothing more than a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.

In a sense, America lost its innocence on 9/11. The international community sympathized with Washington but it also said, “Welcome to the real world!”

The Bush administration with its Manichean world view exploited a fearful populace to execute its agenda of “full spectrum dominance” and preemptive war. It invaded two countries — Afghanistan and Iraq — and openly threatened military action against a third: Iran. In the desire to exact retribution, the motivations driving such terrorist attacks were largely ignored. The lives lost and financial resources squandered have been enormous.

More than 8 years have elapsed since the 9/11 atrocity, but it is a moot point if the U.S. is any safer today. That no further attacks on the U,.S. mainland have taken place, suggests that the revamped security structure despite its flaws, is keeping American citizens safe.

What should be clearly understood is that there is no foolproof security system that can prevent committed terrorists from carrying out violent acts against the citizens of another country.

For years, Armenian terrorists were killing Turkish citizens as revenge for the alleged genocide perpetrated by Ottoman Turks on its Armenian subjects during World War I. Israelis and Palestinians have been killing each other since the founding of Israel in 1948. Kashmiris and Indians are doing the same in Indian-administered Kashmir. The list goes on.

The Nigerian underwear bomber’s recent failed attempt to blow up an American airliner, which the media played up, has once again brought a wave of fear to our shores. I wish some senior official of the Obama administration had calmed the public by recalling Roosevelt’s sage advice to his countrymen: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Terrorism is propaganda by deed, since terrorism is theater. Al-Qaeda succeeds every time it plants fear and uncertainty in our hearts and minds. We should get over being overly obsessed about our security. Our despondency comes close to pusillanimity, which runs against the America tradition of courage and fortitude.

Capturing or killing bin Laden and his deputy al-Zawahiri should remain a U.S. objective, but without the media hype. Because by doing this, we are in a sense helping to resurrect them for their dwindling band of followers. The less heed we pay them publicly, the more quickly they will fade away into obscurity.

In concentrating on bin Laden and al-Zawahiri, we may be focusing on the symptoms rather than the disease. Let us be clear: if one or both of them are eliminated tomorrow, al-Qaeda, which has become a transnational enterprise, will not fold. It is not even known how much influence these two fugitives continue to exercise on al-Qaeda’s global reach.

Violent extremism is like a chronic disease. It cannot be eradicated but its effects can be considerably mitigated by a combination of soft power and hard power, with soft power being the predominant element in the mix. The U.S. and the West should focus on winning hearts and minds of the people in whose midst violent extremists operate.

Once we empower these people by making them stakeholders in peaceful economic development, violent extremists will be marginalized. Right now the U.S. seems to be relying much more on hard power in Afghanistan and Iraq. Such an approach — far from being crowned with success — is likely to put the U.S. on the slippery path to ultimate failure.

- S. Azmat Hassan

On January 4th, the Transportation Security Administration imposed tougher screening rules for passengers originating in 14 mostly Muslim nations:

View TSA Enhanced Security Screening in a larger map

Additional safety precautions following the Christmas Day incident initially included checks at flights gates, restrictions on leaving airplane seats and using electronics/blankets in the hour prior to landing.

But the new strategy is based mostly on enhanced screening techniques. It requires that passengers with suspicious behavior — as well as passengers who are traveling from or citizens of one of the 14 nations — undergo full-body and explosive-detection scanning, pat-downs, and extensive searches of carry-on baggage. Only four of the 14 countries are currently deemed state sponsors of terrorism by the U.S. government: Cuba, Iran, Sudan, and Syria.

This citizenship-based profiling has been met with controversy. Opponents argue that it unfairly targets some passengers and violates travelers’ privacy. The ACLU disapproves of whole-body imaging technology.

Michael German, National Security Policy Counsel with the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office and a former FBI agent said:

We should be focusing on evidence-based, targeted and narrowly tailored investigations based on individualized suspicion, which would be both more consistent with our values and more effective than diverting resources to a system of mass suspicion,

Over-broad policies such as racial profiling and invasive body scanning for all travelers not only violate our rights and values, they also waste valuable resources and divert attention from real threats.

Singling out travelers from a few specified countries for enhanced screening is essentially a pretext for racial profiling, which is ineffective, unconstitutional and violates American values. Empirical studies of terrorists show there is no terrorist profile, and using a profile that doesn’t reflect this reality will only divert resources by having government agents target innocent people.

Profiling can also be counterproductive by undermining community support for government counterterrorism efforts and creating an injustice that terrorists can exploit to justify further acts of terrorism.

Many bloggers see the new efforts as superficial. Bruce Maiman writes:

How many of these procedures at the airport and on the airplane really work? They seem more like theatre designed to make you feel safer when in fact that do little to make you safer.

Tunku Varadarajan, Research Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and professor at NYU’s stern Business School writes about the aftermath of the failed attempt by the “jock-strap jihadist“:

The Transportation Security Administration went predictably into Pavlovian overdrive, announcing a series of new security measures that would take immediate effect. This is the other, less reassuring, side of the episodic nature of the terrorist threats against us. We seem always to react, never to anticipate—and in this form of hasty reaction, with its flavor of humiliation, and of having been outwitted by a wearer of dangerous underwear (or shoes), there lurk always the seeds of over-reaction…

The broader point is that we need, constantly, to recalibrate our bandwidth of stoicism. We are at war with al-Qaeda; that organization is doing its best to kill us. Our need is, of course, to make it as near to impossible for it to do that. But our reaction to each new threat must not be to grant al-Qaeda small, but important, victories, in the form of an imposition by the TSA of inconveniences on travelers that have not been thought through, inconveniences that are, themselves, a form of theater—the extempore theater of homeland security.

- Michael Ramirez

Manuel Noriega’s mug shot.

Twenty years ago this week, at the culmination of the U.S. invasion of Panama, General Manuel Antonio Noriega was seized and taken in shackles to Miami. Eventually, the Panamanian strongman was convicted on federal drug conspiracy charges for supporting the Medellin cocaine cartel’s shipments to the U.S.

Noriega, 75, has served his sentence and is still jailed in Miami, awaiting a U.S. Supreme Court decision on a possible extradition to France.

From today’s vantage point, after a failed war on drugs and the unjustified invasion of Iraq, Noriega, no saint, seems a minor character in a larger game. Panama, along with the Grenada invasion before it,
was a practice run for manipulating the news, selling military action to the public and promoting future military adventures.

Then-President George H.W. Bush justified the U.S. invasion of Panama in various questionable ways, including the charge that Noriega had subverted democracy by faking the 1989 elections — which was true. [Noriega learned all about political forgery from his former American intelligence community teachers, who had pushed through fraudulent elections in Panama five years earlier.]

Bush also claimed that Panama under Noriega represented a threat to American security, that Noriega had declared war on the United States and that Noriega had threatened to block the Panama Canal. These were charges with scant evidence, at best. They emanated from the mouths of U.S. officials — a number of whom would go on to have a role in the U.S. invasion of Iraq, including Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Elliot Abrams and Richard Perle.

The real reason for the decision to invade Panama lies closer to events surrounding the U.S. war in Central America. Noriega, once a U.S. Intelligence asset, had refused to play ball with the Reagan and Bush administrations by offering little assistance in the counterinsurgency against Nicaragua’s Sandinistas. He also neglected to support El Salvador’s right-wing military.

The drug conviction against Noriega was accomplished with the use of two dozen convicted drug dealers, who were freed from jail under plea bargains in return for testifying against Noriega, with whom they had never had any contact.

Placard next to the gate at Manuel Noriega’s house in Panama City. Photo: Flickr user ChuckHolton

Seen now in the light of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Panama invasion and Noriega prosecution make more sense. Noriega and Saddam Hussein were U.S. assets and clients, who fell from grace when their usefulness expired. Once the unsavory leaders had been suitably demonized, policymakers went about molding reality to the charges unleashed against them.

In the case of Panama, Noriega supposedly was shipping cocaine to our shores. That rarely, if ever, happened — though all the while, cocaine was entering the United States through Central America and Mexico.

Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein became the falsified apostle of mass destruction, allegedly seeking uranium supplies he already had and couldn’t use. [See my introduction and afterward to Noriega's political memoir. America's Prisoner, and my book, The Italian Letter, written with Knut Royce, about the Iraq War, focusing on yellow cake and weapons of mass destruction.]

As for Noriega’s fate, it seems unlikely that the U.S. Supreme Court will set him free to return to Panama, as he and the Panamanian government want. The French extradition request for Noriega was little more than an effort by President Nicolas Sarkozy to mend fences at the time with President George W. Bush after France declined support for the Iraq invasion.

The Panama invasion was front-page news for a short while 20 years ago, but it was relegated to the back pages by the first Gulf War less than a year later, and by the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

There were great differences between the use of force in Panama and the forays into the Middle East. No oil was at stake in Panama, no insurgency developed in the aftermath of that invasion and the loss of life was
relatively low –- 25 American soldiers and an unknown number of Panamanians (estimates range from the hundreds to several thousand.)

But I always recall a comment by a Human Rights Watch official which can be applied to Iraq just as well. “It’s not a question of how many people died, but of why anyone died at all.”

- Peter Eisner

From entrepreneurship in Ethiopia and Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war to reverse brain drain in China and Baha’is in modern Iran, listen to the most popular shows from 2009:

	ETHIOPIA Entrepreneurship in Ethiopia	The Ethiopian government is trying to strengthen local businesses and attract foreign direct investment. Martin Savidge hosts Ermyas Amelga and Phillip LeBel to discuss how easy it is to do business in Ethiopia and who’s investing.
	CHINA Uighur Unrest in China	Ethnic clashes between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese turned deadly when riots erupted in early July. Martin Savidge hosts Enze Han, Andrew James Nathan and Alim Seytoff to discuss Uighur political aspirations and Han Chinese migration.
	IRAN Baha’i Faith and Modern Iran	Iranian leaders view the banned Baha’i faith as heresy, and its followers have been arrested, imprisoned or executed. Martin Savidge hosts Dwight Bashir, Kit Bigelow and Trita Parsi to discuss the religion’s history of persecution in Iran.
	RUSSIA Russia’s Population in Peril	Facing dual threats of low birth rate and soaring mortality rate, the ethnic Russian population is aging and dying. Martin Savidge hosts Paul Goble, Vladimir Lenskiy and Louisa Vinton to discuss pro-natalist campaigns and national debates on abortion.
	PHILIPPINES The Forgotten Terrorist Front	Since 9/11, the U.S. has stationed 500 to 600 troops in the Philippines to root out terrorists from the lawless jungles of the heavily Muslim south. Martin Savidge hosts Eliseo Mercado and Zachary Abuza to discuss Filipino counter-insurgency.
	CANADA Canada in Afghanistan	Canadian troops have served alongside Americans in Afghanistan, with 2,700 currently posted — primarily in Kandahar. Martin Savidge hosts Amb. Ron Hoffman, Nipa Banerjee and Terry Glavin to discuss Canada’s role and Afghan public opinion.
	CHINA & INDIA Reverse Brain Drain	Does the U.S. risk falling behind as skilled immigrants return to their home countries? Martin Savidge hosts Vivek Wadhwa and Michele Wucker to discuss emerging opportunities for highly-skilled immigrants and U.S. immigration restrictions.
	SRI LANKA Sri Lanka’s Bloody Civil War	As the Sri Lankan military waged its final bloody battle against the rebel Tamil Tigers, civilians were caught in the crossfire. Martin Savidge hosts Rohan Gunaratna, Amb. Jeffrey Lunstead and Ahilan Kadirgamar to discuss war and peace in Sri Lanka.
	IRAQ The Business of Iraq	Small enterprises — “mom and pop” shops — represent about 90 percent of the Iraq’s businesses. Martin Savidge hosts Ali Alnaemi, Eric Davis and Robert Looney to discuss Iraq’s high unemployment and ability to rebuild itself.
	ISRAEL Jerusalem United or Divided?	East and West Jerusalem are divided along ethnic and religious lines — in addition to the separation fence that Israel built to secure the city. Martin Savidge hosts Mustafa Barghouti and Gershon Baskin to analyze the shared city.

They discuss the the continuing security problems in Iraq, where more than 100 people were killed this week.

Then, they turn to President Barack Obama’s acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize and the prospects of a climate agreement in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Those concerns are also tied to the coming elections in Iraq, which Iraqi authorities announced today would be postponed until the beginning of March. More attacks between now and then could destabilize the pro-western government. Michael Wahid Hanna, a fellow at the Century Foundation joins Daljit Dhaliwal to discuss the possible ramifications of the violence.

Al Jazeera English’s Tareq Bazley reports from Baghdad.

Al Jazeera English’s Hamish MacDonald reports on how Iraq is positioning itself as a tourist destination again.

Martin Savidge hosts David Rayside and Rachel Tiven on LGBT politics and gay asylum. We begin the conversation with Jamaica, which makes up 17 of the 55 U.S. asylum cases won by Immigration Equality last year alone. We examine the metastasizing colonial and slave culture, entrenched poverty and rampant violence in Jamaica.

In 1994, former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno expanded asylum law to include persecution based on sexual orientation. Sexual orientation has been increasingly used as grounds for asylum. We also discuss how to begin the process of applying for gay asylum in the U.S.

From human rights abuses to political progress, the gay rights movement is at different stages throughout the world. We take a comparative look at the progress of LGBT politics and the gay rights movement in different countries, including the best and worst places to be gay.

A Greek gay rights parade. Photo: Megan Thompson

• Read about one gay Jamaican’s story of asylum: Gay men in Jamaica must lead two separate lives
• Watch signature videos from Jamaica: Violence and venom force gay Jamaicans to hide and Gays in Jamaica worship in underground church
• Watch our signature video from Greece: Ancient Greek values clash with modern treatment of gays

GUESTS:

David Rayside is a political science professor at the University of Toronto. His latest book “Queer Inclusions, Continental Divisions” is a comparative analysis of Canadian and  American political recognition of same-sex relationships, the extension of parenting rights to same-sex couples and the response to sexual diversity in public schooling. For over thirty years, he has also been an activist on issues related to sexual diversity and gender within academic institutions and beyond.

Rachel B. Tiven is the executive director of Immigration Equality, a national organization fighting for equal immigration rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV-positive community. Under her leadership, Immigration Equality has doubled in size, quadrupled client services and opened a policy office in Washington, D.C.

Credits:
Host: Martin Savidge
Producers: Lisa Biagiotti and Ben Piven
Researcher: Geneva Sands-Sadowitz

For more information on homophobia and HIV in Jamaica, visit The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

JAPAN: A Japanese navy ship intercepted a medium-ranged ballistic missile in a test off the coast of Hawaii. Japan has been investing in U.S.-developed ballistic missile defense systems since North Korea test fired a long ranged ballistic missile over northern Japan in 1998.

MALAYSIA: Malaysia’s Islamic party has called Muslim men in the country to marry single mothers as their additional wives instead of “young, virgin girls.” Men in Malaysia are allowed to marry up to four women under the approval of the Islamic courts. Government officials said this will “ease the burden” on the single mothers as they need support to take care of their kids.

INDONESIA: Authorities in Indonesia said they might expel the 78 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers if they fail to cooperate with them over identity checks. The ethnic Tamil refugees were intercepted in international waters near Indonesia 11 days ago while trying to reach Australia.

ZIMBABWE: Al Jazeera English is reporting that  UN special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak was denied entry to Zimbabwe.

SUDAN: African Union leaders are discussing various proposals to resolve the ongoing crisis in Darfur, reports Al-Arabiya.

IRAN: Iran’s Islamic Students News Agency is reporting that Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh has delivered his country’s response to the IAEA. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said  the West is moving from confrontation to cooperation on the issue, and the United Nations watchdog agency says it is hopeful an agreement can be reached.

According to the Middle East online news site, more than 60 Iraqi security force members have been arrested following the two bombings in Baghdad that killed more than 150 people. The New York Times is reporting on corruption on Iraq.

PAKISTAN: Pakistan Dawn TV reported on US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s town hall meeting where she told a Pakistani audience that Pakistan was not alone in its fight against militants and reiterated strong U.S. support for its ally.

ISRAEL: In Israel today, Haaretz is covering that country’s observation of the 14th year anniversary — according to the Jewish calendar — of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

PALESTINE: Palestinian Ma’an news agency said that Hamas’s Prime Minister in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh has told an American delegates on a medical mission in Gaza that he welcomes the U.S. change of language on the Middle East conflict.