Mary Robinson, panel chair Arthur Chaskalson and Hina Jilani at the launch of the report (Keystone)

A panel of eminent judges and lawyers has called on the international community to repeal abusive laws and policies enacted in the global counter-terrorism campaign.

In a report based on three years of investigation, the eight-member panel, established by the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists, has documented the human rights violations committed around the world in the name of combating terrorism.

These include torture, enforced disappearances, secret and arbitrary detentions and unfair trials. The report drew on public and private hearings covering 40 countries.

"The world has not become more secure but more divided," former United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson told swissinfo at the launch of the report in Geneva.

Robinson deplored collusion between liberal democracies and countries with very bad human rights records.

"There is such cynicism at the moment that countries preach democracy and human rights but actually undermine them. That is a very dangerous situation for our world," she said.

The former Irish president referred to the lessons of history. "To justify these measures, governments are using the same language as was used in the past in the bad times in South American dictatorships," she added.

Robinson also recalled the example of Northern Ireland and the introduction of internment without trial in the 1970s, which was used to clamp down on attacks by the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

"The police themselves said that [internment] was an unmitigated disaster," she said.

More transparency

Robinson called for more transparency and accountability above all. "There is the rhetoric of human rights in countering terrorism. There is no rigorous scrutiny and I feel very strongly as former high commissioner for human rights that that has to change."

The report points out that many states have fallen into a trap set by the terrorists, allowing themselves to be rushed into hasty responses and introducing measures which undermine cherished values.

"The panel calls on policymakers to rely on civilian legal systems, utilise criminal courts and not resort to ad-hoc tribunals or military courts to try terror suspects," it said.

"It is time for the international community to regroup, take remedial action and reassert the core principles of international law."

Testimonies

The panellists listened to testimonies from government officials, victims of terrorism, rendition survivors and civil society groups. It concluded that the legal systems in place after the Second World War were well equipped to handle current terror threats.

"We've seen intelligence services around the world acting with insufficient accountability and intelligence cooperation being undertaken outside the rule of law," said panel member Hina Jilani, lawyer of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and former UN Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders.

"This intelligence is then used in various legal proceedings and cannot be contested. Secrecy is becoming a pervasive feature in our legal systems," she added.

The scale of the problem is remarkable, according to Swiss panel member Stefan Trechsel, former appeals judge at the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

"Almost every country is involved, as well as international organisations," he said.

"Wake-up call"

However, Trechsel acknowledged that for Switzerland, where legislation and practice in dealing with counter-terrorism were acceptable enough, the report was more of a reminder to stay on guard. An allusion perhaps to the secret CIA transporthowevers of terrorist suspects through Swiss air space.

It remains to be seen if this report will finish – like so many others – on the scrapheap of fine principles that were never respected.

To avoid this fate, the panellists hope to convince the UN Security Council and the Human Rights Council to lead the drive to re-establish the rule of law in the fight against terrorism.

The report repeatedly remarks upon the extent to which undemocratic regimes with deplorable human rights records have referred to counter-terror practices of countries like the US to justify their own abusive policies.

Signs from Washington are promising, according to the former Irish president. "The new administration in the United States recognises the seriousness of the damage done and President Obama has taken some steps to address this already. I hope this is a wake up call for all governments."

What Does Holocaust Denial Really Mean?

by Daniel McGowan In April 2007 the European Union agreed to set jail sentences up to three years for those who deny or trivialize the Holocaust.1 More recently, in response to the remarks of Bishop Richard Williamson, the Pope has proclaimed that Holocaust denial is “intolerable and altogether unacceptable.” But what does Holocaust denial really mean? Begin with the word Holocaust. The Holocaust2 (spelled with a capital H) refers to the killing of six million Jews by the Nazis during World War II. It is supposed to be the German’s “Final Solution” to the Jewish problem. Much of the systematic extermination was to have taken place in concentration camps by shooting, gassing, and burning alive innocent Jewish victims of the Third Reich. People like Germar Rudolf, Ernst Zundel, and Bishop Williamson who do not believe this account and who dare to say so in public are reviled as bigots, anti-Semites, racists, and worse. Their alternate historical scenarios are not termed simply revisionist, but are demeaned as Holocaust denial. Rudolf and Zundel were shipped to Germany where they were tried, convicted, and sentenced to three and five years, respectively. Williamson may not be far behind. Politicians deride Holocaust revisionist papers and conferences as “beyond the pale of international discourse and acceptable behavior.”3 Non-Zionist Jews who participate in such revisionism, like Rabbi Dovid Weiss of the Neturei Karta, are denounced as “self-haters” and are shunned and spat upon. Even Professor Norman Finkelstein, whose parents were both Holocaust survivors and who wrote the book, The Holocaust Industry, has been branded a Holocaust denier. But putting aside the virile hate directed against those who question the veracity of the typical Holocaust narrative, what is it that these people believe and say at the risk of imprisonment and bodily harm? For most Holocaust revisionists or deniers if you prefer, their arguments boil down to three simple contentions: 1. Hitler’s “Final Solution” was intended to be ethnic cleansing, not extermination. 2. There were no homicidal gas chambers used by the Third Reich. 3. There were fewer than 6 million Jews killed of the 55 million who died in WWII. Are these revisionist contentions so odious as to cause those who believe them to be reviled, beaten, and imprisoned? More importantly, is it possible that revisionist contentions are true, or even partially true, and that they are despised because they contradict the story of the Holocaust, a story which has been elevated to the level of a religion in hundreds of films, memorials, museums, and docu-dramas? Is it sacrilegious to ask, “If Hitler was intent on extermination, how did Elie Wiesel, his father, and two of his sisters survive the worst period of incarceration at Auschwitz?” Wiesel claims that people were thrown alive into burning pits, yet even the Israeli-trained guides at Auschwitz refute this claim. Is it really “beyond international discourse” to question the efficacy and the forensic evidence of homicidal gas chambers? If other myths, like making soap from human fat, have been dismissed as Allied war propaganda, why is it “unacceptable behavior” to ask if the gas chamber at Dachau was not reconstructed by the Americans because no other homicidal gas chamber could be found and used as evidence at the Nuremburg trials? For more than fifty years Jewish scholars have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to document each Jewish victim of the Nazi Holocaust. The Nazis were German, obsessed with paperwork and recordkeeping. Yet only 3 million names have been collected and many of them died of natural causes. So why is it heresy to doubt that fewer than 6 million Jews were murdered in the Second World War? “Holocaust Denial” might be no more eccentric or no more criminal than claiming the earth is flat, except that the Holocaust itself has been used as the sword and shield in the quest to build a Jewish state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, where even today over half the population is not Jewish. The Holocaust narrative allows Yad Vashem, the finest Holocaust museum in the world, to repeat the mantra of “Never Forget” while it sits on Arab lands stolen from Ein Karem and overlooking the unmarked graves of Palestinians massacred by Jewish terrorists at Deir Yassin. It allows Elie Wiesel to boast of having worked for these same terrorists (as a journalist, not a fighter) while refusing to acknowledge, let alone apologize for, the war crimes his employer committed. It makes Jews the ultimate victim no matter how they dispossess or dehumanize or ethnically cleanse indigenous Palestinian people. The Holocaust story eliminates any comparison of Ketziot or Gaza to the concentration camps they indeed are. It memorializes the resistance of Jews in the ghettos of Europe while steadfastly denying any comparison with the resistance of Palestinians in Hebron and throughout the West Bank. It allows claims that this year’s Hanukah Massacre in Gaza, with a kill ratio of 100 to one, was a “proportionate response” to Palestinian resistance to unending occupation. The Holocaust is used to silence critics of Israel in what the Jewish scholar, Marc Ellis, has called the ecumenical deal: you Christians look the other way while we bludgeon the Palestinians and build our Jewish state and we won’t remind you that Hitler was a good Catholic, a confirmed “soldier of Christ,” long before he was a bad Nazi. The Holocaust narrative of systematic, industrialized extermination was an important neo-conservative tool to drive the United States into Iraq. The same neo-con ideologues, like Norman Podoretz, routinely compare Ahmadinejad to Hitler and Nazism with Islamofascism with the intent of driving us into Iran. The title of the recent Israeli conference at Yad Vashem made this crystal clear: “Holocaust Denial: Paving the Way to Genocide.” “Remember the Holocaust” will be the battle cry of the next great clash of good (Judeo/Christian values) and evil (radical Islamic aggression) and those who question it must be demonized if not burned at the stake. Associated Press, “EU approves criminal measures against Holocaust denial,” Haaretz, 19 April 2007. [↩] Holocaust. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. [↩] Statements of Senator Hillary Clinton. [↩]

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2009/02/what-does-holocaust-denial-really-mean/

Secrecy and denial as Pakistan lets CIA use airbase to strike militants

Tom Coghlan in Kabul, Zahid Hussain in Islamabad and Jeremy Page in Delhi


The CIA is secretly using an airbase in southern Pakistan to launch the Predator drones that observe and attack al-Qaeda and Taleban militants on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan, a Times investigation has found.
The Pakistani and US governments have repeatedly denied that Washington is running military operations, covert or otherwise, on Pakistani territory — a hugely sensitive issue in the predominantly Muslim country.
The Pakistani Government has also repeatedly demanded that the US halt drone attacks on northern tribal areas that it says have caused hundreds of civilian casualties and fuelled anti-American sentiment.
But The Times has discovered that the CIA has been using the Shamsi airfield — originally built by Arab sheikhs for falconry expeditions in the southwestern province of Baluchistan — for at least a year. The strip, which is about 30 miles from the Afghan border, allows US forces to launch a Drone within minutes of receiving actionable intelligence as well as allowing them to attack targets further afield.

It was known that US special forces used Shamsi during the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, but the Pakistani Government declared publicly in 2006 that the Americans had left it and two other airbases.
Key to the Times investigation is the unexplained delivery of 730,000 gallons of F34 aviation fuel to Shamsi. Details were found on the website of the Pentagon’s fuel procurement agency.
The Defence Energy Support Centre site shows that a civilian company, Nordic Camp Supply (NCS), was contracted to deliver the fuel, worth $3.2 million, from Pakistan Refineries near Karachi.
It also shows the fuel was delivered last year, when the United States escalated drone attacks on Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, allegedly killing several top Taleban and al-Qaeda targets, but also many civilians.
A source at NCS, which is based in Denmark, confirmed that the company had been awarded the contract and had supplied the fuel to Shamsi, but declined to give further details.
A spokesman for the US embassy in Pakistan told The Times: “Shamsi is not the final destination.” However, he declined to elaborate and denied that the US was using it as a base.
“No. No. No. No. No. We unequivocally and emphatically can tell you that there is no basing of US troops in Pakistan,” he said. “There is no basing of US Air Force, Navy, Marines, Army, none, on the record and emphatically. I want that to be very clear. And that is the answer any way you want to put it. There is no base here, no troops billeted. We do not operate here.”
He said that he could not comment on CIA operations The CIA declined to comment, as did the Pentagon. But one senior Western source familiar with US operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan told The Times that the CIA “runs Predator flights routinely” from Shamsi.
“We can see the planes flying from the base,” said Safar Khan, a local journalist. “The area around the base is a high-security zone and no one is allowed there.”
He said that the outer perimeter of Shamsi was guarded by Pakistani military, but the airfield itself was under the control of American forces.
Shamsi lies in a sparsely populated area about 190 miles southwest of the city of Quetta, which US intelligence officials believe is used as a staging post by senior Taleban leaders, including Mullah Omar. It is also 100 miles south of the border with Afghanistan’s southern province of Helmand and about 100 miles east of the border with Iran.

That would put the Predators, which have a range of more than 2,000 miles and can fly for 29 hours, within reach of militants in Baluchistan, southern Afghanistan and in Pakistan’s northern tribal areas.
Paul Smyth, head of operational studies at the Royal United Services Institute, said that 730,000 gallons of F34, also known as JP8, was not enough to supply regular Hercules tanker flights but was sufficient to sustain drones or helicopters.
Other experts said that Shamsi’s airstrip was too short for most aircraft, but was big enough for Predators and ideally located as there were few civilians in the surrounding area to witness the drones coming and going.
Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for the President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, said that he did not know anything about the airfield. HOwever, Major General Athar Abbas, the chief military spokesman, confirmed that US forces were using Shamsi. “The airfield is being used only for logistics,” he said, without elaborating.
He added that the Americans were also using another airbase near Jacobabad, 300 miles northeast of Karachi, for logistics and military operations.
Pakistan gave America permission to use Shamsi, Jacobabad and two other bases — Pasni and Dalbadin — for the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001. US Marine Special Forces were based at Shamsi and, in January 2002, a US Marine KC130 tanker aircraft crashed close to its runway, killing seven Marines on board.
Jacobabad became the main US airbase until Bagram, near Kabul, was repaired, while Pasni, on the coast, was used for helicopters and Dalbadin as a refueling post for special forces’ helicopters. However, in December 2001, Pakistan began sharing Jacobabad and Pasni with US forces as India and Pakistan began massing troops on their border. In July 2006 the Pakistani Government declared that America was no longer using Shamsi, Pasni and Jacobabad, although they were at its disposal in an emergency.
The subject has become particularly sensitive in the past few weeks as President Obama has made it clear that he will continue the strikes while reviewing overall US strategy in the region.
The latest strike on Monday — the fourth since Mr Obama took office — killed 31 people in the tribal agency of Kurram, and another on Saturday killed 25 people in South Waziristan, according to Pakistani officials.
Shah Mehmood Qureshi, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, responded on Sunday by categorically denying that Pakistani bases were used for US drone attacks.
Aerial assault
— Armed predator unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been in use since 1999
— The aircraft is controlled from the ground using satellite systems and onboard cameras
— The MQ9 craft, which is used in Afghanistan, is 11m long, has a 20m wing span and a cruise speed of up to 230mph. Each can carry four Hellfire missiles and two bombs
— Three systems were bought by the RAF last year for £500m

Sources: Jane’s Information, US Airforce, RAF, Times archives

Obama and the Great Game

by Patrick J. Buchanan
The day before Richard Holbrooke arrived in Kabul, eight suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the Justice and Education ministries, killing 26 and wounding 57.

Kabul was paralyzed, as the Taliban displayed an ability to wreak havoc within a hundred yards of the presidential palace.

The assault came as President Obama is both conducting a strategic review and deciding how many additional U.S. troops to send.

Earlier, there was talk of 30,000, bringing the U.S. total to 63,000. Now, there are reports Obama may commit no more than the three brigades promised in 2008, and only one brigade now.

Clearly, the United States is checking its hole card. Can we draw to a winning hand? Or is this hand an inevitable loser – and we must cut our losses and cede the pot? No longer, anywhere, is there talk of "victory."

Nor is the diplomatic news good.

Last week, Kyrgyzstan gave us six months to vacate Manas, the air base used to resupply U.S. forces. A week before, guerrillas blew up a bridge in the Khyber, cutting the 1,000-mile supply line from Karachi to Kabul. Before that, guerrillas bombed U.S. truck parks in Pakistan.

While in Pakistan, Holbrooke was told by all to whom he spoke that, while U.S. Predator strikes may be killing Taliban and al-Qaeda, the deaths among tribal peoples are turning Pakistan against us.

What would winning Afghanistan for democracy profit us, if the price were losing a nuclear-armed Pakistan to Islamism?

The expulsion from Manas, after Kyrgyzstan received a reported $2 billion in aid from Moscow, raises a question.

Is Russia restarting "The Great Game" she played against Victoria's Empire in Central Asia, which ended in 1907 with a British-Russian entente, dividing Iran into spheres of influence, with both sides agreeing to keep hands off Afghanistan?

As Russia has as great an interest in preventing an Islamist Kabul, and has assisted NATO's resupply of its forces, why would Moscow seek to expel us from a base vital to the war effort?

Does Russia simply seek to be recognized by the United States as the hegemon of Central Asia, the sole great power that decides who can and who cannot use former Soviet bases?

For if Manas is closed and the Karachi-Khyber-Kabul supply line is compromised or cut, Obama would seem to have but three options.

First would be to go back, hat-in-hand, to Islam Karimov, the Uzbek ruler charged with grave human rights violations, and ask him to reopen the Karshi-Khanabad (K2) air base, from which we were expelled in 2005. And what would be Karimov's asking price?

Second is the Russia option. If Moscow now holds the whip hand in the old Soviet republics, what is Moscow's price to let us remain in Manas or use other Soviet bases over which it wields veto power?

The answer is obvious. Neither Georgia nor Ukraine is to be brought into NATO. The independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, won in the August war with Georgia, is not to be challenged. The U.S. anti-missile missiles planned for Polandare not to be deployed.

In turn, Russia will cancel any missile deployment in Kaliningrad, recommits to the terms of all conventional forces agreements in Europe and assist in the effort in Afghanistan. Russia rejoins the West, and the West stays off Russia's front porch.

Be not surprised if the Russians come trolling before an overextended American empire an end to the Great Game in Central Asia like the one the ministers of Nicholas II offered the ministers of Edward VII.

And the third option? It is Iran.

Before 9/11, Iran was more hostile to the anti-Shia Taliban than we, and it has no desire to see them return. Indeed, Tehran was a supporter of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as both were ruled by mortal enemies.

The long way for U.S. and NATO war materiel to reach Kabul via Iran would be through a Turkey-Kurdistan-Iran supply line. The shorter would be from Iranian ports straight into Afghanistan.

Price of an entente? An end to the 30-year U.S.-Iranian cold war and a strategic bargain whereby Iran is allowed to develop peaceful nuclear power, under supervision, the United States lifts its embargo, and regime change is left to the Iranian people.

President Ahmadinejad, no fool, and facing an uncertain election this year, is already signaling interest in negotiations with Obama.

A complication. How would "Bibi" Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman regard a U.S.-Iran rapprochement – to prevent a Taliban triumph in Kabul?

Yet, if the Taliban's enemies in Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Central Asia will not assist us, this war cannot end well. And if they will not help, Obama should cut America's losses, come home and let their neighbors deal with a triumphant Taliban.

COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Global Economy Top Threat to U.S., Spy Chief Says

By MARK MAZZ

WASHINGTON — The new director of national intelligence told Congress on Thursday that global economic turmoil and the instability it could ignite had outpaced terrorism as the most urgent th

Doug Mills/The New York Times
Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, outlined a variety of security threats during his testimony on Thursday.
The assessment underscored concern inside America’s intelligence agencies not only about the fallout from the economic crisis around the globe, but also about long-term harm to America’s reputation. The crisis that began in American markets has already “increased questioning of U.S. stewardship of the global economy,” the intelligence chief, Dennis C. Blair, said in prepared testimony.
Mr. Blair’s comments were particularly striking because they were delivered as part of a threat assessment to Congress that has customarily focused on issues like terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Mr. Blair singled out the economic downturn as “the primary near-term security concern” for the country, and he warned that if it continued to spread and deepen, it would contribute to unrest and imperil some governments.
“The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic interests,” he said.
Mr. Blair also used his testimony to deliver a withering critique of the Afghan government’s inability to halt the spread of the Taliban, and he said corruption in Kabul and throughout the country had bolstered support for the Taliban and warlords.
The stark assessment of the security picture in Afghanistan laid bare the obstacles facing the Obama administration as it aims to direct more American troops and attention toward quelling the violence in the country.
Mr. Blair delivered his assessment to the Senate Intelligence Committee, in what was the new administration’s first public recitation of the national security challenges facing the United States.
In a departure from recent years, when the heads of several intelligence agencies joined the director of national intelligence to deliver the testimony on the threats facing the nation, Mr. Blair faced the committee alone, a sign that the Obama administration plans for him to take on a more public role at the top of the intelligence pyramid.
Mr. Blair reiterated the oft-stated idea that no significant improvement in Afghanistan was possible unless Pakistan gained control of its own border areas, but he said that Pakistan’s government was losing authority over that territory and that even more developed parts of Pakistan were coming under the sway of Islamic radicalism.
He linked Pakistan’s problems, in part, to the fact that it was among the countries most badly hurt by the economic crisis. Already, he said, roughly a quarter of the world’s nations have experienced “low-level instability such as government changes” as a result of the current slowdown in the global economy.
American officials say Pakistan’s tribal areas remain hdronesome to the core leadership of Al Qaeda, though Mr. Blair said that its leadership had been battered in recent months by what he called “a succession of blows as damaging to the group as any since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.” The attacks have been carried out by C.I.A. remotely piloted aircraft, which Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who is the Intelligence Committee’s chairwoman, said were operating out of a base in Pakistan.
Still, American intelligence officials have long said that dismantling Al Qaeda’s haven in Pakistan would take more than a campaign of airstrikes against the group’s leadership.
But Mr. Blair also spread around the blame for Afghanistan’s problems. A day after a brazen attack by Taliban gunmen in Kabul, the Afghan capital, Mr. Blair named the American-backed government of President Hamid Karzai as part of the problem in Afghanistan.
“Kabul’s inability to build effective, honest, and loyal provincial- and district-level institutions capable of providing basic services and sustainable, licit livelihoods erodes its popular legitimacy and increases the influence of local warlords and the Taliban,” Mr. Blair said.
Speaking about North Korea, he cited renewed concern among American intelligence officials that the country could be using a covert uranium enrichment program to produce fissile material that could be used to build nuclear weapons. American intelligence officials have previously estimated that the North has harvested enough plutonium for six or more bombs, although it has never been clear whether the North built the weapons.
Officials in Washington believe that North Korea is preparing for another long-range missile test, in an attempt to demonstrate an ability to threaten cities along the West Coast of the United States.
Iran is another nation that Mr. Blair cited as getting closer to mastering advanced missile technology, one aspect of what he told senators at the hearing was Iran’s “dogged development of a deliverable nuclear weapon.”
He repeated the assessment made by Bush administration officials that Iran was likely to be using thousands of centrifuges to enrich uranium to produce material for a nuclear weapon. (Iran says its nuclear program is for energy generation.) But he said that a political decision ultimately awaited Iranian leaders about whether or not to turn Iran into a full-fledged nuclear power. “I don’t think it’s a done deal either way,” he said at the hearing.
Mr. Blair’s focus on the world economy was a surprise to some senators. At one point, he assured one senator that he had no plans to turn the focus of American intelligence agencies away from threats like Iran and North Korea. “I won’t be turning satellites to look at G.D.P. accounts,” he said.

How Valentine's Day Can Ruin Your Relationship

Candlelit dinners. Champagne. Diamonds. Roses. Imported Chocolates.

A Non-Muslim Therapists' Perspective

By Dr. Bill Cloke

NOTE TO MEN: If you haven't planned or purchased something from this list, you're likely going to have a horrible night this Feb. 14th (and one without any lovemaking). Why? Blame it on romantic fantasy. It starts long before our first Valentine's purchase or our first kiss. We've heard "happily-ever-after" fairy tales since kindergarten. We've grown up viewing "diamonds-are-forever" commercials.

As adults, we experience the commercialization of Valentine's Day as a day of great expectations, and just as often, great disappointments when our beloved's gift-giving (or lack thereof) doesn't support our romantic dreams.


Mind you, I've bought my share of romantic gifts and loved doing so-I am a happily married man of 18 years and a couples' therapist for over 20. I am certainly not against gift giving, but if either a wife or a husband equates the big gift with a big heart, then we are defining the quality of our love by material expectation. In doing so, we risk creating a deep emotional rift in what may otherwise be a healthy, loving relationship.


In 1979, Ted Huston, a psychology professor at the University of Texas, began following 168 married couples for fourteen years to see what factors were present in successful long-term marriages. One significant discovery: Couples who entered their relationship with high expectations were far more likely to experience conflict and disenchantment through the years.

Huston concluded that the greatest foundation for couples is of all things friendship. Couples who kept their expectations realistic and concentrated more on positive interactions created enduring happy marriages.


But what's friendship got to do with romance? And why is friendship with our spouse important on Valentine's and every day of the year? What I have seen in my own marriage, and time and time again in the couples I work with in my private practice, is that long-term love is sustained not by romance alone but by the daily activities of following-through on promises, showing up both emotionally and physically when needed, owning up to responsibility for your part in any conflict, and by being the kind of person who is worthy of being loved. All of the above is the definition of being a friend. One of the true secrets to long-lasting marriages is that friendship amongst couples can deepen when each party acknowledges that there is work to be done on themselves and in how they treat each other.

I remember early in my marriage when my wife gave me a very generous Valentines Day gift. After expressing my thanks, but also discomfort at the over-the-top nature of the gift, she said to me "But I want to make you happy." I said, "It's not your responsibility to make me happy, that's my job." She was stunned and relieved at the same time. Feeling like we must make our mate happy is a tremendous weight to carry and many a Valentine is based on that premise. Valentine's Day is a celebration, not a responsibility. If we can carry that in our hearts and make each day a special Valentine by being loving, kind and concerned about one another, then we are actively creating true love.

With a "best-friends" vision for marriage, we will not lose our connection to our romantic life. But that's not so easy to accomplish. We must learn and understand what makes our relationship strong and what weakens it (like great expectations on Valentine's Day). In my new book, Love-Making from The Inside Out: Transform Complaints, Criticism, and Conflict into a Loving Relationship, I write that many defenses come into play during difficulties and conflicts. Conflict is normal but our ability to resolve difficulties without alienating our partner is one major step to long-term romance. The most common form of alienation lies in being defensive when our partner is trying to tell us how they feel.
Be on the lookout for these top romance-killers and common statements frequently said during arguments:

Globalization--"Everybody Does That"
Blame-Shifting--"And you do the same thing but worse."
The Victim--"I'm so good to you, and you treat me so badly."
Gas-lighting--"I was just kidding; Can't you take a joke?"
Entitlement--"You are the one who made me angry; You deserve it.
Denial--"I'm not angry."
Displacement--"Just because you had a bad day at work, don't take it out on me."
Guilt--"I work my ass off to give you everything and you can't even make me some tea."
Shame/Blame: "You are a human slug; you never do anything."
Stonewalling: "This is the way I am, take it or leave it."
Projection: "You think I'm stupid, don't you?"
Devaluation: "You really could lose some of that extra weight."

One of the most common reasons for divorce is the inability to accept influence from our mate. Acknowledging our partner is the most potent force for Valentine's success. To not defend ourselves, but instead hear what is being said, and then be able to express our understanding through acknowledgement will beat a box of chocolates any day.

How can we distinguish between realistic expectations and romantic ideals? Understand this foundation for realistic romance: Central to every couple's Valentine's wishes is embracing the reality of what it takes to make a relationship work over the long haul. Before an act of romance, in either giving or receiving, ask yourself the question, "Is this going to help sustain my relationship over time or not? If the answer is yes, you're in the realistic expectations spectrum. If it's no, you're living in romantic ideals la-la land.

And so, just what are realistic expectations on Valentine's Day and beyond? We can expect to be treated with respect, common courtesy, kindness, understanding, compassion and empathy. Expect the common courtesies, the helping hand, being reasonable, fair, open and emotionally connected, all of which are primary ingredients of true romance. When I speak to women in therapy about love, what they say is it's not so much hearts and flowers as it is about someone they can depend on. A good sense of humor, anger management, and a positive attitude trump romantic ideals every time.

At any Valentine's Day, it is not how much loot we come up with but how we treat one another that will save our experiences on Feb. 14th -and our relationships. Respect cannot be bought, and it's the same with friendship. Our ability to be kind, empathic, compassionate and tender will determine the strength and durability of our relationship over time. Relationship success is inevitably linked to our knowledge of what we truly need from one another and each party having made peace with our own fantasy expectations.

ANOTHER NOTE TO MEN: Interestingly enough, Ted Huston found that men who exhibited what were termed "feminine" traits were more often successful in their marriages. It appears that positive behaviors like nurturing, tenderness, and sweetness actually do work.

In the final analysis, enduring love does not solely lie in gift giving or in the lovey-dovey cooing and ogling between lovers. More often love is the result of the small things of every day life. That said, a rose in your teeth, a song in your heart and breakfast in bed is not a bad start to Feb. 14th or any other morning.













Bill Cloke, Ph.D

For more information on Dr. Bill Cloke's work with couples, visit www.billcloke.com

Obama’s Afghan Trap

By Amy Goodman
President Barack Obama on Monday night held his first prime-time news conference. When questioned on Afghanistan, he replied, “This is going to be a big challenge.” He also was asked whether he would change the Pentagon policy banning the filming and photographing of the flag-draped coffins of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said he was reviewing it. The journalist who asked the question pointed out that it was Joe Biden several years ago who accused the Bush administration of suppressing the images to avoid public furor over the deaths of U.S. service members. Now Vice President Joe Biden predicts that a surge in U.S. troops in Afghanistan will mean more U.S. casualties: “I hate to say it, but yes, I think there will be. There will be an uptick.” Meanwhile, the Associated Press recently cited a classified report drafted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommending a shift in strategy from democracy-building in Afghanistan to attacking alleged Taliban and al-Qaida strongholds along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. And the campaign has clearly begun. Days after his inauguration, Obama’s first (known) military actions were two missile strikes inside Pakistan’s frontier province, reportedly killing 22 people, including women and children. Cherif Bassiouni has spent years going back and forth to Afghanistan. He is a professor of law at DePaul University and the former United Nations human rights investigator in Afghanistan. In 2005, he was forced out of the United Nations under pressure from the Bush administration, days after he released a report accusing the U.S. military and private contractors of committing human rights abuses. I asked Bassiouni about Obama’s approach to Afghanistan. He told me: “There is no military solution in Afghanistan. There is an economic-development solution, but I don’t see that coming. ... Right now, the population has nothing to gain by supporting the U.S. and NATO. It has everything to gain by being supportive of the Taliban.” Bassiouni’s scathing 2005 U.N. report accused the U.S. military and private military contractors of “forced entry into homes, arrest and detention of nationals and foreigners without legal authority or judicial review, sometimes for extended periods of time, forced nudity, hooding and sensory deprivation, sleep and food deprivation, forced squatting and standing for long periods of time in stress positions, sexual abuse, beatings, torture, and use of force resulting in death.” I also put the question of the military surge to former President Jimmy Carter. He responded: “I would disagree with Obama as far as a surge that would lead to a more intense bombing of Afghan villages and centers and a heavy dependence on military. I would like to see us reach out more, to be accommodating, and negotiate with all of the factions in Afghanistan.” Carter should know. He helped create what his national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, called “the Afghan trap,” set for the Soviets. This was done by supporting Islamic mujahedeen in the late 1970s against the Soviets in Afghanistan, thereby creating what evolved into the Taliban. Brzezinski told the French newspaper Le Nouvel Observateur in 1998: “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?” More than 14,000 Soviet troops were killed, and the Afghan toll exceeded 1 million. Osama bin Laden got his start with the help of the CIA-funded Afghan operation. Bassiouni suggests that a military solution is doomed to failure, noting that the Taliban “realized they could not defeat the American forces, so they went underground. They put their Kalashnikovs under the mattresses, and they waited. A year ago, they resurfaced again. They can do the same thing. They can go back in the mountains, push the Kalashnikovs under the mattress, wait out five years. They have been doing that since the 1800s with any foreign and every foreign invader.” As Carter told me, “To offer a hand of friendship or accommodation, not only to the warlords but even to those radicals in the Taliban who are willing to negotiate, would be the best approach, than to rely exclusively on major military force.” Have we learned nothing from Iraq? “When it comes to the war in Iraq, the time for promises and assurances, for waiting and patience is over. Too many lives have been lost and too many billions have been spent for us to trust the president on another tried-and-failed policy.” That was Sen. Barack Obama in January 2007. With his Joint Chiefs now apparently gunning for more fighting and less talk in Afghanistan, President Obama needs to be reminded of his own words. Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column. Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 700 stations in North America. She was awarded the 2008 Right Livelihood Award, dubbed the “Alternative Nobel” prize, and received the award in the Swedish Parliament in December.

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© 2009 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate