New Yorkers are supposed to be celebrating this break in the long impasse which has stalled reconstruction at Ground Zero. And indeed Larry Silverstein's megalomania and greed have been an appalling spectacle. But, as we have repeatedly emphasized, rebuilding a skyscraper at the WTC site is a very bad idea, just as building the original Twin Towers was a very bad idea. The WTC helped transform New York from a working-class city of neighborhoods and industry to a sterile administrative clearinghouse for global finance and a culturally-cleansed playground for the rich. The new (and Orwellianly-named) "Freedom Tower" will only accelerate this process. And, obviously, as a hubristic symbol of American power, the old WTC invited terrorist attacks; so (we hate to say it) will the Freedom Tower--as is explicitly acknowledged by the unprecedented heavy hand given to the NYPD and security concerns generally in its very design. WW4 Report officially dissents from the celebrations. From Reuters, April 27:

From New York's Jewish Week, April 28:

As the world’s largest chasidic sect mourns the death this week of the Satmar Grand Rebbe Moshe Teitelbaum, the bitter, litigious — and sometimes violent — feud between two of his sons shows no sign of cooling.

In a flurry of courtroom motions, rabbinic rulings and shoving matches on Tuesday and Wednesday, the dispute rapidly shifted from designated succession toward a new struggle between two men, each claiming he is now the new rebbe.

Writes David Wood of Newhouse News Service, April 26 (emphasis added):

WASHINGTON -- If Iran succeeds in building nuclear weapons, it will be paid for in part by American drivers.

With oil prices and global oil consumption at near-record levels, the radical Islamist government in Iran is raking in more than $68.4 billion a year in oil revenues, helping it finance its nuclear program and underwrite terrorist operations against American soldiers in Iraq and elsewhere across the Middle East.

And with global oil markets sucked dry of excess by growing oil consumption in the United States and China, even a small disruption in the flow of oil would drive prices through the roof and stagger the world's economies.

From our contributor Mahmood Ketabchi:

After more that two years of haggling with the Islamic regime of Iran over its nuclear program, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), under pressure from the European powers and particularly the US government, referred Iran to the UN Security Council. In its last meeting, the Security Council issued a statement requiring Iran to stop all nuclear activities within 30 days.

For all the unseemly obsession on the American left (and American right) with the notion that the recent paroxysm of hyper-interventionism is really more about Israeli national interests than US imperial interests, the actual global vision of the interventionists is spelled out explicitly in terms of US global dominance in two key policy documents released this year: the White House National Security Strategy (NSS) and the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). The NSS calls for the US to shape the world so as to maintain its status as a military power "without peer," while the QDR warns of the emergence of "near-peer competitors" in Eurasia--especially China, Russia and India. We recently noted that the QDR states: "The United States is a nation engaged in what will be a long war." The NSS makes clear that the next likely target is Iran: "We may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran... If necessary, under long-standing principles of self defense, we do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur." (White House website, CSM, March 17)

Note that this Reuters report on the Sinai bombings offhandedly mentions more sweeps of the peninsula's Bedouin inhabitants. The Bedouin, their lands divided by Egypt and Israel, have been kicked around plenty on both sides of the border. The situation in the Sinai's desert interior is approaching a small counterinsurgency war against the Bedouin--which will only have the effect of strengthening whatever ties exist to al-Qaeda in their communities. But Sinai only enters the headlines when a tourist resort gets blown up.

DAHAB, Egypt - Egyptian police detained at least 10 people, including three computer engineers, on Tuesday in connection with a triple bombing in the Sinai resort of Dahab that killed at least 18 people and wounded scores.

Osama bin Laden's latest audiotape release is almost funny. Along with the usual swipes at the "Crusader-Zionist" war on Islam, he accuses the UN Security Council of being controlled by the "Crusader movement along with pagan Buddhists"--an apparent reference to China. (What, they aren't godless communists anymore?). Obviously, this rhetoric closely mirrors that of the Christian fundamentalist right. BBC did note the eerie symmetry of Osama's call for a long jihad against the West coming weeks after the Pentagon's new "Quadrennial Defence Review" which stated: "The United States is a nation engaged in what will be a long war." The most widely quoted line from Osama's statement is: "Your aircraft and tanks are destroying houses over the heads of our kinfolk and children in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya and Pakistan. Meanwhile, you smile in our faces, saying, 'We are not hostile to Islam; we are hostile to terrorists.'" Has it occurred to anyone that the case against Osama on what is called the "Arab street" would be a hell of a lot stronger if these charges didn't happen to be true!? (Are we allowed to say that?)

On April 18, three Uruguayan military officers--one retired--arrived in Chile after being extradited there to face charges relating to the 1991 abduction in Chile and subsequent murder in Uruguay of Chilean chemist Eugenio Berrios. Berrios worked for the National Intelligence Department (DINA) under Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, and had said before his disappearance that sectors allied with Pinochet wanted to kill him.