This is from Philstar.
It seems that Abbas is not interested in any unity deal with Hamas but rather with extending his influence with the US by acting as a good cop and reigning in militants and helping out Israel defeat Hamas. This will certainly weaken the Palestinians' power. Being disunited gives Israel the upper hand.
6 dead in battle between Hamas, Palestinian police
QALQILIYA (AP) – Top Hamas fugitives lobbed grenades and fired automatic weapons Sunday to push back Palestinian security forces storming their hideout, leaving six dead in the bloodiest clash since the Palestinian president launched a crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank two years ago.
Two top Hamas militants — on the run from Israel for years — were among those killed, along with an unarmed Hamas supporter and three Palestinian policemen.
After the hours-long battle, hundreds of spent bullet casings, puddles of blood and tear gas canisters were visible at the hideout, a two-story building in the northern West Bank town of Qalqiliya. Parts of the walls were burned down.
The Islamic militant Hamas immediately hurled angry accusations at the Western-backed president, Mahmoud Abbas, accusing him of betraying Palestinians resisting Israeli occupation and threatening revenge. Relations have been sour since Hamas seized Gaza by force two years ago, leaving Abbas only in control of the West Bank.
The arrest raid underscored Abbas' determination to rein in militants as part of his obligations under the US-backed "road map" peace plan.
The shootout came just three days after Abbas met at the White House with President Barack Obama and renewed a pledge to honor these commitments. The US has been training Abbas' elite forces to help him affirm his control of the West Bank and prepare for eventual statehood.
Despite Hamas' threats of reprisals, it was not immediately clear whether it would change its tactic of lying low in the West Bank while it weathers Abbas' crackdown. Since Hamas' Gaza takeover, Abbas' security forces have detained hundreds of Hamas supporters in the West Bank and closed the group's institutions and charities.
The Qalqiliya clash began late Saturday when Palestinian troops surrounded a hideout of Mohammed Samman, a leader of Hamas' military wing, Izzedine al-Qassam, and his assistant, Mohammed Yassin. Both had been on Israel's wanted list for six years, Palestinian security officials said.
Initially, about two dozen officers stormed the house, breaking down the door, said a policeman who had participated in the raid, but spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. The Hamas men lobbed a grenade and opened automatic fire, killing three officers and wounding two critically, he said. Other officers fled, then brought in reinforcements.
The ensuing battle lasted until midmorning Sunday. Police say they found bombs, suicide belts and bullets in their search of the house.
Qalqiliya, which elected a Hamas mayor several years ago, was tense Monday. Women gathered near the scene heaped insults on policemen. Sporadic gunfire erupted in other areas of town, and police said the shots came from Hamas loyalists targeting officers, though there were no reports of injuries.
Security officials seized the bodies of the Hamas militants, fearing a public burial would turn into angry protests against the Palestinian Authority. Muslim tradition demands the dead should be buried quickly.
Hamas officials in the West Bank said that some 40 loyalists of the group had been arrested in Qalqiliya in the past week as part of the search for the top two fugitives.
In Gaza, Abu Obeida, a spokesman for the Hamas military wing, threatened "tough and harsh reprisal."
Ehab Ghussein, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Gaza, said Abbas' security forces have betrayed those fighting Israeli occupation.
But Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh said going after militants is key to one day setting up a Palestinian state. "To build our country and our state, we need to have one authority, one gun, one law," he said.
Hamas opposes Abbas' policy of trying to negotiate a peace deal with Israel. In recent months, Abbas and Hamas have tried to reach a unity deal, but talks have run aground over Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence, a precondition for joining a coalition with Abbas supporters.
Last year, 26 Palestinians were killed during Fatah and Hamas attempts to crack down on their rivals, said the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Iraq's Kurdish oil: Kurdistan goes glug glug
This is from the economist.
Strange most mainstream media are saying nothing about this. Note that the famous Iraq oil law that was once an important benchmark has completely faded from mainstream radar even though the law is still languishing in the Baghdad parliament for about three years!
Kurdistan has made an end run around the central govt. having its own oil law and in effect sharing with the central govt. on its own terms. It remains to be seen if the central government is able to do anything about all this except for the sort of rhetorical rants cited in this article.
Given the new foreign investments in Kurdistan no doubt there will be western support for any attempts to limit Kurdistan autonomy. Even Turkey is on board it would seem!
Iraq's Kurdish oil
Kurdistan goes glug glug
May 28th 2009 ERBILFrom The Economist print edition
The federal government is letting Iraq’s Kurds export from their new oilfields
ON JUNE 1st a man in a hard hat in the blazing sun will ritually turn a switch to let oil flow through a pipeline. In oil-rich Iraq that should not warrant comment. But this operation, at the Tawke oilfield near Iraq’s northern frontier with Turkey, will be beamed live to a giant screen in a new conference centre in Erbil, capital of Iraq’s self-ruling Kurdistan region. Hundreds of leading Kurds will cheer as they watch pictures of oil being offloaded from tankers at an export facility at Khurmala, south-west of Erbil, from which it will be pumped to Baiji and into the same northbound pipeline (see map).
The reason for the excitement is that the crude is being extracted from the first newly developed oilfield to have come on stream since the Americans invaded Iraq in 2003—indeed, the first to have come on stream anywhere in Iraq for 30-odd years. It is also the first instance of exploration leading to extraction and export by private companies in Iraq since oil was nationalised in 1972. Iraq’s Kurds, who have signed a string of controversial production-sharing agreements (PSAs) with private companies, are proud that the oil is flowing anew from fields that they control.
The oil ready for export comes from two fields. One is at Tawke, developed by DNO International, a small Norwegian firm. The other is at Taq-Taq, where Addax Petroleum, listed in London and Toronto, runs a joint venture with Turkey’s Genel Enerji, which also has a stake in the Tawke show. Ashti Hawrami, the Iraqi Kurds’ natural-resources minister, praises the Turkish companies involved. Relations between Turkey’s government and the Iraqi Kurdish regional one are plainly improving.
document.write('');
The Tawke field will start by pumping 60,000 barrels a day (b/d). A new pipeline will carry the crude from the wells east of Zakho to join the main northern pipeline on the Iraqi side of the Turkish border. Meanwhile 40,000 b/d will be trucked from the Taq-Taq site to Khurmala. The crude from both fields will flow through Turkey to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Mr Hawrami says the new fields should produce 450,000 b/d by 2011 and 1m b/d by the end of 2012. That would represent 42% of Iraq’s production, if output from the rest of the country stays the same.
The operations at Taq-Taq and Tawke are run under PSAs whereby private companies get 10-20% of the profit. The rest goes to the federal government in Baghdad before being distributed across the rest of Iraq. But Iraq’s oil ministry and its trade unions dislike PSAs. A long row between the Kurds and the authorities in Baghdad over rules for the north has yet to be resolved. Baghdad wants to approve all oil deals. The Kurds say the federal constitution lets them run—and profit from—their own oil industry, though they accept that revenue should somehow be shared. The Kurds’ parliament passed a hydrocarbons law in 2007. But a new national oil law has been stalled in the federal parliament in Baghdad for at least three years.
The Kurds say they have shown up the decrepitude of Iraq’s oil establishment. Despite billions of dollars of investment since 2003, production is still just over 2m b/d, about what it was when Saddam Hussein was toppled. The federal oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani, loathes the Kurds’ success and has tried to stop them running their own oil industry, declaring all deals (now at least 20) signed by them to be illegal. He has also threatened to blacklist any oil company that does business up north from applying for licences down south.
But the global recession may be helping the Kurds. The fall in the oil price has played havoc with the central budget. Iraq needs cash quickly. That, presumably, is why the federal government was forced to let the Kurds export oil off their own bat.
Strange most mainstream media are saying nothing about this. Note that the famous Iraq oil law that was once an important benchmark has completely faded from mainstream radar even though the law is still languishing in the Baghdad parliament for about three years!
Kurdistan has made an end run around the central govt. having its own oil law and in effect sharing with the central govt. on its own terms. It remains to be seen if the central government is able to do anything about all this except for the sort of rhetorical rants cited in this article.
Given the new foreign investments in Kurdistan no doubt there will be western support for any attempts to limit Kurdistan autonomy. Even Turkey is on board it would seem!
Iraq's Kurdish oil
Kurdistan goes glug glug
May 28th 2009 ERBILFrom The Economist print edition
The federal government is letting Iraq’s Kurds export from their new oilfields
ON JUNE 1st a man in a hard hat in the blazing sun will ritually turn a switch to let oil flow through a pipeline. In oil-rich Iraq that should not warrant comment. But this operation, at the Tawke oilfield near Iraq’s northern frontier with Turkey, will be beamed live to a giant screen in a new conference centre in Erbil, capital of Iraq’s self-ruling Kurdistan region. Hundreds of leading Kurds will cheer as they watch pictures of oil being offloaded from tankers at an export facility at Khurmala, south-west of Erbil, from which it will be pumped to Baiji and into the same northbound pipeline (see map).
The reason for the excitement is that the crude is being extracted from the first newly developed oilfield to have come on stream since the Americans invaded Iraq in 2003—indeed, the first to have come on stream anywhere in Iraq for 30-odd years. It is also the first instance of exploration leading to extraction and export by private companies in Iraq since oil was nationalised in 1972. Iraq’s Kurds, who have signed a string of controversial production-sharing agreements (PSAs) with private companies, are proud that the oil is flowing anew from fields that they control.
The oil ready for export comes from two fields. One is at Tawke, developed by DNO International, a small Norwegian firm. The other is at Taq-Taq, where Addax Petroleum, listed in London and Toronto, runs a joint venture with Turkey’s Genel Enerji, which also has a stake in the Tawke show. Ashti Hawrami, the Iraqi Kurds’ natural-resources minister, praises the Turkish companies involved. Relations between Turkey’s government and the Iraqi Kurdish regional one are plainly improving.
document.write('');
The Tawke field will start by pumping 60,000 barrels a day (b/d). A new pipeline will carry the crude from the wells east of Zakho to join the main northern pipeline on the Iraqi side of the Turkish border. Meanwhile 40,000 b/d will be trucked from the Taq-Taq site to Khurmala. The crude from both fields will flow through Turkey to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. Mr Hawrami says the new fields should produce 450,000 b/d by 2011 and 1m b/d by the end of 2012. That would represent 42% of Iraq’s production, if output from the rest of the country stays the same.
The operations at Taq-Taq and Tawke are run under PSAs whereby private companies get 10-20% of the profit. The rest goes to the federal government in Baghdad before being distributed across the rest of Iraq. But Iraq’s oil ministry and its trade unions dislike PSAs. A long row between the Kurds and the authorities in Baghdad over rules for the north has yet to be resolved. Baghdad wants to approve all oil deals. The Kurds say the federal constitution lets them run—and profit from—their own oil industry, though they accept that revenue should somehow be shared. The Kurds’ parliament passed a hydrocarbons law in 2007. But a new national oil law has been stalled in the federal parliament in Baghdad for at least three years.
The Kurds say they have shown up the decrepitude of Iraq’s oil establishment. Despite billions of dollars of investment since 2003, production is still just over 2m b/d, about what it was when Saddam Hussein was toppled. The federal oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani, loathes the Kurds’ success and has tried to stop them running their own oil industry, declaring all deals (now at least 20) signed by them to be illegal. He has also threatened to blacklist any oil company that does business up north from applying for licences down south.
But the global recession may be helping the Kurds. The fall in the oil price has played havoc with the central budget. Iraq needs cash quickly. That, presumably, is why the federal government was forced to let the Kurds export oil off their own bat.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Iraq election delayed complicating US pullout timetable
The US forces are supposed to stay so that there will be security for the elections. However, the US forces are there and security is getting worse which is why the elections are postponed. This is all very convenient. It keeps the Maliki government in power and the US forces in Iraq. The American public however may begin to catch on after while and this could cause political troubles for Obama. However, most Americans probably have other matters on their mind at present!
I wonder if the referendum on the status of forces agreement is also postponed. That was supposed to be this summer. No doubt it would be convenient to postpone that as well.
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Iraq Election Delayed, Complicating US Pullout Timetable
Posted By Jason Ditz
The Iraqi government has announced today that the national parliamentary elections, which were supposed to be held later this year, will be pushed back until January 30, 2010. Others had fought to push the elections back even further, as much as a year, citing the growing violence and the economic turmoil facing the nation.
The delay may push the selection of the next Iraqi prime minister until mid 2010, imperiling the Obama Administration’s plans to remove significant portions of the American military force from the nation by August 31, 2010.
President Obama had previously agreed to leave the bulk of America’s soldiers in the nation until after the national election. Top US commander in Iraq General Ray Odierno said that the pullout from Iraq was predicated on the ability of Iraq to conduct “legitimate, credible elections,” and that the military should remain for at least 60 days after to ensure that the losers of the elections didn’t resort to violence. Such a plan would seem to leave the already pared-back pullout scheme woefully optimistic, and the election delay may provide yet another excuse to keep the war going indefinitely.
Related Stories
Copyright © 2009 News From Antiwar.com. All rights reserved.
I wonder if the referendum on the status of forces agreement is also postponed. That was supposed to be this summer. No doubt it would be convenient to postpone that as well.
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Iraq Election Delayed, Complicating US Pullout Timetable
Posted By Jason Ditz
The Iraqi government has announced today that the national parliamentary elections, which were supposed to be held later this year, will be pushed back until January 30, 2010. Others had fought to push the elections back even further, as much as a year, citing the growing violence and the economic turmoil facing the nation.
The delay may push the selection of the next Iraqi prime minister until mid 2010, imperiling the Obama Administration’s plans to remove significant portions of the American military force from the nation by August 31, 2010.
President Obama had previously agreed to leave the bulk of America’s soldiers in the nation until after the national election. Top US commander in Iraq General Ray Odierno said that the pullout from Iraq was predicated on the ability of Iraq to conduct “legitimate, credible elections,” and that the military should remain for at least 60 days after to ensure that the losers of the elections didn’t resort to violence. Such a plan would seem to leave the already pared-back pullout scheme woefully optimistic, and the election delay may provide yet another excuse to keep the war going indefinitely.
Related Stories
Copyright © 2009 News From Antiwar.com. All rights reserved.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Abu Ghraib abuse photos "show rape"
This is from the Telegraph (UK)
It will be interesting to see if FOX news or CNN cover this issue to any extent. Obama is adopting Bush administration tactics in trying to block unpleasant information from the public domain. The people responsible for these abuses no doubt have not been charged with anything.
Abu Ghraib abuse photos 'show rape'
Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged.
By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent and Paul Cruickshank Last Updated: 8:21AM BST 28 May 2009
At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.
Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.
Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.
Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.
Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.
The graphic nature of some of the images may explain the US President’s attempts to block the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan despite an earlier promise to allow them to be published.
Maj Gen Taguba, who retired in January 2007, said he supported the President’s decision, adding: “These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency.
“I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them, and British troops who are trying to build security in Afghanistan.
“The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it.”
In April, Mr Obama’s administration said the photographs would be released and it would be “pointless to appeal” against a court judgment in favour of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
But after lobbying from senior military figures, Mr Obama changed his mind saying they could put the safety of troops at risk.
Earlier this month, he said: “The most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to inflame anti-American public opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”
It was thought the images were similar to those leaked five years ago, which showed naked and bloody prisoners being intimidated by dogs, dragged around on a leash, piled into a human pyramid and hooded and attached to wires.
Mr Obama seemed to reinforce that view by adding: “I want to emphasise that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.”
The latest photographs relate to 400 cases of alleged abuse between 2001 and 2005 in Abu Ghraib and six other prisons. Mr Obama said the individuals involved had been “identified, and appropriate actions” taken.
Maj Gen Taguba’s internal inquiry into the abuse at Abu Ghraib, included sworn statements by 13 detainees, which, he said in the report, he found “credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses.”
Among the graphic statements, which were later released under US freedom of information laws, is that of Kasim Mehaddi Hilas in which he says: “I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid’s ***…. and the female soldier was taking pictures.”
The translator was an American Egyptian who is now the subject of a civil court case in the US.
Three detainees, including the alleged victim, refer to the use of a phosphorescent tube in the sexual abuse and another to the use of wire, while the victim also refers to part of a policeman’s “stick” all of which were apparently photographed.
It will be interesting to see if FOX news or CNN cover this issue to any extent. Obama is adopting Bush administration tactics in trying to block unpleasant information from the public domain. The people responsible for these abuses no doubt have not been charged with anything.
Abu Ghraib abuse photos 'show rape'
Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse, it has emerged.
By Duncan Gardham, Security Correspondent and Paul Cruickshank Last Updated: 8:21AM BST 28 May 2009
At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.
Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.
Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.
Detail of the content emerged from Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.
Allegations of rape and abuse were included in his 2004 report but the fact there were photographs was never revealed. He has now confirmed their existence in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.
The graphic nature of some of the images may explain the US President’s attempts to block the release of an estimated 2,000 photographs from prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan despite an earlier promise to allow them to be published.
Maj Gen Taguba, who retired in January 2007, said he supported the President’s decision, adding: “These pictures show torture, abuse, rape and every indecency.
“I am not sure what purpose their release would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy, when we most need them, and British troops who are trying to build security in Afghanistan.
“The mere description of these pictures is horrendous enough, take my word for it.”
In April, Mr Obama’s administration said the photographs would be released and it would be “pointless to appeal” against a court judgment in favour of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
But after lobbying from senior military figures, Mr Obama changed his mind saying they could put the safety of troops at risk.
Earlier this month, he said: “The most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to inflame anti-American public opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”
It was thought the images were similar to those leaked five years ago, which showed naked and bloody prisoners being intimidated by dogs, dragged around on a leash, piled into a human pyramid and hooded and attached to wires.
Mr Obama seemed to reinforce that view by adding: “I want to emphasise that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.”
The latest photographs relate to 400 cases of alleged abuse between 2001 and 2005 in Abu Ghraib and six other prisons. Mr Obama said the individuals involved had been “identified, and appropriate actions” taken.
Maj Gen Taguba’s internal inquiry into the abuse at Abu Ghraib, included sworn statements by 13 detainees, which, he said in the report, he found “credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses.”
Among the graphic statements, which were later released under US freedom of information laws, is that of Kasim Mehaddi Hilas in which he says: “I saw [name of a translator] ******* a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his **** in the little kid’s ***…. and the female soldier was taking pictures.”
The translator was an American Egyptian who is now the subject of a civil court case in the US.
Three detainees, including the alleged victim, refer to the use of a phosphorescent tube in the sexual abuse and another to the use of wire, while the victim also refers to part of a policeman’s “stick” all of which were apparently photographed.
Pentagon: US Ready to Keep Troops in Iraq for another 10 years.
Of course Iraq may have something to say about this. There is supposed to be a refendum this summer on the status of forces agreement as I recall. Strange there is no word about this in the press. Also, the Iraq election is being delayed and this will cause problems with even the present rate of pullout. Adding to the turmoil is the blowback from the awakening councils some of whom are now in conflict with the Shiite government. There may very well be a renewed Sunni insurgency. Finally there is still conflict in the Kurdish border regions between Arabs and Kurds both vying for control of certain areas rich in oil.
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Pentagon: US Ready to Keep Troops in Iraq For Another 10 Years
Posted By Jason Ditz On May 26, 2009
While US officials have continued to insist that the timetable for removing troops from Iraq remains in place, a growing trend of violence and a delay to Iraq’s national parliamentary elections has led to considerable speculation that the US won’t ultimately abide by the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) deadline to have troops out of the nation by the end of 2011.
That speculation seemed well-founded today, when Army Chief of Staff General George Casey said that the world “remains dangerous and unpredictable” and that his planning envisions leaving combat troops in Iraq for another decade “to fight extremism and terrorism.”
Gen. Casey’s planning was focused on troop rotations, and he emphasized that he wasn’t responsible for making decisions about policy, but that he believed the US would need to be ready for “sustained” wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which he saw a similar timeline.
During the campaign President Obama promised to have all troops out of Iraq within 16 months, though he abandoned that policy just days after taking office. His current policy is to declare an end to “combat” in August 2010, but to keep troops in the nation engaged in combat operations for an indefinite period past that. He has insisted that he still intends to abide by the SOFA deadline, however.
Copyright © 2009 News From Antiwar.com. All rights reserved.
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Pentagon: US Ready to Keep Troops in Iraq For Another 10 Years
Posted By Jason Ditz On May 26, 2009
While US officials have continued to insist that the timetable for removing troops from Iraq remains in place, a growing trend of violence and a delay to Iraq’s national parliamentary elections has led to considerable speculation that the US won’t ultimately abide by the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) deadline to have troops out of the nation by the end of 2011.
That speculation seemed well-founded today, when Army Chief of Staff General George Casey said that the world “remains dangerous and unpredictable” and that his planning envisions leaving combat troops in Iraq for another decade “to fight extremism and terrorism.”
Gen. Casey’s planning was focused on troop rotations, and he emphasized that he wasn’t responsible for making decisions about policy, but that he believed the US would need to be ready for “sustained” wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which he saw a similar timeline.
During the campaign President Obama promised to have all troops out of Iraq within 16 months, though he abandoned that policy just days after taking office. His current policy is to declare an end to “combat” in August 2010, but to keep troops in the nation engaged in combat operations for an indefinite period past that. He has insisted that he still intends to abide by the SOFA deadline, however.
Copyright © 2009 News From Antiwar.com. All rights reserved.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Clinton: "No Exceptions" to Israel Settlement Freeze
This is from antiwar.com.
This sets the stage for a confrontation between US and Israel. The Israel lobby will bring out the troops to argue the Israeli case. It remains to be seen what the US will do if anything about the fact that Israel is going ahead regardless of US opposition. There is also the issue of a two state solution. Israel refuses so far to admit this as a goal as well. Just as Bush was stymied in trying to obtain a solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict it seems that Obama is even less likely to be successful unless the situation changes drastically.
Clinton: ‘No Exceptions’ to Israel Settlement Freeze
Secretary of State Says Obama was "Very Clear" With Netanyahu
by Jason Ditz, May 27, 2009
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says that President Obama was “very clear” in last week’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States wants Israel to halt all expansion to its West Bank settlements, and would make no exceptions for “natural growth.”
The statement sets the stage for a battle with the Israeli government over the question, as Netanyahu has insisted that his government will continue to expand the current settlements, citing “natural growth.”The Israeli government had offered a “compromise” yesterday, in which they would agree to continue dismantling the illegal outposts in the West Bank (which they had been doing to begin with) in return for a US promise to stop objecting publicly to the expansion of the other settlements.
The expansion of the settlements would be problematic for the Obama Administration as it presses for an “independent, democratic and contiguous Palestinian state.” The plan would involve territory swaps with the Israeli settlements, though Netanyahu has already rejected a cornerstone of the proposal: returning East Jerusalem to Palestinian control.
This sets the stage for a confrontation between US and Israel. The Israel lobby will bring out the troops to argue the Israeli case. It remains to be seen what the US will do if anything about the fact that Israel is going ahead regardless of US opposition. There is also the issue of a two state solution. Israel refuses so far to admit this as a goal as well. Just as Bush was stymied in trying to obtain a solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict it seems that Obama is even less likely to be successful unless the situation changes drastically.
Clinton: ‘No Exceptions’ to Israel Settlement Freeze
Secretary of State Says Obama was "Very Clear" With Netanyahu
by Jason Ditz, May 27, 2009
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says that President Obama was “very clear” in last week’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States wants Israel to halt all expansion to its West Bank settlements, and would make no exceptions for “natural growth.”
The statement sets the stage for a battle with the Israeli government over the question, as Netanyahu has insisted that his government will continue to expand the current settlements, citing “natural growth.”The Israeli government had offered a “compromise” yesterday, in which they would agree to continue dismantling the illegal outposts in the West Bank (which they had been doing to begin with) in return for a US promise to stop objecting publicly to the expansion of the other settlements.
The expansion of the settlements would be problematic for the Obama Administration as it presses for an “independent, democratic and contiguous Palestinian state.” The plan would involve territory swaps with the Israeli settlements, though Netanyahu has already rejected a cornerstone of the proposal: returning East Jerusalem to Palestinian control.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Showdown looming over Israeli Settlements
Netanyahu is between a rock and a hard place. He may want to accomodate US demands but then he would face so much opposition at home that his very government might be in danger of falling. He would rather accomodate his own constitutency to some extent even at the cost of US ire. The Israel lobby is very powerful in the US and if Obama punished Israel to any extent there would be a huge outcry from the lobby, in the press, and in the blogosphere. Obama is unlikely to get anywhere in the mideast peace process given the present situation in Israel. The media has gone silent on what is happening between Hamas and Fatah.
- Antiwar.com Original - http://original.antiwar.com -
Showdown Looming Over Israeli Settlements
Posted By Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler On May 25, 2009 @ 9:00 pm In Uncategorized
JERUSALEM - A showdown over Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is looming between Israel and the United States barely a week after the encounter at the White House between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What’s becoming increasingly clear is that the May 18 encounter was no friendly getting-to-know-you meeting between a new president and a new prime minister of the Middle East’s most enduring alliance.
IPS has learned from sources in Netanyahu’s Washington entourage that following the White House meeting, the Israeli PM confided his "unease" to wealthy U.S. conservative supporters about the direction in which the Obama administration is headed.
Since his return home, the Israeli leader has been putting on a brave face, sometimes even bordering on bravado. He was, however, clearly shaken. Not so much from any dramatically new specific policy moves that were laid out by the U.S. – what resonates with Netanyahu is what President Obama had to say about halting settlements and what that portends for the U.S. Middle East policy-in-the-making.
The concern expressed itself again at Sunday’s weekly meeting of the Israeli government. Netanyahu opened the meeting by sharing with his colleagues the Obama demand for a total freeze on all settlement activity, including no new homes in existing settlements to accommodate what Israel calls "natural population growth."
Netanyahu dug in his heels, although he tried to couch the impending set-to in a mild manner. No new settlements would be built, he told his cabinet colleagues, but settlement expansion should go on, for all the U.S. objections: "Not to address the question of natural growth is simply not fair," the prime minister said.
A close Netanyahu political ally, Transport Minister Yisrael Katz, added: "There is one thing to which we just cannot agree – that the government agenda will look like a witch-hunt against the settlers and the drying up of the settlements."
And Defense Minister Ehud Barak lined up behind Netanyahu: "It’s not conceivable that anyone seriously intends that a family with two children who have bought a small apartment will be told that an order has come from the U.S. that they may not add two extra rooms when the family grows – that’s illogical," Barak said.
The Israeli position is most unlikely to satisfy the U.S. Netanyahu seems fully aware that this could be just the beginning of a major row with Washington. He thus appears to be preparing to parry the comprehensive U.S. "no" on settlements by backing the intention of the Israeli defense establishment finally to move on so-called illegal settlements (small outposts that were established on the fringes of government-approved settlements in order to expand Israeli control over Palestinian territory).
The day Netanyahu came back, the army pulled down one such wildcat settlement, but within hours the settlers had rebuilt the outpost. Now, though, the Defense Ministry confirms that a comprehensive plan is being drawn up to dismantle 23 mini-settlements created since 2001 without government approval.
Israeli Public Radio quoted sources in the prime minister’s office as confirming that Netanyahu would "stand firm behind" Defense Minister Ehud Barak if he concludes that a showdown with the "illegal" settlers is required. This, even at the risk of an improbable showdown with his own nationalist coalition: "We are first and foremost obliged to respect the law," Netanyahu insisted at Sunday’s cabinet meeting.
Obama urged the ending of settlement building in order to lay the ground for a resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians. But Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said there is no point in meeting Netanyahu unless he stops settlement construction and agrees to open talks on Palestinian independence.
Over the years, successive Israeli governments have sanctioned 121 settlements, with the settlers themselves putting up an additional 100 or so small outposts since the early 1990s. The overall settler population is around 280,000.
It’s becoming clear that the approach of the administration is now widely accepted in the U.S. Congress, traditionally a stronghold of support for Israel.
A five-person congressional delegation from the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia said after meeting Israeli officials in Jerusalem on Sunday that they were "skeptical" about the Netanyahu government’s ability to help the U.S. move the peace process with the Palestinians forward. The committee voiced specific concern about Israel’s insistence on "natural growth" in existing settlements.
The heat that Netanyahu took during his tête-à-tête with Obama has clearly left its mark. He’s even going so far as to try to build on an informal agreement reached on settlement construction between his predecessor Ehud Olmert and the Bush administration prior to the 2007 Annapolis conference at which the U.S., Israel, and the Palestinians mapped out possible directions on how to proceed toward peace.
"The understandings Olmert reached, especially on the right to ‘natural growth,’ contain clauses that can certainly form a basis for understandings with the Obama administration," said one official in the prime minister’s office.
"Is there still a need for clarification?" asked a critic of Netanyahu, former government minister and peace activist Yossi Sarid. In his newspaper column "Peace Diplomacy," Sarid asked rhetorically, "Though he pretends not to understand, have the disputes not been clarified to Benjamin Netanyahu’s satisfaction? From all roofs in Washington – the White House, the State Department, and Congress – birds sing out U.S. policy. The diplomatic picture could not be clearer. We don’t really need a detailed peace plan, because it’s already here on the table."
Sarid continues: "It’s not simply an American plan, but a global plan acceptable to everyone but this Israeli government. Netanyahu alone continues his rearguard battle, dragging on and on this epic Israeli tragedy. Only one issue remains unclear – can Obama succeed where his predecessors have failed? Can he stand his ground where American power has faltered for decades?"
(Inter Press Service)
Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.com
URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/kessel-klohendler/2009/05/25/showdown-looming-over-israeli-settlements/
Copyright © 2009 Antiwar.com Original. All rights reserved.
- Antiwar.com Original - http://original.antiwar.com -
Showdown Looming Over Israeli Settlements
Posted By Jerrold Kessel and Pierre Klochendler On May 25, 2009 @ 9:00 pm In Uncategorized
JERUSALEM - A showdown over Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank is looming between Israel and the United States barely a week after the encounter at the White House between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What’s becoming increasingly clear is that the May 18 encounter was no friendly getting-to-know-you meeting between a new president and a new prime minister of the Middle East’s most enduring alliance.
IPS has learned from sources in Netanyahu’s Washington entourage that following the White House meeting, the Israeli PM confided his "unease" to wealthy U.S. conservative supporters about the direction in which the Obama administration is headed.
Since his return home, the Israeli leader has been putting on a brave face, sometimes even bordering on bravado. He was, however, clearly shaken. Not so much from any dramatically new specific policy moves that were laid out by the U.S. – what resonates with Netanyahu is what President Obama had to say about halting settlements and what that portends for the U.S. Middle East policy-in-the-making.
The concern expressed itself again at Sunday’s weekly meeting of the Israeli government. Netanyahu opened the meeting by sharing with his colleagues the Obama demand for a total freeze on all settlement activity, including no new homes in existing settlements to accommodate what Israel calls "natural population growth."
Netanyahu dug in his heels, although he tried to couch the impending set-to in a mild manner. No new settlements would be built, he told his cabinet colleagues, but settlement expansion should go on, for all the U.S. objections: "Not to address the question of natural growth is simply not fair," the prime minister said.
A close Netanyahu political ally, Transport Minister Yisrael Katz, added: "There is one thing to which we just cannot agree – that the government agenda will look like a witch-hunt against the settlers and the drying up of the settlements."
And Defense Minister Ehud Barak lined up behind Netanyahu: "It’s not conceivable that anyone seriously intends that a family with two children who have bought a small apartment will be told that an order has come from the U.S. that they may not add two extra rooms when the family grows – that’s illogical," Barak said.
The Israeli position is most unlikely to satisfy the U.S. Netanyahu seems fully aware that this could be just the beginning of a major row with Washington. He thus appears to be preparing to parry the comprehensive U.S. "no" on settlements by backing the intention of the Israeli defense establishment finally to move on so-called illegal settlements (small outposts that were established on the fringes of government-approved settlements in order to expand Israeli control over Palestinian territory).
The day Netanyahu came back, the army pulled down one such wildcat settlement, but within hours the settlers had rebuilt the outpost. Now, though, the Defense Ministry confirms that a comprehensive plan is being drawn up to dismantle 23 mini-settlements created since 2001 without government approval.
Israeli Public Radio quoted sources in the prime minister’s office as confirming that Netanyahu would "stand firm behind" Defense Minister Ehud Barak if he concludes that a showdown with the "illegal" settlers is required. This, even at the risk of an improbable showdown with his own nationalist coalition: "We are first and foremost obliged to respect the law," Netanyahu insisted at Sunday’s cabinet meeting.
Obama urged the ending of settlement building in order to lay the ground for a resumption of peace talks with the Palestinians. But Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said there is no point in meeting Netanyahu unless he stops settlement construction and agrees to open talks on Palestinian independence.
Over the years, successive Israeli governments have sanctioned 121 settlements, with the settlers themselves putting up an additional 100 or so small outposts since the early 1990s. The overall settler population is around 280,000.
It’s becoming clear that the approach of the administration is now widely accepted in the U.S. Congress, traditionally a stronghold of support for Israel.
A five-person congressional delegation from the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia said after meeting Israeli officials in Jerusalem on Sunday that they were "skeptical" about the Netanyahu government’s ability to help the U.S. move the peace process with the Palestinians forward. The committee voiced specific concern about Israel’s insistence on "natural growth" in existing settlements.
The heat that Netanyahu took during his tête-à-tête with Obama has clearly left its mark. He’s even going so far as to try to build on an informal agreement reached on settlement construction between his predecessor Ehud Olmert and the Bush administration prior to the 2007 Annapolis conference at which the U.S., Israel, and the Palestinians mapped out possible directions on how to proceed toward peace.
"The understandings Olmert reached, especially on the right to ‘natural growth,’ contain clauses that can certainly form a basis for understandings with the Obama administration," said one official in the prime minister’s office.
"Is there still a need for clarification?" asked a critic of Netanyahu, former government minister and peace activist Yossi Sarid. In his newspaper column "Peace Diplomacy," Sarid asked rhetorically, "Though he pretends not to understand, have the disputes not been clarified to Benjamin Netanyahu’s satisfaction? From all roofs in Washington – the White House, the State Department, and Congress – birds sing out U.S. policy. The diplomatic picture could not be clearer. We don’t really need a detailed peace plan, because it’s already here on the table."
Sarid continues: "It’s not simply an American plan, but a global plan acceptable to everyone but this Israeli government. Netanyahu alone continues his rearguard battle, dragging on and on this epic Israeli tragedy. Only one issue remains unclear – can Obama succeed where his predecessors have failed? Can he stand his ground where American power has faltered for decades?"
(Inter Press Service)
Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.com
URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/kessel-klohendler/2009/05/25/showdown-looming-over-israeli-settlements/
Copyright © 2009 Antiwar.com Original. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Obama orders update to Iran attack plan.
Israel's having the right to attack Iran translated means that the U.S. has assured them that nothing drastic will happen if they do. There is no right of Israel to attack Iran unless you believe in the tooth fairy and an expanded right for a preventive attack. On that ground Iran has every right to attack Israel since Israel (and the U.S.) have often threatened attacks upon Iran.
Interesting that Gates just recently warned against any attack but now is dutifully updating plans for an attack for Obama.
- News From Antiwar.com - http://news.antiwar.com -
Obama Orders Update to Iran Attack Plan
Posted By Jason Ditz
On NBC’s Today Show this morning, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that President Obama has ordered him to update the plans for a US attack on Iran, plans which were last updating during the Bush Administration. Gates says the plans are “refreshed” and insists that “all options are on the table” with respect to the potential attack.
It was only a month ago that Secretary Gates was warning vigorously against the potential attack, saying that it would create a “disastrous backlash” against the United States to hit Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities. The Obama Administration has insisted it is intending to pursue the matter diplomatically with Iran, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has repeatedly said the administration doesn’t expect diplomacy to work, and the effort seems to be primarily to rally international support for more measures against Iran.
The US has also been sending secret missions to Israel in recent days, reportedly to caution them against launching any surprise military attacks against Iran of their own. It was unclear how successful the warnings were: Prime Minister Netanyahu said he remained confident that the US would respect Israel’s right to attack Iran.
It is unclear whether Gates’ revelation portends a serious potential for an imminent US attack on Iran, or whether the move is more international posturing. Still, it seems unlikely the news will be greeted warmly in Iran, which is in the middle of an election campaign in which potential US talks are a major issue.
Copyright © 2009 News From Antiwar.com. All rights reserved.
Interesting that Gates just recently warned against any attack but now is dutifully updating plans for an attack for Obama.
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Obama Orders Update to Iran Attack Plan
Posted By Jason Ditz
On NBC’s Today Show this morning, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that President Obama has ordered him to update the plans for a US attack on Iran, plans which were last updating during the Bush Administration. Gates says the plans are “refreshed” and insists that “all options are on the table” with respect to the potential attack.
It was only a month ago that Secretary Gates was warning vigorously against the potential attack, saying that it would create a “disastrous backlash” against the United States to hit Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities. The Obama Administration has insisted it is intending to pursue the matter diplomatically with Iran, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has repeatedly said the administration doesn’t expect diplomacy to work, and the effort seems to be primarily to rally international support for more measures against Iran.
The US has also been sending secret missions to Israel in recent days, reportedly to caution them against launching any surprise military attacks against Iran of their own. It was unclear how successful the warnings were: Prime Minister Netanyahu said he remained confident that the US would respect Israel’s right to attack Iran.
It is unclear whether Gates’ revelation portends a serious potential for an imminent US attack on Iran, or whether the move is more international posturing. Still, it seems unlikely the news will be greeted warmly in Iran, which is in the middle of an election campaign in which potential US talks are a major issue.
Copyright © 2009 News From Antiwar.com. All rights reserved.
Iran: They May Not Want the Bomb: Zakaria
This is a breath of fresh air from a mainstream media figure such as Zakaria who has his own program on CNN; also, the article is from Newsweek hardly an organ of non-mainstream opinions. Perhaps this is a dastardly plot by liberals who are soft on terrorists and for accomodation with evil extremist Islam to infect the general populace with false ideas!
Zakaria notes the ways in which Iran actually has helped the US in Afghanistan. Now that the Shiite majority is firmly entrenched in Iraq, Iran probably sees no need to continue needling the US there. Iran already won the war! Perhaps if the US wants to improve relations with Iran it might release the Iranians it is still holding after in effect kidnapping them from a facility used as a consular office! Iran after all released a US journalist but after a trial. There has been no trial ever for those Iranians held by the US. But of course this is not worth a mention since it is an action by the good guy!
Iran: They May Not Want The BombAnd other unexpected truths.By Fareed ZakariaMay 24, 2009 "Newsweek" -- Everything you know about Iran is wrong, or at least more complicated than you think. Take the bomb. The regime wants to be a nuclear power but could well be happy with a peaceful civilian program (which could make the challenge it poses more complex). What's the evidence? Well, over the last five years, senior Iranian officials at every level have repeatedly asserted that they do not intend to build nuclear weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has quoted the regime's founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who asserted that such weapons were "un-Islamic." The country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa in 2004 describing the use of nuclear weapons as immoral. In a subsequent sermon, he declared that "developing, producing or stockpiling nuclear weapons is forbidden under Islam." Last year Khamenei reiterated all these points after meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei. Now, of course, they could all be lying. But it seems odd for a regime that derives its legitimacy from its fidelity to Islam to declare constantly that these weapons are un-Islamic if it intends to develop them. It would be far shrewder to stop reminding people of Khomeini's statements and stop issuing new fatwas against nukes.Following a civilian nuclear strategy has big benefits. The country would remain within international law, simply asserting its rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a position that has much support across the world. That would make comprehensive sanctions against Iran impossible. And if Tehran's aim is to expand its regional influence, it doesn't need a bomb to do so. Simply having a clear "breakout" capacity—the ability to weaponize within a few months—would allow it to operate with much greater latitude and impunity in the Middle East and Central Asia.Iranians aren't suicidal. In an interview last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the Iranian regime as "a messianic, apocalyptic cult." In fact, Iran has tended to behave in a shrewd, calculating manner, advancing its interests when possible, retreating when necessary. The Iranians allied with the United States and against the Taliban in 2001, assisting in the creation of the Karzai government. They worked against the United States in Iraq, where they feared the creation of a pro-U.S. puppet on their border. Earlier this year, during the Gaza war, Israel warned Hizbullah not to launch rockets against it, and there is much evidence that Iran played a role in reining in their proxies. Iran's ruling elite is obsessed with gathering wealth and maintaining power. The argument made by those—including many Israelis for coercive sanctions against Iran is that many in the regime have been squirreling away money into bank accounts in Dubai and Switzerland for their children and grandchildren. These are not actions associated with people who believe that the world is going to end soon.One of Netanyahu's advisers said of Iran, "Think Amalek." The Bible says that the Amalekites were dedicated enemies of the Jewish people. In 1 Samuel 15, God says, "Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." Now, were the president of Iran and his advisers to have cited a religious text that gave divine sanction for the annihilation of an entire race, they would be called, well, messianic.Iran isn't a dictatorship. It is certainly not a democracy. The regime jails opponents, closes down magazines and tolerates few challenges to its authority. But neither is it a monolithic dictatorship. It might be best described as an oligarchy, with considerable debate and dissent within the elites. Even the so-called Supreme Leader has a constituency, the Assembly of Experts, who selected him and whom he has to keep happy. Ahmadinejad is widely seen as the "mad mullah" who runs the country, but he is not the unquestioned chief executive and is actually a thorn in the side of the clerical establishment. He is a layman with no family connections to major ayatollahs—which makes him a rare figure in the ruling class. He was not initially the favored candidate of the Supreme Leader in the 2005 election. Even now the mullahs clearly dislike him, and he, in turn, does things deliberately designed to undermine their authority. Iran might be ready to deal. We can't know if a deal is possible since we've never tried to negotiate one, not directly. While the regime appears united in its belief that Iran has the right to a civilian nuclear program—a position with broad popular support—some leaders seem sensitive to the costs of the current approach. It is conceivable that these "moderates" would appreciate the potential benefits of limiting their nuclear program, including trade, technology and recognition by the United States. The Iranians insist they must be able to enrich uranium on their own soil. One proposal is for this to take place in Iran but only under the control of an international consortium. It's not a perfect solution because the Iranians could—if they were very creative and dedicated—cheat. But neither is it perfect from the Iranian point of view because it would effectively mean a permanent inspections regime in their country. But both sides might get enough of what they consider crucial for it to work. Why not try this before launching the next Mideast war
Zakaria notes the ways in which Iran actually has helped the US in Afghanistan. Now that the Shiite majority is firmly entrenched in Iraq, Iran probably sees no need to continue needling the US there. Iran already won the war! Perhaps if the US wants to improve relations with Iran it might release the Iranians it is still holding after in effect kidnapping them from a facility used as a consular office! Iran after all released a US journalist but after a trial. There has been no trial ever for those Iranians held by the US. But of course this is not worth a mention since it is an action by the good guy!
Iran: They May Not Want The BombAnd other unexpected truths.By Fareed ZakariaMay 24, 2009 "Newsweek" -- Everything you know about Iran is wrong, or at least more complicated than you think. Take the bomb. The regime wants to be a nuclear power but could well be happy with a peaceful civilian program (which could make the challenge it poses more complex). What's the evidence? Well, over the last five years, senior Iranian officials at every level have repeatedly asserted that they do not intend to build nuclear weapons. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has quoted the regime's founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who asserted that such weapons were "un-Islamic." The country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa in 2004 describing the use of nuclear weapons as immoral. In a subsequent sermon, he declared that "developing, producing or stockpiling nuclear weapons is forbidden under Islam." Last year Khamenei reiterated all these points after meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei. Now, of course, they could all be lying. But it seems odd for a regime that derives its legitimacy from its fidelity to Islam to declare constantly that these weapons are un-Islamic if it intends to develop them. It would be far shrewder to stop reminding people of Khomeini's statements and stop issuing new fatwas against nukes.Following a civilian nuclear strategy has big benefits. The country would remain within international law, simply asserting its rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a position that has much support across the world. That would make comprehensive sanctions against Iran impossible. And if Tehran's aim is to expand its regional influence, it doesn't need a bomb to do so. Simply having a clear "breakout" capacity—the ability to weaponize within a few months—would allow it to operate with much greater latitude and impunity in the Middle East and Central Asia.Iranians aren't suicidal. In an interview last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the Iranian regime as "a messianic, apocalyptic cult." In fact, Iran has tended to behave in a shrewd, calculating manner, advancing its interests when possible, retreating when necessary. The Iranians allied with the United States and against the Taliban in 2001, assisting in the creation of the Karzai government. They worked against the United States in Iraq, where they feared the creation of a pro-U.S. puppet on their border. Earlier this year, during the Gaza war, Israel warned Hizbullah not to launch rockets against it, and there is much evidence that Iran played a role in reining in their proxies. Iran's ruling elite is obsessed with gathering wealth and maintaining power. The argument made by those—including many Israelis for coercive sanctions against Iran is that many in the regime have been squirreling away money into bank accounts in Dubai and Switzerland for their children and grandchildren. These are not actions associated with people who believe that the world is going to end soon.One of Netanyahu's advisers said of Iran, "Think Amalek." The Bible says that the Amalekites were dedicated enemies of the Jewish people. In 1 Samuel 15, God says, "Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." Now, were the president of Iran and his advisers to have cited a religious text that gave divine sanction for the annihilation of an entire race, they would be called, well, messianic.Iran isn't a dictatorship. It is certainly not a democracy. The regime jails opponents, closes down magazines and tolerates few challenges to its authority. But neither is it a monolithic dictatorship. It might be best described as an oligarchy, with considerable debate and dissent within the elites. Even the so-called Supreme Leader has a constituency, the Assembly of Experts, who selected him and whom he has to keep happy. Ahmadinejad is widely seen as the "mad mullah" who runs the country, but he is not the unquestioned chief executive and is actually a thorn in the side of the clerical establishment. He is a layman with no family connections to major ayatollahs—which makes him a rare figure in the ruling class. He was not initially the favored candidate of the Supreme Leader in the 2005 election. Even now the mullahs clearly dislike him, and he, in turn, does things deliberately designed to undermine their authority. Iran might be ready to deal. We can't know if a deal is possible since we've never tried to negotiate one, not directly. While the regime appears united in its belief that Iran has the right to a civilian nuclear program—a position with broad popular support—some leaders seem sensitive to the costs of the current approach. It is conceivable that these "moderates" would appreciate the potential benefits of limiting their nuclear program, including trade, technology and recognition by the United States. The Iranians insist they must be able to enrich uranium on their own soil. One proposal is for this to take place in Iran but only under the control of an international consortium. It's not a perfect solution because the Iranians could—if they were very creative and dedicated—cheat. But neither is it perfect from the Iranian point of view because it would effectively mean a permanent inspections regime in their country. But both sides might get enough of what they consider crucial for it to work. Why not try this before launching the next Mideast war
Monday, May 25, 2009
Tom Engelhardt: Six Ways the Af-Pak war is expanding.
This is from antiwar.com.
This article not only gives information about how the Af-Pak was is expanding under Obama but also has more info about Stanley McChrystal and shows his connection to the worst Bush hawks and neo-cons. The two party system in the U.S. is absolutely useless as far as producing much in the way of change but then that is how it is designed to work. Change occurs mostly at the level of rhetoric especially in foreign policy although Obama has opened up a little re Cuba and it is just possible that he might abandon the missile defence system and he also has spoken out against torture and some day he may even close Guantanamo but will still adopt Bush lite military tribunals and may also introduce indefinite detention without trial. One step forward two steps back.
An interesting aspect of this article is the discussion of the role of Zalmay Khalilzad in the new Afghan govt. assuming Karzai wins. Originally the US groomed him for the job as president but having decided that he could not be elected they are now going to force Karzai to appoint him as a sort of chief of staff to actually run the government. Perhaps this is possible but it would leave Karzai totally without credibility or power. Karzai might not worry too much about the first once he is elected but he probably will not be willing to give up all power!
Antiwar.com Original - http://original.antiwar.com -
Six Ways the Af-Pak War Is Expanding
Posted By Tom Engelhardt
Yes, Stanley McChrystal is the general from the dark side (and proud of it). So the recent sacking of Afghan commander Gen. David McKiernan after less than a year in the field and McChrystal’s appointment as the man to run the Afghan War seem to signal that the Obama administration is going for broke. It’s heading straight into what, in the Vietnam era, was known as “the big muddy.”
Gen. McChrystal comes from a world where killing by any means is the norm and a blanket of secrecy provides the necessary protection. For five years he commanded the Pentagon’s super-secret Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which, among other things, ran what Seymour Hersh has described as an “executive assassination wing” out of then-vice president Cheney’s office. (Cheney just returned the favor by giving the newly appointed general a ringing endorsement: “I think you’d be hard put to find anyone better than Stan McChrystal.”)
McChrystal gained a certain renown when then-president Bush outed him as the man responsible for tracking down and eliminating al-Qaeda-in-Mesopotamia leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The secret force of “manhunters” he commanded had its own secret detention and interrogation center near Baghdad, Camp Nama, where bad things happened regularly, and the unit there, Task Force 6-26, had its own slogan: “If you don’t make them bleed, they can’t prosecute for it.” Since some of the task force’s men were, in the end, prosecuted, the bleeding evidently wasn’t avoided.
In the Bush years, McChrystal was reputedly extremely close to then-secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld. The super-secret force he commanded was, in fact, part of Rumsfeld’s effort to seize control of, and Pentagonize, the covert, on-the-ground activities that were once the purview of the CIA.
Behind McChrystal lies a string of targeted executions that may run into the hundreds, as well as accusations of torture and abuse by troops under his command (and a role in the cover-up of the circumstances surrounding the death of Army Ranger and former National Football League player Pat Tillman). The general has reportedly long thought of Afghanistan and Pakistan as a single battlefield, which means that he was a premature adherent to the idea of an Af-Pak – that is, expanded – war. While in Afghanistan in 2008, the New York Times reported, he was a “key advocate … of a plan, ultimately approved by President George W. Bush, to use American commandos to strike at Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan.” This end-of-term Bush program provoked such anger and blowback in Pakistan that it was reportedly halted after two cross-border raids, one of which killed civilians.
All of this offers more than a hint of the sort of “new thinking and new approaches” – to use Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ words – that the Obama administration expects Gen. McChrystal to bring to the devolving Af-Pak battlefield. He is, in a sense, both a legacy figure from the worst days of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld era and the first-born child of Obama-era Washington’s growing desperation and hysteria over the wars it inherited.
Hagiography
And here’s the good news: We luv the guy. Just luv him to death.
We loved him back in 2006, when Bush first outed him and Newsweek reporters Michael Hirsh and John Barry dubbed him “a rising star” in the Army and one of the “Jedi Knights who are fighting in what Cheney calls ‘the shadows.’”
It’s no different today in what’s left of the mainstream news analysis business. In that mix of sports lingo, Hollywood-ese, and just plain hyperbole that makes armchair war strategizing just so darn much fun, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, for instance, claimed that CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, who picked McChrystal as his man in Afghanistan, is “assembling an all-star team” and that McChrystal himself is “a rising superstar who, like Petraeus, has helped reinvent the U.S. Army.” Is that all?
When it came to pure, instant hagiography, however, the prize went to Elisabeth Bumiller and Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times, who wrote a front-pager, “A General Steps from the Shadows,” that painted a picture of McChrystal as a mutant cross between Superman and a saint.
Among other things, it described the general as “an ascetic who… usually eats just one meal a day, in the evening, to avoid sluggishness. He is known for operating on a few hours’ sleep and for running to and from work while listening to audio books on an iPod. … [He has] an encyclopedic, even obsessive, knowledge about the lives of terrorists. … [He is] a warrior-scholar, comfortable with diplomats, politicians…” and so on. The quotes Bumiller and Mazzetti dug up from others were no less spectacular: “He’s got all the Special Ops attributes, plus an intellect.” “If you asked me the first thing that comes to mind about General McChrystal … I think of no body fat.”
From the gush of good cheer about his appointment, you might almost conclude that the general was not human at all, but an advanced android (a good one, of course!) and the “elite” world (of murder and abuse) he emerged from an unbearably sexy one.
Above all, as we’re told here and elsewhere, what’s so good about the new appointment is that Gen. McChrystal is “more aggressive” than his stick-in-the-mud predecessor. He will, as Bumiller and Thom Shanker report in another piece, bring “a more aggressive and innovative approach to a worsening seven-year war.” The general, we’re assured, likes operations without body fat, but with plenty of punch. And though no one quite says this, given his closeness to Rumsfeld and possibly Cheney, both desperately eager to “take the gloves off” on a planetary scale, his mentality is undoubtedly a global-war-on-terror one, which translates into no respect for boundaries, restraints, or the sovereignty of others. After all, as journalist Gareth Porter pointed out recently in a thoughtful Asia Times portrait of the new Afghan War commander, former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld granted the parent of JSOC, the Special Operations Command (SOCOM), “the authority to carry out actions unilaterally anywhere on the globe.”
Think of McChrystal’s appointment, then, as a decision in Washington to dispatch the bull directly to the china shop with the most meager of hopes that the results won’t be smashed Afghans and Pakistanis. The Post’s Ignatius even compares McChrystal’s boss Petraeus and Obama’s special envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, to “two headstrong bulls in a small paddock.” He then concludes his paean to all of them with this passage – far more ominous than he means it to be:
“Obama knows the immense difficulty of trying to fix a broken Afghanistan and make it a functioning, modern country. But with his two bulls, Petraeus and Holbrooke, he’s marching his presidency into the ‘graveyard of empires’ anyway.”
McChrystal is evidently the third bull, the one slated to start knocking over the tombstones.
An Expanding Af-Pak War
Of course, there are now so many bulls in this particular china shop that smashing is increasingly the name of the game. At this point, the early moves of the Obama administration, when combined with the momentum of the situation it inherited, have resulted in the expansion of the Af-Pak War in at least six areas, which only presage further expansion in the months to come:
1. Expanding Troop Commitment: In February, President Obama ordered a “surge” of 17,000 extra troops into Afghanistan, increasing U.S. forces there by 50 percent. (Then-commander McKiernan had called for 30,000 new troops.) In March, another 4,000 American military advisers and trainers were promised. The first of the surge troops, reportedly ill-equipped, are already arriving. In March, it was announced that this troop surge would be accompanied by a “civilian surge” of diplomats, advisers, and the like; in April, it was reported that, because the requisite diplomats and advisers couldn’t be found, the civilian surge would actually be made up largely of military personnel.
In preparation for this influx, there has been massive base and outpost building in the southern parts of that country, including the construction of 443-acre Camp Leatherneck in that region’s “desert of death.” When finished, it will support up to 8,000 U.S. troops, and a raft of helicopters and planes. Its airfield, which is under construction, has been described as the “largest such project in the world in a combat setting.”
2. Expanding CIA Drone War: The CIA is running an escalating secret drone war in the skies over the Pakistani borderlands with Afghanistan, a “targeted” assassination program of the sort that McChrystal specialized in while in Iraq. Since last September, more than three dozen drone attacks – the Los Angeles Times put the number at 55 – have been launched, as opposed to 10 in 2006-2007. The program has reportedly taken out a number of mid-level al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, but also caused significant civilian casualties, destabilized the Pashtun border areas of Pakistan, and fostered support for the Islamic guerrillas in those regions. As Noah Shachtman wrote recently at his Danger Room Web site:
“According to the American press, a pair of missiles from the unmanned aircraft killed ‘at least 25 militants.’ In the local media, the dead were simply described as ‘29 tribesmen present there.’ That simple difference in description underlies a serious problem in the campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. To Americans, the drones over Pakistan are terrorist-killers. In Pakistan, the robotic planes are wiping out neighbors.”
David Kilcullen, a key adviser to Petraeus during the Iraq “surge” months, and counterinsurgency expert Andrew McDonald Exum recently called for a moratorium on these attacks on the New York Times op-ed page. (”Press reports suggest that over the last three years drone strikes have killed about 14 terrorist leaders. But, according to Pakistani sources, they have also killed some 700 civilians. This is 50 civilians for every militant killed, a hit rate of 2 percent – hardly ‘precision.’”) As it happens, however, the Obama administration is deeply committed to its drone war. As CIA Director Leon Panetta put the matter, “Very frankly, it’s the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the al-Qaeda leadership.”
3. Expanding Air Force Drone War: The U.S. Air Force now seems to be getting into the act as well. There are conflicting reports about just what it is trying to do, but it has evidently brought its own set of Predator and Reaper drones into play in Pakistani skies, in conjunction, it seems, with a somewhat reluctant Pakistani military. Though the outlines of this program are foggy at best, this nonetheless represents an expansion of the war.
4. Expanding Political Interference: Quite a different kind of escalation is also underway. Washington is evidently attempting to insert yet another figure from the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld era into the Afghan mix. Not so long ago, Zalmay Khalilzad, the neocon former American viceroy in Kabul and then Baghdad, was considering making a run for the Afghan presidency against Hamid Karzai, the leader the Obama administration is desperate to ditch. In March, reports – hotly denied by Holbrooke and others – broke in the British press of a U.S./British plan to “undermine President Karzai of Afghanistan by forcing him to install a powerful chief of staff to run the government.” Karzai, so the rumors went, would be reduced to “figurehead” status, while a “chief executive with prime ministerial-style powers” not provided for in the Afghan constitution would essentially take over the running of the weak and corrupt government.
This week, Helene Cooper reported on the front page of the New York Times that Khalilzad would be that man. He “could assume a powerful, unelected position inside the Afghan government under a plan he is discussing with Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, according to senior American and Afghan officials.” He would then be “the chief executive officer of Afghanistan.”
Cooper’s report is filled with official denials that these negotiations involve Washington in any way. Yet if they succeed, an American citizen, a former U.S. ambassador to the UN as well as to Kabul, would end up functionally atop the Karzai government just as the Obama administration is eagerly pursuing a stepped-up war against the Taliban.
Why officials in Washington imagine that Afghans might actually accept such a figure is the mystery of the moment. It’s best to think of this plan as the kinder, gentler, soft-power version of the Kennedy administration’s 1963 decision to sign off on the coup that led to the assassination of South Vietnamese autocrat Ngo Dinh Diem. Then, too, top Washington officials were distressed that a puppet who seemed to be losing support was, like Karzai, also acting in an increasingly independent manner when it came to playing his appointed role in an American drama. That assassination, by the way, only increased instability in South Vietnam, leading to a succession of weak military regimes and paving the way for a further unraveling there. This American expansion of the war would likely have similar consequences.
5. Expanding War in Pakistan: Meanwhile, in Pakistan itself, mayhem has ensued, again in significant part thanks to Washington, whose disastrous Afghan war and escalating drone attacks have helped to destabilize the Pashtun regions of the country. Now, the Pakistani military – pushed and threatened by Washington (with the loss of military aid, among other things) – has smashed full force into the districts of Buner and Swat, which had, in recent months, been largely taken over by the Islamic fundamentalist guerrillas we call “the Pakistani Taliban.”
It’s been a massive show of force by a military configured for smash-mouth war with India, not urban or village warfare with lightly armed guerrillas. The Pakistani military has loosed its jets, helicopter gunships, and artillery on the region (even as the CIA drone strikes continue), killing unknown numbers of civilians and, far more significantly, causing a massive exodus of the local population. In some areas, well more than half the population has fled Taliban depredations and indiscriminate fire from the military. Those that remain in besieged towns and cities, often without electricity, with the dead in the streets, and fast disappearing supplies of food, are clearly in trouble.
With nearly 1.5 million Pakistanis turned into refugees just since the latest offensive began, UN officials are suggesting that this could be the worst refugee crisis since the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Talk about the destabilization of a country.
In the long run, this may only increase the anger of Pashtuns in the tribal areas of Pakistan at both the Americans and the Pakistani military and government. The rise of Pashtun nationalism and a fight for an “Islamic Pashtunistan” would prove a dangerous development indeed. This latest offensive is what Washington thought it wanted, but undoubtedly the old saw, “Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true,” applies. Already a panicky Washington is planning to rush $110 million in refugee assistance to the country.
6. Expanding Civilian Death Toll and Blowback: As Taliban attacks in Afghanistan rise and that loose guerrilla force (more like a coalition of various Islamist, tribal, warlord, and criminal groups) spreads into new areas, the American air war in Afghanistan continues to take a heavy toll on Afghan civilians, while manufacturing ever more enemies as well as deep resentment and protest in that country. The latest such incident, possibly the worst since the Taliban was defeated in 2001, involves the deaths of up to 147 Afghans in the Bala Baluk district of Farah province, according to accounts that have come out of the villages attacked. Up to 95 of the dead were under 18, one Afghan lawmaker involved in investigating the incident claims, and up to 65 of them women or girls. These deaths came after Americans were called into an escalating fight between the Taliban and Afghan police and military units, and in turn, called in devastating air strikes by two U.S. jets and a B-1 bomber (which, villagers claim, hit them after the Taliban fighters had left).
Despite American pledges to own up to and apologize more quickly for civilian deaths, the post-carnage events followed a predictable stonewalling pattern, including a begrudging step-by-step retreat in the face of independent claims and reports. The Americans first denied that anything much had happened; then claimed that they had killed mainly Taliban “militants”; then that the Taliban had themselves used grenades to kill most of the civilians (a charge later partially withdrawn as “thinly sourced”); and finally, that the numbers of Afghan dead were “extremely over-exaggerated,” and that the urge for payment from the Afghan government might be partially responsible.
An investigation, as always, was launched that never seems to end, while the Americans wait for the story to fade from view. As of this moment, while still awaiting the results of a “very exhaustive” investigation, American spokesmen nonetheless claim that only 20-30 civilians died along with up to 65 Taliban insurgents. In these years, however, the record tells us that, when weighing the stories offered by surviving villagers and those of American officials, believe the villagers. Put more bluntly, in such situations, we lie, they die.
Two things make this “incident” at Bala Baluk more striking. First of all, according to Jerome Starkey of the British Independent, another Rumsfeld creation, the U.S. Marines Corps Special Operations Command (MarSOC), the Marines’ version of JSOC, was centrally involved, as it had been in two other major civilian slaughters, one near Jalalabad in 2007 (committed by a MarSOC unit that dubbed itself “Taskforce Violence”), the second in 2008 at the village of Azizabad in Herat province. McChrystal’s appointment, reports Starkey, has “prompted speculation that [similar] commando counterinsurgency missions will increase in the battle to beat the Taliban.”
Second, back in Washington, National Security Adviser James Jones and head of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen, fretting about civilian casualties in Afghanistan and faced with President Karzai’s repeated pleas to cease air attacks on Afghan villages, nonetheless refused to consider the possibility. Both, in fact, used the same image. As Jones told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos: “Well, I think he understands that… we have to have the full complement of… our offensive military power when we need it. … We can’t fight with one hand tied behind our back….”
In a world in which the U.S. is the military equivalent of the multi-armed Hindu god Shiva, this is one of the truly strange, if long-lasting, American images. It was, for instance, used by President George H. W. Bush on the eve of the first Gulf War. “No hands,” he said, “are going to be tied behind backs. This is not a Vietnam.”
Forgetting the levels of firepower loosed in Vietnam, the image itself is abidingly odd. After all, in everyday speech, the challenge “I could beat you with one hand tied behind my back” is a bravado offer of voluntary restraint and an implicit admission that fighting any other way would make one a bully. So hidden in the image, both when the elder Bush used it and today, is a most un-American acceptance of the United States as a bully nation, about to be restrained by no one, least of all itself.
Apologize or stonewall, one thing remains certain: the air war will continue and so civilians will continue to die. The idea that the U.S. might actually be better off with one “hand” tied behind its back is now so alien to us as to be beyond serious consideration.
The Pressure of an Expanding War
President Obama has opted for a down-and-dirty war strategy in search of some at least minimalist form of success. For this, McChrystal is the poster boy. Former Afghan commander Gen. McKiernan believed that, “as a NATO commander, my mandate stops at the [Afghan] border. So unless there is a clear case of self-protection to fire across the border, we don’t consider any operations across the border in the tribal areas.”
That the “responsibilities” of U.S. generals fighting the Afghan War “ended at the border with Pakistan,” Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt of the Times report, is now considered part of an “old mindset.” McChrystal represents those “fresh eyes” that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates talked about in the press conference announcing the general’s appointment. As Mazzetti and Schmitt point out, “Among [McChrystal's] last projects as the head of the Joint Special Operations Command was to better coordinate Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency efforts on both sides of the porous border.”
For those old enough to remember, we’ve been here before. Administrations that start down a path of expansion in such a war find themselves strangely locked in – psychically, if nothing else – if things don’t work out as expected and the situation continues to deteriorate. In Vietnam, the result was escalation without end. President Obama and his foreign policy team now seem locked into an expanding war. Despite the fact that the application of force has not only failed for years, but actually fed that expansion, they also seem to be locked into a policy of applying ever greater force, with the goal of, as the Post’s Ignatius puts it, cracking the “Taliban coalition” and bringing elements of it to the bargaining table.
So keep an eye out for whatever goes wrong, as it most certainly will, and then for the pressures on Washington to respond with further expansions of what is already “Obama’s war.” With McChrystal in charge in Afghanistan, for instance, it seems reasonable to assume that the urge to sanction new special forces raids into Pakistan will grow. After all, frustration in Washington is already building, for however much the Pakistani military may be taking on the Taliban in Swat or Buner, don’t expect its military or civilian leaders to be terribly interested in what happens near the Afghan border.
As Tony Karon of the Rootless Cosmopolitan blog puts the matter: “The current military campaign is designed to enforce a limit on the Taliban’s reach within Pakistan, confining it to the movement’s heartland.” And that heartland is the Afghan border region. For one thing, the Pakistani military (and the country’s intelligence services, which essentially brought the Taliban into being long ago) are focused on India. They want a Pashtun ally across the border, Taliban or otherwise, where they fear the Indians are making inroads.
So the frustration of a war in which the enemy has no borders and we do is bound to rise along with the fighting, long predicted to intensify this year. We now have a more aggressive “team” in place. Soon enough, if the fighting in the Afghan south and along the Pakistani border doesn’t go as planned, pressure for the president to send in those other 10,000 troops Gen. McKiernan asked for may rise as well, as could pressure to apply more air power, more drone power, more of almost anything. And yet, as former CIA station chief in Kabul, Graham Fuller, wrote recently, in the region “crises have only grown worse under the U.S. military footprint.”
And what if, as the war continues its slow arc of expansion, the “Washington coalition” is the one that cracks first? What then?
Copyright 2009 Tom Engelhardt
Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.com
URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2009/05/21/six-ways/
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This article not only gives information about how the Af-Pak was is expanding under Obama but also has more info about Stanley McChrystal and shows his connection to the worst Bush hawks and neo-cons. The two party system in the U.S. is absolutely useless as far as producing much in the way of change but then that is how it is designed to work. Change occurs mostly at the level of rhetoric especially in foreign policy although Obama has opened up a little re Cuba and it is just possible that he might abandon the missile defence system and he also has spoken out against torture and some day he may even close Guantanamo but will still adopt Bush lite military tribunals and may also introduce indefinite detention without trial. One step forward two steps back.
An interesting aspect of this article is the discussion of the role of Zalmay Khalilzad in the new Afghan govt. assuming Karzai wins. Originally the US groomed him for the job as president but having decided that he could not be elected they are now going to force Karzai to appoint him as a sort of chief of staff to actually run the government. Perhaps this is possible but it would leave Karzai totally without credibility or power. Karzai might not worry too much about the first once he is elected but he probably will not be willing to give up all power!
Antiwar.com Original - http://original.antiwar.com -
Six Ways the Af-Pak War Is Expanding
Posted By Tom Engelhardt
Yes, Stanley McChrystal is the general from the dark side (and proud of it). So the recent sacking of Afghan commander Gen. David McKiernan after less than a year in the field and McChrystal’s appointment as the man to run the Afghan War seem to signal that the Obama administration is going for broke. It’s heading straight into what, in the Vietnam era, was known as “the big muddy.”
Gen. McChrystal comes from a world where killing by any means is the norm and a blanket of secrecy provides the necessary protection. For five years he commanded the Pentagon’s super-secret Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which, among other things, ran what Seymour Hersh has described as an “executive assassination wing” out of then-vice president Cheney’s office. (Cheney just returned the favor by giving the newly appointed general a ringing endorsement: “I think you’d be hard put to find anyone better than Stan McChrystal.”)
McChrystal gained a certain renown when then-president Bush outed him as the man responsible for tracking down and eliminating al-Qaeda-in-Mesopotamia leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The secret force of “manhunters” he commanded had its own secret detention and interrogation center near Baghdad, Camp Nama, where bad things happened regularly, and the unit there, Task Force 6-26, had its own slogan: “If you don’t make them bleed, they can’t prosecute for it.” Since some of the task force’s men were, in the end, prosecuted, the bleeding evidently wasn’t avoided.
In the Bush years, McChrystal was reputedly extremely close to then-secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld. The super-secret force he commanded was, in fact, part of Rumsfeld’s effort to seize control of, and Pentagonize, the covert, on-the-ground activities that were once the purview of the CIA.
Behind McChrystal lies a string of targeted executions that may run into the hundreds, as well as accusations of torture and abuse by troops under his command (and a role in the cover-up of the circumstances surrounding the death of Army Ranger and former National Football League player Pat Tillman). The general has reportedly long thought of Afghanistan and Pakistan as a single battlefield, which means that he was a premature adherent to the idea of an Af-Pak – that is, expanded – war. While in Afghanistan in 2008, the New York Times reported, he was a “key advocate … of a plan, ultimately approved by President George W. Bush, to use American commandos to strike at Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan.” This end-of-term Bush program provoked such anger and blowback in Pakistan that it was reportedly halted after two cross-border raids, one of which killed civilians.
All of this offers more than a hint of the sort of “new thinking and new approaches” – to use Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ words – that the Obama administration expects Gen. McChrystal to bring to the devolving Af-Pak battlefield. He is, in a sense, both a legacy figure from the worst days of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld era and the first-born child of Obama-era Washington’s growing desperation and hysteria over the wars it inherited.
Hagiography
And here’s the good news: We luv the guy. Just luv him to death.
We loved him back in 2006, when Bush first outed him and Newsweek reporters Michael Hirsh and John Barry dubbed him “a rising star” in the Army and one of the “Jedi Knights who are fighting in what Cheney calls ‘the shadows.’”
It’s no different today in what’s left of the mainstream news analysis business. In that mix of sports lingo, Hollywood-ese, and just plain hyperbole that makes armchair war strategizing just so darn much fun, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, for instance, claimed that CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, who picked McChrystal as his man in Afghanistan, is “assembling an all-star team” and that McChrystal himself is “a rising superstar who, like Petraeus, has helped reinvent the U.S. Army.” Is that all?
When it came to pure, instant hagiography, however, the prize went to Elisabeth Bumiller and Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times, who wrote a front-pager, “A General Steps from the Shadows,” that painted a picture of McChrystal as a mutant cross between Superman and a saint.
Among other things, it described the general as “an ascetic who… usually eats just one meal a day, in the evening, to avoid sluggishness. He is known for operating on a few hours’ sleep and for running to and from work while listening to audio books on an iPod. … [He has] an encyclopedic, even obsessive, knowledge about the lives of terrorists. … [He is] a warrior-scholar, comfortable with diplomats, politicians…” and so on. The quotes Bumiller and Mazzetti dug up from others were no less spectacular: “He’s got all the Special Ops attributes, plus an intellect.” “If you asked me the first thing that comes to mind about General McChrystal … I think of no body fat.”
From the gush of good cheer about his appointment, you might almost conclude that the general was not human at all, but an advanced android (a good one, of course!) and the “elite” world (of murder and abuse) he emerged from an unbearably sexy one.
Above all, as we’re told here and elsewhere, what’s so good about the new appointment is that Gen. McChrystal is “more aggressive” than his stick-in-the-mud predecessor. He will, as Bumiller and Thom Shanker report in another piece, bring “a more aggressive and innovative approach to a worsening seven-year war.” The general, we’re assured, likes operations without body fat, but with plenty of punch. And though no one quite says this, given his closeness to Rumsfeld and possibly Cheney, both desperately eager to “take the gloves off” on a planetary scale, his mentality is undoubtedly a global-war-on-terror one, which translates into no respect for boundaries, restraints, or the sovereignty of others. After all, as journalist Gareth Porter pointed out recently in a thoughtful Asia Times portrait of the new Afghan War commander, former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld granted the parent of JSOC, the Special Operations Command (SOCOM), “the authority to carry out actions unilaterally anywhere on the globe.”
Think of McChrystal’s appointment, then, as a decision in Washington to dispatch the bull directly to the china shop with the most meager of hopes that the results won’t be smashed Afghans and Pakistanis. The Post’s Ignatius even compares McChrystal’s boss Petraeus and Obama’s special envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, to “two headstrong bulls in a small paddock.” He then concludes his paean to all of them with this passage – far more ominous than he means it to be:
“Obama knows the immense difficulty of trying to fix a broken Afghanistan and make it a functioning, modern country. But with his two bulls, Petraeus and Holbrooke, he’s marching his presidency into the ‘graveyard of empires’ anyway.”
McChrystal is evidently the third bull, the one slated to start knocking over the tombstones.
An Expanding Af-Pak War
Of course, there are now so many bulls in this particular china shop that smashing is increasingly the name of the game. At this point, the early moves of the Obama administration, when combined with the momentum of the situation it inherited, have resulted in the expansion of the Af-Pak War in at least six areas, which only presage further expansion in the months to come:
1. Expanding Troop Commitment: In February, President Obama ordered a “surge” of 17,000 extra troops into Afghanistan, increasing U.S. forces there by 50 percent. (Then-commander McKiernan had called for 30,000 new troops.) In March, another 4,000 American military advisers and trainers were promised. The first of the surge troops, reportedly ill-equipped, are already arriving. In March, it was announced that this troop surge would be accompanied by a “civilian surge” of diplomats, advisers, and the like; in April, it was reported that, because the requisite diplomats and advisers couldn’t be found, the civilian surge would actually be made up largely of military personnel.
In preparation for this influx, there has been massive base and outpost building in the southern parts of that country, including the construction of 443-acre Camp Leatherneck in that region’s “desert of death.” When finished, it will support up to 8,000 U.S. troops, and a raft of helicopters and planes. Its airfield, which is under construction, has been described as the “largest such project in the world in a combat setting.”
2. Expanding CIA Drone War: The CIA is running an escalating secret drone war in the skies over the Pakistani borderlands with Afghanistan, a “targeted” assassination program of the sort that McChrystal specialized in while in Iraq. Since last September, more than three dozen drone attacks – the Los Angeles Times put the number at 55 – have been launched, as opposed to 10 in 2006-2007. The program has reportedly taken out a number of mid-level al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, but also caused significant civilian casualties, destabilized the Pashtun border areas of Pakistan, and fostered support for the Islamic guerrillas in those regions. As Noah Shachtman wrote recently at his Danger Room Web site:
“According to the American press, a pair of missiles from the unmanned aircraft killed ‘at least 25 militants.’ In the local media, the dead were simply described as ‘29 tribesmen present there.’ That simple difference in description underlies a serious problem in the campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. To Americans, the drones over Pakistan are terrorist-killers. In Pakistan, the robotic planes are wiping out neighbors.”
David Kilcullen, a key adviser to Petraeus during the Iraq “surge” months, and counterinsurgency expert Andrew McDonald Exum recently called for a moratorium on these attacks on the New York Times op-ed page. (”Press reports suggest that over the last three years drone strikes have killed about 14 terrorist leaders. But, according to Pakistani sources, they have also killed some 700 civilians. This is 50 civilians for every militant killed, a hit rate of 2 percent – hardly ‘precision.’”) As it happens, however, the Obama administration is deeply committed to its drone war. As CIA Director Leon Panetta put the matter, “Very frankly, it’s the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the al-Qaeda leadership.”
3. Expanding Air Force Drone War: The U.S. Air Force now seems to be getting into the act as well. There are conflicting reports about just what it is trying to do, but it has evidently brought its own set of Predator and Reaper drones into play in Pakistani skies, in conjunction, it seems, with a somewhat reluctant Pakistani military. Though the outlines of this program are foggy at best, this nonetheless represents an expansion of the war.
4. Expanding Political Interference: Quite a different kind of escalation is also underway. Washington is evidently attempting to insert yet another figure from the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld era into the Afghan mix. Not so long ago, Zalmay Khalilzad, the neocon former American viceroy in Kabul and then Baghdad, was considering making a run for the Afghan presidency against Hamid Karzai, the leader the Obama administration is desperate to ditch. In March, reports – hotly denied by Holbrooke and others – broke in the British press of a U.S./British plan to “undermine President Karzai of Afghanistan by forcing him to install a powerful chief of staff to run the government.” Karzai, so the rumors went, would be reduced to “figurehead” status, while a “chief executive with prime ministerial-style powers” not provided for in the Afghan constitution would essentially take over the running of the weak and corrupt government.
This week, Helene Cooper reported on the front page of the New York Times that Khalilzad would be that man. He “could assume a powerful, unelected position inside the Afghan government under a plan he is discussing with Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, according to senior American and Afghan officials.” He would then be “the chief executive officer of Afghanistan.”
Cooper’s report is filled with official denials that these negotiations involve Washington in any way. Yet if they succeed, an American citizen, a former U.S. ambassador to the UN as well as to Kabul, would end up functionally atop the Karzai government just as the Obama administration is eagerly pursuing a stepped-up war against the Taliban.
Why officials in Washington imagine that Afghans might actually accept such a figure is the mystery of the moment. It’s best to think of this plan as the kinder, gentler, soft-power version of the Kennedy administration’s 1963 decision to sign off on the coup that led to the assassination of South Vietnamese autocrat Ngo Dinh Diem. Then, too, top Washington officials were distressed that a puppet who seemed to be losing support was, like Karzai, also acting in an increasingly independent manner when it came to playing his appointed role in an American drama. That assassination, by the way, only increased instability in South Vietnam, leading to a succession of weak military regimes and paving the way for a further unraveling there. This American expansion of the war would likely have similar consequences.
5. Expanding War in Pakistan: Meanwhile, in Pakistan itself, mayhem has ensued, again in significant part thanks to Washington, whose disastrous Afghan war and escalating drone attacks have helped to destabilize the Pashtun regions of the country. Now, the Pakistani military – pushed and threatened by Washington (with the loss of military aid, among other things) – has smashed full force into the districts of Buner and Swat, which had, in recent months, been largely taken over by the Islamic fundamentalist guerrillas we call “the Pakistani Taliban.”
It’s been a massive show of force by a military configured for smash-mouth war with India, not urban or village warfare with lightly armed guerrillas. The Pakistani military has loosed its jets, helicopter gunships, and artillery on the region (even as the CIA drone strikes continue), killing unknown numbers of civilians and, far more significantly, causing a massive exodus of the local population. In some areas, well more than half the population has fled Taliban depredations and indiscriminate fire from the military. Those that remain in besieged towns and cities, often without electricity, with the dead in the streets, and fast disappearing supplies of food, are clearly in trouble.
With nearly 1.5 million Pakistanis turned into refugees just since the latest offensive began, UN officials are suggesting that this could be the worst refugee crisis since the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Talk about the destabilization of a country.
In the long run, this may only increase the anger of Pashtuns in the tribal areas of Pakistan at both the Americans and the Pakistani military and government. The rise of Pashtun nationalism and a fight for an “Islamic Pashtunistan” would prove a dangerous development indeed. This latest offensive is what Washington thought it wanted, but undoubtedly the old saw, “Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true,” applies. Already a panicky Washington is planning to rush $110 million in refugee assistance to the country.
6. Expanding Civilian Death Toll and Blowback: As Taliban attacks in Afghanistan rise and that loose guerrilla force (more like a coalition of various Islamist, tribal, warlord, and criminal groups) spreads into new areas, the American air war in Afghanistan continues to take a heavy toll on Afghan civilians, while manufacturing ever more enemies as well as deep resentment and protest in that country. The latest such incident, possibly the worst since the Taliban was defeated in 2001, involves the deaths of up to 147 Afghans in the Bala Baluk district of Farah province, according to accounts that have come out of the villages attacked. Up to 95 of the dead were under 18, one Afghan lawmaker involved in investigating the incident claims, and up to 65 of them women or girls. These deaths came after Americans were called into an escalating fight between the Taliban and Afghan police and military units, and in turn, called in devastating air strikes by two U.S. jets and a B-1 bomber (which, villagers claim, hit them after the Taliban fighters had left).
Despite American pledges to own up to and apologize more quickly for civilian deaths, the post-carnage events followed a predictable stonewalling pattern, including a begrudging step-by-step retreat in the face of independent claims and reports. The Americans first denied that anything much had happened; then claimed that they had killed mainly Taliban “militants”; then that the Taliban had themselves used grenades to kill most of the civilians (a charge later partially withdrawn as “thinly sourced”); and finally, that the numbers of Afghan dead were “extremely over-exaggerated,” and that the urge for payment from the Afghan government might be partially responsible.
An investigation, as always, was launched that never seems to end, while the Americans wait for the story to fade from view. As of this moment, while still awaiting the results of a “very exhaustive” investigation, American spokesmen nonetheless claim that only 20-30 civilians died along with up to 65 Taliban insurgents. In these years, however, the record tells us that, when weighing the stories offered by surviving villagers and those of American officials, believe the villagers. Put more bluntly, in such situations, we lie, they die.
Two things make this “incident” at Bala Baluk more striking. First of all, according to Jerome Starkey of the British Independent, another Rumsfeld creation, the U.S. Marines Corps Special Operations Command (MarSOC), the Marines’ version of JSOC, was centrally involved, as it had been in two other major civilian slaughters, one near Jalalabad in 2007 (committed by a MarSOC unit that dubbed itself “Taskforce Violence”), the second in 2008 at the village of Azizabad in Herat province. McChrystal’s appointment, reports Starkey, has “prompted speculation that [similar] commando counterinsurgency missions will increase in the battle to beat the Taliban.”
Second, back in Washington, National Security Adviser James Jones and head of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen, fretting about civilian casualties in Afghanistan and faced with President Karzai’s repeated pleas to cease air attacks on Afghan villages, nonetheless refused to consider the possibility. Both, in fact, used the same image. As Jones told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos: “Well, I think he understands that… we have to have the full complement of… our offensive military power when we need it. … We can’t fight with one hand tied behind our back….”
In a world in which the U.S. is the military equivalent of the multi-armed Hindu god Shiva, this is one of the truly strange, if long-lasting, American images. It was, for instance, used by President George H. W. Bush on the eve of the first Gulf War. “No hands,” he said, “are going to be tied behind backs. This is not a Vietnam.”
Forgetting the levels of firepower loosed in Vietnam, the image itself is abidingly odd. After all, in everyday speech, the challenge “I could beat you with one hand tied behind my back” is a bravado offer of voluntary restraint and an implicit admission that fighting any other way would make one a bully. So hidden in the image, both when the elder Bush used it and today, is a most un-American acceptance of the United States as a bully nation, about to be restrained by no one, least of all itself.
Apologize or stonewall, one thing remains certain: the air war will continue and so civilians will continue to die. The idea that the U.S. might actually be better off with one “hand” tied behind its back is now so alien to us as to be beyond serious consideration.
The Pressure of an Expanding War
President Obama has opted for a down-and-dirty war strategy in search of some at least minimalist form of success. For this, McChrystal is the poster boy. Former Afghan commander Gen. McKiernan believed that, “as a NATO commander, my mandate stops at the [Afghan] border. So unless there is a clear case of self-protection to fire across the border, we don’t consider any operations across the border in the tribal areas.”
That the “responsibilities” of U.S. generals fighting the Afghan War “ended at the border with Pakistan,” Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt of the Times report, is now considered part of an “old mindset.” McChrystal represents those “fresh eyes” that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates talked about in the press conference announcing the general’s appointment. As Mazzetti and Schmitt point out, “Among [McChrystal's] last projects as the head of the Joint Special Operations Command was to better coordinate Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency efforts on both sides of the porous border.”
For those old enough to remember, we’ve been here before. Administrations that start down a path of expansion in such a war find themselves strangely locked in – psychically, if nothing else – if things don’t work out as expected and the situation continues to deteriorate. In Vietnam, the result was escalation without end. President Obama and his foreign policy team now seem locked into an expanding war. Despite the fact that the application of force has not only failed for years, but actually fed that expansion, they also seem to be locked into a policy of applying ever greater force, with the goal of, as the Post’s Ignatius puts it, cracking the “Taliban coalition” and bringing elements of it to the bargaining table.
So keep an eye out for whatever goes wrong, as it most certainly will, and then for the pressures on Washington to respond with further expansions of what is already “Obama’s war.” With McChrystal in charge in Afghanistan, for instance, it seems reasonable to assume that the urge to sanction new special forces raids into Pakistan will grow. After all, frustration in Washington is already building, for however much the Pakistani military may be taking on the Taliban in Swat or Buner, don’t expect its military or civilian leaders to be terribly interested in what happens near the Afghan border.
As Tony Karon of the Rootless Cosmopolitan blog puts the matter: “The current military campaign is designed to enforce a limit on the Taliban’s reach within Pakistan, confining it to the movement’s heartland.” And that heartland is the Afghan border region. For one thing, the Pakistani military (and the country’s intelligence services, which essentially brought the Taliban into being long ago) are focused on India. They want a Pashtun ally across the border, Taliban or otherwise, where they fear the Indians are making inroads.
So the frustration of a war in which the enemy has no borders and we do is bound to rise along with the fighting, long predicted to intensify this year. We now have a more aggressive “team” in place. Soon enough, if the fighting in the Afghan south and along the Pakistani border doesn’t go as planned, pressure for the president to send in those other 10,000 troops Gen. McKiernan asked for may rise as well, as could pressure to apply more air power, more drone power, more of almost anything. And yet, as former CIA station chief in Kabul, Graham Fuller, wrote recently, in the region “crises have only grown worse under the U.S. military footprint.”
And what if, as the war continues its slow arc of expansion, the “Washington coalition” is the one that cracks first? What then?
Copyright 2009 Tom Engelhardt
Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.com
URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2009/05/21/six-ways/
Copyright © 2009 Antiwar.com Original. All rights reserved.
Insurgents still remain in major SWAT towns.
This is from antiwar.com.
No doubt in some instances the Taliban will simply disappear into the general population or more likely leave some to fight and others to blend in with the populace to emerge at a later date. No doubt also that the Pakistani forces will kill many civilians as this article notes. In many cases the forces may mistake ordinary civilians for Taliban.
Despite Offensive, Insurgents Remain a Presence in Major Swat Towns
Posted By Jason Ditz The Pakistani military has claimed some major gains in the ongoing Swat Valley offensive, notably today capturing a tent on top of a desolate mountain. Yet reports are suggesting that even as the troops slowly move deeper into the valley, the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militants remain entrenched in its major towns, blending easily with the local populace.
“You cannot distinguish between a Talib and a normal citizen,” Major General Sajjad Ali admitted, which is perhaps ominous inasmuch as the military claims to have killed over a thousand of the former and has not commented at all on the civilian toll, even when they have directly attacked fleeing civilians along the valley’s northern mountains.
Commanders are now saying that gaining control over the region will take months, even as President Asif Ali Zardari intends to expand the fight into a significant portion of the country’s northern frontier. While most of Pakistan’s attacks have involved reports of commanders killed, locals report that none of the top leaders of the insurgency have been killed yet.
Swat’s largest city, Mingora, has remained under TTP control for weeks, though military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas says the military is surrounding it and will be launching an operation against it soon.
Copyright © 2009 News From Antiwar.com. All rights reserved.
No doubt in some instances the Taliban will simply disappear into the general population or more likely leave some to fight and others to blend in with the populace to emerge at a later date. No doubt also that the Pakistani forces will kill many civilians as this article notes. In many cases the forces may mistake ordinary civilians for Taliban.
Despite Offensive, Insurgents Remain a Presence in Major Swat Towns
Posted By Jason Ditz The Pakistani military has claimed some major gains in the ongoing Swat Valley offensive, notably today capturing a tent on top of a desolate mountain. Yet reports are suggesting that even as the troops slowly move deeper into the valley, the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militants remain entrenched in its major towns, blending easily with the local populace.
“You cannot distinguish between a Talib and a normal citizen,” Major General Sajjad Ali admitted, which is perhaps ominous inasmuch as the military claims to have killed over a thousand of the former and has not commented at all on the civilian toll, even when they have directly attacked fleeing civilians along the valley’s northern mountains.
Commanders are now saying that gaining control over the region will take months, even as President Asif Ali Zardari intends to expand the fight into a significant portion of the country’s northern frontier. While most of Pakistan’s attacks have involved reports of commanders killed, locals report that none of the top leaders of the insurgency have been killed yet.
Swat’s largest city, Mingora, has remained under TTP control for weeks, though military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas says the military is surrounding it and will be launching an operation against it soon.
Copyright © 2009 News From Antiwar.com. All rights reserved.
Some Philippine Armed Forces Personnel giving themselves bonuses for Military Exercises with US?
This is from the Tribune (Manila)
While the AFP is mounting a probe without the whistle-blower one wonders what positive evidence will come forward given that the woman who made the charge fears for her safety if she testifies. No doubt others who might testify have the same fears.
AFP to press probe of Balikatan fund mess even without Gadian
05/25/2009
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) will proceed with its investigation of the alleged misuse of the funds intended for use in the RP-US Balikatan exercises held two years ago in the country even without the issue’s whistle-blower, Navy Lt. Senior Grade Nancy Gadian, a military official said yesterday.
Speaking at the Balitaan sa Tinapayan forum held in Sampaloc, Manila, AFP spokesman, Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner Jr. said the investigation will focus on studying the records of the Commission on Audit in 2007 which had made an audit of the use of the funds to determine if there was indeed irregularity in their disbursement.
“We will be revisiting our records. It would be better if Lt. S/G Gadian would show up (at the hearing) and formalize her complaint and name names on who actually committed the misuse of the funds. But she has to substantiate (her claims) with evidence,” Brawner said.
He explained that the annual joint exercises between the Philippines and the United States is aimed at strengthening the capabilities of the two militaries.
A fund in the amount of P42 million was set aside for the Balikatan exercises in 2007.
Brawner, though, said the AFP’s next move regarding the alleged misuse of the 2007 Balikatan funds would depend on Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro.
Earlier, Gadian’s family asked the Supreme Court to issue a writ of amparo, to compel the AFP to stop its harassment of the resigned Navy officer.
Gadian’s sister, Nedina Gadian-Diamante, said she filed a motion for the issuance of a writ of amparo after reportedly receiving a text message saying that a shoot-to-kill order had already been issued out against her sister.
The military, however, has denied issuing a shoot-to-kill order against Gadian, who went on an indefinite absence without official leave before spilling the beans on the alleged misuse of the funds for the joint RP-US Balikatan exercises two years ago by ranking Armed Forces officials.
Gadian said the “anomaly” ran from lower-ranked officials from the Western Mindanao Command up to the AFP’s hierarchy. She said they pocketed portions of the joint military exercises’ P42-million fund in 2007.
Asked to identify who sent the text message talking about the shoot-to-kill order, Diamante refused to give a name but said the sender was a “concerned citizen.”
An earlier report said Diamante’s source was someone from the Philippine National Police.
At the same time, Brawner said despite her having filed a resignation from military service, Gadian remains an officer of the AFP as she still has to go through a required process before her resignation is declared final. PNA
While the AFP is mounting a probe without the whistle-blower one wonders what positive evidence will come forward given that the woman who made the charge fears for her safety if she testifies. No doubt others who might testify have the same fears.
AFP to press probe of Balikatan fund mess even without Gadian
05/25/2009
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) will proceed with its investigation of the alleged misuse of the funds intended for use in the RP-US Balikatan exercises held two years ago in the country even without the issue’s whistle-blower, Navy Lt. Senior Grade Nancy Gadian, a military official said yesterday.
Speaking at the Balitaan sa Tinapayan forum held in Sampaloc, Manila, AFP spokesman, Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner Jr. said the investigation will focus on studying the records of the Commission on Audit in 2007 which had made an audit of the use of the funds to determine if there was indeed irregularity in their disbursement.
“We will be revisiting our records. It would be better if Lt. S/G Gadian would show up (at the hearing) and formalize her complaint and name names on who actually committed the misuse of the funds. But she has to substantiate (her claims) with evidence,” Brawner said.
He explained that the annual joint exercises between the Philippines and the United States is aimed at strengthening the capabilities of the two militaries.
A fund in the amount of P42 million was set aside for the Balikatan exercises in 2007.
Brawner, though, said the AFP’s next move regarding the alleged misuse of the 2007 Balikatan funds would depend on Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro.
Earlier, Gadian’s family asked the Supreme Court to issue a writ of amparo, to compel the AFP to stop its harassment of the resigned Navy officer.
Gadian’s sister, Nedina Gadian-Diamante, said she filed a motion for the issuance of a writ of amparo after reportedly receiving a text message saying that a shoot-to-kill order had already been issued out against her sister.
The military, however, has denied issuing a shoot-to-kill order against Gadian, who went on an indefinite absence without official leave before spilling the beans on the alleged misuse of the funds for the joint RP-US Balikatan exercises two years ago by ranking Armed Forces officials.
Gadian said the “anomaly” ran from lower-ranked officials from the Western Mindanao Command up to the AFP’s hierarchy. She said they pocketed portions of the joint military exercises’ P42-million fund in 2007.
Asked to identify who sent the text message talking about the shoot-to-kill order, Diamante refused to give a name but said the sender was a “concerned citizen.”
An earlier report said Diamante’s source was someone from the Philippine National Police.
At the same time, Brawner said despite her having filed a resignation from military service, Gadian remains an officer of the AFP as she still has to go through a required process before her resignation is declared final. PNA
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Israel won't yield to U.S. demands, won't halt settlement construction.
This is from Haaretz.
One could probably add that the U.S. probably will not do anything about this. Israel and Iran are quite similar both could care less about international opinion. However, Israel could be brought to heel if the U.S. had the gumption to cut off aid particularly military aid to Israel. This is about as likely as that the president of Iran will erect a Holocaust monument! No word these days about what if anything is going on between Hamas and Fatah. A while ago it seemed that the two might try to reconcile. This would certainly strengthen the Palestinians.
'Israel won't yield to U.S. demands, won't halt settlement construction'
By Haaertz Service
Tags: Israel news, Netanyahu
Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon spoke to Channel 2 on Saturday about the meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama, held earlier this week, saying that Israel's government will not allow the U.S. to dictate its policy, and that "settlement construction will not be halted." "Settlements are not the reason that the peace process is failing, they were never an obstacle, not at any stage," Ya'alon told Channel 2 News. "Even when Israel pulled out of [Palestinian] territory, the terror continued. Even when we uprooted [Jewish] communities, we got 'Hamastan.' That is why I propose that we think about it - not in slogans and not with decrees." According to Ayalon, "we will not halt the construction in the settlements within the framework of natural growth. There are people here who are living their lives, raising children. Housing is required ? it wasn't housing that has prevented peace."
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In reference to the illegal West Bank outposts, which Israel has vowed to evacuate and has begun to do so, Ya'alon stressed that "the government will not permit illegal settlement, as we've proven with our actions this week." Some believe that the evacuation of the outpost of Maoz Esther on Thursday morning, which came a day after Defense Ministry sources told Haaretz that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak had agreed on a plan to evacuate illegal outposts in the West Bank, was carried out in accordance with U.S. pressure. However, Barak denied any correlation between the Netanyahu-Obama meeting on Monday, and the evacuation. Ya'alon also addressed reports that the U.S. had upped its demands and was trying to dictate Israel's next moves in the negotiations with the Palestinians. "What the U.S. is asking is not a demand, we'll see whether their declaration become actual demands," he said. "[U.S. envoy to the Middle East George] Mitchell will come, and we'll talk to him. I suggest that Israel and the U.S. don't set a timetable. We won't let them threaten us," Ya'alon added. "From the banks of the Potomac in Washington it is not always clear what the real situation here is," Ya'alon concluded. "This is where Israel must step in and help her ally understand the situation." Ya'alon also criticized Israel, saying that "the Israeli discourse paints us as hostile, the problem is within us."
One could probably add that the U.S. probably will not do anything about this. Israel and Iran are quite similar both could care less about international opinion. However, Israel could be brought to heel if the U.S. had the gumption to cut off aid particularly military aid to Israel. This is about as likely as that the president of Iran will erect a Holocaust monument! No word these days about what if anything is going on between Hamas and Fatah. A while ago it seemed that the two might try to reconcile. This would certainly strengthen the Palestinians.
'Israel won't yield to U.S. demands, won't halt settlement construction'
By Haaertz Service
Tags: Israel news, Netanyahu
Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon spoke to Channel 2 on Saturday about the meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama, held earlier this week, saying that Israel's government will not allow the U.S. to dictate its policy, and that "settlement construction will not be halted." "Settlements are not the reason that the peace process is failing, they were never an obstacle, not at any stage," Ya'alon told Channel 2 News. "Even when Israel pulled out of [Palestinian] territory, the terror continued. Even when we uprooted [Jewish] communities, we got 'Hamastan.' That is why I propose that we think about it - not in slogans and not with decrees." According to Ayalon, "we will not halt the construction in the settlements within the framework of natural growth. There are people here who are living their lives, raising children. Housing is required ? it wasn't housing that has prevented peace."
Advertisement
In reference to the illegal West Bank outposts, which Israel has vowed to evacuate and has begun to do so, Ya'alon stressed that "the government will not permit illegal settlement, as we've proven with our actions this week." Some believe that the evacuation of the outpost of Maoz Esther on Thursday morning, which came a day after Defense Ministry sources told Haaretz that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak had agreed on a plan to evacuate illegal outposts in the West Bank, was carried out in accordance with U.S. pressure. However, Barak denied any correlation between the Netanyahu-Obama meeting on Monday, and the evacuation. Ya'alon also addressed reports that the U.S. had upped its demands and was trying to dictate Israel's next moves in the negotiations with the Palestinians. "What the U.S. is asking is not a demand, we'll see whether their declaration become actual demands," he said. "[U.S. envoy to the Middle East George] Mitchell will come, and we'll talk to him. I suggest that Israel and the U.S. don't set a timetable. We won't let them threaten us," Ya'alon added. "From the banks of the Potomac in Washington it is not always clear what the real situation here is," Ya'alon concluded. "This is where Israel must step in and help her ally understand the situation." Ya'alon also criticized Israel, saying that "the Israeli discourse paints us as hostile, the problem is within us."
Ivan Eland: Blowing Smoke on Gitmo
It would be nice if the mainstream media published more critical and analytical material such as this but it remains for struggling outlets such as antiwar.com to do so. They are having a fund drive right at the moment. THis post comes from their site.
Antiwar.com Original - http://original.antiwar.com -
Blowing Smoke on Gitmo
Posted By Ivan Eland On May 22, 2009 @ 9:00 pm
Unfortunately, politicians claim they don’t read opinion polls, while scrutinizing them even more closely than options for their next junket. This has been most evident recently in the civil liberties arena. On the same day he was inaugurated, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that would close Guantanamo prison in Cuba – a largely symbolic and overrated act to show his break with flagrant Bush administration abuses of civil liberties.
But Obama is not the only person in the Washington public relations circus who is perpetrating demagoguery on the issue. The Republicans, and now the Democrats, in Congress are fearmongering over the possibility that some of the Guantanamo inmates may come to the United States. In both cases, the politicians read the opinion polls and acted accordingly.
One might say that this is laudable behavior in a democracy and that the politicians are just reflecting what the people want. However, in the United States, we have never had direct democracy. We have a system of indirect democracy in which periodic elections are held to elect governmental representatives who are supposed to lead. One of the strengths of representative government is the realization that each citizen doesn’t have the time, energy, or knowledge to be an expert on every issue. Of course, over time, if politicians get far off the track in too many instances on what the people regard as important and correct, they can be voted out in those elections. But in general, the public will give politicians some leeway on such matters. For example, Ronald Reagan was and Barack Obama has been more popular with the public than their stands on the issues. The same is true with popular congressional leaders who take principled stands – for example, Ron Paul.
After the travesty of the Bush abuses of civil liberties, we need bipartisan courage to reverse the damage instead of empty symbolism or the stoking of irrational public fears.
First, although Obama has pledged to close Guantanamo, the act would be only symbolic if he retains all of the abuses that have gone on there. Torture and mistreatment happened at other U.S. prisons around the world, and Leon Panetta, Obama’s CIA director, has not ruled out allowing the CIA to use torture in extraordinary circumstances. In addition, Obama has refused to release photos of past prisoner abuse because he deemed them to be devoid of new illuminative value and claimed, without hard evidence, that U.S. troops overseas would be endangered by their release. But in a republic, should the government deny citizens the right to see what it has done – even if it is grisly or shameful?
Obama is retaining military commissions, which he vehemently criticized during the presidential campaign for their lack of due legal process. Despite his pledge to limit hearsay evidence and ban evidence obtained through torture, the tribunals are still kangaroo courts that do not meet constitutional standards of due process. Also, before he became president, Obama was one of many congressional Democrats in Congress to wail about warrantless wiretapping on people in the United States, only to eventually strengthen the law that allows such unconstitutional spying.
Despite all of the hubbub about the possibility of bringing Guantanamo prisoners to the United States, most scary are Obama’s recent musings about changing laws to allow preventive detention. When a president can yank people off the streets merely because he alleges that they are "dangerous," throw them in jail, and hold them indefinitely without charge, we are on the road to dictatorship. Although Bush violated such habeas corpus rights, which have been one of the cornerstones of the rule of law in both Britain and the United States for centuries, Obama is talking about enshrining the violations into permanency. All of this shows that Obama is not restoring the republic, but has adopted a policy of Bush Lite, which retains some of the unneeded and un-American Bush policies. (I do not accuse people of "un-American" activities lightly, but this erosion of unique American freedoms does seem to fit the bill.)
And what of Congress? Democrats now control it and should be keeping Obama honest in rolling back the horrendous Bush practices. Instead, Republicans are squealing about having Guantanamo’s terrorists in our midst, and the scared Democrats are caving in to them. Yet American prisons seem to have been able to hold the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 without being attacked or having them escape. The same has been true for domestic terrorists, such as snipers John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo and Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols of Oklahoma City bombing fame. The town of Hardin, Mont., with a vacant correctional facility, didn’t think it that dangerous to hold Gitmo detainees and has offered to take them. Moreover, if U.S. prisons are off-limits to terrorists, where will any of those convicted be held?
Members of Congress also point to the 14 percent of released Guantanamo inmates who have allegedly gone back to terrorism. Most of the U.S. government’s allegations of the released prisoners’ supposed transgressions are either secret or vague – such as associating or training with terrorists.
Moreover, if the U.S. prison system had a recidivism rate of only 14 percent, correctional and law enforcement officials would be jumping for joy. Recidivism in this system can be as much as 68 percent three years after release. Undoubtedly, this low rate is not because Guantanamo has had fabulous rehabilitation programs for terrorists, but probably indicates that people who weren’t guilty of anything were swept off the battlefield in Afghanistan because of the rewards offered to snitches in a dirt-poor country. The likelihood that innocent people were jailed indefinitely also illustrates why preventive detention is bad and genuine legal due process is so vital.
Finally, the arrogance of the U.S. Congress is unbelievable. It expects foreign countries to bail the United States out from its self-made civil liberties quagmire. The U.S. preventively detained people indefinitely without legal due process, proposed to try them in kangaroo military tribunals, and tortured them. Now the United States wants other nations to take released Guantanamo prisoners or ones who need to remain incarcerated.
Instead, let me suggest a "radical" solution to the entire civil liberties quagmire. Why don’t we treat alleged terrorists as criminals rather than warriors (as they should have been handled from the start), charge them if possible with a punishable offense, and try them in U.S. civilian courts. If the evidence is not good enough to do so or it was obtained by torture, then we need to bite the bullet as a society and free them. In the worst case, if they commit another terrorist act, it would be bad, but not more horrible than trashing the constitutional freedoms that are the bedrock of the American republic.
Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.com
URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/eland/2009/05/22/blowing-smoke-on-gitmo/
Copyright © 2009 Antiwar.com Original. All rights reserved.
Antiwar.com Original - http://original.antiwar.com -
Blowing Smoke on Gitmo
Posted By Ivan Eland On May 22, 2009 @ 9:00 pm
Unfortunately, politicians claim they don’t read opinion polls, while scrutinizing them even more closely than options for their next junket. This has been most evident recently in the civil liberties arena. On the same day he was inaugurated, President Barack Obama signed an executive order that would close Guantanamo prison in Cuba – a largely symbolic and overrated act to show his break with flagrant Bush administration abuses of civil liberties.
But Obama is not the only person in the Washington public relations circus who is perpetrating demagoguery on the issue. The Republicans, and now the Democrats, in Congress are fearmongering over the possibility that some of the Guantanamo inmates may come to the United States. In both cases, the politicians read the opinion polls and acted accordingly.
One might say that this is laudable behavior in a democracy and that the politicians are just reflecting what the people want. However, in the United States, we have never had direct democracy. We have a system of indirect democracy in which periodic elections are held to elect governmental representatives who are supposed to lead. One of the strengths of representative government is the realization that each citizen doesn’t have the time, energy, or knowledge to be an expert on every issue. Of course, over time, if politicians get far off the track in too many instances on what the people regard as important and correct, they can be voted out in those elections. But in general, the public will give politicians some leeway on such matters. For example, Ronald Reagan was and Barack Obama has been more popular with the public than their stands on the issues. The same is true with popular congressional leaders who take principled stands – for example, Ron Paul.
After the travesty of the Bush abuses of civil liberties, we need bipartisan courage to reverse the damage instead of empty symbolism or the stoking of irrational public fears.
First, although Obama has pledged to close Guantanamo, the act would be only symbolic if he retains all of the abuses that have gone on there. Torture and mistreatment happened at other U.S. prisons around the world, and Leon Panetta, Obama’s CIA director, has not ruled out allowing the CIA to use torture in extraordinary circumstances. In addition, Obama has refused to release photos of past prisoner abuse because he deemed them to be devoid of new illuminative value and claimed, without hard evidence, that U.S. troops overseas would be endangered by their release. But in a republic, should the government deny citizens the right to see what it has done – even if it is grisly or shameful?
Obama is retaining military commissions, which he vehemently criticized during the presidential campaign for their lack of due legal process. Despite his pledge to limit hearsay evidence and ban evidence obtained through torture, the tribunals are still kangaroo courts that do not meet constitutional standards of due process. Also, before he became president, Obama was one of many congressional Democrats in Congress to wail about warrantless wiretapping on people in the United States, only to eventually strengthen the law that allows such unconstitutional spying.
Despite all of the hubbub about the possibility of bringing Guantanamo prisoners to the United States, most scary are Obama’s recent musings about changing laws to allow preventive detention. When a president can yank people off the streets merely because he alleges that they are "dangerous," throw them in jail, and hold them indefinitely without charge, we are on the road to dictatorship. Although Bush violated such habeas corpus rights, which have been one of the cornerstones of the rule of law in both Britain and the United States for centuries, Obama is talking about enshrining the violations into permanency. All of this shows that Obama is not restoring the republic, but has adopted a policy of Bush Lite, which retains some of the unneeded and un-American Bush policies. (I do not accuse people of "un-American" activities lightly, but this erosion of unique American freedoms does seem to fit the bill.)
And what of Congress? Democrats now control it and should be keeping Obama honest in rolling back the horrendous Bush practices. Instead, Republicans are squealing about having Guantanamo’s terrorists in our midst, and the scared Democrats are caving in to them. Yet American prisons seem to have been able to hold the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 without being attacked or having them escape. The same has been true for domestic terrorists, such as snipers John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo and Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols of Oklahoma City bombing fame. The town of Hardin, Mont., with a vacant correctional facility, didn’t think it that dangerous to hold Gitmo detainees and has offered to take them. Moreover, if U.S. prisons are off-limits to terrorists, where will any of those convicted be held?
Members of Congress also point to the 14 percent of released Guantanamo inmates who have allegedly gone back to terrorism. Most of the U.S. government’s allegations of the released prisoners’ supposed transgressions are either secret or vague – such as associating or training with terrorists.
Moreover, if the U.S. prison system had a recidivism rate of only 14 percent, correctional and law enforcement officials would be jumping for joy. Recidivism in this system can be as much as 68 percent three years after release. Undoubtedly, this low rate is not because Guantanamo has had fabulous rehabilitation programs for terrorists, but probably indicates that people who weren’t guilty of anything were swept off the battlefield in Afghanistan because of the rewards offered to snitches in a dirt-poor country. The likelihood that innocent people were jailed indefinitely also illustrates why preventive detention is bad and genuine legal due process is so vital.
Finally, the arrogance of the U.S. Congress is unbelievable. It expects foreign countries to bail the United States out from its self-made civil liberties quagmire. The U.S. preventively detained people indefinitely without legal due process, proposed to try them in kangaroo military tribunals, and tortured them. Now the United States wants other nations to take released Guantanamo prisoners or ones who need to remain incarcerated.
Instead, let me suggest a "radical" solution to the entire civil liberties quagmire. Why don’t we treat alleged terrorists as criminals rather than warriors (as they should have been handled from the start), charge them if possible with a punishable offense, and try them in U.S. civilian courts. If the evidence is not good enough to do so or it was obtained by torture, then we need to bite the bullet as a society and free them. In the worst case, if they commit another terrorist act, it would be bad, but not more horrible than trashing the constitutional freedoms that are the bedrock of the American republic.
Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.com
URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/eland/2009/05/22/blowing-smoke-on-gitmo/
Copyright © 2009 Antiwar.com Original. All rights reserved.
Israel finally supplies maps of cluster bomb sites
While this is a positive development, it also shows that Israel must not feel threatened at all in revealing the extent and nature of its use of cluster bombs. As the article notes most countries ban their use. Israel used them mostly just a few days before the war ended. It seems a gratuitous hateful act that has caused continual misery for many and was roundly condemned by many rights groups but of course the US remains a defender of cluster bombs.
Israel Finally Supplies Maps of Cluster Bomb Sites
Nearly Three Years After War, Data Finally Provided
by Jason Ditz, May 12, 2009
Nearly three years after the end of Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon, the Israeli military is finally providing the United Nations with maps and technical data regarding locations which were attacked with cluster munitions. The data has been requested essentially since the war ended.
The Israeli barrage of clusterb bombs was launched chiefly in the final 72 hours of the war and many were fired in between the agreement to and implementation of the ceasefire. The UN mine disposal agency estimated that up to a million of the bomblets remained unexploded in the Lebanese countryside after the war, and over 320 people have been killed or injured by the munitions since the ceasefire.
Israel’s use of the munitions in populated areas was roundly condemned by human rights groups, as was the United States for expediting the shipment of bombs to Israel so they could be used in the waning hours of the war. International outrage over the toll in Lebanon was perhaps the driving force behind the growing movement to ban the bombs entirely. Only a handful of countries have refused to sign the ban, including Israel and the US.
Israel Finally Supplies Maps of Cluster Bomb Sites
Nearly Three Years After War, Data Finally Provided
by Jason Ditz, May 12, 2009
Nearly three years after the end of Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon, the Israeli military is finally providing the United Nations with maps and technical data regarding locations which were attacked with cluster munitions. The data has been requested essentially since the war ended.
The Israeli barrage of clusterb bombs was launched chiefly in the final 72 hours of the war and many were fired in between the agreement to and implementation of the ceasefire. The UN mine disposal agency estimated that up to a million of the bomblets remained unexploded in the Lebanese countryside after the war, and over 320 people have been killed or injured by the munitions since the ceasefire.
Israel’s use of the munitions in populated areas was roundly condemned by human rights groups, as was the United States for expediting the shipment of bombs to Israel so they could be used in the waning hours of the war. International outrage over the toll in Lebanon was perhaps the driving force behind the growing movement to ban the bombs entirely. Only a handful of countries have refused to sign the ban, including Israel and the US.
Greenwald G.: Facts and Myths about Obama's preventive detention proposal
This is an excellent fact filled and argument rich article on Obama's proposal to introduce preventive detention legislation. As Greenwald in effect notes this proposal gives powers to Obama that when Bush used them brought a chorus of criticism from liberals. Far from restoring the United States to international credibility on human rights Obama is making a few gestures on the issue of torture while expanding drone attacks, making MacChrystal an expert in black ops the top man in Afghanistan, and now suggesting what is in effect abolishing habeas corpus for some persons.
Glenn Greenwald
Friday May 22, 2009 09:23 EDT
Facts and myths about Obama's preventive detention proposal
[Updated below - Update II (Interview with ACLU) - Update III - Update IV - Update V - Update VI]
In the wake of Obama's speech yesterday, there are vast numbers of new converts who now support indefinite "preventive detention." It thus seems constructive to have as dispassionate and fact-based discussion as possible of the implications of "preventive detention" and Obama's related detention proposals (military commissions). I'll have a podcast discussion on this topic a little bit later today with the ACLU's Ben Wizner, which I'll add below, but until then, here are some facts and other points worth noting:
(1) What does "preventive detention" allow?
It's important to be clear about what "preventive detention" authorizes. It does not merely allow the U.S. Government to imprison people alleged to have committed Terrorist acts yet who are unable to be convicted in a civilian court proceeding. That class is merely a subset, perhaps a small subset, of who the Government can detain. Far more significant, "preventive detention" allows indefinite imprisonment not based on proven crimes or past violations of law, but of those deemed generally "dangerous" by the Government for various reasons (such as, as Obama put it yesterday, they "expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden" or "otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans"). That's what "preventive" means: imprisoning people because the Government claims they are likely to engage in violent acts in the future because they are alleged to be "combatants."
Once known, the details of the proposal could -- and likely will -- make this even more extreme by extending the "preventive detention" power beyond a handful of Guantanamo detainees to anyone, anywhere in the world, alleged to be a "combatant." After all, once you accept the rationale on which this proposal is based -- namely, that the U.S. Government must, in order to keep us safe, preventively detain "dangerous" people even when they can't prove they violated any laws -- there's no coherent reason whatsoever to limit that power to people already at Guantanamo, as opposed to indefinitely imprisoning with no trials all allegedly "dangerous" combatants, whether located in Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Western countries and even the U.S.
(2) Are defenders of Obama's proposals being consistent?
During the Bush years, it was common for Democrats to try to convince conservatives to oppose Bush's executive power expansions by asking them: "Do you really want these powers to be exercised by Hillary Clinton or some liberal President?"
Following that logic, for any Democrat/progressive/liberal/Obama supporter who wants to defend Obama's proposal of "preventive detention," shouldn't you first ask yourself three simple questions:
(a) what would I have said if George Bush and Dick Cheney advocated a law vesting them with the power to preventively imprison people indefinitely and with no charges?;
(b) when Bush and Cheney did preventively imprison large numbers of people, was I in favor of that or did I oppose it, and when right-wing groups such as Heritage Foundation were alone in urging a preventive detention law in 2004, did I support them?; and
(c) even if I'm comfortable with Obama having this new power because I trust him not to abuse it, am I comfortable with future Presidents -- including Republicans -- having the power of indefinite "preventive detention"?
(3) Questions for defenders of Obama's proposal:
There are many claims being made by defenders of Obama's proposals which seem quite contradictory and/or without any apparent basis, and I've been searching for a defender of those proposals to address these questions:
Bush supporters have long claimed -- and many Obama supporters are now insisting as well -- that there are hard-core terrorists who cannot be convicted in our civilian courts. For anyone making that claim, what is the basis for believing that? In the Bush era, the Government has repeatedly been able to convict alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban members in civilian courts, including several (Ali al-Marri, Jose Padilla, John Walker Lindh) who were tortured and others (Zacharais Moussaoui, Padilla) where evidence against them was obtained by extreme coercion. What convinced you to believe that genuine terrorists can't be convicted in our justice system?
For those asserting that there are dangerous people who have not yet been given any trial and who Obama can't possibly release, how do you know they are "dangerous" if they haven't been tried? Is the Government's accusation enough for you to assume it's true?
Above all: for those justifying Obama's use of military commissions by arguing that some terrorists can't be convicted in civilian courts because the evidence against them is "tainted" because it was obtained by Bush's torture, Obama himself claimed just yesterday that his military commissions also won't allow such evidence ("We will no longer permit the use of evidence -- as evidence statements that have been obtained using cruel, inhuman, or degrading interrogation methods"). How does our civilian court's refusal to consider evidence obtained by torture demonstrate the need for Obama's military commissions if, as Obama himself claims, Obama's military commissions also won't consider evidence obtained by torture?
Finally, don't virtually all progressives and Democrats argue that torture produces unreliable evidence? If it's really true (as Obama defenders claim) that the evidence we have against these detainees was obtained by torture and is therefore inadmissible in real courts, do you really think such unreliable evidence -- evidence we obtained by torture -- should be the basis for concluding that someone is so "dangerous" that they belong in prison indefinitely with no trial? If you don't trust evidence obtained by torture, why do you trust it to justify holding someone forever, with no trial, as "dangerous"?
(4) Do other countries have indefinite preventive detention?
Obama yesterday suggested that other countries have turned to "preventive detention" and that his proposal therefore isn't radical ("other countries have grappled with this question; now, so must we"). Is that true?
In June of last year, there was a tumultuous political debate in Britain that sheds ample light on this question. In the era of IRA bombings, the British Parliament passed a law allowing the Government to preventively detain terrorist suspects for 14 days -- and then either have to charge them or release them. In 2006, Prime Minister Tony Blair -- citing the London subway attacks and the need to "intervene early before a terrorist cell has the opportunity to achieve its goals" -- wanted to increase the preventive detention period to 90 days, but MPs from his own party and across the political spectrum overwhelmingly opposed this, and ultimately increased it only to 28 days.
In June of last year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown sought an expansion of this preventive detention authority to 42 days -- a mere two weeks more. Reacting to that extremely modest increase, a major political rebellion erupted, with large numbers of Brown's own Labour Party joining with Tories to vehemently oppose it as a major threat to liberty. Ultimately, Brown's 42-day scheme barely passed the House of Commons. As former Prime Minister John Major put it in opposing the expansion to 42 days:
It is hard to justify: pre-charge detention in Canada is 24 hours; South Africa, Germany, New Zealand and America 48 hours; Russia 5 days; and Turkey 7½ days.
By rather stark and extreme contrast, Obama is seeking preventive detention powers that are indefinite -- meaning without any end, potentially permanent. There's no time limit on the "preventive detention." Compare that power to the proposal that caused such a political storm in Britain and what these other governments are empowered to do. The suggestion that indefinite preventive detention without charges is some sort of common or traditional scheme is clearly false.
(5) Is this comparable to traditional POW detentions?
When Bush supporters used to justify Bush/Cheney detention policies by arguing that it's normal for "Prisoners of War" to be held without trials, that argument was deeply misleading. And it's no less misleading when made now by Obama supporters. That comparison is patently inappropriate for two reasons: (a) the circumstances of the apprehension, and (b) the fact that, by all accounts, this "war" will not be over for decades, if ever, which means -- unlike for traditional POWs, who are released once the war is over -- these prisoners are going to be in a cage not for a few years, but for decades, if not life.
Traditional "POWs" are ones picked up during an actual military battle, on a real battlefield, wearing a uniform, while engaged in fighting. The potential for error and abuse in deciding who was a "combatant" was thus minimal. By contrast, many of the people we accuse in the "war on terror" of being "combatants" aren't anywhere near a "battlefield," aren't part of any army, aren't wearing any uniforms, etc. Instead, many of them are picked up from their homes, at work, off the streets. In most cases, then, we thus have little more than the say-so of the U.S. Government that they are guilty, which is why actual judicial proceedings before imprisoning them is so much more vital than in the standard POW situation.
Anyone who doubts that should just look at how many Guantanamo detainees were accused of being "the worst of the worst" yet ended up being released because they did absolutely nothing wrong. Can anyone point to any traditional POW situation where so many people were falsely accused and where the risk of false accusations was so high? For obvious reasons, this is not and has never been a traditional POW detention scheme.
During the Bush era, that was a standard argument among Democrats, so why should that change now? Here is what Anne-Marie Slaughter -- now Obama's Director of Policy Planning for the State Department -- said about Bush's "POW" comparison on Fox News on November 21, 2001:
Military commissions have been around since the Revolutionary War. But they've always been used to try spies that we find behind enemy lines. It's normally a situation, you're on the battlefield, you find an enemy spy behind your lines. You can't ship them to national court, so you provide a kind of rough battlefield justice in a commission. You give them the best process you can, and then you execute the sentence on the spot, which generally means executing the defendant.
That's not this situation. It's not remotely like it.
As for duration, the U.S. government has repeatedly said that this "war" is so different from standard wars because it will last for decades, if not generations. Obama himself yesterday said that "unlike the Civil War or World War II, we can't count on a surrender ceremony to bring this journey to an end" and that we'll still be fighting this "war" "a year from now, five years from now, and -- in all probability -- 10 years from now." No rational person can compare POW detentions of a finite and usually short (2-5 years) duration to decades or life in a cage. That's why, yesterday, Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, in The New York Times, said this:
[Obama] signaled a plan by which [Guantanamo detainees] — and perhaps other detainees yet to be arrested? — could remain in custody forever without charge. There is no precedent in the American legal tradition for this kind of preventive detention. That is not quite right: precedents do exist, among them the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and the Japanese internment of the 1940s, but they are widely seen as low points in America’s history under the Constitution.
There are many things that can be said about indefinitely imprisoning people with no charges who were not captured on any battlefield, but the claim that this is some sort of standard or well-established practice in American history is patently false.
(6) Is it "due process" when the Government can guarantee it always wins?
If you really think about the argument Obama made yesterday -- when he described the five categories of detainees and the procedures to which each will be subjected -- it becomes manifest just how profound a violation of Western conceptions of justice this is. What Obama is saying is this: we'll give real trials only to those detainees we know in advance we will convict. For those we don't think we can convict in a real court, we'll get convictions in the military commissions I'm creating. For those we can't convict even in my military commissions, we'll just imprison them anyway with no charges ("preventively detain" them).
Giving trials to people only when you know for sure, in advance, that you'll get convictions is not due process. Those are called "show trials." In a healthy system of justice, the Government gives everyone it wants to imprison a trial and then imprisons only those whom it can convict. The process is constant (trials), and the outcome varies (convictions or acquittals).
Obama is saying the opposite: in his scheme, it is the outcome that is constant (everyone ends up imprisoned), while the process varies and is determined by the Government (trials for some; military commissions for others; indefinite detention for the rest). The Government picks and chooses which process you get in order to ensure that it always wins. A more warped "system of justice" is hard to imagine.
(7) Can we "be safe" by locking up all the Terrorists with no charges?
Obama stressed yesterday that the "preventive detention" system should be created only through an act of Congress with "a process of periodic review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and justified." That's certainly better than what Bush did: namely, preventively detain people with no oversight and no Congressional authorization -- in violation of the law. But as we learned with the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Protect America Act of 2007, the mere fact that Congress approves of a radical policy may mean that it is no longer lawless but it doesn't make it justified. As Professor Amann put it: "no amount of procedures can justify deprivations that, because of their very nature violate the Constitution’s core guarantee of liberty." Dan Froomkin said that no matter how many procedures are created, that's "a dangerously extreme policy proposal."
Regarding Obama's "process" justification -- and regarding Obama's primary argument that we need to preventively detain allegedly dangerous people in order to keep us safe -- Digby said it best:
We are still in a "war" against a method of violence, which means there is no possible end and which means that the government can capture and imprison anyone they determine to be "the enemy" forever. The only thing that will change is where the prisoners are held and few little procedural tweaks to make it less capricious. (It's nice that some sort of official committee will meet once in a while to decide if the war is over or if the prisoner is finally too old to still be a "danger to Americans.")
There seems to be some misunderstanding about Guantanamo. Somehow people have gotten it into their heads is that it is nothing more than a symbol, which can be dealt with simply by closing the prison. That's just not true. Guantanamo is a symbol, true, but it's a symbol of a lawless, unconstitutional detention and interrogation system. Changing the venue doesn't solve the problem.
I know it's a mess, but the fact is that this isn't really that difficult, except in the usual beltway kabuki political sense. There are literally tens of thousands of potential terrorists all over the world who could theoretically harm America. We cannot protect ourselves from that possibility by keeping the handful we have in custody locked up forever, whether in Guantanamo or some Super Max prison in the US. It's patently absurd to obsess over these guys like it makes us even the slightest bit safer to have them under indefinite lock and key so they "can't kill Americans."
The mere fact that we are doing this makes us less safe because the complete lack of faith we show in our constitution and our justice systems is what fuels the idea that this country is weak and easily terrified. There is no such thing as a terrorist suspect who is too dangerous to be set free. They are a dime a dozen, they are all over the world and for every one we lock up there will be three to take his place. There is not some finite number of terrorists we can kill or capture and then the "war" will be over and the babies will always be safe. This whole concept is nonsensical.
As I said yesterday, there were some positive aspects to Obama's speech. His resolve to close Guantanamo in the face of all the fear-mongering, like his release of the OLC memos, is commendable. But the fact that a Democratic President who ran on a platform of restoring America's standing and returning to our core principles is now advocating the creation of a new system of indefinite preventive detention -- something that is now sure to become a standard view of Democratic politicians and hordes of Obama supporters -- is by far the most consequential event yet in the formation of Obama's civil liberties policies.
UPDATE: Here's what White House Counsel Greg Craig told The New Yorker's Jane Mayer in February:
"It’s possible but hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detention law," Craig said. "Our presumption is that there is no need to create a whole new system. Our system is very capable."
"The first President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detention law" is how Obama's own White House Counsel described him. Technically speaking, that is a form of change, but probably not the type that many Obama voters expected.
UPDATE II: Ben Wizner of the ACLU's National Security Project is the lead lawyer in the Jeppesen case, which resulted in the recent rejection by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals of the Bush/Obama state secrets argument, and also co-wrote (along with the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer) a superb article in Salon in December making the case against preventive detention. I spoke with him this morning for roughly 20 minutes regarding the detention policies proposed by Obama in yesterday's speech. It can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder below. A transcript will be posted shortly.
UPDATE III: Rachel Maddow was superb last night -- truly superb -- on the topic of Obama's preventive detention proposal:
UPDATE IV: The New Yorker's Amy Davidson compares Obama's detention proposal to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II (as did Professor Amann, quoted above). Hilzoy, of The Washington Monthly, writes: "If we don't have enough evidence to charge someone with a crime, we don't have enough evidence to hold them. Period" and "the power to detain people without filing criminal charges against them is a dictatorial power." Salon's Joan Walsh quotes the Center for Constitutional Rights' Vincent Warren as saying: "They’re creating, essentially, an American Gulag." The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch says of Obama's proposal: "What he's proposing is against one of this country's core principles" and "this is why people need to keep the pressure on Obama -- even those inclined to view his presidency favorably."
UPDATE V: The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder -- who is as close to the Obama White House as any journalist around -- makes an important point about Obama that I really wish more of his supporters would appreciate:
[Obama] was blunt [in his meeting with civil libertiarians]; the [military commissions] are a fait accompli, so the civil libertarians can either help Congress and the White House figure out the best way to protect the rights of the accused within the framework of that decision, or they can remain on the outside, as agitators. That's not meant to be pejorative; whereas the White House does not give a scintilla of attention to its right-wing critics, it does read, and will read, everything Glenn Greenwald writes. Obama, according to an administration official, finds this outside pressure healthy and useful.
Ambinder doesn't mean me personally or exclusively; he means people who are criticizing Obama not in order to harm him politically, but in order to pressure him to do better. It's not just the right, but the duty, of citizens to pressure and criticize political leaders when they adopt policies that one finds objectionable or destructive. Criticism of this sort is a vital check on political leaders -- a key way to impose accountability -- and Obama himself has said as much many times before.
It has nothing to do with personalities or allegiances. It doesn't matter if one "likes" or "trusts" Obama or thinks he's a good or bad person. That's all irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether one thinks that the actions he's undertaking are helpful or harmful. If they're harmful, one should criticize them. Where, as here, they're very harmful and dangerous, one should criticize them loudly. Obama himself, according to Ambinder, "finds this outside pressure healthy and useful." And it is. It's not only healthy and useful but absolutely vital.
UPDATE VI: Bearing in mind what Obama repeatedly pledged to do while running, this headline from The New York Times this morning is rather extraordinary:
As Greg Craig put it: "hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detention law."
-- Glenn Greenwald
Currently in Glenn Greenwald's Blog
Facts and myths about Obama's preventive detention proposal
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I was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. I am the author of two New York Times Bestselling books: "How Would a Patriot Act?" (May, 2006), a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, and "A Tragic Legacy" (June, 2007), which examines the Bush legacy. My most recent book, "Great American Hypocrites", examines the manipulative electoral tactics used by the GOP and propagated by the establishment press, and was released in April, 2008, by Random House/Crown.
Glenn Greenwald
Friday May 22, 2009 09:23 EDT
Facts and myths about Obama's preventive detention proposal
[Updated below - Update II (Interview with ACLU) - Update III - Update IV - Update V - Update VI]
In the wake of Obama's speech yesterday, there are vast numbers of new converts who now support indefinite "preventive detention." It thus seems constructive to have as dispassionate and fact-based discussion as possible of the implications of "preventive detention" and Obama's related detention proposals (military commissions). I'll have a podcast discussion on this topic a little bit later today with the ACLU's Ben Wizner, which I'll add below, but until then, here are some facts and other points worth noting:
(1) What does "preventive detention" allow?
It's important to be clear about what "preventive detention" authorizes. It does not merely allow the U.S. Government to imprison people alleged to have committed Terrorist acts yet who are unable to be convicted in a civilian court proceeding. That class is merely a subset, perhaps a small subset, of who the Government can detain. Far more significant, "preventive detention" allows indefinite imprisonment not based on proven crimes or past violations of law, but of those deemed generally "dangerous" by the Government for various reasons (such as, as Obama put it yesterday, they "expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden" or "otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans"). That's what "preventive" means: imprisoning people because the Government claims they are likely to engage in violent acts in the future because they are alleged to be "combatants."
Once known, the details of the proposal could -- and likely will -- make this even more extreme by extending the "preventive detention" power beyond a handful of Guantanamo detainees to anyone, anywhere in the world, alleged to be a "combatant." After all, once you accept the rationale on which this proposal is based -- namely, that the U.S. Government must, in order to keep us safe, preventively detain "dangerous" people even when they can't prove they violated any laws -- there's no coherent reason whatsoever to limit that power to people already at Guantanamo, as opposed to indefinitely imprisoning with no trials all allegedly "dangerous" combatants, whether located in Pakistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Western countries and even the U.S.
(2) Are defenders of Obama's proposals being consistent?
During the Bush years, it was common for Democrats to try to convince conservatives to oppose Bush's executive power expansions by asking them: "Do you really want these powers to be exercised by Hillary Clinton or some liberal President?"
Following that logic, for any Democrat/progressive/liberal/Obama supporter who wants to defend Obama's proposal of "preventive detention," shouldn't you first ask yourself three simple questions:
(a) what would I have said if George Bush and Dick Cheney advocated a law vesting them with the power to preventively imprison people indefinitely and with no charges?;
(b) when Bush and Cheney did preventively imprison large numbers of people, was I in favor of that or did I oppose it, and when right-wing groups such as Heritage Foundation were alone in urging a preventive detention law in 2004, did I support them?; and
(c) even if I'm comfortable with Obama having this new power because I trust him not to abuse it, am I comfortable with future Presidents -- including Republicans -- having the power of indefinite "preventive detention"?
(3) Questions for defenders of Obama's proposal:
There are many claims being made by defenders of Obama's proposals which seem quite contradictory and/or without any apparent basis, and I've been searching for a defender of those proposals to address these questions:
Bush supporters have long claimed -- and many Obama supporters are now insisting as well -- that there are hard-core terrorists who cannot be convicted in our civilian courts. For anyone making that claim, what is the basis for believing that? In the Bush era, the Government has repeatedly been able to convict alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban members in civilian courts, including several (Ali al-Marri, Jose Padilla, John Walker Lindh) who were tortured and others (Zacharais Moussaoui, Padilla) where evidence against them was obtained by extreme coercion. What convinced you to believe that genuine terrorists can't be convicted in our justice system?
For those asserting that there are dangerous people who have not yet been given any trial and who Obama can't possibly release, how do you know they are "dangerous" if they haven't been tried? Is the Government's accusation enough for you to assume it's true?
Above all: for those justifying Obama's use of military commissions by arguing that some terrorists can't be convicted in civilian courts because the evidence against them is "tainted" because it was obtained by Bush's torture, Obama himself claimed just yesterday that his military commissions also won't allow such evidence ("We will no longer permit the use of evidence -- as evidence statements that have been obtained using cruel, inhuman, or degrading interrogation methods"). How does our civilian court's refusal to consider evidence obtained by torture demonstrate the need for Obama's military commissions if, as Obama himself claims, Obama's military commissions also won't consider evidence obtained by torture?
Finally, don't virtually all progressives and Democrats argue that torture produces unreliable evidence? If it's really true (as Obama defenders claim) that the evidence we have against these detainees was obtained by torture and is therefore inadmissible in real courts, do you really think such unreliable evidence -- evidence we obtained by torture -- should be the basis for concluding that someone is so "dangerous" that they belong in prison indefinitely with no trial? If you don't trust evidence obtained by torture, why do you trust it to justify holding someone forever, with no trial, as "dangerous"?
(4) Do other countries have indefinite preventive detention?
Obama yesterday suggested that other countries have turned to "preventive detention" and that his proposal therefore isn't radical ("other countries have grappled with this question; now, so must we"). Is that true?
In June of last year, there was a tumultuous political debate in Britain that sheds ample light on this question. In the era of IRA bombings, the British Parliament passed a law allowing the Government to preventively detain terrorist suspects for 14 days -- and then either have to charge them or release them. In 2006, Prime Minister Tony Blair -- citing the London subway attacks and the need to "intervene early before a terrorist cell has the opportunity to achieve its goals" -- wanted to increase the preventive detention period to 90 days, but MPs from his own party and across the political spectrum overwhelmingly opposed this, and ultimately increased it only to 28 days.
In June of last year, Prime Minister Gordon Brown sought an expansion of this preventive detention authority to 42 days -- a mere two weeks more. Reacting to that extremely modest increase, a major political rebellion erupted, with large numbers of Brown's own Labour Party joining with Tories to vehemently oppose it as a major threat to liberty. Ultimately, Brown's 42-day scheme barely passed the House of Commons. As former Prime Minister John Major put it in opposing the expansion to 42 days:
It is hard to justify: pre-charge detention in Canada is 24 hours; South Africa, Germany, New Zealand and America 48 hours; Russia 5 days; and Turkey 7½ days.
By rather stark and extreme contrast, Obama is seeking preventive detention powers that are indefinite -- meaning without any end, potentially permanent. There's no time limit on the "preventive detention." Compare that power to the proposal that caused such a political storm in Britain and what these other governments are empowered to do. The suggestion that indefinite preventive detention without charges is some sort of common or traditional scheme is clearly false.
(5) Is this comparable to traditional POW detentions?
When Bush supporters used to justify Bush/Cheney detention policies by arguing that it's normal for "Prisoners of War" to be held without trials, that argument was deeply misleading. And it's no less misleading when made now by Obama supporters. That comparison is patently inappropriate for two reasons: (a) the circumstances of the apprehension, and (b) the fact that, by all accounts, this "war" will not be over for decades, if ever, which means -- unlike for traditional POWs, who are released once the war is over -- these prisoners are going to be in a cage not for a few years, but for decades, if not life.
Traditional "POWs" are ones picked up during an actual military battle, on a real battlefield, wearing a uniform, while engaged in fighting. The potential for error and abuse in deciding who was a "combatant" was thus minimal. By contrast, many of the people we accuse in the "war on terror" of being "combatants" aren't anywhere near a "battlefield," aren't part of any army, aren't wearing any uniforms, etc. Instead, many of them are picked up from their homes, at work, off the streets. In most cases, then, we thus have little more than the say-so of the U.S. Government that they are guilty, which is why actual judicial proceedings before imprisoning them is so much more vital than in the standard POW situation.
Anyone who doubts that should just look at how many Guantanamo detainees were accused of being "the worst of the worst" yet ended up being released because they did absolutely nothing wrong. Can anyone point to any traditional POW situation where so many people were falsely accused and where the risk of false accusations was so high? For obvious reasons, this is not and has never been a traditional POW detention scheme.
During the Bush era, that was a standard argument among Democrats, so why should that change now? Here is what Anne-Marie Slaughter -- now Obama's Director of Policy Planning for the State Department -- said about Bush's "POW" comparison on Fox News on November 21, 2001:
Military commissions have been around since the Revolutionary War. But they've always been used to try spies that we find behind enemy lines. It's normally a situation, you're on the battlefield, you find an enemy spy behind your lines. You can't ship them to national court, so you provide a kind of rough battlefield justice in a commission. You give them the best process you can, and then you execute the sentence on the spot, which generally means executing the defendant.
That's not this situation. It's not remotely like it.
As for duration, the U.S. government has repeatedly said that this "war" is so different from standard wars because it will last for decades, if not generations. Obama himself yesterday said that "unlike the Civil War or World War II, we can't count on a surrender ceremony to bring this journey to an end" and that we'll still be fighting this "war" "a year from now, five years from now, and -- in all probability -- 10 years from now." No rational person can compare POW detentions of a finite and usually short (2-5 years) duration to decades or life in a cage. That's why, yesterday, Law Professor Diane Marie Amann, in The New York Times, said this:
[Obama] signaled a plan by which [Guantanamo detainees] — and perhaps other detainees yet to be arrested? — could remain in custody forever without charge. There is no precedent in the American legal tradition for this kind of preventive detention. That is not quite right: precedents do exist, among them the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and the Japanese internment of the 1940s, but they are widely seen as low points in America’s history under the Constitution.
There are many things that can be said about indefinitely imprisoning people with no charges who were not captured on any battlefield, but the claim that this is some sort of standard or well-established practice in American history is patently false.
(6) Is it "due process" when the Government can guarantee it always wins?
If you really think about the argument Obama made yesterday -- when he described the five categories of detainees and the procedures to which each will be subjected -- it becomes manifest just how profound a violation of Western conceptions of justice this is. What Obama is saying is this: we'll give real trials only to those detainees we know in advance we will convict. For those we don't think we can convict in a real court, we'll get convictions in the military commissions I'm creating. For those we can't convict even in my military commissions, we'll just imprison them anyway with no charges ("preventively detain" them).
Giving trials to people only when you know for sure, in advance, that you'll get convictions is not due process. Those are called "show trials." In a healthy system of justice, the Government gives everyone it wants to imprison a trial and then imprisons only those whom it can convict. The process is constant (trials), and the outcome varies (convictions or acquittals).
Obama is saying the opposite: in his scheme, it is the outcome that is constant (everyone ends up imprisoned), while the process varies and is determined by the Government (trials for some; military commissions for others; indefinite detention for the rest). The Government picks and chooses which process you get in order to ensure that it always wins. A more warped "system of justice" is hard to imagine.
(7) Can we "be safe" by locking up all the Terrorists with no charges?
Obama stressed yesterday that the "preventive detention" system should be created only through an act of Congress with "a process of periodic review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and justified." That's certainly better than what Bush did: namely, preventively detain people with no oversight and no Congressional authorization -- in violation of the law. But as we learned with the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Protect America Act of 2007, the mere fact that Congress approves of a radical policy may mean that it is no longer lawless but it doesn't make it justified. As Professor Amann put it: "no amount of procedures can justify deprivations that, because of their very nature violate the Constitution’s core guarantee of liberty." Dan Froomkin said that no matter how many procedures are created, that's "a dangerously extreme policy proposal."
Regarding Obama's "process" justification -- and regarding Obama's primary argument that we need to preventively detain allegedly dangerous people in order to keep us safe -- Digby said it best:
We are still in a "war" against a method of violence, which means there is no possible end and which means that the government can capture and imprison anyone they determine to be "the enemy" forever. The only thing that will change is where the prisoners are held and few little procedural tweaks to make it less capricious. (It's nice that some sort of official committee will meet once in a while to decide if the war is over or if the prisoner is finally too old to still be a "danger to Americans.")
There seems to be some misunderstanding about Guantanamo. Somehow people have gotten it into their heads is that it is nothing more than a symbol, which can be dealt with simply by closing the prison. That's just not true. Guantanamo is a symbol, true, but it's a symbol of a lawless, unconstitutional detention and interrogation system. Changing the venue doesn't solve the problem.
I know it's a mess, but the fact is that this isn't really that difficult, except in the usual beltway kabuki political sense. There are literally tens of thousands of potential terrorists all over the world who could theoretically harm America. We cannot protect ourselves from that possibility by keeping the handful we have in custody locked up forever, whether in Guantanamo or some Super Max prison in the US. It's patently absurd to obsess over these guys like it makes us even the slightest bit safer to have them under indefinite lock and key so they "can't kill Americans."
The mere fact that we are doing this makes us less safe because the complete lack of faith we show in our constitution and our justice systems is what fuels the idea that this country is weak and easily terrified. There is no such thing as a terrorist suspect who is too dangerous to be set free. They are a dime a dozen, they are all over the world and for every one we lock up there will be three to take his place. There is not some finite number of terrorists we can kill or capture and then the "war" will be over and the babies will always be safe. This whole concept is nonsensical.
As I said yesterday, there were some positive aspects to Obama's speech. His resolve to close Guantanamo in the face of all the fear-mongering, like his release of the OLC memos, is commendable. But the fact that a Democratic President who ran on a platform of restoring America's standing and returning to our core principles is now advocating the creation of a new system of indefinite preventive detention -- something that is now sure to become a standard view of Democratic politicians and hordes of Obama supporters -- is by far the most consequential event yet in the formation of Obama's civil liberties policies.
UPDATE: Here's what White House Counsel Greg Craig told The New Yorker's Jane Mayer in February:
"It’s possible but hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detention law," Craig said. "Our presumption is that there is no need to create a whole new system. Our system is very capable."
"The first President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detention law" is how Obama's own White House Counsel described him. Technically speaking, that is a form of change, but probably not the type that many Obama voters expected.
UPDATE II: Ben Wizner of the ACLU's National Security Project is the lead lawyer in the Jeppesen case, which resulted in the recent rejection by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals of the Bush/Obama state secrets argument, and also co-wrote (along with the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer) a superb article in Salon in December making the case against preventive detention. I spoke with him this morning for roughly 20 minutes regarding the detention policies proposed by Obama in yesterday's speech. It can be heard by clicking PLAY on the recorder below. A transcript will be posted shortly.
UPDATE III: Rachel Maddow was superb last night -- truly superb -- on the topic of Obama's preventive detention proposal:
UPDATE IV: The New Yorker's Amy Davidson compares Obama's detention proposal to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II (as did Professor Amann, quoted above). Hilzoy, of The Washington Monthly, writes: "If we don't have enough evidence to charge someone with a crime, we don't have enough evidence to hold them. Period" and "the power to detain people without filing criminal charges against them is a dictatorial power." Salon's Joan Walsh quotes the Center for Constitutional Rights' Vincent Warren as saying: "They’re creating, essentially, an American Gulag." The Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch says of Obama's proposal: "What he's proposing is against one of this country's core principles" and "this is why people need to keep the pressure on Obama -- even those inclined to view his presidency favorably."
UPDATE V: The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder -- who is as close to the Obama White House as any journalist around -- makes an important point about Obama that I really wish more of his supporters would appreciate:
[Obama] was blunt [in his meeting with civil libertiarians]; the [military commissions] are a fait accompli, so the civil libertarians can either help Congress and the White House figure out the best way to protect the rights of the accused within the framework of that decision, or they can remain on the outside, as agitators. That's not meant to be pejorative; whereas the White House does not give a scintilla of attention to its right-wing critics, it does read, and will read, everything Glenn Greenwald writes. Obama, according to an administration official, finds this outside pressure healthy and useful.
Ambinder doesn't mean me personally or exclusively; he means people who are criticizing Obama not in order to harm him politically, but in order to pressure him to do better. It's not just the right, but the duty, of citizens to pressure and criticize political leaders when they adopt policies that one finds objectionable or destructive. Criticism of this sort is a vital check on political leaders -- a key way to impose accountability -- and Obama himself has said as much many times before.
It has nothing to do with personalities or allegiances. It doesn't matter if one "likes" or "trusts" Obama or thinks he's a good or bad person. That's all irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether one thinks that the actions he's undertaking are helpful or harmful. If they're harmful, one should criticize them. Where, as here, they're very harmful and dangerous, one should criticize them loudly. Obama himself, according to Ambinder, "finds this outside pressure healthy and useful." And it is. It's not only healthy and useful but absolutely vital.
UPDATE VI: Bearing in mind what Obama repeatedly pledged to do while running, this headline from The New York Times this morning is rather extraordinary:
As Greg Craig put it: "hard to imagine Barack Obama as the first President of the United States to introduce a preventive-detention law."
-- Glenn Greenwald
Currently in Glenn Greenwald's Blog
Facts and myths about Obama's preventive detention proposal
Is a system of indefinite detention with no charges a standard or radical idea?
Friday, May 22, 2009 16:23 EDT
U.S. Congress to finally stand up against torture?
Obama's proposed agreement with the UAE is in jeopardy because of their tolerance of torture and lawlessness.
Friday, May 22, 2009 12:23 EDT
Obama's civil liberties speech
As usual, Obama effectively defended various ideals while advocating policies that contradict them
Thursday, May 21, 2009 17:22 EDT
Hailing the leader as a War President and the powers that go with it
Does America have any other kind of President besides War Presidents?
Thursday, May 21, 2009 16:22 EDT
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U.S. Congress to finally stand up against torture?Obama's proposed agreement with the UAE is in jeopardy because of their tolerance of torture and lawlessness.
Obama's civil liberties speechAs usual, Obama effectively defended various ideals while advocating policies that contradict them
Hailing the leader as a War President and the powers that go with itDoes America have any other kind of President besides War Presidents?
Terrorists in Prison: is there anything the Right doesn't fear?As always, the more frightened one is of childish fantasies, the more Serious and Tough one is deemed to be.
Salon Radio: Eric Boehlert's new book about political blogsHow has the advent of blogs changed politics and journalism?
Obama's embrace of Bush terrorism policies is celebrated as "Centrism"For all the flamboyant displays of opposition to Bush/Cheney policies, they remain the political and media consensus
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I was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. I am the author of two New York Times Bestselling books: "How Would a Patriot Act?" (May, 2006), a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, and "A Tragic Legacy" (June, 2007), which examines the Bush legacy. My most recent book, "Great American Hypocrites", examines the manipulative electoral tactics used by the GOP and propagated by the establishment press, and was released in April, 2008, by Random House/Crown.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
All options open on securing Pak nukes: Obama
Obama claims that Islamabad's sovereignty is to be respected. But then if all options are open to secure Pakistan's nuclear weapons that would include not respecting Islamabad's sovereignty if he thinks conditions warrant it. Pakistan already claims that the drone attacks already violate Pakistan''s sovereignty however at the same time targets are apparently suggested and some drones use airbases in Pakistan!
All options open on securing Pak nukes: Obama
Monday, May 18, 2009 Says Islamabad’s sovereignty to be respected; US working to strengthen PakistanWASHINGTON/NEW YORK: US President Barack Obama has voiced confidence in the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear assets. But at the same time, he made it clear that he could consider all options to secure the nuclear weapons, if the country got less stable.“Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is safe,” he said in an interview with the Newsweek magazine. “I don’t want to engage in hypotheses around Pakistan, other than to say we have confidence that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is safe; that the Pakistani military is equipped to prevent extremists from taking over those arsenals. As commander-in-chief, I have to consider all options, but I think that Pakistan’s sovereignty has to be respected,” he said.Obama was asked whether Washington would have the option alive to secure Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in the event of instability in the country, striving to overcome challenges of militancy along its Afghan border. He said: “We are trying to strengthen them as a partner, and one of the encouraging things is, over the last several weeks we’ve seen a decided shift in the Pakistan Army’s recognition that the threat from extremism is a much more immediate and serious one than the threat from India that they’ve traditionally focused on.”Questioned how he decided on sending additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, Obama said his administration felt that the existing approach was not working and that instability in the insurgency-hit Afghan border areas was destabilising Pakistan as well.Obama said: “I think the starting point was recognition that the existing trajectory was not working, that the Taliban had made advances, that our presence in Afghanistan was declining in popularity, that the instability along the border region was destabilising Pakistan as well. So, that was the starting point of the decision.”The US president said it would be premature to talk about more troops for Afghanistan at the moment. “I think it’s premature to talk about additional troops. My strong view is that we are not going to succeed simply by piling on more and more troops.“The Soviets tried that; it didn’t work out too well for them. The British tried it; it didn’t work. We have to see our military action in the context of a broader effort to stabilise security in the country, allow national elections to take place in Afghanistan and then provide space for the vital development work that’s needed, so that a tolerant and open, democratically-elected government is considered far more legitimate than a Taliban alternative,” he responded when asked if he was open to sending more troops to Afghanistan if the latest addition of troops could not make the progress the US needed to make. Obama said: “The military component is critical to accomplishing that goal, but it is not a sufficient element by itself.”
All options open on securing Pak nukes: Obama
Monday, May 18, 2009 Says Islamabad’s sovereignty to be respected; US working to strengthen PakistanWASHINGTON/NEW YORK: US President Barack Obama has voiced confidence in the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear assets. But at the same time, he made it clear that he could consider all options to secure the nuclear weapons, if the country got less stable.“Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is safe,” he said in an interview with the Newsweek magazine. “I don’t want to engage in hypotheses around Pakistan, other than to say we have confidence that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is safe; that the Pakistani military is equipped to prevent extremists from taking over those arsenals. As commander-in-chief, I have to consider all options, but I think that Pakistan’s sovereignty has to be respected,” he said.Obama was asked whether Washington would have the option alive to secure Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in the event of instability in the country, striving to overcome challenges of militancy along its Afghan border. He said: “We are trying to strengthen them as a partner, and one of the encouraging things is, over the last several weeks we’ve seen a decided shift in the Pakistan Army’s recognition that the threat from extremism is a much more immediate and serious one than the threat from India that they’ve traditionally focused on.”Questioned how he decided on sending additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, Obama said his administration felt that the existing approach was not working and that instability in the insurgency-hit Afghan border areas was destabilising Pakistan as well.Obama said: “I think the starting point was recognition that the existing trajectory was not working, that the Taliban had made advances, that our presence in Afghanistan was declining in popularity, that the instability along the border region was destabilising Pakistan as well. So, that was the starting point of the decision.”The US president said it would be premature to talk about more troops for Afghanistan at the moment. “I think it’s premature to talk about additional troops. My strong view is that we are not going to succeed simply by piling on more and more troops.“The Soviets tried that; it didn’t work out too well for them. The British tried it; it didn’t work. We have to see our military action in the context of a broader effort to stabilise security in the country, allow national elections to take place in Afghanistan and then provide space for the vital development work that’s needed, so that a tolerant and open, democratically-elected government is considered far more legitimate than a Taliban alternative,” he responded when asked if he was open to sending more troops to Afghanistan if the latest addition of troops could not make the progress the US needed to make. Obama said: “The military component is critical to accomplishing that goal, but it is not a sufficient element by itself.”
Friday, May 22, 2009
Obama endorses indefinite detention without trial for some..
This is precisely the same sort of legal and political expediency that Obama accused Bush of using. It is true that Obama is put in a difficult position by the use of torture by the Bush administration. But surely if there is not enough evidence to convict someone they go free until you can charge them. You can certainly monitor the suspects' actions while free and if they are going to plan more mayhem you can discover this and arrest them.
While Obama ostensibly rejects torture at least by the US-- but not perhaps through rendition --this action is if anything worse in that it rejects the cornerstone of any just legal system the right of habeas corpus. Apparently this is consistent with core American values that Obama prattles on about.
Obama Endorses Indefinite Detention Without Trial for Some
By Peter FinnWashington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 22, 2009
President Obama acknowledged publicly for the first time yesterday that some detainees at Guantanamo Bay may have to be held without trial indefinitely, siding with conservative national security advocates on one of the most contentious issues raised by the closing of the military prison in Cuba.
"We are going to exhaust every avenue that we have to prosecute those at Guantanamo who pose a danger to our country," Obama said. "But even when this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States."
Some human rights advocates criticized Obama for adopting the idea that some detainees are not entitled to a trial. Others said the president was boxed in by cases inherited from the Bush administration in which possible prosecution had been irretrievably compromised by coercive interrogation.
The president stopped short of saying he would institutionalize indefinite detention for future captives.
"The issue is framed pretty exclusively in terms of existing Guantanamo detainees," said Tom Malinowski, the head of Human Rights Watch's Washington office. "There is a big difference between employing an extraordinary mechanism to deal with legacy cases compromised because of Bush administration actions and saying we need a permanent national security regime."
But Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said employing preventive detention simply because some cases at Guantanamo are too difficult to prosecute involves the kind of legal expediency that Obama said was a hallmark of his predecessor's policies.
"My question is not only 'What happens to those people who may be perpetually in prison?' but 'What kind of precedent does that set for the future?' " Ratner said. "It's not one I find constitutional or acceptable. Opening that door even for a few Guantanamo detainees is anathema. He is closing Guantanamo physically, but he's repackaging it with a little more legal gloss."
Obama did not lay out the legal underpinnings of preventive detention yesterday, speaking only of "a system that involves judicial and congressional oversight." He could hold detainees under a law of war theory that they are combatants or, more radically, create a national security court under domestic legislation to back such a detention system. The Supreme Court has already ruled that detainees are entitled to a judicial review of their detention.
Even advocates of indefinite detention backed by judicial review, such as Jack Goldsmith, head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush administration and now a law professor at Harvard University, recognize that such a system is deeply controversial because the war against al-Qaeda is indefinite, the likelihood of mistaken identity is much higher than in traditional warfare in which combatants wear uniforms, and many of those detained are citizens of allied countries that do not view the conflict as a war and regard terrorism as an exclusively criminal matter.
"I don't think that those reasons argue for ending the detention rationale, I think they argue for being a hell of a lot more careful with the detention rationale, for making sure that we minimize mistakes, that we don't have erroneous long term detentions," Goldsmith said at a seminar this month with reporters at the Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier in Virginia.
Obama said any system of detention "must have a thorough process of periodic review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and justified." Goldsmith and other scholars have said such oversight could include annual or bi-annual reviews by a national security court in which the government's burden of proof to extend detention increases over time.
An interagency panel led by the Justice Department is examining long-term detention policy and is expected to report this summer.
Apart from those who cannot be tried but must be held, Obama laid out four other categories that would apply to the 240 detainees remaining at Guantanamo: those who can be tried in federal court, those who will be brought before revamped military commissions, those ordered released by U.S. courts, and those who can be transferred to other countries.
Obama described preventive detention as the most difficult issue raised by Guantanamo. "Examples of that threat include people who have received extensive explosives training at al-Qaeda training camps, commanded Taliban troops in battle, expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans," he said.
He did not say why those offenses could not be prosecuted, but legal scholars have previously said that some intelligence may be too raw for court, and that some offenses now considered material support for terrorism were not crimes until counterterrorism laws were expanded after Sept. 11, 2001.
Another major constraint is evidence tainted by the abuse of prisoners. In the case of Mohammed al-Qahtani, a Saudi who allegedly planned to participate in the 9/11 attacks, the Pentagon official in charge of referring detainees to trial before military commissions decided not to prosecute. Susan G. Crawford, a Bush appointee, told The Washington Post in January that "his treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case."
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
.
© 2009 The Washington Post Company
While Obama ostensibly rejects torture at least by the US-- but not perhaps through rendition --this action is if anything worse in that it rejects the cornerstone of any just legal system the right of habeas corpus. Apparently this is consistent with core American values that Obama prattles on about.
Obama Endorses Indefinite Detention Without Trial for Some
By Peter FinnWashington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 22, 2009
President Obama acknowledged publicly for the first time yesterday that some detainees at Guantanamo Bay may have to be held without trial indefinitely, siding with conservative national security advocates on one of the most contentious issues raised by the closing of the military prison in Cuba.
"We are going to exhaust every avenue that we have to prosecute those at Guantanamo who pose a danger to our country," Obama said. "But even when this process is complete, there may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States."
Some human rights advocates criticized Obama for adopting the idea that some detainees are not entitled to a trial. Others said the president was boxed in by cases inherited from the Bush administration in which possible prosecution had been irretrievably compromised by coercive interrogation.
The president stopped short of saying he would institutionalize indefinite detention for future captives.
"The issue is framed pretty exclusively in terms of existing Guantanamo detainees," said Tom Malinowski, the head of Human Rights Watch's Washington office. "There is a big difference between employing an extraordinary mechanism to deal with legacy cases compromised because of Bush administration actions and saying we need a permanent national security regime."
But Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said employing preventive detention simply because some cases at Guantanamo are too difficult to prosecute involves the kind of legal expediency that Obama said was a hallmark of his predecessor's policies.
"My question is not only 'What happens to those people who may be perpetually in prison?' but 'What kind of precedent does that set for the future?' " Ratner said. "It's not one I find constitutional or acceptable. Opening that door even for a few Guantanamo detainees is anathema. He is closing Guantanamo physically, but he's repackaging it with a little more legal gloss."
Obama did not lay out the legal underpinnings of preventive detention yesterday, speaking only of "a system that involves judicial and congressional oversight." He could hold detainees under a law of war theory that they are combatants or, more radically, create a national security court under domestic legislation to back such a detention system. The Supreme Court has already ruled that detainees are entitled to a judicial review of their detention.
Even advocates of indefinite detention backed by judicial review, such as Jack Goldsmith, head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush administration and now a law professor at Harvard University, recognize that such a system is deeply controversial because the war against al-Qaeda is indefinite, the likelihood of mistaken identity is much higher than in traditional warfare in which combatants wear uniforms, and many of those detained are citizens of allied countries that do not view the conflict as a war and regard terrorism as an exclusively criminal matter.
"I don't think that those reasons argue for ending the detention rationale, I think they argue for being a hell of a lot more careful with the detention rationale, for making sure that we minimize mistakes, that we don't have erroneous long term detentions," Goldsmith said at a seminar this month with reporters at the Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier in Virginia.
Obama said any system of detention "must have a thorough process of periodic review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and justified." Goldsmith and other scholars have said such oversight could include annual or bi-annual reviews by a national security court in which the government's burden of proof to extend detention increases over time.
An interagency panel led by the Justice Department is examining long-term detention policy and is expected to report this summer.
Apart from those who cannot be tried but must be held, Obama laid out four other categories that would apply to the 240 detainees remaining at Guantanamo: those who can be tried in federal court, those who will be brought before revamped military commissions, those ordered released by U.S. courts, and those who can be transferred to other countries.
Obama described preventive detention as the most difficult issue raised by Guantanamo. "Examples of that threat include people who have received extensive explosives training at al-Qaeda training camps, commanded Taliban troops in battle, expressed their allegiance to Osama bin Laden or otherwise made it clear that they want to kill Americans," he said.
He did not say why those offenses could not be prosecuted, but legal scholars have previously said that some intelligence may be too raw for court, and that some offenses now considered material support for terrorism were not crimes until counterterrorism laws were expanded after Sept. 11, 2001.
Another major constraint is evidence tainted by the abuse of prisoners. In the case of Mohammed al-Qahtani, a Saudi who allegedly planned to participate in the 9/11 attacks, the Pentagon official in charge of referring detainees to trial before military commissions decided not to prosecute. Susan G. Crawford, a Bush appointee, told The Washington Post in January that "his treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case."
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
.
© 2009 The Washington Post Company
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Philippines least competitive Asian country
Well scoring poorly on this list is not all bad. In some cases the Philippines is probably marked down because it does not do everything possible to make things attractive for global capital. The United States is ranked as the most competitive but the US economy is in a horrible recession while the Philippine economy is still growing! However as the article notes graft is a real problem and other forms of corruption. As long as Arroyo is in power you cannot expect much change in that dimension.
The report notes that areas where there is most conflict are those with the poorest human development record.
This is from the Tribune (Manila)
RP least competitive in Asia; graft blamed
By Michaela P. del Callar
05/21/2009
The country slipped anew in terms of its global competitiveness ranking 43rd out of 57 countries in the World Competitiveness Yearbook that Swiss business school IMD released yesterday.
Among 12 Asian countries on the list, the Philippines got the poorest ranking with Hong Kong considered as the world’s second most competitive country, next to the United States. Singapore ranked 3rd; Japan, 17th; Malaysia, 18th; China, 20th; Taiwan, 23rd; Thailand, 26th; Korea, 27th; India, 30th; Kazakhstan, 36th, and Indonesia, 42nd.
The Philippines’ competitiveness grade had regressed the past five years having been ranked 40th in 2005, 42nd in 2006, 45th in 2007 before improving to 40th last year.
What’s more telling was that IMD ranked the economic performance of the country at 51st out of 57 this year despite President Arroyo’s continuous harping about her administration’s focus on uplifting the economy.
The economic performance of the country had deteriorated progressively since 2005 when it was ranked 36th, 45th in 2006 and 2007, and 42nd last year.
On government efficiency the Philippines was ranked 42nd, on business efficiency, 32nd and infrastructure second to the last at 56th.
Aside from perceptions of corruption, a weak government institution was blamed for the dismal ranking of the country in the annual competitiveness ranking.
A United Nations report echoed the IMD findings, saying weak congressional oversight on foreign aid
and national budget facilitates corruption in the country.
In the Philippine Human Development Report for the period 2008-2009, it said that “loopholes” in the current budget law give the executive and not congress the “power of the purse.”
It added that the President can override congressional budget mandates in a number of ways by not releasing or delaying the release of authorized appropriations and by using “savings” and “other unprogrammed, discretionary or confidential funds at will.”
The PHDR cited overwhelming amounts with savings ranging from P11.4 billion in 2004 t P117.5 billion in 2007.
Lump sums in the 2009 National Expenditure Program—defined as one-liner appropriations amounting to P100 million or more—amounted to P224 billion, or 16 percent of the proposed national budget. Confidential and intelligence funds amount to another P1.12 billion.
“Presidents can, and have restored programs scrapped by Congress by using ‘savings,’ lump sums or contingency funds,” the report said.
It lamented that mandatory obligations comprise more than 80 percent of the total annual budget on average, leaving little headroom to increase spending on basic services or fund innovations.
The report also pointed out that Congress plays a significant part in undermining its own powers, noting that when it fails to pass the national budget, the previous year’s budget is automatically re-enacted.
It said that there have been three fully re-enacted budgets since 2000, 2001, 2004 and 2006 and a few more being partially re-enacted.
“The re-enactment of a budget even strengthens the President’s control over allocations owing to larger savings that can be disbursed at his or her discretion,” the report said.
It also noted the lack of transparency in government agencies as they fail to submit quarterly financial reports in a complete and timely manner to Congress, the Commission on Audit, the Department of Budget and Management, and the Office of the President.
“One problem is the lack of any mechanism for systematic legal or administrative sanctions against such agencies, notwithstanding the oversight functions of the CoA,” the report said.
The report also cited many instances of unresolved “recurrent adverse audit findings” among national government agencies and corporations from the COA.
Five war-torn provinces in Southern Mindanao ranked lowest in the human development index due to lack of economic development, extreme poverty and thousands of displaced civilians due to ongoing hostilities between Muslim rebels and government troops .
At the bottom 10 are seven provinces from Mindanao, five of which are from the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), the report that covers the country’s 77 provinces and Metro Manila released yesterday said.
Sulu, a stronghold of Muslim militants and a battleground for Philippine armed forces and rebels, was retained in the last spot, followed by Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao, Basilan and Lana del Sur. Their performance in human development is comparable to Ghana, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan and Senegal.
“As human insecurity increases from armed conflict, people turn away from those social and activities that could have facilitated the development of their human potential,” the report said.
“Lives are destroyed, families and communities torn apart, cultures decline, and investment is foregone or deflected. Development in the immediate are stagnates and, through spillovers, the entire region and perhaps the entire country is affected,” it added.
Previous Philippine human development reporters dating back to the mid-1990s have consistently shown that the bottom 10 provinces in almost every aspect of human development are the most conflict-ridden.
New to the bottom 10 are Eastern Samar and Romblon and graduating from the lowest ranking provinces list are Agusan del Sur, Northern Samar and Surigao del Sur.
Provinces in Luzon led by Bataan, Benguet, Cavite and Rizal topped the human development rankings. Completing the top ten are Batanes, Ilocos Norte, Laguna, La Union, Nueva Vizcaya and Pampanga.
Human development levels increased for 51 provinces and declined for 27, including Metro Manila.
Benguet, Biliran and Siquijor were cioted as “the most improved in human development,” while the top ten provinces performed well in the gender-development index.
Overall, the Philippines is classified as a medium human development country, along with other Asian states like China and Thailand, ranking 90th out of 177 countries. Highest ranked countries are Australia, Canada, Japan, Iceland, Ireland, France, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.
In terms of health, the estimated life expectancy at birth of the Philippines is 71 years, or 3.5 years above the average for medium-ranked countries. For simple literacy rate, the Philippines has 92.6 while real per-capita incomes is at $5,137 or about five percent above the average of $4,876 for the group.
“This is an improvement over the past computations, where the Philippines’ real per capita income was below the group average,” the report said.
The report notes that areas where there is most conflict are those with the poorest human development record.
This is from the Tribune (Manila)
RP least competitive in Asia; graft blamed
By Michaela P. del Callar
05/21/2009
The country slipped anew in terms of its global competitiveness ranking 43rd out of 57 countries in the World Competitiveness Yearbook that Swiss business school IMD released yesterday.
Among 12 Asian countries on the list, the Philippines got the poorest ranking with Hong Kong considered as the world’s second most competitive country, next to the United States. Singapore ranked 3rd; Japan, 17th; Malaysia, 18th; China, 20th; Taiwan, 23rd; Thailand, 26th; Korea, 27th; India, 30th; Kazakhstan, 36th, and Indonesia, 42nd.
The Philippines’ competitiveness grade had regressed the past five years having been ranked 40th in 2005, 42nd in 2006, 45th in 2007 before improving to 40th last year.
What’s more telling was that IMD ranked the economic performance of the country at 51st out of 57 this year despite President Arroyo’s continuous harping about her administration’s focus on uplifting the economy.
The economic performance of the country had deteriorated progressively since 2005 when it was ranked 36th, 45th in 2006 and 2007, and 42nd last year.
On government efficiency the Philippines was ranked 42nd, on business efficiency, 32nd and infrastructure second to the last at 56th.
Aside from perceptions of corruption, a weak government institution was blamed for the dismal ranking of the country in the annual competitiveness ranking.
A United Nations report echoed the IMD findings, saying weak congressional oversight on foreign aid
and national budget facilitates corruption in the country.
In the Philippine Human Development Report for the period 2008-2009, it said that “loopholes” in the current budget law give the executive and not congress the “power of the purse.”
It added that the President can override congressional budget mandates in a number of ways by not releasing or delaying the release of authorized appropriations and by using “savings” and “other unprogrammed, discretionary or confidential funds at will.”
The PHDR cited overwhelming amounts with savings ranging from P11.4 billion in 2004 t P117.5 billion in 2007.
Lump sums in the 2009 National Expenditure Program—defined as one-liner appropriations amounting to P100 million or more—amounted to P224 billion, or 16 percent of the proposed national budget. Confidential and intelligence funds amount to another P1.12 billion.
“Presidents can, and have restored programs scrapped by Congress by using ‘savings,’ lump sums or contingency funds,” the report said.
It lamented that mandatory obligations comprise more than 80 percent of the total annual budget on average, leaving little headroom to increase spending on basic services or fund innovations.
The report also pointed out that Congress plays a significant part in undermining its own powers, noting that when it fails to pass the national budget, the previous year’s budget is automatically re-enacted.
It said that there have been three fully re-enacted budgets since 2000, 2001, 2004 and 2006 and a few more being partially re-enacted.
“The re-enactment of a budget even strengthens the President’s control over allocations owing to larger savings that can be disbursed at his or her discretion,” the report said.
It also noted the lack of transparency in government agencies as they fail to submit quarterly financial reports in a complete and timely manner to Congress, the Commission on Audit, the Department of Budget and Management, and the Office of the President.
“One problem is the lack of any mechanism for systematic legal or administrative sanctions against such agencies, notwithstanding the oversight functions of the CoA,” the report said.
The report also cited many instances of unresolved “recurrent adverse audit findings” among national government agencies and corporations from the COA.
Five war-torn provinces in Southern Mindanao ranked lowest in the human development index due to lack of economic development, extreme poverty and thousands of displaced civilians due to ongoing hostilities between Muslim rebels and government troops .
At the bottom 10 are seven provinces from Mindanao, five of which are from the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), the report that covers the country’s 77 provinces and Metro Manila released yesterday said.
Sulu, a stronghold of Muslim militants and a battleground for Philippine armed forces and rebels, was retained in the last spot, followed by Tawi-Tawi, Maguindanao, Basilan and Lana del Sur. Their performance in human development is comparable to Ghana, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan and Senegal.
“As human insecurity increases from armed conflict, people turn away from those social and activities that could have facilitated the development of their human potential,” the report said.
“Lives are destroyed, families and communities torn apart, cultures decline, and investment is foregone or deflected. Development in the immediate are stagnates and, through spillovers, the entire region and perhaps the entire country is affected,” it added.
Previous Philippine human development reporters dating back to the mid-1990s have consistently shown that the bottom 10 provinces in almost every aspect of human development are the most conflict-ridden.
New to the bottom 10 are Eastern Samar and Romblon and graduating from the lowest ranking provinces list are Agusan del Sur, Northern Samar and Surigao del Sur.
Provinces in Luzon led by Bataan, Benguet, Cavite and Rizal topped the human development rankings. Completing the top ten are Batanes, Ilocos Norte, Laguna, La Union, Nueva Vizcaya and Pampanga.
Human development levels increased for 51 provinces and declined for 27, including Metro Manila.
Benguet, Biliran and Siquijor were cioted as “the most improved in human development,” while the top ten provinces performed well in the gender-development index.
Overall, the Philippines is classified as a medium human development country, along with other Asian states like China and Thailand, ranking 90th out of 177 countries. Highest ranked countries are Australia, Canada, Japan, Iceland, Ireland, France, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.
In terms of health, the estimated life expectancy at birth of the Philippines is 71 years, or 3.5 years above the average for medium-ranked countries. For simple literacy rate, the Philippines has 92.6 while real per-capita incomes is at $5,137 or about five percent above the average of $4,876 for the group.
“This is an improvement over the past computations, where the Philippines’ real per capita income was below the group average,” the report said.
Zardari vows to expand war beyond Swat.
It is clear that Zardari has now pledged himself entirely to US policy goals. It remains to be seen if he can survive the results. The country is now plunged into civil war in the border tribal areas. Given the economic situation in Pakistan the country is becoming ever more dependent upon bailouts and the US aid probably trumps any considerations of national interest that might run counter to US policy. The result is already a humanitarian disaster added to an economic disaster. Probably the military will be successful in the short run but even that is not assured. The Taliban will no doubt have already infiltrated refugee camps and will no doubt step up terrorist actions in other parts of Pakistan.
News From Antiwar.com - http://news.antiwar.com -
Zardari Vows to Expand War Beyond Swat
Posted By Jason Ditz
Hot on the heels of military reports that the offensive against the Swat Valley had killed over 1,000 “suspected insurgents,” President Asif Ali Zardari has ominously declared that “Swat is just the start.” Zardari is now soliciting international donors for billions of dollars to expand the war across the tribal areas, and seemingly across the entire 2,400 km border with Afghanistan.
The military offensive in the Swat Valley has driven more than a million people from their homes, and killed an undisclosed number of civilians. The true extent of the damage in the Swat Valley has been largely obscured as the military has banned journalists from the area.
Nevertheless, officials have touted the success of the operation, even as Zardari appears eager to see the humanitarian crisis repeated across the nation’s entire frontier. Interior Minister Rehman Malik claimed today that the Dir and Buner Districts are now under complete military control and it was safe for refugees to return home. Despite this, media reports continued bombardment of Upper Dir, which has caused multiple civilian casualties.
Copyright © 2009 News From Antiwar.com. All rights reserved.
News From Antiwar.com - http://news.antiwar.com -
Zardari Vows to Expand War Beyond Swat
Posted By Jason Ditz
Hot on the heels of military reports that the offensive against the Swat Valley had killed over 1,000 “suspected insurgents,” President Asif Ali Zardari has ominously declared that “Swat is just the start.” Zardari is now soliciting international donors for billions of dollars to expand the war across the tribal areas, and seemingly across the entire 2,400 km border with Afghanistan.
The military offensive in the Swat Valley has driven more than a million people from their homes, and killed an undisclosed number of civilians. The true extent of the damage in the Swat Valley has been largely obscured as the military has banned journalists from the area.
Nevertheless, officials have touted the success of the operation, even as Zardari appears eager to see the humanitarian crisis repeated across the nation’s entire frontier. Interior Minister Rehman Malik claimed today that the Dir and Buner Districts are now under complete military control and it was safe for refugees to return home. Despite this, media reports continued bombardment of Upper Dir, which has caused multiple civilian casualties.
Copyright © 2009 News From Antiwar.com. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Islamist offensive ruins the West's plan for Somalia
Interesting that when Sheik Ahmed was leader of the former Islamist government he was a hard-line terrorist but when he allies himself with the US and west he becomes a moderate! When the so-called hardliner Aweys picked him as a moderate leader for that govt. Ahmed was nonetheless persona non grata to the west and a radical Islamist. Now he is co-operating with the west he is a moderate but for his teacher and trainer Aweys he is a stooge of the US and to be driven out of power.
from the May 17, 2009 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0517/p06s01-woaf.htl
Islamist offensive ruins the West's plan for Somalia
Militant Islamists have the moderate government surrounded in Mogadishu. If they took over, it would be a devastating blow to US counter-terrorism and anti-piracy efforts in East Africa.
By Shashank Bengali McClatchy Newspapers
Nairobi, Kenya
A major offensive by Islamic rebels has brought Somalia's internationally backed government close to collapse and renewed the possibility that a militant Islamist regime that allegedly has ties to Al Qaeda could seize control of the East African nation.
That would be a devastating blow to US counter-terrorism and anti-piracy efforts in East Africa, where Al Qaeda operatives bombed the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. American intelligence officials accuse the rebels' spiritual leader, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, of helping to shelter suspects in those attacks, and since 2007 US forces have launched airstrikes at terrorist targets in Somalia.
After a week of heavy mortar and rocket attacks that have left at least 135 people dead and sent tens of thousands fleeing, the insurgents have moved to within a half-mile of the hilltop presidential palace in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, which is being guarded by African Union peacekeepers with tanks and armored vehicles.
The Islamists, reportedly joined by hundreds of foreign fighters, didn't move on the palace Friday and almost certainly would lose a ground confrontation with the better-armed, 4,300-man peacekeeping force. Still, Aweys, a veteran hard-liner who US officials charge is linked to Al Qaeda, vowed to topple the government and institute "the Islamic state of Somalia."
Less than four months after a new, moderate Islamic government formed in a country that's been in the grip of civil war since 1991, the latest multimillion-dollar international plan to stabilize Somalia appears to be in tatters.
Despite a beefed-up African Union peacekeeping force and a UN-backed reconciliation effort, the moderate president, Sheik Sharif Ahmed, has failed to win the support of hard-liners such as Aweys or the powerful insurgent group Al Shabab, which the State Department has labeled a terrorist organization.
"The prospect of [Mr. Ahmed's] government collapsing is real," says Rashid Abdi, a Somalia analyst for the International Crisis Group, a policy research organization.
The UN refugee agency said that this week's clashes had sent some 30,000 people fleeing and overwhelmed hospitals with casualties. Some Mogadishu residents have been trapped in their homes for days, unable to flee street battles raging around their neighborhoods, the agency said.
The fighting marks a dramatic reversal for Aweys and Ahmed, who were allies in 2006 when Islamist militias took over Mogadishu. The septuagenarian Aweys, the henna-bearded father of the country's modern Islamist movement, plucked Ahmed, then a little-known schoolteacher, to be the moderate face of the new regime.
When a US-backed invasion by Somalia's archenemy Ethiopia ousted the Islamists six months later, Aweys fled into exile. Ahmed, to the hard-liners' disgust, formed an opposition group that reached out to Western officials.
Since he became president, Ahmed has tried to placate his rivals by agreeing to institute Islamic law, or sharia. Aweys' long-awaited return to Mogadishu last month raised hopes of reconciliation, but in a speech two days later he accused Ahmed of being a US-Ethiopian client and called the African Union force — the only thing standing between the government and the insurgents — "a bacteria" to be flushed out.
"We are not going to accept what the international community is forcing on us," Aweys said Friday. "We are going to make our own government."
In a country that's deeply suspicious of foreign intervention, analysts say, the United States and other Western nations underestimated how easily their support for Ahmed could taint the soft-spoken young president.
Experts said that about 100 government soldiers had defected in recent weeks, partly because army salaries hadn't been paid and partly because of fears that Ahmed would be toppled.
"The extremists see [Ahmed] as a sellout," Abdi said. "They call him 'the man of the American Islam.' He's not practicing the harsh brand of Islam they practice, so they want his blood."
Western officials also appeared to misjudge Aweys, who, despite more than two years in exile, landed in Mogadishu and seemed swiftly to unite disparate insurgent groups in a well-organized campaign that's sealed off the capital's three arterial roads.
Somalia has grabbed world attention in recent months with the surge in pirate attacks from its lawless shores. In one way, Abdi said, the pirates could have precipitated the current crisis: After countries pledged more than $200 million last month for security in Somalia, in part to fight piracy, the insurgents may have decided to strike before the government and the African Union got the money.
Western intelligence officials think that the insurgent groups — particularly Al Shabab, which has employed Al Qaeda-style roadside bombings and suicide attacks — are backed with money and arms from Arab countries and from Ethiopia's blood rival, Eritrea.
The top UN diplomat for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, said Friday that 280 to 300 foreigners were fighting alongside the insurgents. Somali government officials say the foreigners come from countries such as Afghanistan and Chechnya and have trained local fighters in explosives and tactics.
(Special correspondent Ahmednor Mohamed contributed to this report from Mogadishu, Somalia.)
www.csmonitor.com Copyright © 2009 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
from the May 17, 2009 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0517/p06s01-woaf.htl
Islamist offensive ruins the West's plan for Somalia
Militant Islamists have the moderate government surrounded in Mogadishu. If they took over, it would be a devastating blow to US counter-terrorism and anti-piracy efforts in East Africa.
By Shashank Bengali McClatchy Newspapers
Nairobi, Kenya
A major offensive by Islamic rebels has brought Somalia's internationally backed government close to collapse and renewed the possibility that a militant Islamist regime that allegedly has ties to Al Qaeda could seize control of the East African nation.
That would be a devastating blow to US counter-terrorism and anti-piracy efforts in East Africa, where Al Qaeda operatives bombed the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. American intelligence officials accuse the rebels' spiritual leader, Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, of helping to shelter suspects in those attacks, and since 2007 US forces have launched airstrikes at terrorist targets in Somalia.
After a week of heavy mortar and rocket attacks that have left at least 135 people dead and sent tens of thousands fleeing, the insurgents have moved to within a half-mile of the hilltop presidential palace in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, which is being guarded by African Union peacekeepers with tanks and armored vehicles.
The Islamists, reportedly joined by hundreds of foreign fighters, didn't move on the palace Friday and almost certainly would lose a ground confrontation with the better-armed, 4,300-man peacekeeping force. Still, Aweys, a veteran hard-liner who US officials charge is linked to Al Qaeda, vowed to topple the government and institute "the Islamic state of Somalia."
Less than four months after a new, moderate Islamic government formed in a country that's been in the grip of civil war since 1991, the latest multimillion-dollar international plan to stabilize Somalia appears to be in tatters.
Despite a beefed-up African Union peacekeeping force and a UN-backed reconciliation effort, the moderate president, Sheik Sharif Ahmed, has failed to win the support of hard-liners such as Aweys or the powerful insurgent group Al Shabab, which the State Department has labeled a terrorist organization.
"The prospect of [Mr. Ahmed's] government collapsing is real," says Rashid Abdi, a Somalia analyst for the International Crisis Group, a policy research organization.
The UN refugee agency said that this week's clashes had sent some 30,000 people fleeing and overwhelmed hospitals with casualties. Some Mogadishu residents have been trapped in their homes for days, unable to flee street battles raging around their neighborhoods, the agency said.
The fighting marks a dramatic reversal for Aweys and Ahmed, who were allies in 2006 when Islamist militias took over Mogadishu. The septuagenarian Aweys, the henna-bearded father of the country's modern Islamist movement, plucked Ahmed, then a little-known schoolteacher, to be the moderate face of the new regime.
When a US-backed invasion by Somalia's archenemy Ethiopia ousted the Islamists six months later, Aweys fled into exile. Ahmed, to the hard-liners' disgust, formed an opposition group that reached out to Western officials.
Since he became president, Ahmed has tried to placate his rivals by agreeing to institute Islamic law, or sharia. Aweys' long-awaited return to Mogadishu last month raised hopes of reconciliation, but in a speech two days later he accused Ahmed of being a US-Ethiopian client and called the African Union force — the only thing standing between the government and the insurgents — "a bacteria" to be flushed out.
"We are not going to accept what the international community is forcing on us," Aweys said Friday. "We are going to make our own government."
In a country that's deeply suspicious of foreign intervention, analysts say, the United States and other Western nations underestimated how easily their support for Ahmed could taint the soft-spoken young president.
Experts said that about 100 government soldiers had defected in recent weeks, partly because army salaries hadn't been paid and partly because of fears that Ahmed would be toppled.
"The extremists see [Ahmed] as a sellout," Abdi said. "They call him 'the man of the American Islam.' He's not practicing the harsh brand of Islam they practice, so they want his blood."
Western officials also appeared to misjudge Aweys, who, despite more than two years in exile, landed in Mogadishu and seemed swiftly to unite disparate insurgent groups in a well-organized campaign that's sealed off the capital's three arterial roads.
Somalia has grabbed world attention in recent months with the surge in pirate attacks from its lawless shores. In one way, Abdi said, the pirates could have precipitated the current crisis: After countries pledged more than $200 million last month for security in Somalia, in part to fight piracy, the insurgents may have decided to strike before the government and the African Union got the money.
Western intelligence officials think that the insurgent groups — particularly Al Shabab, which has employed Al Qaeda-style roadside bombings and suicide attacks — are backed with money and arms from Arab countries and from Ethiopia's blood rival, Eritrea.
The top UN diplomat for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, said Friday that 280 to 300 foreigners were fighting alongside the insurgents. Somali government officials say the foreigners come from countries such as Afghanistan and Chechnya and have trained local fighters in explosives and tactics.
(Special correspondent Ahmednor Mohamed contributed to this report from Mogadishu, Somalia.)
www.csmonitor.com Copyright © 2009 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
Little Progress as Obama, Netanyahu Meet
This is from antiwar.com
This result is hardly surprising. At this juncture there seems a clear divergence of views between Israel and the U.S. As the article mentions Netanyahu probably finds it politically impossible or at least highly risky to go along with the US and adopt a two state solution. Also, Israel seems to be busy expanding construction in some settlements. On Iran, Israel would no doubt be happy if the US were to step up to the plate and attack Iran's nuclear facilities. It will be interesting to see what US reaction will be if Israel attacks on its own. Of course it has done so before attacking a site in Syria where it was alleged a reactor was to be built and also attacking a reactor in Iraq when Hussein was in power. No doubt the US reaction would be to tut tut and ship more arms to Israel.
Little Progress as Obama, Netanyahu Meet
Obama Calls for Two-State Solution, Netanyahu "Confident" of Right to Move Against Iran
by Jason Ditz, May 18, 2009
Four hours of dialogue between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama appears to have yielded little in the way of agreement on the major issues of discussion. The two appear to have come to little consensus on the question of Iran or the question of Palestinian peace talks.
President Obama pressed for the two-state solution, though Netanyahu was willing only to grant that it was possible to allow the Palestinians “to govern themselves, absent a handful of powers that could endanger the State of Israel.” Even as this was happening, MPs in Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party were gathering opposition to Palestinian statehood. It appears that even if Prime Minister Netanyahu is eventually brought around on the issue he will have stiff opposition.
On the question of Iran, Netanyahu says he got “no green, red or yellow lights” from the US, but did claim that he was “confident” in Israel’s right to defend itself, presumably referring to the long-threatened Israeli attack on the Iranian nation’s civilian nuclear program. President Obama was unwilling to yield to Netanyahu’s call for a deadline to the Iran talks, but reportedly did assure that “we’re not going to have talks forever.”
This result is hardly surprising. At this juncture there seems a clear divergence of views between Israel and the U.S. As the article mentions Netanyahu probably finds it politically impossible or at least highly risky to go along with the US and adopt a two state solution. Also, Israel seems to be busy expanding construction in some settlements. On Iran, Israel would no doubt be happy if the US were to step up to the plate and attack Iran's nuclear facilities. It will be interesting to see what US reaction will be if Israel attacks on its own. Of course it has done so before attacking a site in Syria where it was alleged a reactor was to be built and also attacking a reactor in Iraq when Hussein was in power. No doubt the US reaction would be to tut tut and ship more arms to Israel.
Little Progress as Obama, Netanyahu Meet
Obama Calls for Two-State Solution, Netanyahu "Confident" of Right to Move Against Iran
by Jason Ditz, May 18, 2009
Four hours of dialogue between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama appears to have yielded little in the way of agreement on the major issues of discussion. The two appear to have come to little consensus on the question of Iran or the question of Palestinian peace talks.
President Obama pressed for the two-state solution, though Netanyahu was willing only to grant that it was possible to allow the Palestinians “to govern themselves, absent a handful of powers that could endanger the State of Israel.” Even as this was happening, MPs in Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party were gathering opposition to Palestinian statehood. It appears that even if Prime Minister Netanyahu is eventually brought around on the issue he will have stiff opposition.
On the question of Iran, Netanyahu says he got “no green, red or yellow lights” from the US, but did claim that he was “confident” in Israel’s right to defend itself, presumably referring to the long-threatened Israeli attack on the Iranian nation’s civilian nuclear program. President Obama was unwilling to yield to Netanyahu’s call for a deadline to the Iran talks, but reportedly did assure that “we’re not going to have talks forever.”
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Israel issues tenders for West Bank settlement
This is from AFP via Yahoo.
Israel simply goes ahead with its own agenda no matter what UN resolutions say and in the face of US and International criticism. This is very much the way Iran acts!
Obama and Israel seem at odds on the Palestinian question. The peace project seems to have little prospect of success or even progress. No word on what is happening in terms of Palestinian forming some kind of unified front or govt.
Israel issues tenders for WBank settlement: radio
Mon May 18, 3:44 am ET
JERUSALEM, (AFP) – Israel issued construction tenders for a West Bank settlement just days before its premier was to hold his first official meeting with US President Barack Obama, army radio reported.
Tenders to build 20 housing units in the Maskiot settlement in the north of the occupied West Bank were issued after the green light was given from the defence ministry, it said.
The news came on the same day that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to meet Obama in Washington for the first time since both assumed power earlier this year, and amid deep disagreements over the peace process.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank are among the main obstacles in the stumbling peace talks with the Palestinians.
Obama's administration has said several times that Israel should stop all settlement activity, in line with the obligations that it undertook as part of the 2003 international "roadmap" peace plan.
Netanyahu, who heads a largely right-wing government in favour of expanding Jewish settlements, is expected to tell Obama that Israel will continue construction in existing settlement blocks, a senior aide told AFP last week.
The construction in Maskiot, site of a former Israeli military base, was authorised by the government in late 2006 in part to rehouse Israelis who had been removed from settlements in the Gaza Strip in 2005.
More than 280,000 Israeli settlers currently live in the occupied West Bank and some 200,000 live in settlements in annexed east Jerusalem, according to the Peace Now anti-settlement watchdog.
Copyright © 2009 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Israel simply goes ahead with its own agenda no matter what UN resolutions say and in the face of US and International criticism. This is very much the way Iran acts!
Obama and Israel seem at odds on the Palestinian question. The peace project seems to have little prospect of success or even progress. No word on what is happening in terms of Palestinian forming some kind of unified front or govt.
Israel issues tenders for WBank settlement: radio
Mon May 18, 3:44 am ET
JERUSALEM, (AFP) – Israel issued construction tenders for a West Bank settlement just days before its premier was to hold his first official meeting with US President Barack Obama, army radio reported.
Tenders to build 20 housing units in the Maskiot settlement in the north of the occupied West Bank were issued after the green light was given from the defence ministry, it said.
The news came on the same day that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to meet Obama in Washington for the first time since both assumed power earlier this year, and amid deep disagreements over the peace process.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank are among the main obstacles in the stumbling peace talks with the Palestinians.
Obama's administration has said several times that Israel should stop all settlement activity, in line with the obligations that it undertook as part of the 2003 international "roadmap" peace plan.
Netanyahu, who heads a largely right-wing government in favour of expanding Jewish settlements, is expected to tell Obama that Israel will continue construction in existing settlement blocks, a senior aide told AFP last week.
The construction in Maskiot, site of a former Israeli military base, was authorised by the government in late 2006 in part to rehouse Israelis who had been removed from settlements in the Gaza Strip in 2005.
More than 280,000 Israeli settlers currently live in the occupied West Bank and some 200,000 live in settlements in annexed east Jerusalem, according to the Peace Now anti-settlement watchdog.
Copyright © 2009 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Tensions Stoked Between Iraqi Kurds and Sunnis
This is from the NYTimes.
This is an issue that has always plagued Iraq and is not about to go away anytime soon. I would not be surprised if at times it breaks out in actual conflict between the Kurds and Sunni Arab linked militias.
May 18, 2009
Tensions Stoked Between Iraqi Kurds and Sunnis
By SAM DAGHER
BASHIQA, Iraq — Tensions between Sunni Arabs and Kurds are boiling over in Nineveh, the northern Iraqi province that includes Mosul, as Kurds fight the result of a provincial election in January that shifted power to Arabs.
Though strains between the groups are not new, in recent days Kurdish forces have blocked Arab officials from carrying out their duties, in a sign that the Kurds refuse to recognize the regional government’s sovereignty over all of Nineveh. The Kurds have also pressured districts under their control to boycott the new Arab governor, and they said they might even resort to military force unless they were given several positions in the government.
American officials have long feared a military conflict in the north, where Arabs and Kurds have competing claims to territory and have legions of trained men under arms. The struggle for power has also fueled the insurgency in the north, giving groups like Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia an opening to appear to back an Arab cause. And it comes as American combat troops are scheduled to withdraw from Iraqi cities by the end of June.
It is unclear whether the tensions will escalate, but several episodes in recent weeks have raised concerns.
On May 8, the newly elected Sunni Arab governor, Atheel al-Nujaifi, was prevented by Kurdish forces from entering Bashiqa, a Kurdish-controlled town northeast of Mosul. The governor said he received a call from an Iraqi officer in the joint Iraqi-American command center in Mosul informing him that the Kurds had issued a “shoot to kill” order against him if he went to Bashiqa. The episode ended when the governor turned back to Mosul.
The Kurds denied they had issued the order but said they were under instructions from the leadership in the semiautonomous Kurdistan region to halt Mr. Nujaifi’s advance.
Last Wednesday, hundreds of armed Kurds stopped the Nineveh police chief, a Sunni Arab, from crossing a bridge into a disputed area of the province under Kurdish control. His convoy included Iraqi soldiers and police officers. A witness described the standoff, which lasted almost three hours before the police chief’s retreat, as “frightening.”
On Saturday, Kurdish military forces fanned out on the road to Zumar, an area northwest of Mosul, following a rumor that the governor might visit, according to a local tribal leader. And on Sunday, a car bomb went off near the governor’s residence in Mosul, killing a police officer, though it was unclear who was behind the bombing.
For almost five years, Kurds dominated the provincial government in Nineveh despite the fact that Arabs make up a majority of the population. The Kurds’ grip on power was aided by the thousands of Kurdish forces that were sent to the province with American approval to shore up security in what remains one of the most violent spots in Iraq.
Last month Mr. Nujaifi, a wealthy businessman with ties to powerful Arab tribes, members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party and possibly insurgents, was chosen as the new governor. His predominantly Sunni Arab coalition, Al Hadba, which won 19 of the 37 seats on the provincial council, froze out the second-place Kurdish coalition from all senior positions in the new government.
The Kurds responded by boycotting the government, and they are now threatening to escalate the conflict unless they are given the posts of deputy governor and provincial council chairman.
Mr. Nujaifi says there will be no talks with the Kurds unless they recognize Nineveh’s administrative borders and pull their forces back to behind the so-called Green Line, Iraqi Kurdistan’s boundary before the American-led invasion in 2003.
The Kurds reject that request and say they will not budge before the fate of disputed territories north of Mosul is settled. They say they trust neither Mr. Nujaifi nor the central government in Baghdad, led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, which has been seeking to assert its authority in northern Iraq at the expense of the Kurds.
“We do not trust these people, we know their intentions,” said Khasro Goran, the Nineveh leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the most powerful Kurdish force on the ground.
Mr. Nujaifi recently called for Sunni insurgents to curtail attacks against American soldiers as they pull out from joint Iraqi-American garrisons in Mosul to Marez, their big base on the outskirts of town. He said that the insurgents “seemed to have responded” to his call, but that controlling Sunni Arab anger against Kurds might be more difficult.
Joost Hiltermann, an analyst who is advising the United Nations on territorial disputes in northern Iraq, said the Kurds had more of an interest in escalating the conflict. “It could be of Kurdish interest to provoke confrontation in order to persuade the Americans that if they abandon the Kurds, the consequences would be dire,” said Mr. Hiltermann, a senior Iraq analyst at the International Crisis Group.
The American military has played down the significance of the recent Kurdish actions.
Meanwhile, residents here on the Nineveh Plain, a mix of ethnic and religious groups, are bracing for the worst.
A checkpoint staffed by Kurdish military forces on the highway between Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan’s capital, and Mosul was recently moved closer to Mosul. Kurdish observation posts along the plain’s roads and hilltops have also been fortified. Near Bashiqa, dirt shields several roadside military outposts. Machine guns could be seen on the roofs of some buildings.
Mr. Goran said that no new forces were brought in, but that those “on vacation” inside Kurdistan were told to come back because of the heightened alert.
“We are a small sect, we do not want trouble,” said Khodr Elias, 49, a resident of Bashiqa, which is dominated by Yazidis, an ancient Kurdish-speaking sect. “We are squeezed between Arabs and Kurds, and we cannot open our mouths.”
Kurds also appear to be pressing people in Christian enclaves of the plain to not recognize the governor.
In the towns of Tal Keif and Qaraqosh, municipal officials who want to cooperate with the government in Mosul say they are impotent in the face of a heavy Kurdish security presence.
Comments by a senior Kurdish police officer in Qaraqosh illustrated the problem. “We have terrorists in power,” said the officer, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak with reporters. “God willing, there will be confrontation; otherwise there will be no solution.”
Mohamed Hussein contributed reporting from Baghdad.
This is an issue that has always plagued Iraq and is not about to go away anytime soon. I would not be surprised if at times it breaks out in actual conflict between the Kurds and Sunni Arab linked militias.
May 18, 2009
Tensions Stoked Between Iraqi Kurds and Sunnis
By SAM DAGHER
BASHIQA, Iraq — Tensions between Sunni Arabs and Kurds are boiling over in Nineveh, the northern Iraqi province that includes Mosul, as Kurds fight the result of a provincial election in January that shifted power to Arabs.
Though strains between the groups are not new, in recent days Kurdish forces have blocked Arab officials from carrying out their duties, in a sign that the Kurds refuse to recognize the regional government’s sovereignty over all of Nineveh. The Kurds have also pressured districts under their control to boycott the new Arab governor, and they said they might even resort to military force unless they were given several positions in the government.
American officials have long feared a military conflict in the north, where Arabs and Kurds have competing claims to territory and have legions of trained men under arms. The struggle for power has also fueled the insurgency in the north, giving groups like Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia an opening to appear to back an Arab cause. And it comes as American combat troops are scheduled to withdraw from Iraqi cities by the end of June.
It is unclear whether the tensions will escalate, but several episodes in recent weeks have raised concerns.
On May 8, the newly elected Sunni Arab governor, Atheel al-Nujaifi, was prevented by Kurdish forces from entering Bashiqa, a Kurdish-controlled town northeast of Mosul. The governor said he received a call from an Iraqi officer in the joint Iraqi-American command center in Mosul informing him that the Kurds had issued a “shoot to kill” order against him if he went to Bashiqa. The episode ended when the governor turned back to Mosul.
The Kurds denied they had issued the order but said they were under instructions from the leadership in the semiautonomous Kurdistan region to halt Mr. Nujaifi’s advance.
Last Wednesday, hundreds of armed Kurds stopped the Nineveh police chief, a Sunni Arab, from crossing a bridge into a disputed area of the province under Kurdish control. His convoy included Iraqi soldiers and police officers. A witness described the standoff, which lasted almost three hours before the police chief’s retreat, as “frightening.”
On Saturday, Kurdish military forces fanned out on the road to Zumar, an area northwest of Mosul, following a rumor that the governor might visit, according to a local tribal leader. And on Sunday, a car bomb went off near the governor’s residence in Mosul, killing a police officer, though it was unclear who was behind the bombing.
For almost five years, Kurds dominated the provincial government in Nineveh despite the fact that Arabs make up a majority of the population. The Kurds’ grip on power was aided by the thousands of Kurdish forces that were sent to the province with American approval to shore up security in what remains one of the most violent spots in Iraq.
Last month Mr. Nujaifi, a wealthy businessman with ties to powerful Arab tribes, members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party and possibly insurgents, was chosen as the new governor. His predominantly Sunni Arab coalition, Al Hadba, which won 19 of the 37 seats on the provincial council, froze out the second-place Kurdish coalition from all senior positions in the new government.
The Kurds responded by boycotting the government, and they are now threatening to escalate the conflict unless they are given the posts of deputy governor and provincial council chairman.
Mr. Nujaifi says there will be no talks with the Kurds unless they recognize Nineveh’s administrative borders and pull their forces back to behind the so-called Green Line, Iraqi Kurdistan’s boundary before the American-led invasion in 2003.
The Kurds reject that request and say they will not budge before the fate of disputed territories north of Mosul is settled. They say they trust neither Mr. Nujaifi nor the central government in Baghdad, led by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, which has been seeking to assert its authority in northern Iraq at the expense of the Kurds.
“We do not trust these people, we know their intentions,” said Khasro Goran, the Nineveh leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the most powerful Kurdish force on the ground.
Mr. Nujaifi recently called for Sunni insurgents to curtail attacks against American soldiers as they pull out from joint Iraqi-American garrisons in Mosul to Marez, their big base on the outskirts of town. He said that the insurgents “seemed to have responded” to his call, but that controlling Sunni Arab anger against Kurds might be more difficult.
Joost Hiltermann, an analyst who is advising the United Nations on territorial disputes in northern Iraq, said the Kurds had more of an interest in escalating the conflict. “It could be of Kurdish interest to provoke confrontation in order to persuade the Americans that if they abandon the Kurds, the consequences would be dire,” said Mr. Hiltermann, a senior Iraq analyst at the International Crisis Group.
The American military has played down the significance of the recent Kurdish actions.
Meanwhile, residents here on the Nineveh Plain, a mix of ethnic and religious groups, are bracing for the worst.
A checkpoint staffed by Kurdish military forces on the highway between Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan’s capital, and Mosul was recently moved closer to Mosul. Kurdish observation posts along the plain’s roads and hilltops have also been fortified. Near Bashiqa, dirt shields several roadside military outposts. Machine guns could be seen on the roofs of some buildings.
Mr. Goran said that no new forces were brought in, but that those “on vacation” inside Kurdistan were told to come back because of the heightened alert.
“We are a small sect, we do not want trouble,” said Khodr Elias, 49, a resident of Bashiqa, which is dominated by Yazidis, an ancient Kurdish-speaking sect. “We are squeezed between Arabs and Kurds, and we cannot open our mouths.”
Kurds also appear to be pressing people in Christian enclaves of the plain to not recognize the governor.
In the towns of Tal Keif and Qaraqosh, municipal officials who want to cooperate with the government in Mosul say they are impotent in the face of a heavy Kurdish security presence.
Comments by a senior Kurdish police officer in Qaraqosh illustrated the problem. “We have terrorists in power,” said the officer, who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak with reporters. “God willing, there will be confrontation; otherwise there will be no solution.”
Mohamed Hussein contributed reporting from Baghdad.
Lawyers, Rights Groups Outraged by Gitmo Decision
This is from antiwar.com.
This is not surprising. Now Obama is elected he doesn't need to worry too much about these groups. Obama starts out sounding as if he is going to do great things but then it turns out that on rights issues he is actually more rhetoric than reality.
Lawyers, Rights Groups Outraged by Gitmo Decision
by William Fisher, May 18, 2009
Human rights advocates are furious at President Barack Obama’s decision to prosecute some Guantánamo detainees through the same military commissions he criticized during his campaign as a "flawed" system that "has failed to convict anyone of a terrorist act since the 9/11 attacks."
The White House said Friday that the commissions would be used to prosecute terrorism suspects who can’t be tried in the civilian criminal justice system, but added that detainees would have expanded legal rights to make the proceedings fairer.
The military commission system, rebuked several times by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional, was a centerpiece of the George W. Bush administration’s strategy for fighting "the global war on terror."
Critics representing both the Left and the Right said Obama’s decision was an unnecessary compromise of U.S. values.
Bruce Fein, a prominent conservative who was a senior official in the Justice Department under President Ronald Reagan, told IPS, "The entire structure of military commissions is flawed. It combines judge, jury, and prosecutor in the same branch – the very definition of tyranny according to The Federalist Papers."
"Military commissions are used to whitewash torture and sister outrages against the Fifth Amendment and due process," he said.
Other constitutional scholars expressed similar views.
Professor David Cole of Georgetown University law school told IPS, "You have to wonder why the Obama administration would want to saddle itself with a process that is deeply tainted by the way the Bush administration sought to use it. Surely it would be better in terms of the acceptability of the verdicts around the world, to make a clean break and use the regular courts or the military court-martial system."
Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois law school characterized the military commissions as "kangaroo courts" that are too deeply flawed to be "fixed."
He told IPS, "The laws of war would permit [Guantánamo detainees] to be prosecuted in either a U.S. Federal District Court organized under Article III of the United States Constitution or in a military court-martial proceeding organized under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. To do otherwise would be a war crime."
"What is the Obama administration afraid of? An acquittal? There were acquittals at Nuremberg," he added.
Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild, told IPS, "Military commissions deny the accused basic due process and are not necessary to try terrorism-related offenses. The U.S. civil and military courts, which provide due process protections that comply with the Constitution, can effectively protect classified information through the Classified Information Procedures Act."
And Brian J. Foley, visiting associate professor at the Boston University School of Law, told IPS, "The system is fatally flawed because it was built to result in convictions – why else rig the rules to allow evidence that regular courts would reject as unreliable?"
He added, "The only people Obama is winning points with by this decision is the hard right wing – which is a waste of his time, because they will find reasons to hate him, anyway. He’s thumbing his nose at his political base as well as at the world."
Human rights organizations were equally adamant in their condemnation of the Obama decision.
Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, called the military commission system a "failed experiment that must be ended, not revived, if American justice and the rule of law is to be restored."
He told IPS, "There is no legitimate reason for continuing to circumvent the established method of trying terrorism suspects in our ordinary federal courts. No proposed improvements to the military commission system will cure their endemic flaws or their lack of legitimacy in the eyes of the world."
"After years of working with these bizarre commissions, it is clear to us that they simply do not work," said Zachary Katznelson, legal director of Reprieve, a British-based legal charity that represents a number of Guantánamo detainees.
He told IPS, "As a constitutional lawyer, Obama must know that he can put lipstick on this pig – but it will always be a pig."
Amnesty International USA researcher Rob Freer said the military commission system was "conceived and developed as part of an unlawful detention regime, to facilitate convictions while minimizing judicial scrutiny of the executive’s treatment of detainees."
"No amount of tinkering with their rules can fix this discredited system," he said.
Chip Pitts, president of the board of directors of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, told IPS, "This a terrible day for the rule of law. I have to conclude that political considerations played a major role in this decision. Obama believes he must compromise in order to achieve his larger goals – health care, education, and energy independence. But you don’t compromise your basic principles."
The Center for Constitutional Rights, which has mobilized dozens of pro bono lawyers to defend Guantánamo detainees, said in a statement, "Today’s announcement is an alarming development for those who expected that the Obama administration would end Bush’s dangerous experiments with our legal system."
And Elisa Massimino, CEO of Human Rights First, argued that federal courts are capable of handling the cases and warned that "tinkering with the machinery of military commissions will not remove the taint of Guantánamo from future prosecutions."
But Obama’s decision was seen as a political win by some observers of Congress and by many conservative Republicans who have worried that Obama was seen as "too soft" on terrorism.
For example, David B. Rivkin Jr., a Washington lawyer who was an official in the Reagan administration, told the New York Times that the decision suggested the Obama administration "was coming to accept the Bush administration’s thesis that terror suspects should be viewed as warriors, not as criminals with all the rights accorded them in American courts."
In Congress, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, an outspoken critic of Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo, called the decision to use the military commissions "an encouraging development."
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a conservative Republican from South Carolina and a member of the Armed Services Committee, called Obama’s decision a step toward strengthening U.S. detention policies that have been derided worldwide. He said, "I applaud the president’s actions today."
And Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, also welcomed Obama’s decision. He said, "The president has reinforced that we are at war, and that the laws of war should apply to these prisoners."
White House officials said the decision to proceed with military commissions came partly as a result of concerns that some detainees might not be successfully prosecuted in federal courts.
They said lawyers reviewing the cases worried that, among a host of issues, federal courts procedures might be too cumbersome to protect classified evidence that is likely to be central to many cases. They also said questions surrounding the brutal treatment of some detainees had become an obstacle.
The military commission system was set up after the military began sweeping detainees off the battlefields of Afghanistan in late 2001. It has been the subject of repeated legal challenges from human rights organizations because it denied defendants many of the rights they would be granted in a civilian courtroom.
When he was a U.S. senator, Obama voted against the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which established the current system.
In several landmark decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that this system, first established by executive order by former President Bush, was unconstitutional.
(Inter Press Service)
This is not surprising. Now Obama is elected he doesn't need to worry too much about these groups. Obama starts out sounding as if he is going to do great things but then it turns out that on rights issues he is actually more rhetoric than reality.
Lawyers, Rights Groups Outraged by Gitmo Decision
by William Fisher, May 18, 2009
Human rights advocates are furious at President Barack Obama’s decision to prosecute some Guantánamo detainees through the same military commissions he criticized during his campaign as a "flawed" system that "has failed to convict anyone of a terrorist act since the 9/11 attacks."
The White House said Friday that the commissions would be used to prosecute terrorism suspects who can’t be tried in the civilian criminal justice system, but added that detainees would have expanded legal rights to make the proceedings fairer.
The military commission system, rebuked several times by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional, was a centerpiece of the George W. Bush administration’s strategy for fighting "the global war on terror."
Critics representing both the Left and the Right said Obama’s decision was an unnecessary compromise of U.S. values.
Bruce Fein, a prominent conservative who was a senior official in the Justice Department under President Ronald Reagan, told IPS, "The entire structure of military commissions is flawed. It combines judge, jury, and prosecutor in the same branch – the very definition of tyranny according to The Federalist Papers."
"Military commissions are used to whitewash torture and sister outrages against the Fifth Amendment and due process," he said.
Other constitutional scholars expressed similar views.
Professor David Cole of Georgetown University law school told IPS, "You have to wonder why the Obama administration would want to saddle itself with a process that is deeply tainted by the way the Bush administration sought to use it. Surely it would be better in terms of the acceptability of the verdicts around the world, to make a clean break and use the regular courts or the military court-martial system."
Professor Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois law school characterized the military commissions as "kangaroo courts" that are too deeply flawed to be "fixed."
He told IPS, "The laws of war would permit [Guantánamo detainees] to be prosecuted in either a U.S. Federal District Court organized under Article III of the United States Constitution or in a military court-martial proceeding organized under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. To do otherwise would be a war crime."
"What is the Obama administration afraid of? An acquittal? There were acquittals at Nuremberg," he added.
Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild, told IPS, "Military commissions deny the accused basic due process and are not necessary to try terrorism-related offenses. The U.S. civil and military courts, which provide due process protections that comply with the Constitution, can effectively protect classified information through the Classified Information Procedures Act."
And Brian J. Foley, visiting associate professor at the Boston University School of Law, told IPS, "The system is fatally flawed because it was built to result in convictions – why else rig the rules to allow evidence that regular courts would reject as unreliable?"
He added, "The only people Obama is winning points with by this decision is the hard right wing – which is a waste of his time, because they will find reasons to hate him, anyway. He’s thumbing his nose at his political base as well as at the world."
Human rights organizations were equally adamant in their condemnation of the Obama decision.
Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, called the military commission system a "failed experiment that must be ended, not revived, if American justice and the rule of law is to be restored."
He told IPS, "There is no legitimate reason for continuing to circumvent the established method of trying terrorism suspects in our ordinary federal courts. No proposed improvements to the military commission system will cure their endemic flaws or their lack of legitimacy in the eyes of the world."
"After years of working with these bizarre commissions, it is clear to us that they simply do not work," said Zachary Katznelson, legal director of Reprieve, a British-based legal charity that represents a number of Guantánamo detainees.
He told IPS, "As a constitutional lawyer, Obama must know that he can put lipstick on this pig – but it will always be a pig."
Amnesty International USA researcher Rob Freer said the military commission system was "conceived and developed as part of an unlawful detention regime, to facilitate convictions while minimizing judicial scrutiny of the executive’s treatment of detainees."
"No amount of tinkering with their rules can fix this discredited system," he said.
Chip Pitts, president of the board of directors of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, told IPS, "This a terrible day for the rule of law. I have to conclude that political considerations played a major role in this decision. Obama believes he must compromise in order to achieve his larger goals – health care, education, and energy independence. But you don’t compromise your basic principles."
The Center for Constitutional Rights, which has mobilized dozens of pro bono lawyers to defend Guantánamo detainees, said in a statement, "Today’s announcement is an alarming development for those who expected that the Obama administration would end Bush’s dangerous experiments with our legal system."
And Elisa Massimino, CEO of Human Rights First, argued that federal courts are capable of handling the cases and warned that "tinkering with the machinery of military commissions will not remove the taint of Guantánamo from future prosecutions."
But Obama’s decision was seen as a political win by some observers of Congress and by many conservative Republicans who have worried that Obama was seen as "too soft" on terrorism.
For example, David B. Rivkin Jr., a Washington lawyer who was an official in the Reagan administration, told the New York Times that the decision suggested the Obama administration "was coming to accept the Bush administration’s thesis that terror suspects should be viewed as warriors, not as criminals with all the rights accorded them in American courts."
In Congress, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, an outspoken critic of Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo, called the decision to use the military commissions "an encouraging development."
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a conservative Republican from South Carolina and a member of the Armed Services Committee, called Obama’s decision a step toward strengthening U.S. detention policies that have been derided worldwide. He said, "I applaud the president’s actions today."
And Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, also welcomed Obama’s decision. He said, "The president has reinforced that we are at war, and that the laws of war should apply to these prisoners."
White House officials said the decision to proceed with military commissions came partly as a result of concerns that some detainees might not be successfully prosecuted in federal courts.
They said lawyers reviewing the cases worried that, among a host of issues, federal courts procedures might be too cumbersome to protect classified evidence that is likely to be central to many cases. They also said questions surrounding the brutal treatment of some detainees had become an obstacle.
The military commission system was set up after the military began sweeping detainees off the battlefields of Afghanistan in late 2001. It has been the subject of repeated legal challenges from human rights organizations because it denied defendants many of the rights they would be granted in a civilian courtroom.
When he was a U.S. senator, Obama voted against the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which established the current system.
In several landmark decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that this system, first established by executive order by former President Bush, was unconstitutional.
(Inter Press Service)
Out of Range-on drone attacks
This is one of the few articles that analyse the moral dimensions of drone attacks. At least this does point out some of the moral dimensions but does not discuss the issue in terms of international law or even mention such obvious facts as that the accused terrorists are killed without benefit of trial with the US being judge and executioner all in one. Even so the article is a welcome addition to discussion of the matter and a relief from the tripe and sound and text bites that pass a journalism nowadays in much of the mainstream press.
Antiwar.com Original - http://original.antiwar.com -
Out of Range
Posted By Ryan McCarl
The ongoing U.S. military strikes in Pakistan generally do not constitute front-page news in the United States. There has been little or no debate about their legitimacy or their efficacy.
But what to one community is a series of "strikes" or "special operations," a footnote in the news, to the community on the receiving end is aggression and war.
Take, for example, a common event of recent months: the U.S. attacks, by means of robot drones, suspected Taliban or al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan. In the process, civilians are killed and civilian property and infrastructure is destroyed. Our headline, buried on the third page, behind the latest political scandal and the fluctuations of the stock market, reads: "Eight killed in Pakistan Drone Strike."
The same event, as understood by someone directly affected by it, will be seen as: my cousin (or parent, friend, or acquaintance) was killed by an American missile that fell without warning from the sky.
Everything depends on the direction one is looking down the gun: down the shaft, or up the barrel? And this difference in perceptions has consequences, especially over the long term. How much of the rise of anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim Middle East can be explained by the enormous gaps that separate the way each side of the "War on Terror" understands the history of America’s involvement in the region?
This perception gap is the result of at least two closely related factors: first, spatial and temporal distance from the conflict, and second, the asymmetrical power relationship between the U.S. and its enemies. Technology and wealth have made it possible for the U.S. to exercise decisive military power anywhere in the world. But our technology and our wealth often outrun our wisdom, our prudence, and our moral sensibilities.
Perhaps a particular drone strike carried out by the U.S. on Pakistani soil is ethical, or at least sensible – say, it eliminates an active al-Qaeda terrorist or Taliban leader without destroying too many civilian lives or too much civilian property. But how would we know? The truth is that most of us aren’t paying close enough attention to determine whether our strikes into Pakistan are ethical or sensible. The distance between the American public and the conflict makes the issue too easy to avoid.
America’s drones conduct offensive military operations against targets living in destitute, remote tribal communities on the other side of the world. But that is a one-way street, and the story, for Americans, ends there. The voices of those on the receiving end of the strike are rarely heard. If there is video footage of the strike, it is generally shot from above, from the perspective of the drone, rather than from below, the perspective of its targets and victims. The robot presumably returns to its base and tells no war stories, and at no point need any American soldier or citizen come face-to-face with victims of the attack.
With the exception of the pacifist and nonviolent traditions, most of our moral thinking about war acknowledges that there are at least some circumstances under which violence and killing, including organized political violence (or war), is morally acceptable. But are our theories about the ethics of warmaking up to the task of determining when, if ever, it is permissible to kill a relatively impotent enemy from a safe and anonymous distance, by robot or missile?
When we think about the ethics of drone strikes (and, for that matter, long-distance missile strikes), we must remember that we are missing a critical piece of information: namely, knowledge of the individuals and communities whom our missiles affect, and a multidimensional understanding of them in the fullness of their humanity. Such knowledge and understanding is a prerequisite for empathy, and without empathy, we cannot imagine the concrete reality of the suffering and death our military actions cause. And neither can we understand the depths of rage and grievance that these actions sow abroad, or the way this rage fuels anti-Western terrorism.
For their operators, controlling these "drones" must not be so different from playing a video game – something almost fictional, bearing at most a tangential relationship to the reality of face-to-face killing and dying that informed our ability to understand the depth of the tragedies of previous wars we have fought.
For the communities, families, and individuals on the receiving end of the drone strikes, however, it is no game. For them, there is no projection of power across unimaginable distances; war and its terrors come to them. We can understand what this means only by reflecting on what our own families and communities mean to us, and by reasoning through analogy toward a sense of what it might mean to have one’s family and community directly threatened by war.
Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.com
URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/mccarl/2009/05/14/out-of-range/
C
Copyright © 2009 Antiwar.com Original. All rights reserved.
Antiwar.com Original - http://original.antiwar.com -
Out of Range
Posted By Ryan McCarl
The ongoing U.S. military strikes in Pakistan generally do not constitute front-page news in the United States. There has been little or no debate about their legitimacy or their efficacy.
But what to one community is a series of "strikes" or "special operations," a footnote in the news, to the community on the receiving end is aggression and war.
Take, for example, a common event of recent months: the U.S. attacks, by means of robot drones, suspected Taliban or al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan. In the process, civilians are killed and civilian property and infrastructure is destroyed. Our headline, buried on the third page, behind the latest political scandal and the fluctuations of the stock market, reads: "Eight killed in Pakistan Drone Strike."
The same event, as understood by someone directly affected by it, will be seen as: my cousin (or parent, friend, or acquaintance) was killed by an American missile that fell without warning from the sky.
Everything depends on the direction one is looking down the gun: down the shaft, or up the barrel? And this difference in perceptions has consequences, especially over the long term. How much of the rise of anti-Western sentiment in the Muslim Middle East can be explained by the enormous gaps that separate the way each side of the "War on Terror" understands the history of America’s involvement in the region?
This perception gap is the result of at least two closely related factors: first, spatial and temporal distance from the conflict, and second, the asymmetrical power relationship between the U.S. and its enemies. Technology and wealth have made it possible for the U.S. to exercise decisive military power anywhere in the world. But our technology and our wealth often outrun our wisdom, our prudence, and our moral sensibilities.
Perhaps a particular drone strike carried out by the U.S. on Pakistani soil is ethical, or at least sensible – say, it eliminates an active al-Qaeda terrorist or Taliban leader without destroying too many civilian lives or too much civilian property. But how would we know? The truth is that most of us aren’t paying close enough attention to determine whether our strikes into Pakistan are ethical or sensible. The distance between the American public and the conflict makes the issue too easy to avoid.
America’s drones conduct offensive military operations against targets living in destitute, remote tribal communities on the other side of the world. But that is a one-way street, and the story, for Americans, ends there. The voices of those on the receiving end of the strike are rarely heard. If there is video footage of the strike, it is generally shot from above, from the perspective of the drone, rather than from below, the perspective of its targets and victims. The robot presumably returns to its base and tells no war stories, and at no point need any American soldier or citizen come face-to-face with victims of the attack.
With the exception of the pacifist and nonviolent traditions, most of our moral thinking about war acknowledges that there are at least some circumstances under which violence and killing, including organized political violence (or war), is morally acceptable. But are our theories about the ethics of warmaking up to the task of determining when, if ever, it is permissible to kill a relatively impotent enemy from a safe and anonymous distance, by robot or missile?
When we think about the ethics of drone strikes (and, for that matter, long-distance missile strikes), we must remember that we are missing a critical piece of information: namely, knowledge of the individuals and communities whom our missiles affect, and a multidimensional understanding of them in the fullness of their humanity. Such knowledge and understanding is a prerequisite for empathy, and without empathy, we cannot imagine the concrete reality of the suffering and death our military actions cause. And neither can we understand the depths of rage and grievance that these actions sow abroad, or the way this rage fuels anti-Western terrorism.
For their operators, controlling these "drones" must not be so different from playing a video game – something almost fictional, bearing at most a tangential relationship to the reality of face-to-face killing and dying that informed our ability to understand the depth of the tragedies of previous wars we have fought.
For the communities, families, and individuals on the receiving end of the drone strikes, however, it is no game. For them, there is no projection of power across unimaginable distances; war and its terrors come to them. We can understand what this means only by reflecting on what our own families and communities mean to us, and by reasoning through analogy toward a sense of what it might mean to have one’s family and community directly threatened by war.
Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.com
URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/mccarl/2009/05/14/out-of-range/
C
Copyright © 2009 Antiwar.com Original. All rights reserved.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
US drone strike kills 40 in North Waziristan
As this article notes there are rumours about an agreement concerning drones between Pakistan and the US but both have denied there is such an agreement. Of course Pakistan will deny on principle since such an agreement could very well be interpreted as simply kowtowing to the US demand that Pakistan more vigorously attack terrorism. The beauty of drones is that they cost nothing in troops but they also serve as recruiting tools for the Taliban and other Islamic militants. No doubt many of the forty people killed were not Taliban.
- News From Antiwar.com - http://news.antiwar.com -
US Drone Strike in North Waziristan Kills 40
Posted By Jason Ditz On May 16, 2009 @ 11:07 am In Uncategorized 5 Comments
Last Updated 5/16/09 7:00 PM EST
A US drone fired two missiles at a religious school (madrassa) in Pakistan’s North Waziristan Agency today, killing at least 40 and wounding an as yet undetermined number of others. Villagers are reportedly still recovering people from the debris of the destroyed school, and several of the wounded are in critical condition, so the final death toll may yet rise.
Foreign militants were reportedly among the dead, but officials said it was unclear exactly who was killed in the strike. It is the first US attack since reports emerged last week of a formal drone partnership which gave the Pakistani military “significant control” over the targets of military drone strikes. Both milities have since denied the arrangement, and it remains unclear if today’s drone strike was conducted by the US military or the CIA.
The US attacks on North and South Waziristan have been increasing in intensity and severity since President Obama took office, over the public complaints and private support of the Pakistani government. Pakistan is reportedly planning a massive military offensive against the Waziristan tribes in the next few weeks, which will reportedly involve “huge numbers of troops.” The Wazir tribesmen have been fleeing to cities in the neighboring North-West Frontier Province in recent days on news of the impending invasion.
Copyright © 2009 News From Antiwar.com. All rights reserved.
- News From Antiwar.com - http://news.antiwar.com -
US Drone Strike in North Waziristan Kills 40
Posted By Jason Ditz On May 16, 2009 @ 11:07 am In Uncategorized 5 Comments
Last Updated 5/16/09 7:00 PM EST
A US drone fired two missiles at a religious school (madrassa) in Pakistan’s North Waziristan Agency today, killing at least 40 and wounding an as yet undetermined number of others. Villagers are reportedly still recovering people from the debris of the destroyed school, and several of the wounded are in critical condition, so the final death toll may yet rise.
Foreign militants were reportedly among the dead, but officials said it was unclear exactly who was killed in the strike. It is the first US attack since reports emerged last week of a formal drone partnership which gave the Pakistani military “significant control” over the targets of military drone strikes. Both milities have since denied the arrangement, and it remains unclear if today’s drone strike was conducted by the US military or the CIA.
The US attacks on North and South Waziristan have been increasing in intensity and severity since President Obama took office, over the public complaints and private support of the Pakistani government. Pakistan is reportedly planning a massive military offensive against the Waziristan tribes in the next few weeks, which will reportedly involve “huge numbers of troops.” The Wazir tribesmen have been fleeing to cities in the neighboring North-West Frontier Province in recent days on news of the impending invasion.
Copyright © 2009 News From Antiwar.com. All rights reserved.
Obama's 48 hour makeover.
That the left has been enamoured of Obama has always somewhat surprised me. His statements on foreign policy especially on Afghanistan and Pakistan have always been hawkish even moreso than the nemesis of the left George Bush. Even drone attacks increased.
The few scraps of progressive policies that Obama has thrown to his leftist supporters on foreign policy now are being overshadowed by these twists and turns about Guantanamo. He is in effect changing his policy on Guantanamo to something like Bush lite, not only reviving the tribunals but mulling the possibility of indefinite detention on security grounds. This is hardly even Bush lite rather it is Obama heavy.
News From Antiwar.com - http://news.antiwar.com -
Obama’s 48-Hour Makeover
Posted By Jason Ditz On May 15, 2009
President Obama’s tenuous claim to the antiwar community was already unraveling long before he formally took office. Shortly after the election his national security team’s extremely hawkish makeup was drawing concern. Two days after his inauguration, he had backed off his campaign promise to have all US troops out of Iraq in 16 months. Still, his supporters could find some measure of solace in his halting of the military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay and his promises of a more transparent administration.
Or at least they used to be able to. In the past 48 hours the administration has backed off of the few scraps of significant policy revisions thrown to an electorate hungry for his campaign’s mantra of change. First, he overruled the Pentagon’s decision that undisclosed photos of detainee abuse could be released. Perplexingly, he insisted that the photos did not contain anything “particularly sensational,” before cautioning that making them public would imperil the troops and inflame anti-American opinion.
It was less than 48 hours later that the president confirmed that he was going to resume the military tribunals against detainees at Guantanamo Bay. He had previously ordered such tribunals halted when pledging to close the facility. Now instead of the rule of law, the administration is offering a modest selection of new “rights” detainees will enjoy, none of them particularly earth-shattering.
Even the pledge to close the detention center has become something of a hollow victory, amid reports that the administration is floating to Congress the idea of holding many of the detainees on American soil indefinitely and without trial. This legal sleight of hand would be accomplished through the creation of National Security Courts, which would be empowered to try detainees without the legal rights enjoyed in US criminal courts. The new courts would also provide an aegis for holding the detainees without trial while still appearing to have some measure of legal oversight on their captivity.
At the end of the day the only group really satisfied with President Obama’s new policies are the hawkish wing of the Republican Party. And why shouldn’t they? After all they supported them when President Bush introduced the notion of keeping people imprisoned without charging them with a crime, and was the architect of much of the secrecy-obsessed culture President Obama was so quick to dismiss on taking office, and is now so quick to embrace. For human rights groups, antiwar factions and even much of his own party’s base, the disappointment is becoming palpable.
Copyright © 2009 News From Antiwar.com. All rights reserved.
The few scraps of progressive policies that Obama has thrown to his leftist supporters on foreign policy now are being overshadowed by these twists and turns about Guantanamo. He is in effect changing his policy on Guantanamo to something like Bush lite, not only reviving the tribunals but mulling the possibility of indefinite detention on security grounds. This is hardly even Bush lite rather it is Obama heavy.
News From Antiwar.com - http://news.antiwar.com -
Obama’s 48-Hour Makeover
Posted By Jason Ditz On May 15, 2009
President Obama’s tenuous claim to the antiwar community was already unraveling long before he formally took office. Shortly after the election his national security team’s extremely hawkish makeup was drawing concern. Two days after his inauguration, he had backed off his campaign promise to have all US troops out of Iraq in 16 months. Still, his supporters could find some measure of solace in his halting of the military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay and his promises of a more transparent administration.
Or at least they used to be able to. In the past 48 hours the administration has backed off of the few scraps of significant policy revisions thrown to an electorate hungry for his campaign’s mantra of change. First, he overruled the Pentagon’s decision that undisclosed photos of detainee abuse could be released. Perplexingly, he insisted that the photos did not contain anything “particularly sensational,” before cautioning that making them public would imperil the troops and inflame anti-American opinion.
It was less than 48 hours later that the president confirmed that he was going to resume the military tribunals against detainees at Guantanamo Bay. He had previously ordered such tribunals halted when pledging to close the facility. Now instead of the rule of law, the administration is offering a modest selection of new “rights” detainees will enjoy, none of them particularly earth-shattering.
Even the pledge to close the detention center has become something of a hollow victory, amid reports that the administration is floating to Congress the idea of holding many of the detainees on American soil indefinitely and without trial. This legal sleight of hand would be accomplished through the creation of National Security Courts, which would be empowered to try detainees without the legal rights enjoyed in US criminal courts. The new courts would also provide an aegis for holding the detainees without trial while still appearing to have some measure of legal oversight on their captivity.
At the end of the day the only group really satisfied with President Obama’s new policies are the hawkish wing of the Republican Party. And why shouldn’t they? After all they supported them when President Bush introduced the notion of keeping people imprisoned without charging them with a crime, and was the architect of much of the secrecy-obsessed culture President Obama was so quick to dismiss on taking office, and is now so quick to embrace. For human rights groups, antiwar factions and even much of his own party’s base, the disappointment is becoming palpable.
Copyright © 2009 News From Antiwar.com. All rights reserved.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Obama to restart Bush-era Military Tribunals.
While Obama is fiddling a bit with tribunals to make them a bit less unfair it is just fiddling. The tribunals are still do not provide the type of fairer trial one would get in a civilian court in the US or most countries. These are the same tribunals that Obama so roundly condemned during his election campaign. One wonders too how soon Guantanamo will close. Are these trials to be held there. Probably Khadr will be one of the inmates tried and his trial is actually set to resume in June.
This is from the Toronto Star.
May 15, 2009
WASHINGTON–President Barack Obama will restart Bush-era military tribunals for a small number of Guantanamo detainees, reviving a fiercely disputed trial system he once denounced but with new legal protections for suspects, U.S. officials said yesterday.
Obama suspended the tribunals within hours of taking office in January, ordering a review but stopping short of abandoning president George W. Bush's strategy of prosecuting suspected terrorists.
The military trials will remain frozen for another four months as the administration adjusts the legal system that is expected to try fewer than 20 of the 241 detainees at the U.S. naval detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Thirteen detainees – including five charged with helping orchestrate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks – are already in the system.
The proceedings against Toronto-born Omar Khadr are to resume June 1. Khadr, 22, is accused of war crimes, including the murder of U.S. soldier during a firefight in Afghanistan in July 2002.
The changes to the system were to be announced today. Senior administration officials outlined some of the rule changes, which will be done by executive order, to The Associated Press last night. They include:
- Restrictions on hearsay evidence that can be used in court against the detainees.
- A ban on all evidence obtained through cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. This would include statements given from detainees who were subjected to waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning.
- Giving detainees greater leeway in choosing their own military counsel.
Khadr's Canadian lawyer, Dennis Edney said was uncertain how the changes would effect his client.
"It's disappointing that Obama is going back to Guantanamo and using Guantanamo for military trials that have been condemned internationally and is not according with the rule of law," Edney told the Star's Dale Anne Freed.
Associated Press
'
This is from the Toronto Star.
May 15, 2009
WASHINGTON–President Barack Obama will restart Bush-era military tribunals for a small number of Guantanamo detainees, reviving a fiercely disputed trial system he once denounced but with new legal protections for suspects, U.S. officials said yesterday.
Obama suspended the tribunals within hours of taking office in January, ordering a review but stopping short of abandoning president George W. Bush's strategy of prosecuting suspected terrorists.
The military trials will remain frozen for another four months as the administration adjusts the legal system that is expected to try fewer than 20 of the 241 detainees at the U.S. naval detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Thirteen detainees – including five charged with helping orchestrate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks – are already in the system.
The proceedings against Toronto-born Omar Khadr are to resume June 1. Khadr, 22, is accused of war crimes, including the murder of U.S. soldier during a firefight in Afghanistan in July 2002.
The changes to the system were to be announced today. Senior administration officials outlined some of the rule changes, which will be done by executive order, to The Associated Press last night. They include:
- Restrictions on hearsay evidence that can be used in court against the detainees.
- A ban on all evidence obtained through cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. This would include statements given from detainees who were subjected to waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning.
- Giving detainees greater leeway in choosing their own military counsel.
Khadr's Canadian lawyer, Dennis Edney said was uncertain how the changes would effect his client.
"It's disappointing that Obama is going back to Guantanamo and using Guantanamo for military trials that have been condemned internationally and is not according with the rule of law," Edney told the Star's Dale Anne Freed.
Associated Press
'
Friday, May 15, 2009
Afghan govt: 95 children killed in US air strike.
This post is from antiwar.com.
The military must not care that by their sneering rejection of the government assessment they are alienating the people that they need to work with and whose hearts and minds they are supposed to be winning over. The military itself is prone to even less credible explanations. Almost always at first they deny totally that there were civilians losses. As usual, when they are caught out being obviously wrong they blame the Taliban for what happens.
Afghan Govt: 95 Children Killed in US Strike
Posted By Jason Ditz On May 13, 2009 @ 4:36 pm
The fallout from last week’s US air strikes in the Farah Province, which an Afghan commission concluded had killed 140 civilians, continued today as an Afghan MP involved in the investigation said that 95 of the dead were actually children (which he defined as under the age of 18). The attack was the single largest instance of US-killed civilians in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.
US Military spokesman Col. Greg Julian was dismissive of the claims, mocking the locals and saying they were unable to tell if 19 or 69 bodies were buried in a mass grave. He also rejected the list of the names of the dead presented earlier this week, saying “I can sit down and give you a list of names too … but the physical evidence doesn’t compare.” Col. Julian went on to suggest that the $2,000 given to the families in compensation for a slain family member was driving civilians to exaggerate the toll.
The military has yet to present its final report on how many civilians it killed, but calls the reports from Afghan officials, which are all in the realm of 130-150 civilians killed, “extremely over-exaggerated.” It took several days before the military was willing to admit that it had killed anyone at all, previously suggesting the whole incident was manufactured by the Taliban.
The military must not care that by their sneering rejection of the government assessment they are alienating the people that they need to work with and whose hearts and minds they are supposed to be winning over. The military itself is prone to even less credible explanations. Almost always at first they deny totally that there were civilians losses. As usual, when they are caught out being obviously wrong they blame the Taliban for what happens.
Afghan Govt: 95 Children Killed in US Strike
Posted By Jason Ditz On May 13, 2009 @ 4:36 pm
The fallout from last week’s US air strikes in the Farah Province, which an Afghan commission concluded had killed 140 civilians, continued today as an Afghan MP involved in the investigation said that 95 of the dead were actually children (which he defined as under the age of 18). The attack was the single largest instance of US-killed civilians in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion.
US Military spokesman Col. Greg Julian was dismissive of the claims, mocking the locals and saying they were unable to tell if 19 or 69 bodies were buried in a mass grave. He also rejected the list of the names of the dead presented earlier this week, saying “I can sit down and give you a list of names too … but the physical evidence doesn’t compare.” Col. Julian went on to suggest that the $2,000 given to the families in compensation for a slain family member was driving civilians to exaggerate the toll.
The military has yet to present its final report on how many civilians it killed, but calls the reports from Afghan officials, which are all in the realm of 130-150 civilians killed, “extremely over-exaggerated.” It took several days before the military was willing to admit that it had killed anyone at all, previously suggesting the whole incident was manufactured by the Taliban.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Pakistan Jets Bomb Taliban as 170,000 more refugees flee
The use of artillery and air strikes in populated areas such as Mingora is simply bound to create humungous numbers of civilian casualties in spite of the so-called precision strikes that authorities prate on about. Afghanistan has recently experienced a precision strike in which about a hundred civilians were killed.
It seems that Pakistan now wants to own the drones that the US is using. What sense that would make eludes me unless ownership implies control as well and the US will certainly not give that at least I doubt that it will.
The refugee situation is becoming a humanitarian disaster. No doubt there are many Taliban in the refugee camps which they will try to control and use to create trouble that will be a thorn in the side of the Pakistani govt.
Pakistan jets bomb Taliban as 170,000 more refugees flee
. …
by Lehaz Ali Lehaz Ali – Wed May 13, 4:52 pm ET
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – Pakistan helicopters and fighter jets attacked Taliban targets in the northwest Wednesday as the government lobbied Afghanistan for a closer alliance in the battle against militants.
Around 170,000 more civilians registered as refugees with the UN after fleeing the offensive in the northwest, where Taliban fighters have terrorised the population in a campaign to enforce sharia law and expand their control.
Terrified residents trapped in Mingora, the district's main town, told AFP by telephone that militants had planted mines and were digging trenches.
"People are becoming mentally ill, our senses have shut down, children and woman are crying; please tell the government to pull us out of here," said one shopkeeper contacted by AFP who did not want to give his name.
"Forget the lack of electricity and other problems, the Taliban are everywhere and heavy exchanges of fire are routine at night."
Air strikes targeted Taliban positions across Swat, which has sunk from a stunning ski resort favoured by Westerners to a crucible of Taliban violence, where ground troops have yet to take control.
Helicopter gunships also swung into action in the neighbouring district of Lower Dir, where the military has been on the offensive since April 26 after Taliban fighters advanced to within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of Islamabad.
A military spokesman reported "heavy fighting" in Swat's northern mountains at Peochar, the suspected stronghold of firebrand Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah, where airborne commandos on Tuesday opened a new front.
Following calls from rights groups to avoid civilian casualties, army chief General Ashfaq Kayani ordered his troops to ensure "minimum collateral damage even at the expense of taking risks, by resorting to precision strikes".
Up to 15,000 security forces are taking on about 4,000 well-armed fighters in Swat, where Islamabad has ordered a battle to "eliminate" Islamist militants, branded by Washington as the greatest terror threat to the West.
Military officials said exit roads from Mingora had been closed and troops were surrounding the town to prevent militants leaving.
Amjad Ali, a 35-year-old plumber, said he and his four children walked for three days to the Jalozai refugee camp to escape scenes of horror in Mingora, where Taliban were armed with guns, sniper rifles and rocket launchers.
"Bodies were dragged by dogs... nobody could collect them," he said.
There were scenes of chaos at the camp, where staff were battling to register the queuing mass of displaced people, angrily complaining about a lack of food and drinking water.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed "deep concern" about the situation in the area, where the UN refugee agency said 670,906 stranded people had registered.
That amounted to an increase of around 170,000 people who had signed up in the last 24 hours, on top of about half a million people displaced in the past.
Overall, the military says more than 750 militants and 33 troops have been killed in its operations in Lower Dir, Buner and Swat, although there is no independent confirmation of the figures and no word on civilian casualties.
In Islamabad, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Afghan President Hamid Karzai held talks on the margins of a development conference focused on war-torn Afghanistan, gripped by a seven-year Taliban insurgency.
A Pakistani statement said they expressed "resolve to root out militants and terrorists" from their respective sides of the border, and that Karzai would "fully back Pakistan's efforts in combating terrorism."
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, en route home from talks in the United States, has appealed for global aid for the human catastrophe unfolding in his nuclear-armed Muslim country.
Speaking after meeting British Prime Minister in London, Zadari said that Pakistan had also asked Washington for "ownership" of US drones carrying out attacks on its territory.
"Democracy doesn't believe in half measures. We've asked for the ownership of the drones," he said, when asked about reports that the US had agreed to pass control of drone aircraft to Islamabad.
Zardari said Islamabad was "negotiating terms" with the US over the drones, long a source of tension between Washington and Islamabad.
It seems that Pakistan now wants to own the drones that the US is using. What sense that would make eludes me unless ownership implies control as well and the US will certainly not give that at least I doubt that it will.
The refugee situation is becoming a humanitarian disaster. No doubt there are many Taliban in the refugee camps which they will try to control and use to create trouble that will be a thorn in the side of the Pakistani govt.
Pakistan jets bomb Taliban as 170,000 more refugees flee
. …
by Lehaz Ali Lehaz Ali – Wed May 13, 4:52 pm ET
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – Pakistan helicopters and fighter jets attacked Taliban targets in the northwest Wednesday as the government lobbied Afghanistan for a closer alliance in the battle against militants.
Around 170,000 more civilians registered as refugees with the UN after fleeing the offensive in the northwest, where Taliban fighters have terrorised the population in a campaign to enforce sharia law and expand their control.
Terrified residents trapped in Mingora, the district's main town, told AFP by telephone that militants had planted mines and were digging trenches.
"People are becoming mentally ill, our senses have shut down, children and woman are crying; please tell the government to pull us out of here," said one shopkeeper contacted by AFP who did not want to give his name.
"Forget the lack of electricity and other problems, the Taliban are everywhere and heavy exchanges of fire are routine at night."
Air strikes targeted Taliban positions across Swat, which has sunk from a stunning ski resort favoured by Westerners to a crucible of Taliban violence, where ground troops have yet to take control.
Helicopter gunships also swung into action in the neighbouring district of Lower Dir, where the military has been on the offensive since April 26 after Taliban fighters advanced to within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of Islamabad.
A military spokesman reported "heavy fighting" in Swat's northern mountains at Peochar, the suspected stronghold of firebrand Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah, where airborne commandos on Tuesday opened a new front.
Following calls from rights groups to avoid civilian casualties, army chief General Ashfaq Kayani ordered his troops to ensure "minimum collateral damage even at the expense of taking risks, by resorting to precision strikes".
Up to 15,000 security forces are taking on about 4,000 well-armed fighters in Swat, where Islamabad has ordered a battle to "eliminate" Islamist militants, branded by Washington as the greatest terror threat to the West.
Military officials said exit roads from Mingora had been closed and troops were surrounding the town to prevent militants leaving.
Amjad Ali, a 35-year-old plumber, said he and his four children walked for three days to the Jalozai refugee camp to escape scenes of horror in Mingora, where Taliban were armed with guns, sniper rifles and rocket launchers.
"Bodies were dragged by dogs... nobody could collect them," he said.
There were scenes of chaos at the camp, where staff were battling to register the queuing mass of displaced people, angrily complaining about a lack of food and drinking water.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed "deep concern" about the situation in the area, where the UN refugee agency said 670,906 stranded people had registered.
That amounted to an increase of around 170,000 people who had signed up in the last 24 hours, on top of about half a million people displaced in the past.
Overall, the military says more than 750 militants and 33 troops have been killed in its operations in Lower Dir, Buner and Swat, although there is no independent confirmation of the figures and no word on civilian casualties.
In Islamabad, Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Afghan President Hamid Karzai held talks on the margins of a development conference focused on war-torn Afghanistan, gripped by a seven-year Taliban insurgency.
A Pakistani statement said they expressed "resolve to root out militants and terrorists" from their respective sides of the border, and that Karzai would "fully back Pakistan's efforts in combating terrorism."
Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari, en route home from talks in the United States, has appealed for global aid for the human catastrophe unfolding in his nuclear-armed Muslim country.
Speaking after meeting British Prime Minister in London, Zadari said that Pakistan had also asked Washington for "ownership" of US drones carrying out attacks on its territory.
"Democracy doesn't believe in half measures. We've asked for the ownership of the drones," he said, when asked about reports that the US had agreed to pass control of drone aircraft to Islamabad.
Zardari said Islamabad was "negotiating terms" with the US over the drones, long a source of tension between Washington and Islamabad.
US ties up Guantanamo closure funds.
This is from AFP via Yahoo.
Obama will close Guantanamo but it does not look like it will be any time soon and Obama is also considering setting up new military tribunals even though he was quite critical of such tribunals during the Bush era. No doubt these will be new. changed and much better!
It seems that no one wants Guantanamo inmates the ones that are left even though some are some such as the Uighirs are hardly a danger to the US and groups have offered to help them adjust.
US Senate ties up Guantanamo closure funds
Wed May 13, 7:18 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US senators on Thursday were to debate a bill forbidding the use of new money to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected terrorists to ship any detainees to the United States.
The Senate Appropriations Committee was to take up legislation granting US President Barack Obama's request for 80 million dollars to shutter the controversial facility by January 22, 2010 -- but attaching strict conditions.
Obama had requested the funding as part of an emergency measure to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through October 1, but quickly ran into tough Republican opposition and widespread Democratic unease.
The Senate bill would address those misgivings by forbidding the use of 50 million dollars to cover Defense Department expenses tied to closing the facility for bringing detainees to US soil.
None of the money could be spent until 30 days after Defense Secretary Robert Gates has provided a detailed plan for where the funds will go, according to a summary provided by a congressional source late Wednesday.
The bill would also stipulate that the money "can only be used to relocate prisoners to locations outside of the United States, and only if the Secretary has certified that prisoners transferred to other nations will remain in that nation?s custody as long as they remain a threat to the United States."
As for the 30 million dollars Obama sought for the Justice Department, the summary says, "no funds are provided in this Title to transfer, relocate, or incarcerate Guantanamo Bay detainees to or within the United States."
Instead, the money would go towards expenses tied to Attorney General Eric Holder's review of the status of each of the 241 detainees -- like providing space and equipment to review their cases and defray costs linked to staffing the review.
Copyright © 2009 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Obama will close Guantanamo but it does not look like it will be any time soon and Obama is also considering setting up new military tribunals even though he was quite critical of such tribunals during the Bush era. No doubt these will be new. changed and much better!
It seems that no one wants Guantanamo inmates the ones that are left even though some are some such as the Uighirs are hardly a danger to the US and groups have offered to help them adjust.
US Senate ties up Guantanamo closure funds
Wed May 13, 7:18 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – US senators on Thursday were to debate a bill forbidding the use of new money to close the Guantanamo Bay prison for suspected terrorists to ship any detainees to the United States.
The Senate Appropriations Committee was to take up legislation granting US President Barack Obama's request for 80 million dollars to shutter the controversial facility by January 22, 2010 -- but attaching strict conditions.
Obama had requested the funding as part of an emergency measure to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through October 1, but quickly ran into tough Republican opposition and widespread Democratic unease.
The Senate bill would address those misgivings by forbidding the use of 50 million dollars to cover Defense Department expenses tied to closing the facility for bringing detainees to US soil.
None of the money could be spent until 30 days after Defense Secretary Robert Gates has provided a detailed plan for where the funds will go, according to a summary provided by a congressional source late Wednesday.
The bill would also stipulate that the money "can only be used to relocate prisoners to locations outside of the United States, and only if the Secretary has certified that prisoners transferred to other nations will remain in that nation?s custody as long as they remain a threat to the United States."
As for the 30 million dollars Obama sought for the Justice Department, the summary says, "no funds are provided in this Title to transfer, relocate, or incarcerate Guantanamo Bay detainees to or within the United States."
Instead, the money would go towards expenses tied to Attorney General Eric Holder's review of the status of each of the 241 detainees -- like providing space and equipment to review their cases and defray costs linked to staffing the review.
Copyright © 2009 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Mulroney claims Schreiber trying to blackmail him.
Schreiber could blackmail Mulroney only because Mulroney took envelopes full of bills from Schreiber several times for questionable purposes. Schreiber and Mulroney are actually quite a bit alike only Mulroney has been vastly more successful!
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Brian cryin' blackmail
Accuses Schreiber of trying to extort help
By ELIZABETH THOMPSON, NATIONAL BUREAU
Last Updated: 14th May 2009, 2:16am
Former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney accused Karlheinz Schreiber of blackmail yesterday, saying he refused to intervene in Schreiber's extradition case even if it took a toll on his family.
Testifying before the Oliphant Commission which is probing his dealings with Schreiber, Mulroney said a letter Schreiber sent him, asking him to intervene with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government or risk having details of their dealings made public, "was a clear case of extortion and blackmail."
'ABSOLUTELY ILLEGAL'
"I knew my family and I would pay a price ... but I was ready to pay that price and more rather than succumb to the demands of a blackmailer. He was asking me to do something not (only) improper, (it was) absolutely illegal -- interfering with the judicial system to stop his extradition to Germany."
Mulroney admitted he made a mistake of his own, by accepting cash and then stashing it away in safes and a safety deposit box.
"What transpired represented a significant error of judgment -- one that I deeply regret and one for which I have paid dearly."
Mulroney also shed more light on what exactly happened to the money he received from the German-born businessman.
While Schreiber has testified he gave Mulroney $300,000, Mulroney maintains he only received $225,000.
A few months after, he became concerned Schreiber would create an income tax problem for him, and more than six years after receiving the last envelope of cash, Mulroney made a voluntary tax disclosure, declaring an extra $37,500 a year of company income for 1996, 1997 and 1998.
Mulroney said the remainder of the money was then his to do with as he pleased.
"I disbursed it to members of my immediate and extended family in Canada and the United States," he said.
Earlier, Mulroney broke down on the stand as he described the toll the fight to clear his name has had on him and his family.
CHOKED BACK EMOTION
"Nicholas was 10 years old," Mulroney said, his normally confident voice choking back emotion.
Mulroney's lawyer Guy Pratte spent much of the day questioning him about the Airbus affair and the letter the Canadian government sent Swiss authorities in 1995, alleging Mulroney was under investigation for possible criminal activity.
Mulroney said he suddenly found himself fighting the "powerful forces" of the federal government.
"This (was) right out of Kafka," he said, adding there was not a word of truth in the letter.
Mulroney eventually got a $2.1 million out-of-court settlement.
ELIZABETH.THOMPSON@SUNMEDIA.CA
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Brian cryin' blackmail
Accuses Schreiber of trying to extort help
By ELIZABETH THOMPSON, NATIONAL BUREAU
Last Updated: 14th May 2009, 2:16am
Former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney accused Karlheinz Schreiber of blackmail yesterday, saying he refused to intervene in Schreiber's extradition case even if it took a toll on his family.
Testifying before the Oliphant Commission which is probing his dealings with Schreiber, Mulroney said a letter Schreiber sent him, asking him to intervene with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government or risk having details of their dealings made public, "was a clear case of extortion and blackmail."
'ABSOLUTELY ILLEGAL'
"I knew my family and I would pay a price ... but I was ready to pay that price and more rather than succumb to the demands of a blackmailer. He was asking me to do something not (only) improper, (it was) absolutely illegal -- interfering with the judicial system to stop his extradition to Germany."
Mulroney admitted he made a mistake of his own, by accepting cash and then stashing it away in safes and a safety deposit box.
"What transpired represented a significant error of judgment -- one that I deeply regret and one for which I have paid dearly."
Mulroney also shed more light on what exactly happened to the money he received from the German-born businessman.
While Schreiber has testified he gave Mulroney $300,000, Mulroney maintains he only received $225,000.
A few months after, he became concerned Schreiber would create an income tax problem for him, and more than six years after receiving the last envelope of cash, Mulroney made a voluntary tax disclosure, declaring an extra $37,500 a year of company income for 1996, 1997 and 1998.
Mulroney said the remainder of the money was then his to do with as he pleased.
"I disbursed it to members of my immediate and extended family in Canada and the United States," he said.
Earlier, Mulroney broke down on the stand as he described the toll the fight to clear his name has had on him and his family.
CHOKED BACK EMOTION
"Nicholas was 10 years old," Mulroney said, his normally confident voice choking back emotion.
Mulroney's lawyer Guy Pratte spent much of the day questioning him about the Airbus affair and the letter the Canadian government sent Swiss authorities in 1995, alleging Mulroney was under investigation for possible criminal activity.
Mulroney said he suddenly found himself fighting the "powerful forces" of the federal government.
"This (was) right out of Kafka," he said, adding there was not a word of truth in the letter.
Mulroney eventually got a $2.1 million out-of-court settlement.
ELIZABETH.THOMPSON@SUNMEDIA.CA
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
McChrystal Choice Suggests Special-Ops Strikes to Continue
This article shows how much of change there is in Obama's foreign policy. McChrystal was a good friend of Rumsfeld and is also an expert at attacks carried out independently of the main military command covert operations that is. These operations often elicited strong protests from local Afghans. Some of them were downright criminal but of course no one is ever held responsible. So this is the type of commander Obama wants. For once Rumsfeld is probably applauding Obama. Now if Obama would just re-instate those harsh interrogation practices everything would be hunky-dory.
McChrystal Choice Suggests Special-Ops Strikes to Continue
by Gareth Porter, May 13, 2009
The choice of Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal to become the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan has been hailed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and national news media as ushering in a new, unconventional approach to counterinsurgency.
But McChrystal’s background sends a very different message from the one claimed by Gates and the news media. His long specialization in counter-terrorism operations suggests an officer who is likely to have more interest in targeted killings than in the kind of politically sensitive counterinsurgency programs that the Obama administration has said it intends to carry out.
In announcing the extraordinary firing of Gen. David McKiernan and the nomination of McChrystal to replace him, Gates said that the mission in Afghanistan "requires new thinking and new approaches by our military leaders" and praised McChrystal for his "unique skill set in counterinsurgency."
Media reporting on the choice of McChrystal simply echoed the Pentagon’s line. The Washington Post said his selection "marks the continued ascendancy of officers who have pressed for the use of counterinsurgency tactics, in Iraq and Afghanistan, that are markedly different from the Army’s traditional doctrine."
The New York Times cited unnamed "Defense Department officials" in reporting, "His success in using intelligence and firepower to track and kill insurgents, and his training in unconventional warfare that emphasizes the need to protect the population, made him the best choice for the command in Afghanistan."
The Wall Street Journal suggested that McChrystal was the kind of commander who would "fight the kind of complex counterinsurgency warfare" that Gates wants to see in Afghanistan, because his command of Special Operations forces in Iraq had involved "units that specialize in guerilla warfare, including the training of indigenous armies."
But these explanations for the choice of McChrystal equate his command of the Special Operations forces with expertise on counterinsurgency, despite the fact that McChrystal spent his last five years as a commander of Special Operations forces focusing overwhelmingly on counter-terrorism operations, not on counterinsurgency.
Whereas counterinsurgency operations are aimed primarily at influencing the population and are primarily non-military, counter-terrorism operations are exclusively military and focus on targeting the "enemy."
As commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) from April 2003 to August 2008, he was preoccupied with pursuing high-value al-Qaeda targets and local and national insurgent leaders in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan – mostly through targeted raids and air strikes.
It was under McChrystal’s command, in fact, that JSOC shifted away from the very mission of training indigenous military units in counterinsurgency operations that had been a core mission of Special Operations Forces.
McChrystal spent an unusual five years as commander of JSOC, because he had become a close friend of then-secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld came to view JSOC as his counter to the covert operations capabilities of the CIA, which he hated and distrusted, and Rumsfeld used JSOC to capture or kill high-value enemy leaders, including Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda’s top leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
In 2005, JSOC’s parent command, the Special Operations Command (SOCOM), was directed by Rumsfeld to "plan, synchronize, and, as directed, conduct global operations against terrorist networks in coordination with other combatant commanders." That directive has generally been regarded as granting SOCOM the authority to carry out actions unilaterally anywhere on the globe.
Under that directive, McChrystal and JSOC carried out targeted raids and other operations against suspected Taliban in Afghanistan which were not coordinated with the commander of other U.S. forces in the country. Gen. David Barno, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has said that he put a stop to targeted air strikes in early 2004, but they resumed after he was replaced by McKiernan in 2005.
U.S. air strikes, which have caused hundreds of civilian deaths, have become a major political issue in Afghanistan and the subject of official protests by Afghan President Hamid Karzai as well as by the lower house of the Afghan parliament. Many of the air strikes and commando raids that have caused large-scale civilian deaths have involved Special Operations forces operating separately from the NATO command.
Special Operations forces under McChrystal’s command also engaged in raiding homes in search of Taliban suspects, angering villagers in Herat province to the point where they took up arms against the U.S. forces, according to a May 2007 story by Carlotta Gall and David E. Sanger of the New York Times.
After a series of raids by Special Operations forces in Afghanistan in late 2008 and early 2009 killed women and children, to mounting popular outrage, McChrystal’s successor as commander of JSOC, Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, ordered a temporary reduction in the rate of such commando raids in mid-February for two weeks.
However, the JSOC raids resumed at their original intensity in March. Later that month Gen. David Petraeus issued a directive putting all JSOC operations under McKiernan’s tactical command, but there has been no evidence that the change has curbed the raids by Special Operations Forces.
President Barack Obama’s National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones responded to Karzai’s demand for an end to U.S. air strikes by saying, "We’re going to take a look at trying to make sure that we correct those things we can correct, but certainly to tie the hands of our commanders and say we’re not going to conduct air strikes, it would be imprudent."
The air strike in western Farah province that killed nearly 150 civilians last week, provoking protests by hundreds of university students in Kabul, was also ordered by Special Operations Forces.
McChrystal’s nomination to become director of the Joint Staff at the Pentagon in May 2008 was held up for months while the Senate Armed Services Committee investigated a pattern of abuse of detainees by military personnel under his command. Sixty-four service personnel assigned or attached to Special Operations units were disciplined for detainee abuse between early 2004 and the end of 2007.
Capt. Carolyn Wood, an operations officer with the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, gave military investigators a sworn statement in 2004 in which she said she had drawn guidance for interrogation from a directive called "TF-121 IROE," which had been given to the members of Task Force 121, a unit directly under JSOC.
However, the military refused to make that document public, despite requests from the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups, protecting McChrystal from legal proceedings regarding his responsibility for detainee abuses.
He was never held accountable for those abuses, supposedly because of the secrecy of the operation of JSOC.
Although he has been linked with detainee abuses and raids that kill numbers of civilians, McChrystal has not had any direct experience with the nonmilitary elements of such a strategy.
W. Patrick Lang, formerly the defense intelligence officer for the Middle East, suggested in his blog Monday that the McChrystal nomination "sounds like a paradigm shift in which Obama’s policy of destroying the leadership of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan takes priority over everything else."
The choice of McChrystal certainly appears to signal the administration’s readiness to continue Special Operations forces raids and air strikes that is generating growing opposition by Afghans to the U.S. military presence.
McChrystal Choice Suggests Special-Ops Strikes to Continue
by Gareth Porter, May 13, 2009
The choice of Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal to become the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan has been hailed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and national news media as ushering in a new, unconventional approach to counterinsurgency.
But McChrystal’s background sends a very different message from the one claimed by Gates and the news media. His long specialization in counter-terrorism operations suggests an officer who is likely to have more interest in targeted killings than in the kind of politically sensitive counterinsurgency programs that the Obama administration has said it intends to carry out.
In announcing the extraordinary firing of Gen. David McKiernan and the nomination of McChrystal to replace him, Gates said that the mission in Afghanistan "requires new thinking and new approaches by our military leaders" and praised McChrystal for his "unique skill set in counterinsurgency."
Media reporting on the choice of McChrystal simply echoed the Pentagon’s line. The Washington Post said his selection "marks the continued ascendancy of officers who have pressed for the use of counterinsurgency tactics, in Iraq and Afghanistan, that are markedly different from the Army’s traditional doctrine."
The New York Times cited unnamed "Defense Department officials" in reporting, "His success in using intelligence and firepower to track and kill insurgents, and his training in unconventional warfare that emphasizes the need to protect the population, made him the best choice for the command in Afghanistan."
The Wall Street Journal suggested that McChrystal was the kind of commander who would "fight the kind of complex counterinsurgency warfare" that Gates wants to see in Afghanistan, because his command of Special Operations forces in Iraq had involved "units that specialize in guerilla warfare, including the training of indigenous armies."
But these explanations for the choice of McChrystal equate his command of the Special Operations forces with expertise on counterinsurgency, despite the fact that McChrystal spent his last five years as a commander of Special Operations forces focusing overwhelmingly on counter-terrorism operations, not on counterinsurgency.
Whereas counterinsurgency operations are aimed primarily at influencing the population and are primarily non-military, counter-terrorism operations are exclusively military and focus on targeting the "enemy."
As commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) from April 2003 to August 2008, he was preoccupied with pursuing high-value al-Qaeda targets and local and national insurgent leaders in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan – mostly through targeted raids and air strikes.
It was under McChrystal’s command, in fact, that JSOC shifted away from the very mission of training indigenous military units in counterinsurgency operations that had been a core mission of Special Operations Forces.
McChrystal spent an unusual five years as commander of JSOC, because he had become a close friend of then-secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld came to view JSOC as his counter to the covert operations capabilities of the CIA, which he hated and distrusted, and Rumsfeld used JSOC to capture or kill high-value enemy leaders, including Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda’s top leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
In 2005, JSOC’s parent command, the Special Operations Command (SOCOM), was directed by Rumsfeld to "plan, synchronize, and, as directed, conduct global operations against terrorist networks in coordination with other combatant commanders." That directive has generally been regarded as granting SOCOM the authority to carry out actions unilaterally anywhere on the globe.
Under that directive, McChrystal and JSOC carried out targeted raids and other operations against suspected Taliban in Afghanistan which were not coordinated with the commander of other U.S. forces in the country. Gen. David Barno, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has said that he put a stop to targeted air strikes in early 2004, but they resumed after he was replaced by McKiernan in 2005.
U.S. air strikes, which have caused hundreds of civilian deaths, have become a major political issue in Afghanistan and the subject of official protests by Afghan President Hamid Karzai as well as by the lower house of the Afghan parliament. Many of the air strikes and commando raids that have caused large-scale civilian deaths have involved Special Operations forces operating separately from the NATO command.
Special Operations forces under McChrystal’s command also engaged in raiding homes in search of Taliban suspects, angering villagers in Herat province to the point where they took up arms against the U.S. forces, according to a May 2007 story by Carlotta Gall and David E. Sanger of the New York Times.
After a series of raids by Special Operations forces in Afghanistan in late 2008 and early 2009 killed women and children, to mounting popular outrage, McChrystal’s successor as commander of JSOC, Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, ordered a temporary reduction in the rate of such commando raids in mid-February for two weeks.
However, the JSOC raids resumed at their original intensity in March. Later that month Gen. David Petraeus issued a directive putting all JSOC operations under McKiernan’s tactical command, but there has been no evidence that the change has curbed the raids by Special Operations Forces.
President Barack Obama’s National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones responded to Karzai’s demand for an end to U.S. air strikes by saying, "We’re going to take a look at trying to make sure that we correct those things we can correct, but certainly to tie the hands of our commanders and say we’re not going to conduct air strikes, it would be imprudent."
The air strike in western Farah province that killed nearly 150 civilians last week, provoking protests by hundreds of university students in Kabul, was also ordered by Special Operations Forces.
McChrystal’s nomination to become director of the Joint Staff at the Pentagon in May 2008 was held up for months while the Senate Armed Services Committee investigated a pattern of abuse of detainees by military personnel under his command. Sixty-four service personnel assigned or attached to Special Operations units were disciplined for detainee abuse between early 2004 and the end of 2007.
Capt. Carolyn Wood, an operations officer with the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, gave military investigators a sworn statement in 2004 in which she said she had drawn guidance for interrogation from a directive called "TF-121 IROE," which had been given to the members of Task Force 121, a unit directly under JSOC.
However, the military refused to make that document public, despite requests from the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups, protecting McChrystal from legal proceedings regarding his responsibility for detainee abuses.
He was never held accountable for those abuses, supposedly because of the secrecy of the operation of JSOC.
Although he has been linked with detainee abuses and raids that kill numbers of civilians, McChrystal has not had any direct experience with the nonmilitary elements of such a strategy.
W. Patrick Lang, formerly the defense intelligence officer for the Middle East, suggested in his blog Monday that the McChrystal nomination "sounds like a paradigm shift in which Obama’s policy of destroying the leadership of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan takes priority over everything else."
The choice of McChrystal certainly appears to signal the administration’s readiness to continue Special Operations forces raids and air strikes that is generating growing opposition by Afghans to the U.S. military presence.
Second Drone attack in Four Days Kills Nine
This is from wired.
The media simply does not discuss the legality of drone attacks under international law. Apparently it is neither here nor there that the US attacks in ways that are against international law. However one would think that a policy that kills people simply because they are suspected terrorists without benefit of trial and often accompanied by the killing of innocents might give people pause even on simple ethical considerations. There seems considerable discussion of the ethics of torture but little about this.
Even when torture is discussed it is often in the context of whether it works. If it works to save the lives of some Americans apparently that would settle the issue! Why golly gee euthanising old people would work to save huge amounts in the health care system. Lets adopt that as a policy.
The slaughter caused by drone attacks pales compared to the slaughter caused by the Pakistani armed forces using air power and artillery to attack Taliban held areas in the Swat Valley not to mention the humanitarian disaster caused by the internal displacement of citizens as they flee the fighting.
Second Drone Attack in Four Days Kills Nine
By Noah Shachtman
May 12, 2009
According to the Washington Post, the Obama administration last month cut back on the CIA’s drone attacks inside Pakistan, because of the political problems the unmanned strikes were causing the government of President Asif Ali Zardari.
Some cutback. For the second time in four days, U.S. killer drones have struck in Pakistan. The latest attack — the 18th reported just this year — killed nine people and wounded four others, Pakistani intelligence officials tell CNN.
The strike took place not far from the town of Wana, in the tribal region of South Waziristan. It’s a “known Taliban and al-Qaeda hub,” according to Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper. And it’s “the main stomping ground of Maulvi Nazir, a key Taliban commander accused by the United States of recruiting and sending fighters to Afghanistan to attack US and NATO forces.” (You may recall Nazir from his April broadcast, dissiminated by Al-Qaeda’s media arm, in which he called President Barack Obama a “black ass.” Since then, his crew has been visited by the CIA’s friendly Predator outreach team at least twice.)
Meanwhile, Pakistani military officials claim to have killed more than 750 militants during intense ground combat against the Taliban. (U.S. officials say that figure is “wildly exaggerated.”)
The Paksitani public is also showing signs of becoming fed up with the extremists. According to a March poll taken by the International Republican Institute, 69% now agree with “the Taliban and Al Qaeda operating in Pakistan is a serious problem” — up from 45% in June. Still, only 10% think terrorism is the most important issues facing the country; 46% said “inflation.” And only 24% support “the U.S. military making incursions in the tribal areas” to take out the militants. And 61% still do not believe that Pakistan should cooperate with the U.S. “on its war against terror.”
One wonders how the American approach to Pakistan might change, with a new military commander for the region. Gen David McKiernan, the outgoing top general, was always very clear that “as a NATO commander, my mandate stops at the [Afghan] border. So unless there is a clear case of self-protection to fire across the border, we don’t consider any operations across the border in the tribal areas.” But incoming chief Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal has a long history in special operations. Which means secretive raids, cooperation with three-letter agencies — and, perhaps, a different view of how sacrosanct borders really are.
[Photo: USAF]
The media simply does not discuss the legality of drone attacks under international law. Apparently it is neither here nor there that the US attacks in ways that are against international law. However one would think that a policy that kills people simply because they are suspected terrorists without benefit of trial and often accompanied by the killing of innocents might give people pause even on simple ethical considerations. There seems considerable discussion of the ethics of torture but little about this.
Even when torture is discussed it is often in the context of whether it works. If it works to save the lives of some Americans apparently that would settle the issue! Why golly gee euthanising old people would work to save huge amounts in the health care system. Lets adopt that as a policy.
The slaughter caused by drone attacks pales compared to the slaughter caused by the Pakistani armed forces using air power and artillery to attack Taliban held areas in the Swat Valley not to mention the humanitarian disaster caused by the internal displacement of citizens as they flee the fighting.
Second Drone Attack in Four Days Kills Nine
By Noah Shachtman
May 12, 2009
According to the Washington Post, the Obama administration last month cut back on the CIA’s drone attacks inside Pakistan, because of the political problems the unmanned strikes were causing the government of President Asif Ali Zardari.
Some cutback. For the second time in four days, U.S. killer drones have struck in Pakistan. The latest attack — the 18th reported just this year — killed nine people and wounded four others, Pakistani intelligence officials tell CNN.
The strike took place not far from the town of Wana, in the tribal region of South Waziristan. It’s a “known Taliban and al-Qaeda hub,” according to Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper. And it’s “the main stomping ground of Maulvi Nazir, a key Taliban commander accused by the United States of recruiting and sending fighters to Afghanistan to attack US and NATO forces.” (You may recall Nazir from his April broadcast, dissiminated by Al-Qaeda’s media arm, in which he called President Barack Obama a “black ass.” Since then, his crew has been visited by the CIA’s friendly Predator outreach team at least twice.)
Meanwhile, Pakistani military officials claim to have killed more than 750 militants during intense ground combat against the Taliban. (U.S. officials say that figure is “wildly exaggerated.”)
The Paksitani public is also showing signs of becoming fed up with the extremists. According to a March poll taken by the International Republican Institute, 69% now agree with “the Taliban and Al Qaeda operating in Pakistan is a serious problem” — up from 45% in June. Still, only 10% think terrorism is the most important issues facing the country; 46% said “inflation.” And only 24% support “the U.S. military making incursions in the tribal areas” to take out the militants. And 61% still do not believe that Pakistan should cooperate with the U.S. “on its war against terror.”
One wonders how the American approach to Pakistan might change, with a new military commander for the region. Gen David McKiernan, the outgoing top general, was always very clear that “as a NATO commander, my mandate stops at the [Afghan] border. So unless there is a clear case of self-protection to fire across the border, we don’t consider any operations across the border in the tribal areas.” But incoming chief Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal has a long history in special operations. Which means secretive raids, cooperation with three-letter agencies — and, perhaps, a different view of how sacrosanct borders really are.
[Photo: USAF]
Gen. McKiernan Replaced as Afghan Commander
This is from antiwar.com. It seems that media did not see this coming at least no one speculated on it beforehand that I am aware. The motive for the change simply seems to be that Obama wants a new person to oversee his supposed new policy. Actually the surge strategy was part of Bush's pack of policies! McChrystal the replacement was head of Special Forces. This group is responsible for covert assassinations and attacks in Afghanistan and act with impunity it seems no matter what they do. Obama is going to try to win hearts and minds while using military force both in conventional and a covert manner. The military actions will no doubt help create hearts and minds devoted to the Taliban.
Gen. McKiernan Replaced as Afghan Commander
Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal Recommended as Replacement
by Jason Ditz, May 11, 2009
With the Pentagon and the White House both feeling the need for “fresh thinking” in the war, General David McKiernan, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan has been ousted from his position. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said he believed it was the “right time” for a change.
Gen. McKiernan held the position for just under a year. It was a memorable year, with Afghanistan torn by record violence and the US announcing multiple massive strategy changes, all of which involved throwing more troops and money at the nation. McKiernan’s tenure was also bookended by two attacks which each shattered the previous record for civilians killed in a single US air strike: a Herat strike last August killing 90 and last week’s Farah Province strike, which appears to have killed 147 civilians.
But for the media, Gen. McKiernan will be perhaps best remembered for his unflappable optimism in the face of ever-deteriorating conditions, and his penchant for lashing out at the press for reporting the facts on the ground without his trademark rose-colored glasses.
Secretary Gates is recommending Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal to replace him. McChrystal had previously seen his nomination to be director of the Joint Staff delayed by questions about detainee abuse by forces under his command. With American soldiers still holding detainees in Afghanistan, it seems curious that this question has yet to resurface among lawmakers.
Gen. McKiernan Replaced as Afghan Commander
Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal Recommended as Replacement
by Jason Ditz, May 11, 2009
With the Pentagon and the White House both feeling the need for “fresh thinking” in the war, General David McKiernan, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan has been ousted from his position. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said he believed it was the “right time” for a change.
Gen. McKiernan held the position for just under a year. It was a memorable year, with Afghanistan torn by record violence and the US announcing multiple massive strategy changes, all of which involved throwing more troops and money at the nation. McKiernan’s tenure was also bookended by two attacks which each shattered the previous record for civilians killed in a single US air strike: a Herat strike last August killing 90 and last week’s Farah Province strike, which appears to have killed 147 civilians.
But for the media, Gen. McKiernan will be perhaps best remembered for his unflappable optimism in the face of ever-deteriorating conditions, and his penchant for lashing out at the press for reporting the facts on the ground without his trademark rose-colored glasses.
Secretary Gates is recommending Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal to replace him. McChrystal had previously seen his nomination to be director of the Joint Staff delayed by questions about detainee abuse by forces under his command. With American soldiers still holding detainees in Afghanistan, it seems curious that this question has yet to resurface among lawmakers.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Saberi's plight and American media propaganda
As this article points out US media voluntarily follow a policy of double standards. When other countries especially those not friendly to the US imprison journalists a veritable flood of critical articles rush into the mainstream press. However, when the US imprisons journalists even without trial and even in one case where the person has been cleared by a court in the country the US is occupying there is hardly a peep or protest.
One should not by the way that the US is still after more than a year holding some Iranians (not reporters) who they seized in Iraq. They have not been charged or had any sort of trial. They are just held! Of course Iranians resent this, and with good reason. Imagine if Iran did the same thing!
Glenn Greenwald
Monday May 11, 2009 07:59 EDT
Roxana Saberi's plight and American media propaganda
(updated below - Update II - Update III)
An Iranian appeals court this morning announced that it was reducing the sentence and ordering the immediate release of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, who was convicted by an Iranian court last month of spying for the U.S. and sentenced to eight years in prison. Saberi's imprisonment in January became a cause célèbre among American journalists, who -- along with the U.S. Government -- rallied to demand her release. Within minutes of the announcement, several of them -- including ABC News' Jake Tapper, Time's Karen Tumulty, The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder -- posted celebratory notices of Saberi's release.
Saberi's release is good news, as her conviction occurred as part of extremely dubious charges and unreliable judicial procedures in Iran. And, as Ambinder suggested, her release most likely is a positive by-product of the commendable (though far from perfect) change in tone towards Iran specifically and the Muslim world generally from the Obama administration. But imprisoning journalists -- without charges or trials of any kind -- was and continues to be a staple of America's "war on terror," and that has provoked virtually no objections from America's journalists who, notably, instead seized on Saberi's plight in Iran to demonstrate their claimed commitment to defending persecuted journalists.
Beginning in 2001, the U.S. held Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj for six years in Guantanamo with no trial of any kind, and spent most of that time interrogating him not about Terrorism, but about Al Jazeera. For virtually the entire time, the due-process-less, six-year-long imprisonment of this journalist by the U.S. produced almost no coverage -- let alone any outcry -- from America's establishment media, other than some columns by Nicholas Kristof (though, for years, al-Haj's imprisonment was a major media story in the Muslim world). As Kristof noted when al-Haj was finally released in 2007: "there was never any real evidence that Sami was anything but a journalist"; "the interrogators quickly gave up on asking him substantive questions" and "instead, they asked him to spy on Al-Jazeera if he was released;" and "American officials, by imprisoning an Al-Jazeera journalist without charges or meaningful evidence, have done far more to damage American interests in the Muslim world than anything Sami could ever have done."
In Iraq, we imprisoned Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein -- part of AP's Pulitzer Prize-winning war coverage -- for almost two years with no charges of any kind, after Hussein's photographs from the Anbar province directly contradicted Bush administration claims about the state of affairs there. And that behavior was far from aberrational for the U.S., as the Committee to Protect Journalists -- which led the effort to free Saberi -- documented:
Hussein’s detention is not an isolated incident. Over the last three years, dozens of journalists—mostly Iraqis—have been detained by U.S. troops, according to CPJ research. While most have been released after short periods, in at least eight cases documented by CPJ Iraqi journalists have been held by U.S. forces for weeks or months without charge or conviction. In one highly publicized case, Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein, a freelance cameraman working for CBS, was detained after being wounded by U.S. military fire as he filmed clashes in Mosul in northern Iraq on April 5, 2005. U.S. military officials claimed footage in his camera led them to suspect Hussein had prior knowledge of attacks on coalition forces. In April 2006, a year after his arrest, Hussein was freed after an Iraqi criminal court, citing a lack of evidence, acquitted him of collaborating with insurgents.
Right now -- as the American press corps celebrates itself for demanding Saberi's release in Iran -- the U.S. continues to imprison Ibrahim Jassam, a freelance photographer for Reuters, even though an Iraqi court last December -- more than five months ago -- found that there was no evidence to justify his detention and ordered him released. The U.S. -- over the objections of the CPJ, Reporters Without Borders and Reuters -- refused to recognize the validity of that Iraqi court order and announced it would continue to keep him imprisoned.
One finds only a tiny fraction of news coverage in the U.S. regarding the treatment of al-Haj, Hussein, Jassam and these other imprisoned journalists as has been devoted to Saberi. It ought to be exactly the reverse: the American media should be far more interested in, and opposed to, infringements of press freedoms by the U.S. Government than by governments of other countries. Yet the former merits hardly a peep, while the latter provokes all sorts of smug and self-righteous protests from American journalists who suddenly discover their brave commitment to press freedoms when all that requires is pointing to a demonized, hated foreign government and complaining.
Many people scoff at the notion that the American media propagandizes the American citizenry, but here one sees the vivid essence of that process. Our establishment media loves to point to and loudly condemn the behavior of other governments as proof of how tyrannical and evil they are -- look at those Iranian mullah-fanatics imprisoning journalists/look at those primitive, corrupt, lawless Iraqis and their "culture of impunity"/look at the UAE and their tolerance of torture -- while completely ignoring, when they aren't justifying, identical behavior by our own government.
In Iran, at least Saberi received the pretense of an actual trial and appeal (one that resulted in her rather rapid release, a mere three weeks after she was convicted), as compared to the journalists put in cages for years by the U.S. Government with no charges of any kind, or as compared to the individuals whom we continue to abduct, transport to Bagram, and insist on the right to imprison indefinitely with no charges of any kind. Who was treated better and more consistently with ostensible Western precepts of justice and press freedoms: Roxana Saberi or Sami al-Haj? Saberi or Bilal Hussein? Saberi or Ibrahim Jassam? Saberi or the Bagram detainees shipped to Afghanistan and held in a dank prison, away from the sight of the entire world, without even a pretense of judicial review, a power the Obama administration continues to insist it possesses?
Pointing to other governments and highlighting their oppressive behavior can be cathartic, fun and gratifying in a self-justifying sort of way. Ask Fred Hiatt; it's virtually all he ever does. But the first duty of the American media -- like the first duty of American citizens -- is to oppose oppressive behavior by our own government. That's not as fun or as easy, but it is far more important. Moreover, obsessively complaining about the rights-abridging behavior of other countries while ignoring the same behavior from our own government is worse than a mere failure of duty. It is propagandistic and deceitful, as it paints a misleading picture that it is other governments -- but not our own -- which engage in such conduct.
UPDATE: A Nexis search for "Roxana Saberi" reveals 2,201 mentions in press reports, virtually all of them in the last two months regarding her arrest by Iran. By stark contrast, a search for "Ibrahim Jassam" -- the Iraqi journalist still held without charges by the U.S. even in the face of an Iraqi court finding that there's no evidence of his guilt -- produces a grand total of 71 mentions. A search of "Sami al-Haj" for the first five years of his detention in Guantanamo (2001-2006) reveals a grand total of 101 mentions. For the entire period of his lawless detention, Bilal Hussein's name was mentioned 556 times. See those Nexis searches here.
One of the rare mentions of Jassam was an Associated Press International report that ran in the February 11, 2009, issue of The New Zealand Herald. It reported:
A media watchdog group [the Committee to Protect Journalists] said it has urged President Barack Obama to end the US military's practice of detaining journalists without charges and asked for a full investigation into killings of journalists by US military forces. . . .
Officials with the New York-based group took the United States to task, saying the detention of journalists without trial by US authorities in such countries as Iraq has reduced America's standing in the world and emboldened other countries to do the same. . . .
[Wall St. Journal editor Paul Steiger] noted in [the letter to Obama] that 14 journalists have been held without due process for long periods in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.
Sixteen journalists have been killed by US fire in Iraq, he said.
"We don't believe that these are deliberate attacks, but they have not been adequately investigated," Simon said.
Journalists detained by US forces in Iraq include Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, who was held without charges for two years before being released in April 2008.
A freelance photographer working for Reuters, Ibrahim Jassam, is the only journalist who remains jailed. He was detained by US forces in Baghdad on Sept. 2, Steiger said in his letter to Obama dated Jan. 12.
There were several bombings of Al Jazeera offices by the U.S. this decade. Shouldn't the American media be much more interested in covering the attacks on press freedoms by their own government than those by other governments -- or, at the very least, as interested in the assaults on press freedoms by the U.S. Government?
UPDATE II: The New Republic's Eli Lake issues this sermon about Iran today:
It simply would not be possible for his brain to process the fact that what he's describing as the hallmark of an uncivilized country is that which the U.S. does repeatedly and in far more oppressive ways than what Iran did in the Saberi case. In that regard, he is a typical American journalist.
UPDATE III: In commemoration of Saberi's release, The New Republic posted a very moving and inspiring "slideshow" -- entitled "Reporters Behind Bars" -- featuring journalists imprisoned by Iran, China, Cuba, Russia, Sri Lanka, Burma, Eritrea, Vietnam, and North Korea. TNR Editors apparently couldn't find the space to feature such actions by their own government (h/t winslow).
Identically, a commentator on Twitter asked TNR's Lake how he reconciled his condemnation of Iran -- "civilized countries do not arrest people for journalism" -- with the examples I've highlighted here, and this was Lake's response:
Given that they were never given any trials, how could Lake possibly know that the multiple reporters we imprisoned (and, in Jassam's case, continue to imprison) were "using their press cards as cover for terror"? He, of course, has no idea. Indeed, in Jassam's case, an Iraqi court ruled there was no evidence to justify his detention; in Hussein's case, the first (and only) court to review his imprisonment ordered him released; and, as Kristof said about al-Haj: "there was never any real evidence that Sami was anything but a journalist." All Lake knows about them is that they're Muslim and that the U.S. Government claimed (with no evidence and no charges) that they were involved in "terror," and that's good enough for him to cheer on their indefinite imprisonment without charges. Amazingly, this is the person purporting to lecture Iran today about what "civilized countries" do and don't do when it comes to imprisoning journalists.
Lake goes on to suggest that even if the journalists we imprisoned weren't guilty, it's still different when we do it, because we're the U.S. and they're Iran. And there is a perfect distillation of moral relativism: the rightness of an act is determined not by the act itself, but by who is doing it ("when I do X, it's good; when you do it, it's evil"). It also perfectly illustrates what is, as I noted on Friday, "the single most predominant fact shaping our political and media discourse: everything is different, and better, when we do it." Why do they hate us? For our freedoms.
One should not by the way that the US is still after more than a year holding some Iranians (not reporters) who they seized in Iraq. They have not been charged or had any sort of trial. They are just held! Of course Iranians resent this, and with good reason. Imagine if Iran did the same thing!
Glenn Greenwald
Monday May 11, 2009 07:59 EDT
Roxana Saberi's plight and American media propaganda
(updated below - Update II - Update III)
An Iranian appeals court this morning announced that it was reducing the sentence and ordering the immediate release of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, who was convicted by an Iranian court last month of spying for the U.S. and sentenced to eight years in prison. Saberi's imprisonment in January became a cause célèbre among American journalists, who -- along with the U.S. Government -- rallied to demand her release. Within minutes of the announcement, several of them -- including ABC News' Jake Tapper, Time's Karen Tumulty, The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder -- posted celebratory notices of Saberi's release.
Saberi's release is good news, as her conviction occurred as part of extremely dubious charges and unreliable judicial procedures in Iran. And, as Ambinder suggested, her release most likely is a positive by-product of the commendable (though far from perfect) change in tone towards Iran specifically and the Muslim world generally from the Obama administration. But imprisoning journalists -- without charges or trials of any kind -- was and continues to be a staple of America's "war on terror," and that has provoked virtually no objections from America's journalists who, notably, instead seized on Saberi's plight in Iran to demonstrate their claimed commitment to defending persecuted journalists.
Beginning in 2001, the U.S. held Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Haj for six years in Guantanamo with no trial of any kind, and spent most of that time interrogating him not about Terrorism, but about Al Jazeera. For virtually the entire time, the due-process-less, six-year-long imprisonment of this journalist by the U.S. produced almost no coverage -- let alone any outcry -- from America's establishment media, other than some columns by Nicholas Kristof (though, for years, al-Haj's imprisonment was a major media story in the Muslim world). As Kristof noted when al-Haj was finally released in 2007: "there was never any real evidence that Sami was anything but a journalist"; "the interrogators quickly gave up on asking him substantive questions" and "instead, they asked him to spy on Al-Jazeera if he was released;" and "American officials, by imprisoning an Al-Jazeera journalist without charges or meaningful evidence, have done far more to damage American interests in the Muslim world than anything Sami could ever have done."
In Iraq, we imprisoned Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein -- part of AP's Pulitzer Prize-winning war coverage -- for almost two years with no charges of any kind, after Hussein's photographs from the Anbar province directly contradicted Bush administration claims about the state of affairs there. And that behavior was far from aberrational for the U.S., as the Committee to Protect Journalists -- which led the effort to free Saberi -- documented:
Hussein’s detention is not an isolated incident. Over the last three years, dozens of journalists—mostly Iraqis—have been detained by U.S. troops, according to CPJ research. While most have been released after short periods, in at least eight cases documented by CPJ Iraqi journalists have been held by U.S. forces for weeks or months without charge or conviction. In one highly publicized case, Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein, a freelance cameraman working for CBS, was detained after being wounded by U.S. military fire as he filmed clashes in Mosul in northern Iraq on April 5, 2005. U.S. military officials claimed footage in his camera led them to suspect Hussein had prior knowledge of attacks on coalition forces. In April 2006, a year after his arrest, Hussein was freed after an Iraqi criminal court, citing a lack of evidence, acquitted him of collaborating with insurgents.
Right now -- as the American press corps celebrates itself for demanding Saberi's release in Iran -- the U.S. continues to imprison Ibrahim Jassam, a freelance photographer for Reuters, even though an Iraqi court last December -- more than five months ago -- found that there was no evidence to justify his detention and ordered him released. The U.S. -- over the objections of the CPJ, Reporters Without Borders and Reuters -- refused to recognize the validity of that Iraqi court order and announced it would continue to keep him imprisoned.
One finds only a tiny fraction of news coverage in the U.S. regarding the treatment of al-Haj, Hussein, Jassam and these other imprisoned journalists as has been devoted to Saberi. It ought to be exactly the reverse: the American media should be far more interested in, and opposed to, infringements of press freedoms by the U.S. Government than by governments of other countries. Yet the former merits hardly a peep, while the latter provokes all sorts of smug and self-righteous protests from American journalists who suddenly discover their brave commitment to press freedoms when all that requires is pointing to a demonized, hated foreign government and complaining.
Many people scoff at the notion that the American media propagandizes the American citizenry, but here one sees the vivid essence of that process. Our establishment media loves to point to and loudly condemn the behavior of other governments as proof of how tyrannical and evil they are -- look at those Iranian mullah-fanatics imprisoning journalists/look at those primitive, corrupt, lawless Iraqis and their "culture of impunity"/look at the UAE and their tolerance of torture -- while completely ignoring, when they aren't justifying, identical behavior by our own government.
In Iran, at least Saberi received the pretense of an actual trial and appeal (one that resulted in her rather rapid release, a mere three weeks after she was convicted), as compared to the journalists put in cages for years by the U.S. Government with no charges of any kind, or as compared to the individuals whom we continue to abduct, transport to Bagram, and insist on the right to imprison indefinitely with no charges of any kind. Who was treated better and more consistently with ostensible Western precepts of justice and press freedoms: Roxana Saberi or Sami al-Haj? Saberi or Bilal Hussein? Saberi or Ibrahim Jassam? Saberi or the Bagram detainees shipped to Afghanistan and held in a dank prison, away from the sight of the entire world, without even a pretense of judicial review, a power the Obama administration continues to insist it possesses?
Pointing to other governments and highlighting their oppressive behavior can be cathartic, fun and gratifying in a self-justifying sort of way. Ask Fred Hiatt; it's virtually all he ever does. But the first duty of the American media -- like the first duty of American citizens -- is to oppose oppressive behavior by our own government. That's not as fun or as easy, but it is far more important. Moreover, obsessively complaining about the rights-abridging behavior of other countries while ignoring the same behavior from our own government is worse than a mere failure of duty. It is propagandistic and deceitful, as it paints a misleading picture that it is other governments -- but not our own -- which engage in such conduct.
UPDATE: A Nexis search for "Roxana Saberi" reveals 2,201 mentions in press reports, virtually all of them in the last two months regarding her arrest by Iran. By stark contrast, a search for "Ibrahim Jassam" -- the Iraqi journalist still held without charges by the U.S. even in the face of an Iraqi court finding that there's no evidence of his guilt -- produces a grand total of 71 mentions. A search of "Sami al-Haj" for the first five years of his detention in Guantanamo (2001-2006) reveals a grand total of 101 mentions. For the entire period of his lawless detention, Bilal Hussein's name was mentioned 556 times. See those Nexis searches here.
One of the rare mentions of Jassam was an Associated Press International report that ran in the February 11, 2009, issue of The New Zealand Herald. It reported:
A media watchdog group [the Committee to Protect Journalists] said it has urged President Barack Obama to end the US military's practice of detaining journalists without charges and asked for a full investigation into killings of journalists by US military forces. . . .
Officials with the New York-based group took the United States to task, saying the detention of journalists without trial by US authorities in such countries as Iraq has reduced America's standing in the world and emboldened other countries to do the same. . . .
[Wall St. Journal editor Paul Steiger] noted in [the letter to Obama] that 14 journalists have been held without due process for long periods in Iraq, Afghanistan and at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.
Sixteen journalists have been killed by US fire in Iraq, he said.
"We don't believe that these are deliberate attacks, but they have not been adequately investigated," Simon said.
Journalists detained by US forces in Iraq include Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, who was held without charges for two years before being released in April 2008.
A freelance photographer working for Reuters, Ibrahim Jassam, is the only journalist who remains jailed. He was detained by US forces in Baghdad on Sept. 2, Steiger said in his letter to Obama dated Jan. 12.
There were several bombings of Al Jazeera offices by the U.S. this decade. Shouldn't the American media be much more interested in covering the attacks on press freedoms by their own government than those by other governments -- or, at the very least, as interested in the assaults on press freedoms by the U.S. Government?
UPDATE II: The New Republic's Eli Lake issues this sermon about Iran today:
It simply would not be possible for his brain to process the fact that what he's describing as the hallmark of an uncivilized country is that which the U.S. does repeatedly and in far more oppressive ways than what Iran did in the Saberi case. In that regard, he is a typical American journalist.
UPDATE III: In commemoration of Saberi's release, The New Republic posted a very moving and inspiring "slideshow" -- entitled "Reporters Behind Bars" -- featuring journalists imprisoned by Iran, China, Cuba, Russia, Sri Lanka, Burma, Eritrea, Vietnam, and North Korea. TNR Editors apparently couldn't find the space to feature such actions by their own government (h/t winslow).
Identically, a commentator on Twitter asked TNR's Lake how he reconciled his condemnation of Iran -- "civilized countries do not arrest people for journalism" -- with the examples I've highlighted here, and this was Lake's response:
Given that they were never given any trials, how could Lake possibly know that the multiple reporters we imprisoned (and, in Jassam's case, continue to imprison) were "using their press cards as cover for terror"? He, of course, has no idea. Indeed, in Jassam's case, an Iraqi court ruled there was no evidence to justify his detention; in Hussein's case, the first (and only) court to review his imprisonment ordered him released; and, as Kristof said about al-Haj: "there was never any real evidence that Sami was anything but a journalist." All Lake knows about them is that they're Muslim and that the U.S. Government claimed (with no evidence and no charges) that they were involved in "terror," and that's good enough for him to cheer on their indefinite imprisonment without charges. Amazingly, this is the person purporting to lecture Iran today about what "civilized countries" do and don't do when it comes to imprisoning journalists.
Lake goes on to suggest that even if the journalists we imprisoned weren't guilty, it's still different when we do it, because we're the U.S. and they're Iran. And there is a perfect distillation of moral relativism: the rightness of an act is determined not by the act itself, but by who is doing it ("when I do X, it's good; when you do it, it's evil"). It also perfectly illustrates what is, as I noted on Friday, "the single most predominant fact shaping our political and media discourse: everything is different, and better, when we do it." Why do they hate us? For our freedoms.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Iranian-American journalist to be freed soon..
This is from antiwar.com via Reuters.
This is good news. The trial left a lot to be desired and whether she is guilty or not imprisoning her is not a bright idea in terms of improving Iran US relationships.
Iranian-American journalist to be freed soon
By Fredrik Dahl and Hashem Kalantari Fredrik Dahl And Hashem Kalantari
18 mins ago
TEHRAN (Reuters) – U.S.-born journalist Roxana Saberi is to be freed soon after an Iranian appeals court cut her eight-year jail sentence for spying to a suspended two-year term.
A judiciary source said Saberi, whose jailing on April 18 on charges of spying for the United States became a new source of tension between Tehran and Washington, had already been released and would be allowed to leave Iran.
But her father Reza said she had not yet walked free after more than three months in detention, saying he was waiting in front of Evin prison in northern Tehran.
"She will be freed today, hopefully. The papers are ready ... it is just a matter of time, a couple of hours," he told Reuters by telephone. "We are very happy."
Reza Saberi said he and his Japanese wife Akiko would "bring our daughter back home," apparently referring to the United States, where he moved in the early 1970s. "We will go back as soon as possible," he said.
The development came a day after an appeals court held a hearing on the case of Saberi, a 32-year-old journalist who has worked for the BBC and U.S. National Public Radio.
"The appeals court ... has reduced her jail sentence from eight years to two years of suspended sentence ... and she will soon be free," her defense lawyer Abdolsamad Khorramshahi said.
"In consideration of this ruling, naturally she will be freed," judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi told the official IRNA news agency, without giving a date.
The lawyer said Saberi would be banned from doing any reporting work in Iran for five years.
"There are no obstacles for her leaving the country and she can leave Iran freely," said her other lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht.
Saberi looked thin and tired at Sunday's court session. Last week, her father said she had ended a two-week hunger strike and was "very weak." The judiciary denied she had refused food and said she was in good health.
MISS DAKOTA
Saberi, a citizen of both the United States and Iran, was arrested in late January for working in the Islamic Republic after her press credentials had expired. She was later charged with espionage, a charge that can carry the death sentence.
Her case created a new problem for Tehran and Washington at a time when the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is seeking to reach out to the Islamic state after three decades of mutual mistrust.
The United States said the espionage charges against Saberi, a former Miss Dakota who moved to Iran six years ago, were baseless and demanded her immediate release.
Tehran, which does not recognize dual nationality, said Washington should respect the independence of Iran's judiciary.
The two countries are locked in a dispute over nuclear work that the West fears is aimed at making weapons, an allegation that Iran denies.
Obama has offered a new beginning of engagement with Tehran if it "unclenches his fist." Iran says the United States must show real change in policy toward it.
Paris-based watchdog Reporters Without Borders last month said Saberi's conviction was a warning to foreign journalists working in Iran ahead of its presidential election in June.
It said seven journalists were imprisoned in Iran, which it said was ranked 166th out of 173 countries in its latest press freedom index.
Iran denies Western allegations it is seeking to stifle dissenting voices. The government says it welcomes constructive criticism and upholds the principle of free speech.
(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi and Hossein Jaseb; Editing by Peter Millership)
Copyright © 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.Questions or CommentsPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceCopyright/IP Policy
This is good news. The trial left a lot to be desired and whether she is guilty or not imprisoning her is not a bright idea in terms of improving Iran US relationships.
Iranian-American journalist to be freed soon
By Fredrik Dahl and Hashem Kalantari Fredrik Dahl And Hashem Kalantari
18 mins ago
TEHRAN (Reuters) – U.S.-born journalist Roxana Saberi is to be freed soon after an Iranian appeals court cut her eight-year jail sentence for spying to a suspended two-year term.
A judiciary source said Saberi, whose jailing on April 18 on charges of spying for the United States became a new source of tension between Tehran and Washington, had already been released and would be allowed to leave Iran.
But her father Reza said she had not yet walked free after more than three months in detention, saying he was waiting in front of Evin prison in northern Tehran.
"She will be freed today, hopefully. The papers are ready ... it is just a matter of time, a couple of hours," he told Reuters by telephone. "We are very happy."
Reza Saberi said he and his Japanese wife Akiko would "bring our daughter back home," apparently referring to the United States, where he moved in the early 1970s. "We will go back as soon as possible," he said.
The development came a day after an appeals court held a hearing on the case of Saberi, a 32-year-old journalist who has worked for the BBC and U.S. National Public Radio.
"The appeals court ... has reduced her jail sentence from eight years to two years of suspended sentence ... and she will soon be free," her defense lawyer Abdolsamad Khorramshahi said.
"In consideration of this ruling, naturally she will be freed," judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi told the official IRNA news agency, without giving a date.
The lawyer said Saberi would be banned from doing any reporting work in Iran for five years.
"There are no obstacles for her leaving the country and she can leave Iran freely," said her other lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht.
Saberi looked thin and tired at Sunday's court session. Last week, her father said she had ended a two-week hunger strike and was "very weak." The judiciary denied she had refused food and said she was in good health.
MISS DAKOTA
Saberi, a citizen of both the United States and Iran, was arrested in late January for working in the Islamic Republic after her press credentials had expired. She was later charged with espionage, a charge that can carry the death sentence.
Her case created a new problem for Tehran and Washington at a time when the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is seeking to reach out to the Islamic state after three decades of mutual mistrust.
The United States said the espionage charges against Saberi, a former Miss Dakota who moved to Iran six years ago, were baseless and demanded her immediate release.
Tehran, which does not recognize dual nationality, said Washington should respect the independence of Iran's judiciary.
The two countries are locked in a dispute over nuclear work that the West fears is aimed at making weapons, an allegation that Iran denies.
Obama has offered a new beginning of engagement with Tehran if it "unclenches his fist." Iran says the United States must show real change in policy toward it.
Paris-based watchdog Reporters Without Borders last month said Saberi's conviction was a warning to foreign journalists working in Iran ahead of its presidential election in June.
It said seven journalists were imprisoned in Iran, which it said was ranked 166th out of 173 countries in its latest press freedom index.
Iran denies Western allegations it is seeking to stifle dissenting voices. The government says it welcomes constructive criticism and upholds the principle of free speech.
(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi and Hossein Jaseb; Editing by Peter Millership)
Copyright © 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.Questions or CommentsPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceCopyright/IP Policy
US accused of illegal white phosphorus attack in Afghanistan
This is from rawstory.
So far this accusation has not been widely reported in the mainstream press. Of course Israel used white phosphorus in the attack on Gaza. Perhaps there is a production surplus!
US accused of illegal white phosphorus attack in Afghanistan
By Stephen C. Webster Published: May 10, 2009 Updated 16 hours ago
United States forces in Afghanistan are accused of illegally deploying white phosphorus against civilians following a firefight with Taliban militants, according to published reports.
White phosphorus is legal to use on a battlefield but illegal to deploy for any reason other than illumination. The chemical ignites on contact with the air. Human rights groups said using the substance in populated, civilian areas is a war crime, but the United States is not a signatory to any treaty which entirely bans its use.
“The American military denied using the incendiary in the battle in Farah province — which President Hamid Karzai has said killed 125 to 130 civilians — but left open the possibility that Taliban militants did,” reported the Associated Press. “The U.S. says Taliban fighters have used white phosphorus, a spontaneously flammable material that leaves severe chemical burns on flesh, at least four times the last two years.”
“Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch and a former senior Pentagon intelligence analyst, said there has been widespread and regular use of white phosphorus by US and NATO forces in Afghanistan,” reported the Mail Online. “It was unlikely the Taliban would use it.”
“The use of the chemical for illumination and concealment of troop movements suits foreign forces in a hostile environment, but it is of little use to insurgents who know the terrain and can blend into the civilian population, he said. “‘They want high explosive to shock and kill. Flames raining down from the sky aren’t going to frighten the U.S. forces.’”
“Dr Mohammad Aref Jalali, the head of an internationally funded burns hospital in Herat, said villagers taken to hospital after the incident had ‘highly unusual burns’ on their hands and feet that he had not seen before,” reported The Guardian. “We cannot be 100% sure what type of chemical it was and we do not have the equipment here to find out. One of the women who came here told us that 22 members of her family were totally burned. She said a bomb distributed white power that caught fire and then set people’s clothes alight.”
“The stories that are emerging are quite frankly horrifying,” a United Nations official told the Guardian. “It is quite apparent that the large bulk of civilian casualties were called in after the initial fighting had subsided and both the troops and the Taliban had withdrawn.
“Local villagers went to the mosque to pray for peace. Shortly after evening prayers the air strikes were called in, and they continued for a couple of hours whilst the villagers were frantically calling the local governor to get him to call off the air strikes.”
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai demanded the United States call a halt to its air strikes, cautioning that the attacks were turning civilians against Western forces.
U.S. General James L. Jones told ABC’s “This Week” that he refused to “tie the hands of our commanders and say we’re not going to conduct airstrikes.”
So far this accusation has not been widely reported in the mainstream press. Of course Israel used white phosphorus in the attack on Gaza. Perhaps there is a production surplus!
US accused of illegal white phosphorus attack in Afghanistan
By Stephen C. Webster Published: May 10, 2009 Updated 16 hours ago
United States forces in Afghanistan are accused of illegally deploying white phosphorus against civilians following a firefight with Taliban militants, according to published reports.
White phosphorus is legal to use on a battlefield but illegal to deploy for any reason other than illumination. The chemical ignites on contact with the air. Human rights groups said using the substance in populated, civilian areas is a war crime, but the United States is not a signatory to any treaty which entirely bans its use.
“The American military denied using the incendiary in the battle in Farah province — which President Hamid Karzai has said killed 125 to 130 civilians — but left open the possibility that Taliban militants did,” reported the Associated Press. “The U.S. says Taliban fighters have used white phosphorus, a spontaneously flammable material that leaves severe chemical burns on flesh, at least four times the last two years.”
“Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch and a former senior Pentagon intelligence analyst, said there has been widespread and regular use of white phosphorus by US and NATO forces in Afghanistan,” reported the Mail Online. “It was unlikely the Taliban would use it.”
“The use of the chemical for illumination and concealment of troop movements suits foreign forces in a hostile environment, but it is of little use to insurgents who know the terrain and can blend into the civilian population, he said. “‘They want high explosive to shock and kill. Flames raining down from the sky aren’t going to frighten the U.S. forces.’”
“Dr Mohammad Aref Jalali, the head of an internationally funded burns hospital in Herat, said villagers taken to hospital after the incident had ‘highly unusual burns’ on their hands and feet that he had not seen before,” reported The Guardian. “We cannot be 100% sure what type of chemical it was and we do not have the equipment here to find out. One of the women who came here told us that 22 members of her family were totally burned. She said a bomb distributed white power that caught fire and then set people’s clothes alight.”
“The stories that are emerging are quite frankly horrifying,” a United Nations official told the Guardian. “It is quite apparent that the large bulk of civilian casualties were called in after the initial fighting had subsided and both the troops and the Taliban had withdrawn.
“Local villagers went to the mosque to pray for peace. Shortly after evening prayers the air strikes were called in, and they continued for a couple of hours whilst the villagers were frantically calling the local governor to get him to call off the air strikes.”
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai demanded the United States call a halt to its air strikes, cautioning that the attacks were turning civilians against Western forces.
U.S. General James L. Jones told ABC’s “This Week” that he refused to “tie the hands of our commanders and say we’re not going to conduct airstrikes.”
Road to Omnipotence (Philippines)
This is from the Tribune (Manila)
It seems that Palparan doesn't worry about his reputation or perhaps it is that he wants to reinforce his reputation! This type of law is quite unpopular with most in the Philippines but of course there is also a constituency that supports it and it would be very useful for Gloria as a weapon against opponents.
Road to omnipotence
EDITORIAL
05/11/2009
Former Army general and now Rep. Jovito Palparan Jr., notorious for his being a cold-blooded enemy of the communist movement and Gloria’s chief enforcer in her countryside campaign against the New People’s Army (NPA), immediately found a place in the House of Representatives in doing the dirty work for Gloria that her allies, who are careful not to worsen their already sorry images, would rather not touch.
The “Butcher,” as he is called, lived up to his reputation in the House by indicating plans to file a bill to revive the Anti-Subversion Law that was an all-purpose weapon during the martial law years to silence all those who opposed former President Ferdinand Marcos. The most famous victim of that law was former Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr.
Palparan unveiled the sinister plan right after Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita was censured by the United Nations (UN) during an assessment of the world body on the members’ compliance with human rights commitments.
Ermita tried to convince the UN that Gloria is serious about protecting human rights but to no avail since her administration cannot comply with even the most basic function of reporting progress on rights protection.
UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston, who is the monitor assigned to the Philippines, even confronted Ermita, who is a former military general, with an assessment that the elements of the Armed Forces have been using the order of Gloria to neutralize the NPA as justification to commit abuses in the countryside.
Alston was particular in mentioning Palparan as among the chief architect of human rights abuses in the country.
Palparan’s plan to resurrect evil through the Anti-Subversion Law obviously had the imprimatur of Gloria who has been busy with political perpetuation that is evident in not only the Charter change overdrive in the House but also the apparent crackdown against those opposing Gloria’s ambitions.
She cannot, however, effectively move against her critics without courting legal backfire such as the perjury case filed on National Broadband Network (NBN) scam whistle-blower Jun Lozada which is turning out more of a headache than a solution for Gloria.
Manila Judge Emmanuel Lorredo indicated plans to summon Gloria and Big Mike along with chief cabal members Benjamin Abalos and Romulo Neri as witnesses in the perjury case, of course along with the supposed aggrieved party, Michael Defensor, completing the cast of the kickback consortium in the $329-million NBN-ZTE scam.
Legal experts said Gloria and her cabal cannot invoke executive privilege this time around when the court summons them. This was already in the works for then US President Nixon, where he could not invoke executive privilege, precisely, because the case was deemed criminal in nature.
Similar backlashes are expected until the Anti-Subversion Law of Palparan is in place.
Palparan was heaven sent for Gloria since no politician conscious of his image with his constituents would dare touch the dreaded martial law tool with a 10-foot pole.
The road to power without end would be fraught with hurdles for Gloria but the presence of Palparan and other like-minded zealots would be an assurance that an earnest battle would be waged for her come hell or high water.
The numerous atrocities cited by the UN in its assessment of the country was mostly inflicted on the various critics of Gloria.
The UN’s frustration on the human rights situation in the country is similar to the overall disappointment of Filipinos on Gloria’s style of governance, if it can be described as having a style at all.
Abuse, ambition and failure to govern are natural combinations.
And Gloria Arroyo has all three in her.
It seems that Palparan doesn't worry about his reputation or perhaps it is that he wants to reinforce his reputation! This type of law is quite unpopular with most in the Philippines but of course there is also a constituency that supports it and it would be very useful for Gloria as a weapon against opponents.
Road to omnipotence
EDITORIAL
05/11/2009
Former Army general and now Rep. Jovito Palparan Jr., notorious for his being a cold-blooded enemy of the communist movement and Gloria’s chief enforcer in her countryside campaign against the New People’s Army (NPA), immediately found a place in the House of Representatives in doing the dirty work for Gloria that her allies, who are careful not to worsen their already sorry images, would rather not touch.
The “Butcher,” as he is called, lived up to his reputation in the House by indicating plans to file a bill to revive the Anti-Subversion Law that was an all-purpose weapon during the martial law years to silence all those who opposed former President Ferdinand Marcos. The most famous victim of that law was former Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr.
Palparan unveiled the sinister plan right after Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita was censured by the United Nations (UN) during an assessment of the world body on the members’ compliance with human rights commitments.
Ermita tried to convince the UN that Gloria is serious about protecting human rights but to no avail since her administration cannot comply with even the most basic function of reporting progress on rights protection.
UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston, who is the monitor assigned to the Philippines, even confronted Ermita, who is a former military general, with an assessment that the elements of the Armed Forces have been using the order of Gloria to neutralize the NPA as justification to commit abuses in the countryside.
Alston was particular in mentioning Palparan as among the chief architect of human rights abuses in the country.
Palparan’s plan to resurrect evil through the Anti-Subversion Law obviously had the imprimatur of Gloria who has been busy with political perpetuation that is evident in not only the Charter change overdrive in the House but also the apparent crackdown against those opposing Gloria’s ambitions.
She cannot, however, effectively move against her critics without courting legal backfire such as the perjury case filed on National Broadband Network (NBN) scam whistle-blower Jun Lozada which is turning out more of a headache than a solution for Gloria.
Manila Judge Emmanuel Lorredo indicated plans to summon Gloria and Big Mike along with chief cabal members Benjamin Abalos and Romulo Neri as witnesses in the perjury case, of course along with the supposed aggrieved party, Michael Defensor, completing the cast of the kickback consortium in the $329-million NBN-ZTE scam.
Legal experts said Gloria and her cabal cannot invoke executive privilege this time around when the court summons them. This was already in the works for then US President Nixon, where he could not invoke executive privilege, precisely, because the case was deemed criminal in nature.
Similar backlashes are expected until the Anti-Subversion Law of Palparan is in place.
Palparan was heaven sent for Gloria since no politician conscious of his image with his constituents would dare touch the dreaded martial law tool with a 10-foot pole.
The road to power without end would be fraught with hurdles for Gloria but the presence of Palparan and other like-minded zealots would be an assurance that an earnest battle would be waged for her come hell or high water.
The numerous atrocities cited by the UN in its assessment of the country was mostly inflicted on the various critics of Gloria.
The UN’s frustration on the human rights situation in the country is similar to the overall disappointment of Filipinos on Gloria’s style of governance, if it can be described as having a style at all.
Abuse, ambition and failure to govern are natural combinations.
And Gloria Arroyo has all three in her.
Washington reaches out to warlord on terror list!
This shows that Karzai's approach to Hekmatyar is actually in line with US policy. I thought this was the case when I saw that Karzai was saying that Hekmatyar could be taken off the terror list. Only the US could do this. This whole sorry affair makes the total hypocrisy of the US war on terror obvious. Even Zardari of Pakistan pointed out that the jihadists were a creation of the West's war on the Evil Empire and its occupation of Afghanistan. If the west continues policies such as encouraging the Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO and having defence exercises in Georgia it may find that Russia may take up our former role of financing and aiding the Taliban freedom fighters!
All of what is going on with respect to Hekmatyar seems to escape the Radar of Fox News or even CNN.
Holbrooke reaches out to Hekmatyar
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
The recent meeting between a deputy of Richard Holbrooke, the United States special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and an emissary of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), is by all accounts a landmark move in the United States' stated aim of involving militant groups in ending the conflict in Afghanistan. The choice of Hekmatyar also indicates just how desperate the US is in finding an escape route from the escalating crisis in Afghanistan. Hekmatyar is a declared terrorist with a reported $25 million price on his head. The 61-year-old engineer from Kunduz province and his anti-government fighters are responsible for large numbers of attacks against Afghan and international forces, mainly in the northeast of the country. For years, Washington has
branded Hekmatyar an irreconcilable militant. The HIA, founded by Hekmatyar, was one of the most effective mujahideen groups to fight the Soviet invasion during the 1980s. But, according to reports, the party became a favorite of Pakistan's intelligence agency and Hekmatyar's men were known as the most fundamentalist of all Afghan resistance fighters. To date, however, the US has failed miserably in attracting mainstream Afghan forces of the past back into the political process, including tribal warlords, the Taliban, the Northern Alliance and the HIA. This means, as Peter Lee wrote last month in Asia Times Online, "...the unpredictable Hekmatyar, who has survived the jihad, the civil war, defeat at the hands of the Taliban, exile in Iran, an assassination attempt by the CIA, and return to Afghanistan as an insurgent leader, is the great hope of all parties as the only Pashtun strongman untainted by al-Qaeda and possibly capable of taking on the Taliban." (See Taliban force a China switch, Asia Times Online, March 6, 2009.) The insurgents loyal to Hekmatyar have now emerged as the most important component of anti-Western coalition resistance in Afghanistan. While most of Taliban-led resistance is situated near the Pakistan Afghanistan borders, insurgents loyal to Hekmatyar hold complete command over Kapissa province's Tagab valley, only 30 kilometers north of Kabul. The HIA, whose political wing has offices all over Afghanistan and keeps 40 seats in the Afghan parliament, is fully geared to replace President Hamid Karzai in the upcoming presidential elections. Now, eight years after the US attack on Afghanistan, Washington is initiating dialogue with Hekmatyar through his longtime lieutenant Daoud Abedi, the link between the Hekmatyar and the West. Abedi is an Afghan-American based in California as well as a prominent businessman, social worker and a former representative of the HIA. In an exclusive interview from his home in Los Angeles, Abedi explains what was discussed between himself and the US official representing Holbrooke and the White House. ATol: Please shed light on your recent visit to the region of Pakistan and Afghanistan and your meeting with US officials on behalf of Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan. Dauod Abeidi: Brother Shahzad, first of all, I thank you for the call and I appreciate your attention regarding Afghanistan and international affairs. I always read your articles and I am enlightened by your writings. May Allah reward you. ... As you know, I represented HIA in the US. Yes, I was approached by the US government here and we did speak. We want a new policy of the US for Afghanistan and [we want] to bring peace to this war-torn country. ... Based on that, I spoke to some people here and al-Hamdullilah [thank God] the results of the talks were positive ... This is something which I personally started and forwarded to our Hezb brothers in Afghanistan ... The purpose of those meetings was to see how we can bring peace Afghanistan and to make sure foreign troops leave Afghanistan as soon as possible. ATol: Could you please name the officials who you met? DA: I think since talks are still going, it is best to keep that [quiet] for the moment. You will hear more about the talks [but] since they are ongoing I think it is better to keep it that way. ATol: Could you please confirm whether Pakistan is involved in this dialogue process - or is this just between the HIA and the US? DA: I have not met with any Pakistani official at all. This is my personal initiative since I know what the HIA wants and what the Taliban wants in order to see if we could make a situation possible in which foreign troops leave Afghanistan as soon as possible. This is the demand of both sides, the HIA and the Taliban. This is the first priority: that foreign troops must leave Afghanistan as soon as possible. And based on that we [want] to find the way to bring peace to this war torn country. ATol: Have the Americans agreed to any schedule for the withdrawal of their troops from Afghanistan? DA: President Obama has mentioned many times that they are not staying there forever. They want to leave Afghanistan as soon as there is a peace through the Afghans and [create] a possibility that allows [them] to leave. So we are hopeful and there is no other way to bring peace to Afghanistan except that foreign troops leave and that the Afghan people decide their own future and their own type of government. ATol: Were Taliban on board for this dialogue process, or were they just apart? DA: There was the discussion about the Taliban. Taliban are also the sons of Afghanistan. They are sacrificing for Afghanistan and for the freedom of Afghanistan so we are hopeful that they will give a positive answer to our request as well. ATol: Is there any chance that HIA shall join the Afghan government in the near future? DA: No. There is no such chance because we want to solve the problems through all Afghans. We are not planning to take sides against one another. The HIA's stance is to bring peace in Afghanistan and we all know that peace cannot come to Afghanistan without Hezb-e-Islami. Because of that issue, we are trying to work with all sides especially with the Taliban and with the US. The Kabul government has not been able to bring peace to Afghanistan and based on that we are hoping Kabul will also understand [it is] time for the Afghan people to choose their own future leaders in the government. ATol: Has Hekmatyar given approval for these talks [with the US]? Is he ready for any immediate truce with NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] troops? DA: Brother Hekmatyar has approved my talks. But as I have mentioned, this was started by myself and later he gave his approval with the condition of the departure of foreign troops from Afghanistan. ATol: Would [Hekmatyar] agree to any immediate ceasefire with the NATO troops? DA: A ceasefire is possible once talks are over and we know the exact schedule for the departure of the foreign troops. This has not been discussed yet, but we are hopeful that if there is an accepted date for the departure of the foreign troops, then all sides could talk - the HIA, Taliban and the foreigners - and see if we could agree on a ceasefire as a goodwill gesture. But that can be done only when there is a confirmed date of departure. ATol: What would be the future of al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden once any peace deal is signed between the HIA, the Taliban and NATO? Where would they stand [on such a deal]? DA: First of all, nobody knows where Shiekh Osama Bin Laden is. It is not proven that he is in Afghanistan. The second thing is, al-Qaeda doesn't have big numbers of members. Foreign forces searched Afghanistan inch by inch and they could not find one al-Qaeda member. If they are somewhere else, we are not aware. As far as Afghanistan is concerned, they are not there. Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.
All of what is going on with respect to Hekmatyar seems to escape the Radar of Fox News or even CNN.
Holbrooke reaches out to Hekmatyar
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
The recent meeting between a deputy of Richard Holbrooke, the United States special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and an emissary of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA), is by all accounts a landmark move in the United States' stated aim of involving militant groups in ending the conflict in Afghanistan. The choice of Hekmatyar also indicates just how desperate the US is in finding an escape route from the escalating crisis in Afghanistan. Hekmatyar is a declared terrorist with a reported $25 million price on his head. The 61-year-old engineer from Kunduz province and his anti-government fighters are responsible for large numbers of attacks against Afghan and international forces, mainly in the northeast of the country. For years, Washington has
branded Hekmatyar an irreconcilable militant. The HIA, founded by Hekmatyar, was one of the most effective mujahideen groups to fight the Soviet invasion during the 1980s. But, according to reports, the party became a favorite of Pakistan's intelligence agency and Hekmatyar's men were known as the most fundamentalist of all Afghan resistance fighters. To date, however, the US has failed miserably in attracting mainstream Afghan forces of the past back into the political process, including tribal warlords, the Taliban, the Northern Alliance and the HIA. This means, as Peter Lee wrote last month in Asia Times Online, "...the unpredictable Hekmatyar, who has survived the jihad, the civil war, defeat at the hands of the Taliban, exile in Iran, an assassination attempt by the CIA, and return to Afghanistan as an insurgent leader, is the great hope of all parties as the only Pashtun strongman untainted by al-Qaeda and possibly capable of taking on the Taliban." (See Taliban force a China switch, Asia Times Online, March 6, 2009.) The insurgents loyal to Hekmatyar have now emerged as the most important component of anti-Western coalition resistance in Afghanistan. While most of Taliban-led resistance is situated near the Pakistan Afghanistan borders, insurgents loyal to Hekmatyar hold complete command over Kapissa province's Tagab valley, only 30 kilometers north of Kabul. The HIA, whose political wing has offices all over Afghanistan and keeps 40 seats in the Afghan parliament, is fully geared to replace President Hamid Karzai in the upcoming presidential elections. Now, eight years after the US attack on Afghanistan, Washington is initiating dialogue with Hekmatyar through his longtime lieutenant Daoud Abedi, the link between the Hekmatyar and the West. Abedi is an Afghan-American based in California as well as a prominent businessman, social worker and a former representative of the HIA. In an exclusive interview from his home in Los Angeles, Abedi explains what was discussed between himself and the US official representing Holbrooke and the White House. ATol: Please shed light on your recent visit to the region of Pakistan and Afghanistan and your meeting with US officials on behalf of Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan. Dauod Abeidi: Brother Shahzad, first of all, I thank you for the call and I appreciate your attention regarding Afghanistan and international affairs. I always read your articles and I am enlightened by your writings. May Allah reward you. ... As you know, I represented HIA in the US. Yes, I was approached by the US government here and we did speak. We want a new policy of the US for Afghanistan and [we want] to bring peace to this war-torn country. ... Based on that, I spoke to some people here and al-Hamdullilah [thank God] the results of the talks were positive ... This is something which I personally started and forwarded to our Hezb brothers in Afghanistan ... The purpose of those meetings was to see how we can bring peace Afghanistan and to make sure foreign troops leave Afghanistan as soon as possible. ATol: Could you please name the officials who you met? DA: I think since talks are still going, it is best to keep that [quiet] for the moment. You will hear more about the talks [but] since they are ongoing I think it is better to keep it that way. ATol: Could you please confirm whether Pakistan is involved in this dialogue process - or is this just between the HIA and the US? DA: I have not met with any Pakistani official at all. This is my personal initiative since I know what the HIA wants and what the Taliban wants in order to see if we could make a situation possible in which foreign troops leave Afghanistan as soon as possible. This is the demand of both sides, the HIA and the Taliban. This is the first priority: that foreign troops must leave Afghanistan as soon as possible. And based on that we [want] to find the way to bring peace to this war torn country. ATol: Have the Americans agreed to any schedule for the withdrawal of their troops from Afghanistan? DA: President Obama has mentioned many times that they are not staying there forever. They want to leave Afghanistan as soon as there is a peace through the Afghans and [create] a possibility that allows [them] to leave. So we are hopeful and there is no other way to bring peace to Afghanistan except that foreign troops leave and that the Afghan people decide their own future and their own type of government. ATol: Were Taliban on board for this dialogue process, or were they just apart? DA: There was the discussion about the Taliban. Taliban are also the sons of Afghanistan. They are sacrificing for Afghanistan and for the freedom of Afghanistan so we are hopeful that they will give a positive answer to our request as well. ATol: Is there any chance that HIA shall join the Afghan government in the near future? DA: No. There is no such chance because we want to solve the problems through all Afghans. We are not planning to take sides against one another. The HIA's stance is to bring peace in Afghanistan and we all know that peace cannot come to Afghanistan without Hezb-e-Islami. Because of that issue, we are trying to work with all sides especially with the Taliban and with the US. The Kabul government has not been able to bring peace to Afghanistan and based on that we are hoping Kabul will also understand [it is] time for the Afghan people to choose their own future leaders in the government. ATol: Has Hekmatyar given approval for these talks [with the US]? Is he ready for any immediate truce with NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] troops? DA: Brother Hekmatyar has approved my talks. But as I have mentioned, this was started by myself and later he gave his approval with the condition of the departure of foreign troops from Afghanistan. ATol: Would [Hekmatyar] agree to any immediate ceasefire with the NATO troops? DA: A ceasefire is possible once talks are over and we know the exact schedule for the departure of the foreign troops. This has not been discussed yet, but we are hopeful that if there is an accepted date for the departure of the foreign troops, then all sides could talk - the HIA, Taliban and the foreigners - and see if we could agree on a ceasefire as a goodwill gesture. But that can be done only when there is a confirmed date of departure. ATol: What would be the future of al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden once any peace deal is signed between the HIA, the Taliban and NATO? Where would they stand [on such a deal]? DA: First of all, nobody knows where Shiekh Osama Bin Laden is. It is not proven that he is in Afghanistan. The second thing is, al-Qaeda doesn't have big numbers of members. Foreign forces searched Afghanistan inch by inch and they could not find one al-Qaeda member. If they are somewhere else, we are not aware. As far as Afghanistan is concerned, they are not there. Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Raimondo: Is Obama taking on the Israel Lobby
It is rather surprising that the US has requested Israel to join the NPT. This was sure to upset the Israelis and the US must have known that Israel was not about to sign the treaty. Raimondo gives us some of the background of Israel's production of atomic weapons. Of course, the US has never before made an issue of Israel having nuclear weapons since after all the US and Israel are bosom buddies.
At the same time as the Obama administration takes this step they dropped the case against two accused Israeli spies.
- Antiwar.com Original - http://original.antiwar.com -
Is Obama Taking on the Israel Lobby?
Posted By Justin Raimondo On May 7, 2009 @ 9:00 pm The elaborate pretenses that surround any discussion of Israel are fast making it impossible to say a word about that country without uttering a number of increasingly obvious lies.
We are, for example, supposed to believe that Israel is really a part of the West, when demographics – and the country’s radical political shift – point in the opposite direction. It is commonly asserted as incontrovertible fact that Israel is a democracy, just like us, the only one in a region ruled by monarchs, mullahs, and secular nationalist despots – and we aren’t supposed to notice its population of Palestinian helots in the occupied territories.
Defenders of Israeli government policies – the settlements, the repeated invasions of Lebanon, the prolonged agony of the West Bank and Gaza, the Wall of Separation – rationalize these actions by explaining that the country is beleaguered, a tiny island of Western liberal values in a sea of Arabic absolutism, one in constant threat of annihilation. Yet Israel is a military powerhouse, thanks to the US: its armies have beaten the combined Arab forces on several occasions, notably the Six Day War, and Tel Aviv has a trump card they could always play if that “existential threat” to its existence that we keep hearing about should ever materialize: a substantial nuclear arsenal.
The Israeli nuclear program began in 1949, when a special scientific unit was set up by the government for that express purpose, and they made some progress, but the effort couldn’t have succeeded without outside assistance, a technology transfer that would give the Israelis the ability to produce a functioning weapon.
France stepped into the breach, and offered assistance, in exchange for Israel’s invasion of the Sinai during the Suez crisis. French-Israeli cooperation was based on more than geopolitical advantage, however: the French were confronting the Arabs in Algeria, and the Egyptians, and the Israelis were their natural allies, and yet there was also an ideological motive. In solidarity with his fellow socialists in the Israeli Labor party, who dominated Israeli politics in the early years, French Socialist Prime Minister Guy Mollet is reported to have said, in private: “I owe the bomb to them.”
The US offered credible cover for the clandestine within the framework of the “Atoms for Peace” agreement initiated by President Dwight David Eisenhower: the building of a small, “swimming pool” reactor under this initiative effectively camouflaged the construction of the much larger nuclear facility at Dimona, where the Israeli nuclear arsenal was conceived and assembled.
In spite of the fact that the whole world knows, by now, the story of the Israeli nukes and how they came to be, thanks to the sacrifice of one man – Mordecai Vanunu – both the US and the government of Israel have kept up an elaborate pretense, ever since the Eisehower era, never alluding to Israel’s nukes, although the Israelis have indirectly alluded to their power to annihilate any city in the Middle East at will. The US, for its part, has maintained a discreet silence on the subject – until now.
Assistant secretary of state Rose Gottemoeller’s surprise announcement that the US would like every nation – including Israel – to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) sent shockwaves from Tel Aviv to Brooklyn, confirming the worst fears of the Obama-haters who make up the radical fringe of the Lobby. You’ll recall that the first thing accused Israeli spy Steve Rosen, AIPAC’s former chief lobbyist, did when he resurfaced was to set up an “Obama Watch” blog on the web site of the crazed Daniel Pipes, one of the main perpetrators of the “Obama-is-a-secret-Muslim” meme. Expect the attacks on the President coming from the Lobby to intensify.
The Israelis are citing a supposed 40-year-old secret agreement to permanently shield the Israeli arsenal from international inspections – the same inspections Iran is expected to undergo without protest. Iran, unlike Israel, is a signatory to the NPT. To the Israelis, however, Tehran’s signature is proof that “the NPT is not “a miracle cure for the world’s ills.” Presumably Israel’s policy of nuclear “ambiguity” is one such solution, if not for the world’s ills, but for a very small part of the world. That this solution comes at the expense of the peace of the region – i.e. at everyone else’s expense – seems not to bother the elected leadership of the Jewish state at all. Indeed, under the new ultra-rightist regime – which includes neo-fascist Avigdor Lieberman, a former bouncer, as “foreign minister” – the Israelis seem to revel in it.
This is just posturing, of course, since the US could bring Israel to its knees rather quickly if it chose: without US aid, the Zionist settler colony would have disappeared long ago. What the Israelis depend on for their very survival is the existence and unmatched power of their lobby in America, which ensures the Jewish state a very large piece of the foreign aid pie. This lobby will now be mobilized for an all-out assault on the new policy, which could spell the end of our old Israel-centric stance in the region, and map out a new beginning for the US insofar as its historic role as the inheritor of Britain’s mistakes is concerned.
The very idea that Israel and Iran should be treated as equals, that they should both have to live up to the same standards, and go through the same inspections of their nuclear facilities, is unacceptable to the Israelis, and to this government in particular. The outright racist Lieberman reflects a very widespread sentiment in the country.
The idea of a nuclear-free Middle East is an old one, raised by the Syrians, and I believe the Saudis. This was immediately dismissed, during the Bush years, as propaganda. If President Obama actually takes them up on this proposal, however, it would signal a historic shift – not just a shift in American policy, but in the outlook and policy of the West.
The legacy of Western imperialism in the region is written on the map, which delineates borders drawn by the British Foreign Office with a stick in the sand. Divided up amongst the victors in the wake of World War I, and the lingering death of the Ottoman “sick man of Europe,” the Middle East was dominated by the European imperialist powers up until the end of World War II, when the Americans moved in. The white man’s burden, as Kipling dubbed it, turned, in American hands, from a civilizing mission into a strictly commercial enterprise.
The very existence of Israel, its genesis in the Balfour Declaration and its historic economic and military links to the West, is, in the Muslim mind, the living symbol of this imperialist legacy, just as the Iranian Shah was. The Khomeini movement had its roots in the struggle against Western imperialism, and the admixture of religious fervor and the movement for national self-determination was made possible due to Western intervention. The CIA overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh diverted secular nationalist sentiment into the only alternative outlets: the ayatollahs. We have to live with that blowback from 1953.
Obama, however, promises to reverse it, to neutralize the long history of Western betrayals, insults, and indifference and strike a grand bargain with the peoples of the region, one that will put them on an equal footing with the rest of the world – and with the Israelis, too.
Not if the Lobby can help it, mind you, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see that Ms. Gottemoeller’s statement is “clarified” to mean its exact opposite – and that Gottemoeller herself is out on her ear (or, at least, called on the carpet) before this post gets Googled.
If Gottmoeller’s statement stands, and she isn’t exposed as a secret neo-Nazi by Monday morning, then Obama will be the first US President since John F. Kennedy to put pressure on the Israelis to abandon their status as nuclear rogues, as David Bedein, the Philadelphia Bulletin’s Middle East correspondent points out. Although Kennedy did not pressure them in public, but only in private communications: that Obama is putting the screws on them publicly is a real giant step forward to peace in the Middle East. The idea of a nuclear-free zone in that region makes so much sense that there is no way the Israelis could credibly oppose it. The ultimate argument in favor can be made by simply pointing at Israel’s foreign minister, the crazed Lieberman – who once advocated bombing the Aswan dam – and asking: Do you want to put nuclear weapons in his hands? I have no doubt that the prospect of a future Israel led by this fascist nutball is one of the considerations behind the timing of Gottemoeller’s speech.
This bombshell announcement – that the US is openly calling on the Israelis, along with the North Koreans, to join the rest of humanity in containing the spread of nuclear weapons – will hit US-Israeli relations with the force of a tsunami. If Obama follows through on this one – and I have my doubts – it will truly mean an end to the “special relationship,” or, more accurately, the current Israeli interpretation of the terms of that relationship. Obama, it seems, wants those terms renegotiated, which is why invoking a mysteriously vague 40-year-old secret agreement probably won’t have much effect on the White House’s apparent determination to make a historic breakthrough on the Middle Eastern front.
We’ll see, however, if that determination is somewhat blunted in the coming months, under relentless pressure from the Lobby, which will go all out to crush this initiative before it gets off the ground. President Obama is being tested. Here is a man who has all the mannerisms of greatness, but whether he’s merely aped these, like any second-rate actor is capable of doing, or is the real thing, has been a matter of some debate. The next few months should be enough for us to see what he is made of. If he lasts that long without capitulating entirely, I’ll be surprised – and honestly delighted.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
What did Nancy Pelosi know, and when did she know it, suddenly became a pressing issue overnight, as the CIA – Obama’s CIA, Leon Panetta’s CIA – releases documents showing she was briefed about “enhanced interrogation techniques” used on Abu Zubaydah – yes, the one who was water-boarded 83 times. Read my take here. (Note: that’s not my title).
Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.com
URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/05/07/is-obama-taking-on-the-israel-lobby/
Copyright © 2009 Antiwar.com Original. All rights reserved.
At the same time as the Obama administration takes this step they dropped the case against two accused Israeli spies.
- Antiwar.com Original - http://original.antiwar.com -
Is Obama Taking on the Israel Lobby?
Posted By Justin Raimondo On May 7, 2009 @ 9:00 pm The elaborate pretenses that surround any discussion of Israel are fast making it impossible to say a word about that country without uttering a number of increasingly obvious lies.
We are, for example, supposed to believe that Israel is really a part of the West, when demographics – and the country’s radical political shift – point in the opposite direction. It is commonly asserted as incontrovertible fact that Israel is a democracy, just like us, the only one in a region ruled by monarchs, mullahs, and secular nationalist despots – and we aren’t supposed to notice its population of Palestinian helots in the occupied territories.
Defenders of Israeli government policies – the settlements, the repeated invasions of Lebanon, the prolonged agony of the West Bank and Gaza, the Wall of Separation – rationalize these actions by explaining that the country is beleaguered, a tiny island of Western liberal values in a sea of Arabic absolutism, one in constant threat of annihilation. Yet Israel is a military powerhouse, thanks to the US: its armies have beaten the combined Arab forces on several occasions, notably the Six Day War, and Tel Aviv has a trump card they could always play if that “existential threat” to its existence that we keep hearing about should ever materialize: a substantial nuclear arsenal.
The Israeli nuclear program began in 1949, when a special scientific unit was set up by the government for that express purpose, and they made some progress, but the effort couldn’t have succeeded without outside assistance, a technology transfer that would give the Israelis the ability to produce a functioning weapon.
France stepped into the breach, and offered assistance, in exchange for Israel’s invasion of the Sinai during the Suez crisis. French-Israeli cooperation was based on more than geopolitical advantage, however: the French were confronting the Arabs in Algeria, and the Egyptians, and the Israelis were their natural allies, and yet there was also an ideological motive. In solidarity with his fellow socialists in the Israeli Labor party, who dominated Israeli politics in the early years, French Socialist Prime Minister Guy Mollet is reported to have said, in private: “I owe the bomb to them.”
The US offered credible cover for the clandestine within the framework of the “Atoms for Peace” agreement initiated by President Dwight David Eisenhower: the building of a small, “swimming pool” reactor under this initiative effectively camouflaged the construction of the much larger nuclear facility at Dimona, where the Israeli nuclear arsenal was conceived and assembled.
In spite of the fact that the whole world knows, by now, the story of the Israeli nukes and how they came to be, thanks to the sacrifice of one man – Mordecai Vanunu – both the US and the government of Israel have kept up an elaborate pretense, ever since the Eisehower era, never alluding to Israel’s nukes, although the Israelis have indirectly alluded to their power to annihilate any city in the Middle East at will. The US, for its part, has maintained a discreet silence on the subject – until now.
Assistant secretary of state Rose Gottemoeller’s surprise announcement that the US would like every nation – including Israel – to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) sent shockwaves from Tel Aviv to Brooklyn, confirming the worst fears of the Obama-haters who make up the radical fringe of the Lobby. You’ll recall that the first thing accused Israeli spy Steve Rosen, AIPAC’s former chief lobbyist, did when he resurfaced was to set up an “Obama Watch” blog on the web site of the crazed Daniel Pipes, one of the main perpetrators of the “Obama-is-a-secret-Muslim” meme. Expect the attacks on the President coming from the Lobby to intensify.
The Israelis are citing a supposed 40-year-old secret agreement to permanently shield the Israeli arsenal from international inspections – the same inspections Iran is expected to undergo without protest. Iran, unlike Israel, is a signatory to the NPT. To the Israelis, however, Tehran’s signature is proof that “the NPT is not “a miracle cure for the world’s ills.” Presumably Israel’s policy of nuclear “ambiguity” is one such solution, if not for the world’s ills, but for a very small part of the world. That this solution comes at the expense of the peace of the region – i.e. at everyone else’s expense – seems not to bother the elected leadership of the Jewish state at all. Indeed, under the new ultra-rightist regime – which includes neo-fascist Avigdor Lieberman, a former bouncer, as “foreign minister” – the Israelis seem to revel in it.
This is just posturing, of course, since the US could bring Israel to its knees rather quickly if it chose: without US aid, the Zionist settler colony would have disappeared long ago. What the Israelis depend on for their very survival is the existence and unmatched power of their lobby in America, which ensures the Jewish state a very large piece of the foreign aid pie. This lobby will now be mobilized for an all-out assault on the new policy, which could spell the end of our old Israel-centric stance in the region, and map out a new beginning for the US insofar as its historic role as the inheritor of Britain’s mistakes is concerned.
The very idea that Israel and Iran should be treated as equals, that they should both have to live up to the same standards, and go through the same inspections of their nuclear facilities, is unacceptable to the Israelis, and to this government in particular. The outright racist Lieberman reflects a very widespread sentiment in the country.
The idea of a nuclear-free Middle East is an old one, raised by the Syrians, and I believe the Saudis. This was immediately dismissed, during the Bush years, as propaganda. If President Obama actually takes them up on this proposal, however, it would signal a historic shift – not just a shift in American policy, but in the outlook and policy of the West.
The legacy of Western imperialism in the region is written on the map, which delineates borders drawn by the British Foreign Office with a stick in the sand. Divided up amongst the victors in the wake of World War I, and the lingering death of the Ottoman “sick man of Europe,” the Middle East was dominated by the European imperialist powers up until the end of World War II, when the Americans moved in. The white man’s burden, as Kipling dubbed it, turned, in American hands, from a civilizing mission into a strictly commercial enterprise.
The very existence of Israel, its genesis in the Balfour Declaration and its historic economic and military links to the West, is, in the Muslim mind, the living symbol of this imperialist legacy, just as the Iranian Shah was. The Khomeini movement had its roots in the struggle against Western imperialism, and the admixture of religious fervor and the movement for national self-determination was made possible due to Western intervention. The CIA overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh diverted secular nationalist sentiment into the only alternative outlets: the ayatollahs. We have to live with that blowback from 1953.
Obama, however, promises to reverse it, to neutralize the long history of Western betrayals, insults, and indifference and strike a grand bargain with the peoples of the region, one that will put them on an equal footing with the rest of the world – and with the Israelis, too.
Not if the Lobby can help it, mind you, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see that Ms. Gottemoeller’s statement is “clarified” to mean its exact opposite – and that Gottemoeller herself is out on her ear (or, at least, called on the carpet) before this post gets Googled.
If Gottmoeller’s statement stands, and she isn’t exposed as a secret neo-Nazi by Monday morning, then Obama will be the first US President since John F. Kennedy to put pressure on the Israelis to abandon their status as nuclear rogues, as David Bedein, the Philadelphia Bulletin’s Middle East correspondent points out. Although Kennedy did not pressure them in public, but only in private communications: that Obama is putting the screws on them publicly is a real giant step forward to peace in the Middle East. The idea of a nuclear-free zone in that region makes so much sense that there is no way the Israelis could credibly oppose it. The ultimate argument in favor can be made by simply pointing at Israel’s foreign minister, the crazed Lieberman – who once advocated bombing the Aswan dam – and asking: Do you want to put nuclear weapons in his hands? I have no doubt that the prospect of a future Israel led by this fascist nutball is one of the considerations behind the timing of Gottemoeller’s speech.
This bombshell announcement – that the US is openly calling on the Israelis, along with the North Koreans, to join the rest of humanity in containing the spread of nuclear weapons – will hit US-Israeli relations with the force of a tsunami. If Obama follows through on this one – and I have my doubts – it will truly mean an end to the “special relationship,” or, more accurately, the current Israeli interpretation of the terms of that relationship. Obama, it seems, wants those terms renegotiated, which is why invoking a mysteriously vague 40-year-old secret agreement probably won’t have much effect on the White House’s apparent determination to make a historic breakthrough on the Middle Eastern front.
We’ll see, however, if that determination is somewhat blunted in the coming months, under relentless pressure from the Lobby, which will go all out to crush this initiative before it gets off the ground. President Obama is being tested. Here is a man who has all the mannerisms of greatness, but whether he’s merely aped these, like any second-rate actor is capable of doing, or is the real thing, has been a matter of some debate. The next few months should be enough for us to see what he is made of. If he lasts that long without capitulating entirely, I’ll be surprised – and honestly delighted.
NOTES IN THE MARGIN
What did Nancy Pelosi know, and when did she know it, suddenly became a pressing issue overnight, as the CIA – Obama’s CIA, Leon Panetta’s CIA – releases documents showing she was briefed about “enhanced interrogation techniques” used on Abu Zubaydah – yes, the one who was water-boarded 83 times. Read my take here. (Note: that’s not my title).
Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.com
URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/05/07/is-obama-taking-on-the-israel-lobby/
Copyright © 2009 Antiwar.com Original. All rights reserved.
Karzai demands end to air strikes...
This is from antiwar.com.
Karzai of course knows that the US and NATO are still deaf to his pleas about air strikes. They no doubt save US and NATO occupiers' lives and that is what is important not Afghan civilians. No doubt he hopes to show he is not in effect a puppet. Of course he is a puppet but one that is misbehaving and that the US would love to replace. However, they don't seem to have manufactured a suitable replacement acceptable to the existing power structures in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile the puppet is dancing ever more dangerous tunes including a move to share power with a warlord who is on the US terrorist list. Even so perhaps the US would be happy enough to strike him off the list if he would only join the Karzai govt. and accept the occupation..
Karzai Demands End to US Air Strikes
Record Toll of Farah Attack Renews Outrage Over Bombing Villages
by Jason Ditz, May 08, 2009
Ending his visit to the United States, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has demanded that the United States end its air strikes in his country, saying that the rising death toll was infuriating the public. “We believe strongly that airstrikes are not an effective way of fighting terrorism, that airstrikes rather cause civilian casualties,” Karzai declared.
Karzai has long been at odds, first with the Bush Administration and now with the Obama Administraiton, about the policy of air strikes launched in Afghanistan. The issue really came to a head this week, however, after an air strike against two villages in Farah Provinces killed 147 civilians, nearly doubling the previous record for most civilians killed in a single attack.
President Obama has promised, as the previous administration so often did, to “be more careful” about not slaughtering hundreds of civilians with US air power. Yet less than nine months after officials were promising much the same policy changes when the Herat strike had killed 90 civilians, the most striking thing is how little has actually changed.
Karzai of course knows that the US and NATO are still deaf to his pleas about air strikes. They no doubt save US and NATO occupiers' lives and that is what is important not Afghan civilians. No doubt he hopes to show he is not in effect a puppet. Of course he is a puppet but one that is misbehaving and that the US would love to replace. However, they don't seem to have manufactured a suitable replacement acceptable to the existing power structures in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile the puppet is dancing ever more dangerous tunes including a move to share power with a warlord who is on the US terrorist list. Even so perhaps the US would be happy enough to strike him off the list if he would only join the Karzai govt. and accept the occupation..
Karzai Demands End to US Air Strikes
Record Toll of Farah Attack Renews Outrage Over Bombing Villages
by Jason Ditz, May 08, 2009
Ending his visit to the United States, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has demanded that the United States end its air strikes in his country, saying that the rising death toll was infuriating the public. “We believe strongly that airstrikes are not an effective way of fighting terrorism, that airstrikes rather cause civilian casualties,” Karzai declared.
Karzai has long been at odds, first with the Bush Administration and now with the Obama Administraiton, about the policy of air strikes launched in Afghanistan. The issue really came to a head this week, however, after an air strike against two villages in Farah Provinces killed 147 civilians, nearly doubling the previous record for most civilians killed in a single attack.
President Obama has promised, as the previous administration so often did, to “be more careful” about not slaughtering hundreds of civilians with US air power. Yet less than nine months after officials were promising much the same policy changes when the Herat strike had killed 90 civilians, the most striking thing is how little has actually changed.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Gaza is Israel's Warsaw.
This article shows the power of the Israel Lobby. What is so disheartening is that instead of university authorities resisting the lobby they often co-operate with them doing a great deal of damage to academic freedom in the USA. I have often noticed that the media in Israel is often much more critical of Israeli policy than the mass media in the US. Haaretz often writes articles that would bring down the wrath of the Israel lobby down upon them if they had originated in the US mass media!
Gaza is Israel's Warsaw
Zionist Lobby Targets Another Tenured Professor
By Doug Henwood
May 05, 2009 "Counterpunch" -- Doug Henwood: We're now joined by William Robinson, who is a Professor of Sociology at the University of California in Santa Barbara, someone I met about six or seven years ago at a conference and, although I've disagreed with him on some issues, I though he's a serious and thoughtful guy. I was very distressed to learn, reading Insider Higher Ed, the website, today that he's being persecuted by the Zionist lobby for an e-mail that he sent around to some of his students. Welcome William Robinson, tell us the story of what you sent and what's been happening.
William Robinson: Yes, good afternoon to everyone. I included some material which was highly critical of the Israeli invasion of Gaza as part of the reading material for a course on globalization and global affairs, and this was in January. And I am now facing charges, here at the university, of anti-semitism and violating the faculty code of conduct because two students in the course - there were eighty students - these two submitted a formal letter of complaint that they found offensive the material condemning the invasion of Gaza. The students immediately withdrew from the course, I don't even know them personally. And what is particularly egregious about this case is not that the students submitted a complaint - any student is allowed to do that - but rather that the university took the complaint seriously and is actually prosecuting me...
DH: You have tenure right?
WR: Yes, I am tenured, I am a full time professor...
DH: So in theory you're protected against persecution for your beliefs.
WR: No, in theory, I have total, I and even if I don't have tenure, have academic freedom, and this is in total violation of my academic freedom and of all of the principles of academic freedom, and of the university's own charter on academic freedom, and the American Association of University Professors principles and procedures on academic freedom, so there is absolutely no basis for any of this. What's going on, and I want to explain, behind the scenes we have been able to find out - students on campus and faculty have formed a Committee to Defend Academic Freedom which is taking up this issue, and by the way, there is a blog that they put up with all of this information, which at some point I would like to give your listeners - but we have found out that the Anti-Defamation League, which, as you know, and your listeners probably know, is an organization which, at one time, did very good and very important work in denouncing anti-Semitism, but since then has become a, basically, a mouthpiece for the Israeli government, a defender of the policies and practices of the Israeli state, and goes after and attacks anyone that criticizes those policies. So these students did not even accuse me of doing anything which we would consider anti-Semitism - discrimination against Jews, against the Jewish religion and so forth - they said openly and outright that the professor introduces material which criticized the state of Israel and that equals anti-semitism.
DH: Now, I think some people found offensive that you had likened Israeli behavior to the Nazis. Is that an issue?
WR: Well I didn't do that. What I did was I forwarded several items from the world media, from the internet media. One item was an article written by a Jewish journalist in a Jewish newspaper here in the United States, and it was criticizing the invasion of Gaza...
DH: So you didn't endorse this position?
WR: I didn't endorse it but I did include, I said, in presenting this material, I said that Gaza is Israel's Warsaw and I explained the context. That's because in Warsaw the Nazi's surrounded Warsaw, concentrated Jews in Warsaw, wouldn't let anyone in, wouldn't let anyone out, wouldn't let supplies in, wouldn't let supplies out; as a result there was famine and disease and so forth...
DH: Which is exactly what's...
WR: ...exactly and precisely what the Israeli's are doing in Gaza. And that's been denounced by the Red Cross, the United Nations, the international human rights organizations, and moreover, academic freedom totally allows me to present such controversial material and that's part of what the university is all about. We academically debate these controversial issues. I want to explain though what happened. We got some inside information in the last week. The president of the Anti-Defamation League Abraham Fox-...
DH: Foxman
WR: Foxman, he arrived here in Santa Barbara and he called a meeting with a select group of faculty, and he called the meeting for no other reason than to say that we want Professor Robinson prosecuted, and this is explosive. We have just learned about this; we're going to go public with it. And so there is this outside Israel lobby which has come on to campus, and which is accusing me of anti- Semitism and of doing all of these terrible things in order to create an atmosphere of complete intimidation. You know that anyone who criticizes the policies of the state of Israel is silenced, and is given that label of anti-smitism; that's a way of creating this atmosphere of intimidation, that no one can speak out about what's going on in Israel-Palestine, and so forth. That's the larger context.
DH: Ok, I'm sorry to make this so rushed, but this is a last minute addition and the rest of the show is full, just let me conclude...What can people do?
WR: [Go to] sb4af.wordpress.com. That's the blog that the Committee to Defend Academic Freedom has set up, and a lot of this information is on there, a lot of the documents are on there.
DH: All right, well thank you William Robinson and best of luck in your fight and we'll be back to look at this in the future.
WR: Thank-you, thank-you very much.
DH: I've been speaking with William Robinson, who is a professor of sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, under persecution by the intellectual police at the Zionist lobby, the Anti-Defamation League.
Doug Henwood is the editor of the Left Business Observer and host of WBAI's Behind the News.
Gaza is Israel's Warsaw
Zionist Lobby Targets Another Tenured Professor
By Doug Henwood
May 05, 2009 "Counterpunch" -- Doug Henwood: We're now joined by William Robinson, who is a Professor of Sociology at the University of California in Santa Barbara, someone I met about six or seven years ago at a conference and, although I've disagreed with him on some issues, I though he's a serious and thoughtful guy. I was very distressed to learn, reading Insider Higher Ed, the website, today that he's being persecuted by the Zionist lobby for an e-mail that he sent around to some of his students. Welcome William Robinson, tell us the story of what you sent and what's been happening.
William Robinson: Yes, good afternoon to everyone. I included some material which was highly critical of the Israeli invasion of Gaza as part of the reading material for a course on globalization and global affairs, and this was in January. And I am now facing charges, here at the university, of anti-semitism and violating the faculty code of conduct because two students in the course - there were eighty students - these two submitted a formal letter of complaint that they found offensive the material condemning the invasion of Gaza. The students immediately withdrew from the course, I don't even know them personally. And what is particularly egregious about this case is not that the students submitted a complaint - any student is allowed to do that - but rather that the university took the complaint seriously and is actually prosecuting me...
DH: You have tenure right?
WR: Yes, I am tenured, I am a full time professor...
DH: So in theory you're protected against persecution for your beliefs.
WR: No, in theory, I have total, I and even if I don't have tenure, have academic freedom, and this is in total violation of my academic freedom and of all of the principles of academic freedom, and of the university's own charter on academic freedom, and the American Association of University Professors principles and procedures on academic freedom, so there is absolutely no basis for any of this. What's going on, and I want to explain, behind the scenes we have been able to find out - students on campus and faculty have formed a Committee to Defend Academic Freedom which is taking up this issue, and by the way, there is a blog that they put up with all of this information, which at some point I would like to give your listeners - but we have found out that the Anti-Defamation League, which, as you know, and your listeners probably know, is an organization which, at one time, did very good and very important work in denouncing anti-Semitism, but since then has become a, basically, a mouthpiece for the Israeli government, a defender of the policies and practices of the Israeli state, and goes after and attacks anyone that criticizes those policies. So these students did not even accuse me of doing anything which we would consider anti-Semitism - discrimination against Jews, against the Jewish religion and so forth - they said openly and outright that the professor introduces material which criticized the state of Israel and that equals anti-semitism.
DH: Now, I think some people found offensive that you had likened Israeli behavior to the Nazis. Is that an issue?
WR: Well I didn't do that. What I did was I forwarded several items from the world media, from the internet media. One item was an article written by a Jewish journalist in a Jewish newspaper here in the United States, and it was criticizing the invasion of Gaza...
DH: So you didn't endorse this position?
WR: I didn't endorse it but I did include, I said, in presenting this material, I said that Gaza is Israel's Warsaw and I explained the context. That's because in Warsaw the Nazi's surrounded Warsaw, concentrated Jews in Warsaw, wouldn't let anyone in, wouldn't let anyone out, wouldn't let supplies in, wouldn't let supplies out; as a result there was famine and disease and so forth...
DH: Which is exactly what's...
WR: ...exactly and precisely what the Israeli's are doing in Gaza. And that's been denounced by the Red Cross, the United Nations, the international human rights organizations, and moreover, academic freedom totally allows me to present such controversial material and that's part of what the university is all about. We academically debate these controversial issues. I want to explain though what happened. We got some inside information in the last week. The president of the Anti-Defamation League Abraham Fox-...
DH: Foxman
WR: Foxman, he arrived here in Santa Barbara and he called a meeting with a select group of faculty, and he called the meeting for no other reason than to say that we want Professor Robinson prosecuted, and this is explosive. We have just learned about this; we're going to go public with it. And so there is this outside Israel lobby which has come on to campus, and which is accusing me of anti- Semitism and of doing all of these terrible things in order to create an atmosphere of complete intimidation. You know that anyone who criticizes the policies of the state of Israel is silenced, and is given that label of anti-smitism; that's a way of creating this atmosphere of intimidation, that no one can speak out about what's going on in Israel-Palestine, and so forth. That's the larger context.
DH: Ok, I'm sorry to make this so rushed, but this is a last minute addition and the rest of the show is full, just let me conclude...What can people do?
WR: [Go to] sb4af.wordpress.com. That's the blog that the Committee to Defend Academic Freedom has set up, and a lot of this information is on there, a lot of the documents are on there.
DH: All right, well thank you William Robinson and best of luck in your fight and we'll be back to look at this in the future.
WR: Thank-you, thank-you very much.
DH: I've been speaking with William Robinson, who is a professor of sociology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, under persecution by the intellectual police at the Zionist lobby, the Anti-Defamation League.
Doug Henwood is the editor of the Left Business Observer and host of WBAI's Behind the News.
Raimondo: The Spies who got away.
This article shows the power of AIPAC in the U.S. On the whole the mainstream media rarely gives much coverage to the issue of Israeli spying although surprisingly as this article mentions Fox news did have a series on the issue. The Harman episode was covered briefly but then dropped like a hot potato since it reflects badly on the Democrats.
The co-conspirator got 12 years in jail making it clear that the activity was considered criminal by the courts. As usual one of the main reasons for dropping the case is national security.
Antiwar.com Original - http://original.antiwar.com -
The Spies Who Got Away
Posted By Justin Raimondo
After five years of legal maneuvering and orchestrated protests from the Lobby’s amen corner, Israel’s point men in Washington have finally succeeded in their efforts to quash the prosecution of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, who had been charged with committing espionage on behalf of Israel. It is a victory that not only signals the continuation of the Lobby’s dominance in Washington, in spite of growing popular revulsion against lobbyists in general, but also gives the Israelis a blank check to spy on their American patrons to their hearts’ content.
The hosannas being sung by the Lobby’s media echo chamber – the Washington Post, the neocon blogosphere, and the official conservative movement represented by National Review and the Weekly Standard – are all about "vindication." That is the word used by Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s Israel-centric columnist, to describe the decision to drop the charges, but – as usual – his interpretation of the facts leaves much to be desired.
The statement [.pdf] from the prosecutors avers that the case was dropped due to the success of the "graymail" strategy pursued by the defense. The government had to consider "the likelihood that classified information will be revealed at trial, any damage to the national security that might result from a disclosure of classified information and the likelihood the government would prevail at trial," as well as the "changed landscape" of the case, a reference to the many rulings by judge T.S. Ellis that forced prosecutors to delay going to trial for five years.
After a long, drawn-out process of legal back-and-forth, the judge had set up the trial as a veritable three-ring circus, upholding defense subpoenas issued to such notables as Condoleezza Rice, Stephen J. Hadley, and a whole host of former and current U.S. government officials, who would have been dragged into the courtroom and closely questioned about highly classified intelligence matters. Ellis also granted defense motions to include a wide range of classified information, including documents – the idea being to make the U.S. government spill the secrets the Israelis stole, via Rosen, Weissman, and their co-conspirator Larry Franklin, a former top analyst at the Pentagon whose specialty is Iran.
Franklin pled guilty to espionage charges in 2005 and was sentenced to 12 years in the hoosegow plus a substantial fine. His handlers, however, have escaped, not only unscathed but hailed by the Lobby and its friends as persecuted heroes. Yet the confession, conviction, and sentencing of Franklin stand as the perfect rebuke to the AIPACers’ claims of "vindication." If no crime was committed, then why not free Franklin? This is precisely what his defenders have advocated, yet it won’t happen for the very good reason that the charges against Franklin stand, along with his confession and his punishment, as testimony to the fact that a real crime was indeed committed.
One merely has to read the indictment to see that: at one clandestine rendezvous of the Rosen-Weissman-Franklin spy cell, they moved the venue to three different restaurants in the course of a single meeting. They were afraid – rightly, as it turned out – they were being followed, because they knew they were committing a crime.
Yet this knowledge, according to the judge in this case, wasn’t enough to establish their guilt. What government prosecutors had to prove, Ellis ruled, is that the defendants intended to harm the U.S. and its national security interests, consciously and deliberately, a uniquely narrow standard that doesn’t seem to apply to any other statute on the books. The closest is "hate crimes" legislation, which purports to read the minds of the perpetrators of violent acts and directly perceive their motives. The Ellis doctrine, if you will, applied to laws against espionage means the subjective perceptions of the accused, not their objectively verifiable actions, are the key to determining whether or not a crime has been committed.
Did Rosen and Weissman hand over top-secret U.S. intelligence to Israeli government officials, yes or no? Well, yes, but… they thought they were defending the "real" interests of the U.S. by doing so, since, as we all know, U.S. and Israeli interests are always and forever identical. From this perspective, Rosen, Weissman, and certainly Franklin were just misguided "idealists" who perhaps went a little too far, but their hearts, after all, were in the right place.
What this decision means is that espionage has been legalized, for all intents and purposes, as long as it is engaged in by Israel – and not, say, Iran, Russia, or China – and insofar as these fifth columnists-cum-lobbyists take pains to argue that they’re doing it for our own good.
This was precisely the argument made by Franklin’s lawyers before he made a deal with the government to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for leniency: that he handed over classified information to Rosen, Weissman, and at least two Israeli government officials, out of "patriotism," because he thought U.S. policy wasn’t pro-Israel enough. Judge Ellis displayed his sympathy for this "misguided idealist" ploy when he commended Franklin [.pdf] for having the purest of motives even as he handed down the sentence.
If we look at the concerted efforts undertaken by the Israelis and their American adjunct organizations to influence U.S. policymaking, especially when it comes to the Middle East, as a covert action operation – a focused campaign involving both Israeli and American components – then it surely has to go down in the annals of spycraft as one of the most successful in history. The consequence of this case is that Israeli agents – of whatever citizenship status – can now move freely over the boundaries between lobbying and espionage, with nary a worry about being held accountable.
Israeli spying in the U.S. is a subject the American media has not dared cover. Except for Antiwar.com and a few other sources, coverage of the Rosen-Weissman case has been sketchy to nonexistent. It wasn’t until the Harman affair blew up in the Lobby’s face and captured headlines for a while that anyone even remembered it: in the news business, five years is an eternity.
Yet the significance of this case and its far-reaching implications for U.S.-Israeli relations would seem to dictate a different level of coverage. That famous four-part Fox News report on the surprising extent of Israel’s covert activities in the U.S. underscores the dangers of granting this type of access – particularly when it seems to be almost entirely a one-way deal.
In addition, the dismissal of all charges against Rosen and Weissman means that the rest of the spooks who haunt Washington will be further emboldened. After all, if it is okay for the Israelis to mine the corridors of power for vital U.S. secrets, then why not them? Whether the Justice Department will give the Chinese, say, the same sort of kid-gloves treatment as is now being afforded to Israel’s American agents remains to be seen. Somehow, I doubt it, yet one wonders how they’ll go about legalizing such a glaring double-standard.
Espionage in an ordinary state is an easily recognizable crime: it involves stealing closely guarded information, which the government classifies as "top secret," and passing it on to foreign governments, deliberately and with aforethought. The U.S., however, is no ordinary state. Washington, D.C., is the Imperial City, the capital of a world empire, where the trading of insider information is the chief industry. With foreign lobbyists gathered at the foot of the throne, all clamoring for attention, any and every means to gain favor and influence at court is used, and then some. The Americans, who decide the fate of nations with a single decree, find themselves invaded by supplicants whose methods are increasingly aggressive – and successful. To be besieged by them is part of the price of empire.
As Garet Garrett warned half a century ago: "There is no security at the top of the world" – no, not even when it comes to guarding the nation’s most closely held secrets. We have become, as Garrett predicted, a prisoner of our own satellites: "No Empire is secure in itself," he wrote, in 1952, "its security is in the hands of its allies." In the case of our increasingly troublesome ally, Israel, this is now literally true: in dropping the charges against Rosen and Weissman – and allowing AIPAC, the organization for which they worked and which served as a cover for illegal activities, to function without registering as a foreign agent – we have handed them the keys to the safe deposit box wherein our most vital secrets lie.
The decision to drop this case was clearly made at the top, not by the local prosecutors. Indeed, there was reportedly an energetic internal debate. The lawyers for Rosen and Weissman, for their part, clearly credited the Obama administration for the decision to quash the case, as the Washington Post reported:
"Lawyers for Rosen and Weissman attributed the withdrawal of the case in part to the Obama administration. ‘We are extremely grateful that this new administration … has taken seriously their obligation to evaluate cases on the merits,’ the lawyers, Abbe D. Lowell, John Nassikas, and Baruch Weiss, said in a statement."
While there is no direct evidence of any involvement by the White House, we have every reason to take this statement at face value. The idea that this was a decision made solely by prosecutors, over the strenuous objections of the FBI agents on this case, is further debunked by a New York Times account, which pointedly qualified routine denials of political interference:
"Several other officials said, however, that while senior political appointees at the Justice Department did not direct subordinates to drop the case, they were heavily involved in the deliberations. These officials said David S. Kris, the newly appointed chief of the department’s national security division, and Dana J. Boente, the interim United States attorney in Alexandria, had conferred regularly with prosecutors and ultimately decided to accept the recommendation to abandon the case. Attorney General Eric H. Holder was informed and raised no objections."
Whether this case was dropped because it became a trading card in Obama’s increasingly contentious relations with the Israelis or because it was the victim of Israel’s increasingly aggressive intervention in American politics we’ll leave for future historians to decide. What is clear, at this point, is that it is now effectively legal for AIPAC and its allies to function quite openly as an intelligence-gathering entity for the Israeli state. The line between lobbying and espionage has been erased, at least as far as Israel’s activities in the U.S. are concerned.
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The co-conspirator got 12 years in jail making it clear that the activity was considered criminal by the courts. As usual one of the main reasons for dropping the case is national security.
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The Spies Who Got Away
Posted By Justin Raimondo
After five years of legal maneuvering and orchestrated protests from the Lobby’s amen corner, Israel’s point men in Washington have finally succeeded in their efforts to quash the prosecution of Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, who had been charged with committing espionage on behalf of Israel. It is a victory that not only signals the continuation of the Lobby’s dominance in Washington, in spite of growing popular revulsion against lobbyists in general, but also gives the Israelis a blank check to spy on their American patrons to their hearts’ content.
The hosannas being sung by the Lobby’s media echo chamber – the Washington Post, the neocon blogosphere, and the official conservative movement represented by National Review and the Weekly Standard – are all about "vindication." That is the word used by Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s Israel-centric columnist, to describe the decision to drop the charges, but – as usual – his interpretation of the facts leaves much to be desired.
The statement [.pdf] from the prosecutors avers that the case was dropped due to the success of the "graymail" strategy pursued by the defense. The government had to consider "the likelihood that classified information will be revealed at trial, any damage to the national security that might result from a disclosure of classified information and the likelihood the government would prevail at trial," as well as the "changed landscape" of the case, a reference to the many rulings by judge T.S. Ellis that forced prosecutors to delay going to trial for five years.
After a long, drawn-out process of legal back-and-forth, the judge had set up the trial as a veritable three-ring circus, upholding defense subpoenas issued to such notables as Condoleezza Rice, Stephen J. Hadley, and a whole host of former and current U.S. government officials, who would have been dragged into the courtroom and closely questioned about highly classified intelligence matters. Ellis also granted defense motions to include a wide range of classified information, including documents – the idea being to make the U.S. government spill the secrets the Israelis stole, via Rosen, Weissman, and their co-conspirator Larry Franklin, a former top analyst at the Pentagon whose specialty is Iran.
Franklin pled guilty to espionage charges in 2005 and was sentenced to 12 years in the hoosegow plus a substantial fine. His handlers, however, have escaped, not only unscathed but hailed by the Lobby and its friends as persecuted heroes. Yet the confession, conviction, and sentencing of Franklin stand as the perfect rebuke to the AIPACers’ claims of "vindication." If no crime was committed, then why not free Franklin? This is precisely what his defenders have advocated, yet it won’t happen for the very good reason that the charges against Franklin stand, along with his confession and his punishment, as testimony to the fact that a real crime was indeed committed.
One merely has to read the indictment to see that: at one clandestine rendezvous of the Rosen-Weissman-Franklin spy cell, they moved the venue to three different restaurants in the course of a single meeting. They were afraid – rightly, as it turned out – they were being followed, because they knew they were committing a crime.
Yet this knowledge, according to the judge in this case, wasn’t enough to establish their guilt. What government prosecutors had to prove, Ellis ruled, is that the defendants intended to harm the U.S. and its national security interests, consciously and deliberately, a uniquely narrow standard that doesn’t seem to apply to any other statute on the books. The closest is "hate crimes" legislation, which purports to read the minds of the perpetrators of violent acts and directly perceive their motives. The Ellis doctrine, if you will, applied to laws against espionage means the subjective perceptions of the accused, not their objectively verifiable actions, are the key to determining whether or not a crime has been committed.
Did Rosen and Weissman hand over top-secret U.S. intelligence to Israeli government officials, yes or no? Well, yes, but… they thought they were defending the "real" interests of the U.S. by doing so, since, as we all know, U.S. and Israeli interests are always and forever identical. From this perspective, Rosen, Weissman, and certainly Franklin were just misguided "idealists" who perhaps went a little too far, but their hearts, after all, were in the right place.
What this decision means is that espionage has been legalized, for all intents and purposes, as long as it is engaged in by Israel – and not, say, Iran, Russia, or China – and insofar as these fifth columnists-cum-lobbyists take pains to argue that they’re doing it for our own good.
This was precisely the argument made by Franklin’s lawyers before he made a deal with the government to cooperate with prosecutors in exchange for leniency: that he handed over classified information to Rosen, Weissman, and at least two Israeli government officials, out of "patriotism," because he thought U.S. policy wasn’t pro-Israel enough. Judge Ellis displayed his sympathy for this "misguided idealist" ploy when he commended Franklin [.pdf] for having the purest of motives even as he handed down the sentence.
If we look at the concerted efforts undertaken by the Israelis and their American adjunct organizations to influence U.S. policymaking, especially when it comes to the Middle East, as a covert action operation – a focused campaign involving both Israeli and American components – then it surely has to go down in the annals of spycraft as one of the most successful in history. The consequence of this case is that Israeli agents – of whatever citizenship status – can now move freely over the boundaries between lobbying and espionage, with nary a worry about being held accountable.
Israeli spying in the U.S. is a subject the American media has not dared cover. Except for Antiwar.com and a few other sources, coverage of the Rosen-Weissman case has been sketchy to nonexistent. It wasn’t until the Harman affair blew up in the Lobby’s face and captured headlines for a while that anyone even remembered it: in the news business, five years is an eternity.
Yet the significance of this case and its far-reaching implications for U.S.-Israeli relations would seem to dictate a different level of coverage. That famous four-part Fox News report on the surprising extent of Israel’s covert activities in the U.S. underscores the dangers of granting this type of access – particularly when it seems to be almost entirely a one-way deal.
In addition, the dismissal of all charges against Rosen and Weissman means that the rest of the spooks who haunt Washington will be further emboldened. After all, if it is okay for the Israelis to mine the corridors of power for vital U.S. secrets, then why not them? Whether the Justice Department will give the Chinese, say, the same sort of kid-gloves treatment as is now being afforded to Israel’s American agents remains to be seen. Somehow, I doubt it, yet one wonders how they’ll go about legalizing such a glaring double-standard.
Espionage in an ordinary state is an easily recognizable crime: it involves stealing closely guarded information, which the government classifies as "top secret," and passing it on to foreign governments, deliberately and with aforethought. The U.S., however, is no ordinary state. Washington, D.C., is the Imperial City, the capital of a world empire, where the trading of insider information is the chief industry. With foreign lobbyists gathered at the foot of the throne, all clamoring for attention, any and every means to gain favor and influence at court is used, and then some. The Americans, who decide the fate of nations with a single decree, find themselves invaded by supplicants whose methods are increasingly aggressive – and successful. To be besieged by them is part of the price of empire.
As Garet Garrett warned half a century ago: "There is no security at the top of the world" – no, not even when it comes to guarding the nation’s most closely held secrets. We have become, as Garrett predicted, a prisoner of our own satellites: "No Empire is secure in itself," he wrote, in 1952, "its security is in the hands of its allies." In the case of our increasingly troublesome ally, Israel, this is now literally true: in dropping the charges against Rosen and Weissman – and allowing AIPAC, the organization for which they worked and which served as a cover for illegal activities, to function without registering as a foreign agent – we have handed them the keys to the safe deposit box wherein our most vital secrets lie.
The decision to drop this case was clearly made at the top, not by the local prosecutors. Indeed, there was reportedly an energetic internal debate. The lawyers for Rosen and Weissman, for their part, clearly credited the Obama administration for the decision to quash the case, as the Washington Post reported:
"Lawyers for Rosen and Weissman attributed the withdrawal of the case in part to the Obama administration. ‘We are extremely grateful that this new administration … has taken seriously their obligation to evaluate cases on the merits,’ the lawyers, Abbe D. Lowell, John Nassikas, and Baruch Weiss, said in a statement."
While there is no direct evidence of any involvement by the White House, we have every reason to take this statement at face value. The idea that this was a decision made solely by prosecutors, over the strenuous objections of the FBI agents on this case, is further debunked by a New York Times account, which pointedly qualified routine denials of political interference:
"Several other officials said, however, that while senior political appointees at the Justice Department did not direct subordinates to drop the case, they were heavily involved in the deliberations. These officials said David S. Kris, the newly appointed chief of the department’s national security division, and Dana J. Boente, the interim United States attorney in Alexandria, had conferred regularly with prosecutors and ultimately decided to accept the recommendation to abandon the case. Attorney General Eric H. Holder was informed and raised no objections."
Whether this case was dropped because it became a trading card in Obama’s increasingly contentious relations with the Israelis or because it was the victim of Israel’s increasingly aggressive intervention in American politics we’ll leave for future historians to decide. What is clear, at this point, is that it is now effectively legal for AIPAC and its allies to function quite openly as an intelligence-gathering entity for the Israeli state. The line between lobbying and espionage has been erased, at least as far as Israel’s activities in the U.S. are concerned.
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Israel enraged by UN Gaza report
This is hardly a surprise. Israel hates the UN with a vengeance. Of course it routinely ignores UN resolutions without suffering any consequences. Israel of course refused to co-operate with the UN investigation.
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Israel ‘Enraged’ by UN Gaza Report
Posted By Jason Ditz On May 5, 2009 @ 6:38 pm
The Israeli Foreign Ministry is reportedly “enraged” tonight, after the United Nations released a report regarding its attacks on UN facilities in the Gaza Strip during this year’s war. The inquiry accused Israel of “gross negligence and recklessness” in the attacks.
The most high profile attack in perhaps the entire war, which killed nearly 1,000 Palestinian civilians, was when Israeli mortars attacked the UN’s al-Fahoura school in the Jabalya refugee camp. Israel initially claimed that the facility was being used by Hamas, but changed their story several times in the days that followed, but never really settled on any single official story. At this point, the official line appears to be simply that criticizing the attack is inherently biased.
Israel had previously declined to cooperate with the United Nations on any Gaza probes, and said it would not allow a delegation of investigators to even enter the country. The Israeli military briefly had a probe of their own, but abandoned it insisting that all the evidence of civilian deaths in the war was “based on hearsay.”
The Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip was cheered at the time by the United States Congress, and many of the weapons used by the Israeli military in the war were provided by the US. Indeed, one of Israel’s official explanations for the attack on the UN school blamed a faulty US-supplied smart bomb. State Department spokesman Robert Wood cautioned against “politicization” of the report’s findings.
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Israel ‘Enraged’ by UN Gaza Report
Posted By Jason Ditz On May 5, 2009 @ 6:38 pm
The Israeli Foreign Ministry is reportedly “enraged” tonight, after the United Nations released a report regarding its attacks on UN facilities in the Gaza Strip during this year’s war. The inquiry accused Israel of “gross negligence and recklessness” in the attacks.
The most high profile attack in perhaps the entire war, which killed nearly 1,000 Palestinian civilians, was when Israeli mortars attacked the UN’s al-Fahoura school in the Jabalya refugee camp. Israel initially claimed that the facility was being used by Hamas, but changed their story several times in the days that followed, but never really settled on any single official story. At this point, the official line appears to be simply that criticizing the attack is inherently biased.
Israel had previously declined to cooperate with the United Nations on any Gaza probes, and said it would not allow a delegation of investigators to even enter the country. The Israeli military briefly had a probe of their own, but abandoned it insisting that all the evidence of civilian deaths in the war was “based on hearsay.”
The Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip was cheered at the time by the United States Congress, and many of the weapons used by the Israeli military in the war were provided by the US. Indeed, one of Israel’s official explanations for the attack on the UN school blamed a faulty US-supplied smart bomb. State Department spokesman Robert Wood cautioned against “politicization” of the report’s findings.
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Friday, May 8, 2009
Democracy at Gunpoint Guarantees U.S. defeat in Afghanistan
This is from Information Clearing House.
Of course the U.S. knows there is a problem with the easily permeable frontier with Pakistan. The US has finally been successful it seems in getting the Pakistani armed forces to try to defeat the Taliban in the border areas. Of course this may simply produce more problems but then most of the suffering and casualties will be Pakistanis so it will not concern the US especially if the attacks are successful. It seems they will be sucessful in effect creating a civil war in Pakistan perhaps resulting in a military government and certainly a humanitarian disaster as tens of thousands leave the battle areas. Of course the Taliban will be at work in the refugee camps recruiting for their cause.
Democracy at Gunpoint Guarantees U.S. Defeat
By William Pfaff
May 06, 2009 "Truthdig" -- An account from the Taliban side of the Afghanistan war, which was published in the New York Times on May 5, provides devastating evidence of the failure that almost certainly will eventually overtake the United States and NATO. It is a long interview with a young Taliban "logistics tactician" who has been speaking with Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah of the Times for many months about the Taliban view of the war, and about what he sees as their inevitable victory.
It amounts to an implicit challenge to the "democracy development" strategy adopted by the Pentagon and the Bush administration, and that now seems the policy of the Obama government as well. It is a strategy that assures a very "long war."
This strategy, overall, is described by one of its American critics as "to install democracy at gunpoint inside failed or backward societies, along with unrealistic security guarantees to states and people of marginal strategic interest to the U.S." (The critic is Douglas MacGregor, a retired army officer, in an article entitled "Refusing Battle," in the April Armed Forces Journal. It’s to be recommended.)
"Refusing battle" simply means not fighting battles and wars you know you will lose. This is what the Times article confirms that the United States has again done, in Afghanistan as it did in Vietnam. In Afghanistan it is fighting a guerilla war in which it has left to the enemy the choice, timing, and location of battle, as well as a permanent option of withdrawal and dispersion.
The implications of the Taliban interview will be resisted by American commanders on the scene, professionally committed to their faith in victory, and conservative political observers in the United States, who believe that having second thoughts is weakness.
The implication of what the Taliban says is simple and convincing: that it will be impossible for the U.S. and NATO to win a war in Afghanistan in which the enemy is based on the other side of what is for them an easily permeable frontier between Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Northwest Pakistan, but which is for American and NATO forces politically impregnable.
This is classical guerrilla warfare against regular forces. The guerrillas operate with (in this case) almost perfect intelligence concerning NATO troops. They are highly mobile and reactive and possess a refuge where they are vulnerable only to attack by rocket-firing drone (unmanned) aircraft, since the main, ground-based NATO/ U.S. forces cannot reach them.
The Pakistan government and army forbid American and NATO intrusion into their country. The United States in the past has scarcely been a scrupulous observer of foreign sovereignties, and the Bush administration declared its policy commitment to aggressive and preemptive attack wherever it chose. However, the United States today needs Pakistan.
It is inhibited not only by Pakistani sovereignty and by international law, but by military and political realities. The mobility of Taliban forces allows them to move as far into Pakistan as necessary to escape ground attack, and to disperse against air attack. Another inhibition is the character of the population of the region, where Pathan civilians are scarcely distinguishable from the Pathan Taliban, and all are ferociously hostile to foreign intrusion and air bombardment.
The anonymous subject of the interview acknowledges the strength of American forces, soon to be reinforced, but says, "The Americans cannot take control of the villages. In order to expel us they will have to resort to aerial bombing, and then they will have more civilian casualties."
The American authorities can see this as well as anyone else, and they have a new strategy, which will be implemented with the arrival of U.S. reinforcements. It is an adaptation of Gen. David Petraeus’ policy in Iraq of dividing the insurrection by hiring Sunni tribal militias to defend their own communities.
But it will ultimately rest – as in Iraq – upon an extremely doubtful long-term reliance on democracy development, of which we have heard much and seen little, since it assumes that a democratic society can be supplied by foreign military intervention. It is the recipe not for a long war, but for an unending one. The people of Afghanistan and Pakistan will in the end settle it, but only after the foreigners have gone home.
Visit William Pfaff’s Web site at www.williampfaff.com.
Of course the U.S. knows there is a problem with the easily permeable frontier with Pakistan. The US has finally been successful it seems in getting the Pakistani armed forces to try to defeat the Taliban in the border areas. Of course this may simply produce more problems but then most of the suffering and casualties will be Pakistanis so it will not concern the US especially if the attacks are successful. It seems they will be sucessful in effect creating a civil war in Pakistan perhaps resulting in a military government and certainly a humanitarian disaster as tens of thousands leave the battle areas. Of course the Taliban will be at work in the refugee camps recruiting for their cause.
Democracy at Gunpoint Guarantees U.S. Defeat
By William Pfaff
May 06, 2009 "Truthdig" -- An account from the Taliban side of the Afghanistan war, which was published in the New York Times on May 5, provides devastating evidence of the failure that almost certainly will eventually overtake the United States and NATO. It is a long interview with a young Taliban "logistics tactician" who has been speaking with Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah of the Times for many months about the Taliban view of the war, and about what he sees as their inevitable victory.
It amounts to an implicit challenge to the "democracy development" strategy adopted by the Pentagon and the Bush administration, and that now seems the policy of the Obama government as well. It is a strategy that assures a very "long war."
This strategy, overall, is described by one of its American critics as "to install democracy at gunpoint inside failed or backward societies, along with unrealistic security guarantees to states and people of marginal strategic interest to the U.S." (The critic is Douglas MacGregor, a retired army officer, in an article entitled "Refusing Battle," in the April Armed Forces Journal. It’s to be recommended.)
"Refusing battle" simply means not fighting battles and wars you know you will lose. This is what the Times article confirms that the United States has again done, in Afghanistan as it did in Vietnam. In Afghanistan it is fighting a guerilla war in which it has left to the enemy the choice, timing, and location of battle, as well as a permanent option of withdrawal and dispersion.
The implications of the Taliban interview will be resisted by American commanders on the scene, professionally committed to their faith in victory, and conservative political observers in the United States, who believe that having second thoughts is weakness.
The implication of what the Taliban says is simple and convincing: that it will be impossible for the U.S. and NATO to win a war in Afghanistan in which the enemy is based on the other side of what is for them an easily permeable frontier between Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Northwest Pakistan, but which is for American and NATO forces politically impregnable.
This is classical guerrilla warfare against regular forces. The guerrillas operate with (in this case) almost perfect intelligence concerning NATO troops. They are highly mobile and reactive and possess a refuge where they are vulnerable only to attack by rocket-firing drone (unmanned) aircraft, since the main, ground-based NATO/ U.S. forces cannot reach them.
The Pakistan government and army forbid American and NATO intrusion into their country. The United States in the past has scarcely been a scrupulous observer of foreign sovereignties, and the Bush administration declared its policy commitment to aggressive and preemptive attack wherever it chose. However, the United States today needs Pakistan.
It is inhibited not only by Pakistani sovereignty and by international law, but by military and political realities. The mobility of Taliban forces allows them to move as far into Pakistan as necessary to escape ground attack, and to disperse against air attack. Another inhibition is the character of the population of the region, where Pathan civilians are scarcely distinguishable from the Pathan Taliban, and all are ferociously hostile to foreign intrusion and air bombardment.
The anonymous subject of the interview acknowledges the strength of American forces, soon to be reinforced, but says, "The Americans cannot take control of the villages. In order to expel us they will have to resort to aerial bombing, and then they will have more civilian casualties."
The American authorities can see this as well as anyone else, and they have a new strategy, which will be implemented with the arrival of U.S. reinforcements. It is an adaptation of Gen. David Petraeus’ policy in Iraq of dividing the insurrection by hiring Sunni tribal militias to defend their own communities.
But it will ultimately rest – as in Iraq – upon an extremely doubtful long-term reliance on democracy development, of which we have heard much and seen little, since it assumes that a democratic society can be supplied by foreign military intervention. It is the recipe not for a long war, but for an unending one. The people of Afghanistan and Pakistan will in the end settle it, but only after the foreigners have gone home.
Visit William Pfaff’s Web site at www.williampfaff.com.
Taliban seize city in NorthWest Frontier Province
As this article notes the armed forces had tried before to defeat the Taliban in this area and had not been successful. Now they are creating a humanitarian disaster and the peace deal is done for as Taliban take over from local authorities. There is nothing but death and destruction for the near future. I understand that Pakistan is now imitating the US and using airstrikes to avoid armed forces casualties but of course inflicting untold collateral damage on their own citizens.
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Taliban Seize City as Up to 500,000 Civilians Flee
Posted By Jason Ditz On May 5, 2009 @ 7:35 pm In Uncategorized 1 Comment
The Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has reportedly wrested control of the Swat Valley’s largest town, Mingora, from the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) government and Pakistani security forces. The move comes just one day after the group announced that it was formally withdrawing from the controversial Swat Valley peace deal in response to ongoing military offensives in and around the valley.
With the truce apparently in ruins civilians are leaving the region, once a popular tourist destination, in droves and as many as 500,000 have reportedly already left their homes. Reports of indiscriminate shelling by the military and use of human shields by the militants are rampant, and the once sleepy valley is now one of the deadliest warzones on the planet.
The peace deal began to unravel when the government, alarmed by a growing militant presence in the Buner district, launched offensives against the groups along the Swat Valley’s periphery. Since the TTP began to retaliate in earnest they have managed to capture several towns outright and spokesman Muslim Khan says they control around 90 percent of the valley at this point. It seems the government forgot that the initial reasoning behind the concessions it made in the Swat Valley deal was that it had tried, unsuccessfully, to defeat the militants militarily. With the groups even more dug in than ever, it seems hard to believe this round of offensives will be any more successful.
Copyright © 2009 News From Antiwar.com. All rights reserved.
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Taliban Seize City as Up to 500,000 Civilians Flee
Posted By Jason Ditz On May 5, 2009 @ 7:35 pm In Uncategorized 1 Comment
The Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has reportedly wrested control of the Swat Valley’s largest town, Mingora, from the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) government and Pakistani security forces. The move comes just one day after the group announced that it was formally withdrawing from the controversial Swat Valley peace deal in response to ongoing military offensives in and around the valley.
With the truce apparently in ruins civilians are leaving the region, once a popular tourist destination, in droves and as many as 500,000 have reportedly already left their homes. Reports of indiscriminate shelling by the military and use of human shields by the militants are rampant, and the once sleepy valley is now one of the deadliest warzones on the planet.
The peace deal began to unravel when the government, alarmed by a growing militant presence in the Buner district, launched offensives against the groups along the Swat Valley’s periphery. Since the TTP began to retaliate in earnest they have managed to capture several towns outright and spokesman Muslim Khan says they control around 90 percent of the valley at this point. It seems the government forgot that the initial reasoning behind the concessions it made in the Swat Valley deal was that it had tried, unsuccessfully, to defeat the militants militarily. With the groups even more dug in than ever, it seems hard to believe this round of offensives will be any more successful.
Copyright © 2009 News From Antiwar.com. All rights reserved.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
US strikes in Afghanistan kill 100 mostly civilians
The military as usual makes the Taliban responsible for the deaths. Of course in a sense this is true in that the Taliban retreat into civilian areas. However, it is also true that the strikes are surely made with the knowledge that many civilians will be collateral damage. This is in effect a message. If you don't drive out the Taliban you will die. Killing civilians is not an accident but part of a policy. Collateral damage is simply a euphemistic public relations term that relates to reality only as an excuse for what is inexcusable.
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US Strikes in Afghanistan Kill 100, Mostly Civilians
Posted By Jason Ditz On May 6, 2009 @ 7:35 am In Uncategorized Last updated 5/6 11:25 PM EST
Afghan police are saying today that over 100 people were killed in this week’s US air strike in Farah Province. 25 to 30 are suspected Taliban, while the vast majority were civilians. A Red Cross investigative team confirmed the findings, saying they had seen “dozens” of bodies in two separate locations and that civilians were still digging through the rubble of their mud-brick homes looking for others.
The US military is still conducting its own investigation of the killings, and President Obama has expressed “regret” for the deaths, promising (as has been so often the case) to make every effort to avoid a repeat. Yet General David McKiernan is not so certain, he and other officials are claiming that the entire incident may have been manufactured by the Taliban.
The incident stands as the largest civilian toll in Afghanistan since August, 2008, when the US killed at least 90 civilians in the neighboring Herat Province. In that case the US angrily denied the allegations for months, finally admitting to killing many civilians but insisting it was legitimate.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in Washington DC today for a summit with US President Obama and Pakistani President Zardari, has ordered his own probe into the incident, and promises to once again bring up the issue of mounting civilian casualties with Obama. Karzai’s repeated complaints about the massive civilian toll of the US operations has soured his relationship with the international forces, still prosecuting their already eight year long war with no end in sight.
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US Strikes in Afghanistan Kill 100, Mostly Civilians
Posted By Jason Ditz On May 6, 2009 @ 7:35 am In Uncategorized Last updated 5/6 11:25 PM EST
Afghan police are saying today that over 100 people were killed in this week’s US air strike in Farah Province. 25 to 30 are suspected Taliban, while the vast majority were civilians. A Red Cross investigative team confirmed the findings, saying they had seen “dozens” of bodies in two separate locations and that civilians were still digging through the rubble of their mud-brick homes looking for others.
The US military is still conducting its own investigation of the killings, and President Obama has expressed “regret” for the deaths, promising (as has been so often the case) to make every effort to avoid a repeat. Yet General David McKiernan is not so certain, he and other officials are claiming that the entire incident may have been manufactured by the Taliban.
The incident stands as the largest civilian toll in Afghanistan since August, 2008, when the US killed at least 90 civilians in the neighboring Herat Province. In that case the US angrily denied the allegations for months, finally admitting to killing many civilians but insisting it was legitimate.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in Washington DC today for a summit with US President Obama and Pakistani President Zardari, has ordered his own probe into the incident, and promises to once again bring up the issue of mounting civilian casualties with Obama. Karzai’s repeated complaints about the massive civilian toll of the US operations has soured his relationship with the international forces, still prosecuting their already eight year long war with no end in sight.
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Obama's Afghan-Ignorant Policy Guide: Scheuer
This is from antiwar.com.
While Scheuer claims the Afghans have governed Afghanistan for 2,000 years at least in the last one hundred or so it has mostly been what might be called a failed state with not much central power and the central power has often been colonial and unable to prevail over opposition and local warlords. First the British and then the Soviets and now the US with the help of NATO.
Scheuer is not correct to say that only nominal Islamists are welcome in the govt. In order to keep power Karzai has bowed to Islamist pressure. After all there is the death penalty for a Muslim converting to Christianity and the recent Sharia law bill on male sex rights in marriage that has caused such an outcry is a clear sign of renewed Islamic power. However Scheuer is right on in noting the failure of the self-righteous democratic humanistic imperialism characteristic of the Obama (and Bush) administration. The humanistic imperialistic strain seems more pronounced in the Obama administration no doubt part of the strong idealistic rhetoric characteristic of his whole campaign giving Americans the idea that they are moral leaders or should be on the global scene.
Obama’s Afghan-Ignorant Policy Guide
Posted By Michael Scheuer
With much ballyhooing, Bruce Riedel led a team that conducted the Obama administration’s "review" of Afghan policy. As is known, the team’s deliberations produced a wonder of either naiveté or stupidity, or perhaps both: 21,000 more U.S. troops to control a country the size of Texas, and a logistical system running vital U.S.-NATO resupply lines through hostile territory in Pakistan and – with Russia’s gleeful support for keeping America bleeding in Afghanistan – the Commonwealth of Independent States. The question must be asked how a man as intelligent as Riedel came up with a plan that amounts to massively reinforcing failure.
The answer lies, I fear, in Riedel’s eagerness to please Obama with a new plan and a deep faith in the rightness of U.S. interventionism. Trying to please the president is a trait so common in some former senior CIA officials jockeying for political sinecures that it hardly comes as a surprise; Riedel very effectively managed analysis on several Middle East issues during his Agency career.
What does surprise me, however, is Riedel’s clear ignorance of his Obama-assigned task, Afghanistan. Writing on the Brookings Institution Web site on April 30, 2009, Riedel bemoans the fact that America has not intervened more fully and aggressively in Afghanistan. In an article titled "Afghanistan: What Is at Stake?" Riedel writes,
"Twice in the last quarter century the United States has squandered great victories achieved in Afghanistan by failing to follow up battlefield success with an enduring and resourced commitment to helping to build a stable government in Afghanistan."
One wonders what Riedel is talking about. The United States has never won a war in Afghanistan. The war against the Red Army and the Afghan communists (1979-1992) was won by the Afghans – period. U.S. arms supplies helped them kill Russians more quickly and effectively, but they, not we, won the war. In the war that commenced in October 2001, we won one battle – that for control of the Afghan cities – but since late March 2002, we have been losing every step of the way. To his credit, Riedel says we are losing the current war. He also says "it is not yet lost." He is wrong; we have lost.
Another, more important point on which Riedel is dead wrong is in his repetition of the exceedingly durable but completely incorrect urban legend that Washington and the West abandoned Afghanistan after the Red Army withdrew. In the late 1980s, Riedel claims,
"U.S.-supported Afghan mujahedin defeated the Soviet 40th Red Army [sic]. … The mujahedin were badly divided, however, and quickly fell into civil war. The United States could have led an international effort to restore order and rallied key players like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to try to end the conflict. Instead, Afghanistan got virtually no attention from the White House or the Congress."
Riedel’s ignorance of what happened after the Red Army’s withdrawal is almost breathtaking, but such a misrepresentation of reality is politically requisite if anyone is to believe the new-but-doomed Afghan policy approved by Obama has a chance to succeed. One might have hoped that Riedel – who worked on Iraq in the years he is writing about – would have consulted one or more of his Afghan-experienced former colleagues for some factual background before taking up his pen. But then again, the facts would get in the way of justifying more U.S. intervention in Afghanistan.
Riedel argues that a viable post-Soviet Afghan government failed because the "mujahedin were badly divided," Western governments lost interest, and Washington did not seek Saudi and Pakistani involvement. This is palpable nonsense. The mujahedin were, are, and always will be "badly divided," but they still beat the Soviet superpower – as they are on the verge of beating the American superpower – and there is no doubt they eventually would have worked out governing arrangements compatible with Afghan history and society. The West tends to forget that the Afghans have been running their country for 2,000 years and have a bit more experience than we do in managing their tribal and ethnically diverse society.
From the perspective of Washington and its allies, the real post-Soviet trouble was that whatever regime the mujahedin built would not be the one we wanted; namely, one that included none of the Afghans who actually fought and bled to drive out the Soviets. Sadly, therefore, the U.S. government, many of its European allies (especially the UK, France, and Germany), and various UN organizations intervened fully and dictatorially in post-Soviet Afghan politics, thereby preventing any sort of genuine Afghan attempt at self-determination. And as they are today, the Saudis and Pakistanis were also fully involved in telling the Afghans what to do, and, just as today, their recommendations ran exactly counter to U.S. interests.
Notwithstanding Riedel’s assertions, in the late 1980s and early 1990s U.S., Western, and UN diplomats consistently tried to dictate to the Afghans what kind of government they should have. That troika wanted to staff the new secular and centralized Kabul regime with Afghan technocrats; secular Afghans who, like Hamid Karzai, spent the war safely in India, America, or Europe; "Gucci" mujahedin who were nominally Islamic, received wartime aid, but did no fighting; and even former members of the Afghan communist regime. In other words, all were welcome to join the new Western-mandated Afghan government except those who wore beards, carried AK-47s, were devoted Islamists, and fought to expel the Soviets.
In the immediate post-Soviet years, then, Washington spent tens of millions of dollars to try to form exactly the same type of strong and centralized Afghan government – the type of regime that historically causes war in Afghanistan – it is trying to form today. And in a lethally ironic case of déjà vu, the father of current Afghan President Karzai – a far more honorable and competent man than his son – was one of the West’s favorites, and he was guided by Zalmay Khalilzad, the same U.S. diplomat who has brought us the recent disasters in Kabul and Baghdad. In addition, the talented U.S. ambassadors Robert and Phyllis Oakley and Peter Tomsen led numbers of U.S. and UK bureaucrats, contractors, and NGOs into the country to teach Afghans the West’s democratic ways, as well as how to organize and administer national budgets, establish the rule of law, and create a strong central regime. This wildly misplaced intervention went so far as to bring in teams of American lawyers and judges to teach the Afghans a Westernized judicial system to replace what we knew was all that silly old Islamic and tribal stuff.
In the end, the U.S.-led, late-1980s democracy-building intervention in Afghanistan was all for naught, just as Obama’s new Afghan policy will be. The Afghans wanted no part of the secularism the U.S.-led West insisted on then, and they want none of what the U.S.-led coalition has on offer now. While the Afghans will accept medical aid for their kids, electrical generators, and tools for increasing potable water supplies, they will utterly reject and fight measures aimed at eliminating the traditional role of tribalism and Islam in their society in the name of secular democracy. Afghans, like all Muslims, make a clear distinction between the terms modernization and Westernization; they are eager for the former but will fight the latter to the death. For our future relations with the Islamic world, it is a fatal liability that we are so cocksure the two terms are synonyms.
One final point. Riedel is a senior fellow at the aggressively pro-Israel Brookings Institution. Is it just a coincidence that his very misleading article about the "need" for more and longer U.S. intervention in Afghanistan appears just a week after Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman identified Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq as the three main threats to Israel? I think not, and that is why America will either be defeated or still fighting, bleeding, and losing in Afghanistan and Iraq by Inauguration Day 2013.
Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.com
URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/scheuer/2009/05/05/obamas-afghan-ignorant-policy-guide/
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While Scheuer claims the Afghans have governed Afghanistan for 2,000 years at least in the last one hundred or so it has mostly been what might be called a failed state with not much central power and the central power has often been colonial and unable to prevail over opposition and local warlords. First the British and then the Soviets and now the US with the help of NATO.
Scheuer is not correct to say that only nominal Islamists are welcome in the govt. In order to keep power Karzai has bowed to Islamist pressure. After all there is the death penalty for a Muslim converting to Christianity and the recent Sharia law bill on male sex rights in marriage that has caused such an outcry is a clear sign of renewed Islamic power. However Scheuer is right on in noting the failure of the self-righteous democratic humanistic imperialism characteristic of the Obama (and Bush) administration. The humanistic imperialistic strain seems more pronounced in the Obama administration no doubt part of the strong idealistic rhetoric characteristic of his whole campaign giving Americans the idea that they are moral leaders or should be on the global scene.
Obama’s Afghan-Ignorant Policy Guide
Posted By Michael Scheuer
With much ballyhooing, Bruce Riedel led a team that conducted the Obama administration’s "review" of Afghan policy. As is known, the team’s deliberations produced a wonder of either naiveté or stupidity, or perhaps both: 21,000 more U.S. troops to control a country the size of Texas, and a logistical system running vital U.S.-NATO resupply lines through hostile territory in Pakistan and – with Russia’s gleeful support for keeping America bleeding in Afghanistan – the Commonwealth of Independent States. The question must be asked how a man as intelligent as Riedel came up with a plan that amounts to massively reinforcing failure.
The answer lies, I fear, in Riedel’s eagerness to please Obama with a new plan and a deep faith in the rightness of U.S. interventionism. Trying to please the president is a trait so common in some former senior CIA officials jockeying for political sinecures that it hardly comes as a surprise; Riedel very effectively managed analysis on several Middle East issues during his Agency career.
What does surprise me, however, is Riedel’s clear ignorance of his Obama-assigned task, Afghanistan. Writing on the Brookings Institution Web site on April 30, 2009, Riedel bemoans the fact that America has not intervened more fully and aggressively in Afghanistan. In an article titled "Afghanistan: What Is at Stake?" Riedel writes,
"Twice in the last quarter century the United States has squandered great victories achieved in Afghanistan by failing to follow up battlefield success with an enduring and resourced commitment to helping to build a stable government in Afghanistan."
One wonders what Riedel is talking about. The United States has never won a war in Afghanistan. The war against the Red Army and the Afghan communists (1979-1992) was won by the Afghans – period. U.S. arms supplies helped them kill Russians more quickly and effectively, but they, not we, won the war. In the war that commenced in October 2001, we won one battle – that for control of the Afghan cities – but since late March 2002, we have been losing every step of the way. To his credit, Riedel says we are losing the current war. He also says "it is not yet lost." He is wrong; we have lost.
Another, more important point on which Riedel is dead wrong is in his repetition of the exceedingly durable but completely incorrect urban legend that Washington and the West abandoned Afghanistan after the Red Army withdrew. In the late 1980s, Riedel claims,
"U.S.-supported Afghan mujahedin defeated the Soviet 40th Red Army [sic]. … The mujahedin were badly divided, however, and quickly fell into civil war. The United States could have led an international effort to restore order and rallied key players like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to try to end the conflict. Instead, Afghanistan got virtually no attention from the White House or the Congress."
Riedel’s ignorance of what happened after the Red Army’s withdrawal is almost breathtaking, but such a misrepresentation of reality is politically requisite if anyone is to believe the new-but-doomed Afghan policy approved by Obama has a chance to succeed. One might have hoped that Riedel – who worked on Iraq in the years he is writing about – would have consulted one or more of his Afghan-experienced former colleagues for some factual background before taking up his pen. But then again, the facts would get in the way of justifying more U.S. intervention in Afghanistan.
Riedel argues that a viable post-Soviet Afghan government failed because the "mujahedin were badly divided," Western governments lost interest, and Washington did not seek Saudi and Pakistani involvement. This is palpable nonsense. The mujahedin were, are, and always will be "badly divided," but they still beat the Soviet superpower – as they are on the verge of beating the American superpower – and there is no doubt they eventually would have worked out governing arrangements compatible with Afghan history and society. The West tends to forget that the Afghans have been running their country for 2,000 years and have a bit more experience than we do in managing their tribal and ethnically diverse society.
From the perspective of Washington and its allies, the real post-Soviet trouble was that whatever regime the mujahedin built would not be the one we wanted; namely, one that included none of the Afghans who actually fought and bled to drive out the Soviets. Sadly, therefore, the U.S. government, many of its European allies (especially the UK, France, and Germany), and various UN organizations intervened fully and dictatorially in post-Soviet Afghan politics, thereby preventing any sort of genuine Afghan attempt at self-determination. And as they are today, the Saudis and Pakistanis were also fully involved in telling the Afghans what to do, and, just as today, their recommendations ran exactly counter to U.S. interests.
Notwithstanding Riedel’s assertions, in the late 1980s and early 1990s U.S., Western, and UN diplomats consistently tried to dictate to the Afghans what kind of government they should have. That troika wanted to staff the new secular and centralized Kabul regime with Afghan technocrats; secular Afghans who, like Hamid Karzai, spent the war safely in India, America, or Europe; "Gucci" mujahedin who were nominally Islamic, received wartime aid, but did no fighting; and even former members of the Afghan communist regime. In other words, all were welcome to join the new Western-mandated Afghan government except those who wore beards, carried AK-47s, were devoted Islamists, and fought to expel the Soviets.
In the immediate post-Soviet years, then, Washington spent tens of millions of dollars to try to form exactly the same type of strong and centralized Afghan government – the type of regime that historically causes war in Afghanistan – it is trying to form today. And in a lethally ironic case of déjà vu, the father of current Afghan President Karzai – a far more honorable and competent man than his son – was one of the West’s favorites, and he was guided by Zalmay Khalilzad, the same U.S. diplomat who has brought us the recent disasters in Kabul and Baghdad. In addition, the talented U.S. ambassadors Robert and Phyllis Oakley and Peter Tomsen led numbers of U.S. and UK bureaucrats, contractors, and NGOs into the country to teach Afghans the West’s democratic ways, as well as how to organize and administer national budgets, establish the rule of law, and create a strong central regime. This wildly misplaced intervention went so far as to bring in teams of American lawyers and judges to teach the Afghans a Westernized judicial system to replace what we knew was all that silly old Islamic and tribal stuff.
In the end, the U.S.-led, late-1980s democracy-building intervention in Afghanistan was all for naught, just as Obama’s new Afghan policy will be. The Afghans wanted no part of the secularism the U.S.-led West insisted on then, and they want none of what the U.S.-led coalition has on offer now. While the Afghans will accept medical aid for their kids, electrical generators, and tools for increasing potable water supplies, they will utterly reject and fight measures aimed at eliminating the traditional role of tribalism and Islam in their society in the name of secular democracy. Afghans, like all Muslims, make a clear distinction between the terms modernization and Westernization; they are eager for the former but will fight the latter to the death. For our future relations with the Islamic world, it is a fatal liability that we are so cocksure the two terms are synonyms.
One final point. Riedel is a senior fellow at the aggressively pro-Israel Brookings Institution. Is it just a coincidence that his very misleading article about the "need" for more and longer U.S. intervention in Afghanistan appears just a week after Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman identified Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq as the three main threats to Israel? I think not, and that is why America will either be defeated or still fighting, bleeding, and losing in Afghanistan and Iraq by Inauguration Day 2013.
Article printed from Antiwar.com Original: http://original.antiwar.com
URL to article: http://original.antiwar.com/scheuer/2009/05/05/obamas-afghan-ignorant-policy-guide/
Click here to print.
Copyright © 2009 Antiwar.com Original. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Pakistani army flattening villages as it battles Taliban
This is from McClatchy.
This is just a glimpse of what is to come. In the SWAT area civilians are also being told to get out. No doubt a scorched earth policy will follow. The Taliban are very much a minority in Pakistan but the government seems bound and determined to produce more supporters by the manner in which they join battle with the Taliban. No doubt there will be plenty of Taliban within the refugee camps stirring up more trouble. While the Pakistani armed forces may be able to clear areas of Taliban they probably will not be able to hold the area or set up local govts. not controlled by the Taliban or sympathetic to them. The military and the government may quickly tire of this offensive and go back to making deals. The policy is creating even greater anti American feeling in Pakistan and will threaten the civilian govt. The US is obviously ready to help any military coup. You will not hear talk of democratisation in Pakistan in the US mass media for a while!
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Posted on Mon, May. 04, 2009
Pakistani army flattening villages as it battles Taliban
Saeed Shah McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: May 04, 2009 08:28:09 PM
CHINGLAI, Pakistan — The Pakistani army's assault against Islamic militants in Buner, in northwest Pakistan, is flattening villages, killing civilians and sending thousands of farmers and villagers fleeing from their homes, residents escaping the fighting said Monday.
"We didn't see any Taliban; they are up in the mountains, yet the army flattens our villages," Zaroon Mohammad, 45, told McClatchy as he walked with about a dozen scrawny cattle and the male members of his family in the relative safety of Chinglai village in southern Buner. "Our house has been badly damaged. These cows are now our total possessions."
Mohammad's and other residents' accounts of the fighting contradict those from the Pakistani military and suggest that the government of President Asif Ali Zardari is rapidly losing the support of those it had set out to protect.
The heavy-handed tactics are ringing alarm bells in Washington, where the Obama administration is struggling to devise a strategy to halt the militants' advances. Officials Monday talked about the need to train the Pakistani military, which has long been fixated on fighting armored battles with India, in counterinsurgency warfare, but it may be too late for that.
Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Monday that the Pakistani army in recent years has undertaken "bursts of fighting and engagement" fighting insurgents, but that its operations were "not sustained" by follow-up measures.
The army is now using force, but it also must hold and rebuild the area it conquers, he said. "There's a military piece" to the operation, he said, "but there also needs to be a hold and build aspect of it."
Another U.S. official, who closely tracks Pakistan developments, said the Pakistan army is "just destroying stuff. They have zero ability to deliver (aid) services."
"They hold villages completely accountable for the actions of a few, and that kind of operation produces a lot of (internally displaced persons) and a lot of angst," said a senior defense official. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
In Buner, the Pakistani military appears to be losing public support in a stridently anti-Taliban district whose residents had raised their own militia to defend themselves against the militants, who last month seized control of the district about 60 miles from Islamabad, the capital.
Mohammad, who'd walked for two days with his cattle to escape the offensive against the Taliban, and other farmers accused the military of using poorly directed artillery and air power to pound civilian areas.
"They shouldn't use the army in this (indiscriminate) way. They should be targeted at the Taliban," said Saed Afsar Khan, who was leaving Buner with 18 members of his family and two cows. He estimated that the army had destroyed 80 of the 400 houses in his village of Kawga, near the key battlefield of Ambela.
"I don't think they've killed even one Taliban," he said. "Only ordinary people."
As the fighting raged in Buner, a bigger battle appears likely to erupt in neighboring Swat. Late Monday, fierce gun battles broke out between the army and Taliban in the streets of Mingora, the district's main town, and a controversial three-month-old peace deal between the government and the Taliban in Swat is disintegrating.
The Taliban were reported to have surrounded 46 police officers at the local electrical grid station. Earlier in the day, they ambushed a military convoy in Swat, killing one soldier and wounding two others.
The Pakistani army waited some 25 days after the Taliban stormed into Buner from Swat before launching their response, which television pictures show involves tanks and helicopter gunships.
"Why did they not nip the evil in the bud? This is criminal negligence," said Sahibzada, a college teacher, who goes by one name, in Palodand village, just south of Buner, where he helps organize relief to those fleeing from the fighting.
"They have caused huge financial losses for those who've been forced to flee and caused hatred among those people for their government."
Locals said that a key grievance was an order given by the government commissioner for the Malakand area, which includes Buner, to disband the anti-Taliban militia soon after the insurgents entered Buner.
The delay in moving the armed forces against the extremists in Buner may have allowed them to entrench themselves and mass sufficient weapons and men to put up stiff resistance. The Taliban have managed to take hostage some 2,000 villagers in the Pir Baba area in the north of Buner, the army confirmed Monday.
The Pakistan army wouldn't confirm civilian casualties or damage to civilian villages.
"There are no reports I have of any civilian casualties," said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the army's chief spokesman. "Or any collateral damage. We have made maximum efforts to avoid it."
One reason why civilian casualties are likely is that government officials gave no instructions to ordinary people about how to leave the district, and many were confused about the timing of the curfew, those fleeing said. A cause of further frustration was that little or no preparation was made to accommodate those who'd inevitably be displaced by the fighting.
In southern Buner, in the Khudokhel area, on the road out to the nearest town of Swabi, there was no sign of any government-sponsored relief effort. Residents of villages along the road turned out instead, offering food and drink to weary travelers, and help with transportation onward. Those with spare rooms or buildings offered them to the displaced. Villagers in Chinglai, about an hour's drive into Buner from Swabi, are housing 20 families.
There are no reliable figures so far for how many people have fled Buner. Evacuees describe the district, which had a population of some 500,000, as having practically been emptied.
According to the al Khidmat Foundation, an Islamic charity, more than 150,000 people have taken the road south to Swabi alone. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the refugee arm of the United Nations, has registered around 18,000 people, but counting is tricky because almost none of the displaced have gone into the camps that are being set up for them outside Buner.
(Shah is a McClatchy special correspondent. Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef contributed to this article.)
This is just a glimpse of what is to come. In the SWAT area civilians are also being told to get out. No doubt a scorched earth policy will follow. The Taliban are very much a minority in Pakistan but the government seems bound and determined to produce more supporters by the manner in which they join battle with the Taliban. No doubt there will be plenty of Taliban within the refugee camps stirring up more trouble. While the Pakistani armed forces may be able to clear areas of Taliban they probably will not be able to hold the area or set up local govts. not controlled by the Taliban or sympathetic to them. The military and the government may quickly tire of this offensive and go back to making deals. The policy is creating even greater anti American feeling in Pakistan and will threaten the civilian govt. The US is obviously ready to help any military coup. You will not hear talk of democratisation in Pakistan in the US mass media for a while!
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Posted on Mon, May. 04, 2009
Pakistani army flattening villages as it battles Taliban
Saeed Shah McClatchy Newspapers
last updated: May 04, 2009 08:28:09 PM
CHINGLAI, Pakistan — The Pakistani army's assault against Islamic militants in Buner, in northwest Pakistan, is flattening villages, killing civilians and sending thousands of farmers and villagers fleeing from their homes, residents escaping the fighting said Monday.
"We didn't see any Taliban; they are up in the mountains, yet the army flattens our villages," Zaroon Mohammad, 45, told McClatchy as he walked with about a dozen scrawny cattle and the male members of his family in the relative safety of Chinglai village in southern Buner. "Our house has been badly damaged. These cows are now our total possessions."
Mohammad's and other residents' accounts of the fighting contradict those from the Pakistani military and suggest that the government of President Asif Ali Zardari is rapidly losing the support of those it had set out to protect.
The heavy-handed tactics are ringing alarm bells in Washington, where the Obama administration is struggling to devise a strategy to halt the militants' advances. Officials Monday talked about the need to train the Pakistani military, which has long been fixated on fighting armored battles with India, in counterinsurgency warfare, but it may be too late for that.
Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Monday that the Pakistani army in recent years has undertaken "bursts of fighting and engagement" fighting insurgents, but that its operations were "not sustained" by follow-up measures.
The army is now using force, but it also must hold and rebuild the area it conquers, he said. "There's a military piece" to the operation, he said, "but there also needs to be a hold and build aspect of it."
Another U.S. official, who closely tracks Pakistan developments, said the Pakistan army is "just destroying stuff. They have zero ability to deliver (aid) services."
"They hold villages completely accountable for the actions of a few, and that kind of operation produces a lot of (internally displaced persons) and a lot of angst," said a senior defense official. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
In Buner, the Pakistani military appears to be losing public support in a stridently anti-Taliban district whose residents had raised their own militia to defend themselves against the militants, who last month seized control of the district about 60 miles from Islamabad, the capital.
Mohammad, who'd walked for two days with his cattle to escape the offensive against the Taliban, and other farmers accused the military of using poorly directed artillery and air power to pound civilian areas.
"They shouldn't use the army in this (indiscriminate) way. They should be targeted at the Taliban," said Saed Afsar Khan, who was leaving Buner with 18 members of his family and two cows. He estimated that the army had destroyed 80 of the 400 houses in his village of Kawga, near the key battlefield of Ambela.
"I don't think they've killed even one Taliban," he said. "Only ordinary people."
As the fighting raged in Buner, a bigger battle appears likely to erupt in neighboring Swat. Late Monday, fierce gun battles broke out between the army and Taliban in the streets of Mingora, the district's main town, and a controversial three-month-old peace deal between the government and the Taliban in Swat is disintegrating.
The Taliban were reported to have surrounded 46 police officers at the local electrical grid station. Earlier in the day, they ambushed a military convoy in Swat, killing one soldier and wounding two others.
The Pakistani army waited some 25 days after the Taliban stormed into Buner from Swat before launching their response, which television pictures show involves tanks and helicopter gunships.
"Why did they not nip the evil in the bud? This is criminal negligence," said Sahibzada, a college teacher, who goes by one name, in Palodand village, just south of Buner, where he helps organize relief to those fleeing from the fighting.
"They have caused huge financial losses for those who've been forced to flee and caused hatred among those people for their government."
Locals said that a key grievance was an order given by the government commissioner for the Malakand area, which includes Buner, to disband the anti-Taliban militia soon after the insurgents entered Buner.
The delay in moving the armed forces against the extremists in Buner may have allowed them to entrench themselves and mass sufficient weapons and men to put up stiff resistance. The Taliban have managed to take hostage some 2,000 villagers in the Pir Baba area in the north of Buner, the army confirmed Monday.
The Pakistan army wouldn't confirm civilian casualties or damage to civilian villages.
"There are no reports I have of any civilian casualties," said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the army's chief spokesman. "Or any collateral damage. We have made maximum efforts to avoid it."
One reason why civilian casualties are likely is that government officials gave no instructions to ordinary people about how to leave the district, and many were confused about the timing of the curfew, those fleeing said. A cause of further frustration was that little or no preparation was made to accommodate those who'd inevitably be displaced by the fighting.
In southern Buner, in the Khudokhel area, on the road out to the nearest town of Swabi, there was no sign of any government-sponsored relief effort. Residents of villages along the road turned out instead, offering food and drink to weary travelers, and help with transportation onward. Those with spare rooms or buildings offered them to the displaced. Villagers in Chinglai, about an hour's drive into Buner from Swabi, are housing 20 families.
There are no reliable figures so far for how many people have fled Buner. Evacuees describe the district, which had a population of some 500,000, as having practically been emptied.
According to the al Khidmat Foundation, an Islamic charity, more than 150,000 people have taken the road south to Swabi alone. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the refugee arm of the United Nations, has registered around 18,000 people, but counting is tricky because almost none of the displaced have gone into the camps that are being set up for them outside Buner.
(Shah is a McClatchy special correspondent. Jonathan S. Landay and Nancy A. Youssef contributed to this article.)
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Karzai chooses warlord as running mate
Karzai is distancing himself from his western supporters. He has good reason, they do not vote in the upcoming presidential election. He seems to be successfully outmanouvering those who want him out. So far there is no challenger likely to beat him in the election for president. Karzai no doubt chose the warlord because he has local power which will be duly used to get him votes.
The west is unlikely to cut off aid because of these snubs to human rights concerns, the occupation will go on with tut tuts etc. emanating from the western press and even officials as protocol demands when the warlord power remains and Islamic law threatens converts to Christianity with death etc. etc.
Afghan president chooses warlord as running mate
Afghanistan's Karzai chooses warlord as vice presidential running mate
JASON STRAZIUSO and RAHIM FAIEZAP News
May 04, 2009 16:13 EST
The selection of Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a top commander in the militant group Jamiat-e-Islami during Afghanistan's 1990s civil war, drew immediate criticism from human rights groups.
A 2005 Human Rights Watch report, "Blood-Stained Hands," found "credible and consistent evidence of widespread and systematic human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law" were committed by Jamiat commanders, including Fahim.
Karzai was "insulting the country" with the choice, the New York-based group said Monday.
Fahim served as Karzai's first vice president during the country's interim government put in place after the ouster of the Taliban in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. During the 2004 election, Karzai dropped Fahim from his ticket in favor of Ahmad Zia Massood — the brother of resistance hero Ahmad Shah Massood, who was assassinated by al-Qaida two days before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Under Afghan law, the president has two vice presidents.
"To see Fahim back in the heart of government would be a terrible step backwards for Afghanistan," said Brad Adams, the group's Asia director. "He is widely believed by many Afghans to be still involved in many illegal activities, including running armed militias, as well as giving cover to criminal gangs and drug traffickers."
The U.S. Embassy would not comment, saying it wasn't helpful for the United States to comment on individual candidates. However, a U.S. statement said, "We believe the election is an opportunity for Afghanistan to move forward with leaders who will strengthen national unity."
Karzai's popularity has waned in recent years, as civilian casualties caused by international military forces have increased and charges of government corruption persist. But so far no candidates who could challenge Karzai's hold on power have registered for the Aug. 20 vote. Candidates have until Friday to register.
The Afghan president formally registered as a candidate on Monday, then immediately left for the United States, where he, Obama and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari are expected to discuss the increasingly perilous security situation in both countries.
The U.S. is increasingly focusing on Afghanistan as it shifts its resources away from Iraq. Obama is sending 21,000 additional forces to bolster the record 38,000 U.S. troops already in Afghanistan in hopes of stemming an increasingly powerful Taliban insurgency.
The choice of Fahim could be an issue for Western countries invested in Afghanistan's success, said Mohammad Qassim Akhgar, a political columnist and the editor-in-chief of the independent Afghan newspaper 8 a.m.
"Perhaps if Karzai wins the election Western countries are going to use this point as an excuse and limit their assistance to Afghanistan," he said. "This is also a matter of concern for all human rights organizations who are working in Afghanistan and working for transitional justice."
Karzai entered the registration room flanked by the two men running as his vice presidents — Fahim and ethnic Hazara leader Karim Khalili, Karzai's current second vice president.
Wearing his trademark green and purple cloak, Karzai told reporters at the election commission headquarters that he wanted to run again "to be at the service of the Afghan people," though he acknowledged there have been "some mistakes" during his five-year term as president.
Massood publicly criticized Karzai in recent months for staying on as president after May 21, the date the Afghan constitution says Karzai's term ends. The Supreme Court has ruled Karzai can stay in office until the Aug. 20 vote, which was pushed back from spring because of lingering winter weather, ballot distribution logistics and security concerns.
In a reminder of the country's perilous security, a suicide bombing, a roadside bomb and a militant attack killed 24 people Monday.
The suicide bomber attacked the mayor of Mehterlam, capital of eastern Laghman province, killing six people, including the mayor and his nephew, the deputy governor said. In Zabul province, a roadside bomb exploded against a family riding on a tractor, killing 12 people, while militants attacked a convoy and killed six security guards, officials said.
Aziz Rafiee, the executive director of the Afghan Civil Society Forum, said Karzai's latest change of heart begged a question.
"If (Fahim) was a good choice, why did (Karzai) remove him" in 2004? Rafiee asked. "And if he was a bad choice, why did he select him again? The people of Afghanistan will answer this question while voting."
Source: AP News
The west is unlikely to cut off aid because of these snubs to human rights concerns, the occupation will go on with tut tuts etc. emanating from the western press and even officials as protocol demands when the warlord power remains and Islamic law threatens converts to Christianity with death etc. etc.
Afghan president chooses warlord as running mate
Afghanistan's Karzai chooses warlord as vice presidential running mate
JASON STRAZIUSO and RAHIM FAIEZAP News
May 04, 2009 16:13 EST
The selection of Mohammad Qasim Fahim, a top commander in the militant group Jamiat-e-Islami during Afghanistan's 1990s civil war, drew immediate criticism from human rights groups.
A 2005 Human Rights Watch report, "Blood-Stained Hands," found "credible and consistent evidence of widespread and systematic human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law" were committed by Jamiat commanders, including Fahim.
Karzai was "insulting the country" with the choice, the New York-based group said Monday.
Fahim served as Karzai's first vice president during the country's interim government put in place after the ouster of the Taliban in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion. During the 2004 election, Karzai dropped Fahim from his ticket in favor of Ahmad Zia Massood — the brother of resistance hero Ahmad Shah Massood, who was assassinated by al-Qaida two days before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Under Afghan law, the president has two vice presidents.
"To see Fahim back in the heart of government would be a terrible step backwards for Afghanistan," said Brad Adams, the group's Asia director. "He is widely believed by many Afghans to be still involved in many illegal activities, including running armed militias, as well as giving cover to criminal gangs and drug traffickers."
The U.S. Embassy would not comment, saying it wasn't helpful for the United States to comment on individual candidates. However, a U.S. statement said, "We believe the election is an opportunity for Afghanistan to move forward with leaders who will strengthen national unity."
Karzai's popularity has waned in recent years, as civilian casualties caused by international military forces have increased and charges of government corruption persist. But so far no candidates who could challenge Karzai's hold on power have registered for the Aug. 20 vote. Candidates have until Friday to register.
The Afghan president formally registered as a candidate on Monday, then immediately left for the United States, where he, Obama and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari are expected to discuss the increasingly perilous security situation in both countries.
The U.S. is increasingly focusing on Afghanistan as it shifts its resources away from Iraq. Obama is sending 21,000 additional forces to bolster the record 38,000 U.S. troops already in Afghanistan in hopes of stemming an increasingly powerful Taliban insurgency.
The choice of Fahim could be an issue for Western countries invested in Afghanistan's success, said Mohammad Qassim Akhgar, a political columnist and the editor-in-chief of the independent Afghan newspaper 8 a.m.
"Perhaps if Karzai wins the election Western countries are going to use this point as an excuse and limit their assistance to Afghanistan," he said. "This is also a matter of concern for all human rights organizations who are working in Afghanistan and working for transitional justice."
Karzai entered the registration room flanked by the two men running as his vice presidents — Fahim and ethnic Hazara leader Karim Khalili, Karzai's current second vice president.
Wearing his trademark green and purple cloak, Karzai told reporters at the election commission headquarters that he wanted to run again "to be at the service of the Afghan people," though he acknowledged there have been "some mistakes" during his five-year term as president.
Massood publicly criticized Karzai in recent months for staying on as president after May 21, the date the Afghan constitution says Karzai's term ends. The Supreme Court has ruled Karzai can stay in office until the Aug. 20 vote, which was pushed back from spring because of lingering winter weather, ballot distribution logistics and security concerns.
In a reminder of the country's perilous security, a suicide bombing, a roadside bomb and a militant attack killed 24 people Monday.
The suicide bomber attacked the mayor of Mehterlam, capital of eastern Laghman province, killing six people, including the mayor and his nephew, the deputy governor said. In Zabul province, a roadside bomb exploded against a family riding on a tractor, killing 12 people, while militants attacked a convoy and killed six security guards, officials said.
Aziz Rafiee, the executive director of the Afghan Civil Society Forum, said Karzai's latest change of heart begged a question.
"If (Fahim) was a good choice, why did (Karzai) remove him" in 2004? Rafiee asked. "And if he was a bad choice, why did he select him again? The people of Afghanistan will answer this question while voting."
Source: AP News
Monday, May 4, 2009
Kabul's new elite live high on West's largesse.
Occupation and US imperialism is a very profitable pursuit for some as this article shows. No doubt ordinary Afghans are not blind to the contrast between what they earn as compared to the foreign occupiers and contractors.
This article is an eye opener a good example of genuine critical journalism. Contrast this with the blather and populist rhetoric of some popular TV stations such as Fox News and even CNN.
This is from the Independent.
Kabul's new elite live high on West's largesse
'Gilded cage' lifestyle reveals the ugly truth about foreign aid in Afghanistan
By Patrick Cockburn in Kabul
Friday, 1 May 2009
Vast sums of money are being lavished by Western aid agencies on their own officials in Afghanistan at a time when extreme poverty is driving young Afghans to fight for the Taliban. The going rate paid by the Taliban for an attack on a police checkpoint in the west of the country is $4, but foreign consultants in Kabul, who are paid out of overseas aids budgets, can command salaries of $250,000 to $500,000 a year.
The high expenditure on paying, protecting and accommodating Western aid officials in palatial style helps to explain why Afghanistan ranks 174th out of 178th on a UN ranking of countries' wealth. This is despite a vigorous international aid effort with the US alone spending $31bn since 2002 up to the end of last year.
The high degree of wastage of aid money in Afghanistan has long been an open secret. In 2006, Jean Mazurelle, the then country director of the World Bank, calculated that between 35 per cent and 40 per cent of aid was "badly spent". "The wastage of aid is sky-high," he said. "There is real looting going on, mainly by private enterprises. It is a scandal."
The dysfunctional reputation of the US aid effort in Afghanistan is politically crucial because Barack Obama, with strong support from Gordon Brown, has promised that a "civilian surge" of non-military experts will be sent to Afghanistan to strengthen its government and turn the tide against the Taliban. These would number up to 600, including agronomists, economists and legal experts, though Washington admitted this week that it was having difficulty recruiting enough people of the right calibre.
Whole districts of Kabul have already been taken over or rebuilt to accommodate Westerners working for aid agencies or embassies. "I have just rented out this building for $30,000 a month to an aid organisation," said Torialai Bahadery, the director of Property Consulting Afghanistan, which specialises in renting to foreigners. "It was so expensive because it has 24 rooms with en-suite bathrooms as well as armoured doors and bullet-proof windows," he explained, pointing to a picture of a cavernous mansion.
Though 77 per cent of Afghans lack access to clean water, Mr Bahadery said that aid agencies and the foreign contractors who work for them insist that every bedroom should have an en-suite bathroom and this often doubles the cost of accommodation.
In addition to the expensive housing the expatriates in Kabul are invariably protected by high-priced security companies and each house is converted into a fortress. The freedom of movement of foreigners is very limited. "I am not even allowed to go into Kabul's best hotel," complained one woman working for a foreign government aid organisation. She added that to travel to a part of Afghanistan deemed wholly free of Taliban by Afghans, she had to go by helicopter and then be taken to where she wanted to go in an armoured vehicle.
There have been numerous attacks on foreigners in Kabul and suicide bombings have been effective from the Taliban's point of view in driving almost all expatriates into well-defended compounds where living conditions may be luxurious but which are as confining as any prison. This means that many foreigners sent to Afghanistan to help rebuild the country and the state machinery seldom meet Afghans aside from their drivers and a few Afghans with whom they work.
"Risk avoidance is crippling the international aid effort," said one aid expert in Kabul. "If governments are so worried about risk then they really should not be sending people here and having them work under such restricted conditions."
The effectiveness of foreign advisers and experts in Iraq is often further reduced by the very short time they stay in the country. "Many people move on after six months," said one expatriate who did not want to be named. "In addition some embassy employees receive two weeks off work for every six weeks they are in the country, on top of their usual holidays."
Some officials working for non-governmental organisations in Afghanistan are themselves troubled by the amount of money which foreign government officials and their aid agencies spend on staff compared to the poverty of the Afghan government.
"I was in Badakhshan province in northern Afghanistan which has a population of 830,000, most of whom depend on farming," said Matt Waldman, the head of policy and advocacy for Oxfam in Kabul. "The entire budget of the local department of agriculture, irrigation and livestock, which is extremely important for farmers in Badakhshan, is just $40,000. This would be the pay of an expatriate consultant in Kabul for a few months."
Mr Waldman, the author of several highly-detailed papers on the failures of aid in Afghanistan, says that a lot of money is put in at the top in Afghanistan but it is siphoned off before it reaches ordinary Afghans at he bottom. He agrees that the problems faced are horrendous in a country which was always poor and has been ruined by 30 years of war. Some 42 per cent of Afghanistan's 25 million inhabitants live on less than a dollar a day and life expectancy is only 45 years. Overall literacy rate is just 34 per cent and 18 per cent for women.
But much of the aid money goes to foreign companies who then subcontract as many as five times with each subcontractor in turn looking for between 10 per cent and 20 per cent or more profit before any work is done on the project. The biggest donor in Afghanistan is the US, whose overseas aid department USAID channels nearly half of its aid budget for Afghanistan to five large US contractors.
Examples cited in an Oxfam report include the building of a short road between Kabul city centre and the international airport in 2005 which, after the main US contractor had subcontracted it to an Afghan company, cost $2.4m a kilometre – or four times the average cost of road construction in Afghanistan. Often aid is made conditional on spending it in the donor country.
Another consequence of the use of foreign contractors is that construction has failed to make the impact on unemployment among young Afghans which is crucial if the Taliban is to be defeated. In southern provinces such as Farah, Helmand, Uruzgan and Zabul, up to 70 per cent of Taliban fighters are non-ideological unemployed young men given a gun before each attack and paid a pittance according to a report by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. By using these part-time fighters as cannon-fodder, the Taliban can keep down casualties among its own veteran fighters while inflicting losses on government forces.
Some simple and obvious ways of spending money to benefit Afghans have been neglected. Will Beharrell of the Turquoise Mountain charity, which is encouraging traditional Afghan crafts and reconstruction of part of the old city, says tangible and visible improvements are important. He said: "We went in for rubbish clearing because it is simple and provides employment. We brought the street level down by two metres in some places when we had cleared it away."
A striking feature of Kabul is that while the main roads are paved, the side streets are often no more than packed earth with high ridges, deep potholes and grey pools of dirty water. New roads have been built between the cities, such as Kabul and Kandahar, but these are often too dangerous to use because of mobile Taliban checkpoints where anybody connected to the central government is killed on the spot.
The international aid programme is particularly important in Afghanistan because the government has few other sources of revenue. Donations from foreign governments make up 90 per cent of public expenditure. Aid is far more important than in Iraq, where the government has oil revenues. In Afghanistan a policeman's monthly salary is only $70, which is not enough to live on without taking bribes.
Since the fall of the Taliban the Afghan government has been trying to run a country in which the physical infrastructure has been destroyed. Kabul is now getting electricity from Uzbekistan but 55 per cent of Afghans get no electricity at all and just one in 20 get power all day. Money can be distributed more swiftly by the US military but this may not undercut the political support of the Taliban to the degree expected.
Afghans themselves are unenthusiastic about President Obama's plan for more US military and civilian involvement in Iraq. And the failure of foreign aid to deliver a better life to Afghans also helps explain plummeting support for the Kabul government and its Western allies. Oxfam's Mr Waldman believes better-organised aid could still deliver the benefits Afghans hoped for when the Taliban were overthrown in 2001, but he warns: "It is getting very late in the day to get things right."
Go figure: The West's spending in Afghanistan
$57 The foreign aid per capita to Afghanistan, compared with $580 per capita in the aftermath of the Bosnian conflict.
$250,000 Typical salary of foreign consultants in Afghanistan, including 35 per cent hardship allowance and 35 per cent danger money. Afghan civil servants typically receive less than $1,000 a year.
$22bn The shortfall in donations compared to the international community's estimate of Afghanistan's need – around 48 per cent.
40 per cent Share of international aid budget returned to aid countries in corporate profit and consultant salaries – more than $6bn since 2001.
$7m Daily aid spend in Afghanistan. The daily military spend by the US government is around $100m.
This article is an eye opener a good example of genuine critical journalism. Contrast this with the blather and populist rhetoric of some popular TV stations such as Fox News and even CNN.
This is from the Independent.
Kabul's new elite live high on West's largesse
'Gilded cage' lifestyle reveals the ugly truth about foreign aid in Afghanistan
By Patrick Cockburn in Kabul
Friday, 1 May 2009
Vast sums of money are being lavished by Western aid agencies on their own officials in Afghanistan at a time when extreme poverty is driving young Afghans to fight for the Taliban. The going rate paid by the Taliban for an attack on a police checkpoint in the west of the country is $4, but foreign consultants in Kabul, who are paid out of overseas aids budgets, can command salaries of $250,000 to $500,000 a year.
The high expenditure on paying, protecting and accommodating Western aid officials in palatial style helps to explain why Afghanistan ranks 174th out of 178th on a UN ranking of countries' wealth. This is despite a vigorous international aid effort with the US alone spending $31bn since 2002 up to the end of last year.
The high degree of wastage of aid money in Afghanistan has long been an open secret. In 2006, Jean Mazurelle, the then country director of the World Bank, calculated that between 35 per cent and 40 per cent of aid was "badly spent". "The wastage of aid is sky-high," he said. "There is real looting going on, mainly by private enterprises. It is a scandal."
The dysfunctional reputation of the US aid effort in Afghanistan is politically crucial because Barack Obama, with strong support from Gordon Brown, has promised that a "civilian surge" of non-military experts will be sent to Afghanistan to strengthen its government and turn the tide against the Taliban. These would number up to 600, including agronomists, economists and legal experts, though Washington admitted this week that it was having difficulty recruiting enough people of the right calibre.
Whole districts of Kabul have already been taken over or rebuilt to accommodate Westerners working for aid agencies or embassies. "I have just rented out this building for $30,000 a month to an aid organisation," said Torialai Bahadery, the director of Property Consulting Afghanistan, which specialises in renting to foreigners. "It was so expensive because it has 24 rooms with en-suite bathrooms as well as armoured doors and bullet-proof windows," he explained, pointing to a picture of a cavernous mansion.
Though 77 per cent of Afghans lack access to clean water, Mr Bahadery said that aid agencies and the foreign contractors who work for them insist that every bedroom should have an en-suite bathroom and this often doubles the cost of accommodation.
In addition to the expensive housing the expatriates in Kabul are invariably protected by high-priced security companies and each house is converted into a fortress. The freedom of movement of foreigners is very limited. "I am not even allowed to go into Kabul's best hotel," complained one woman working for a foreign government aid organisation. She added that to travel to a part of Afghanistan deemed wholly free of Taliban by Afghans, she had to go by helicopter and then be taken to where she wanted to go in an armoured vehicle.
There have been numerous attacks on foreigners in Kabul and suicide bombings have been effective from the Taliban's point of view in driving almost all expatriates into well-defended compounds where living conditions may be luxurious but which are as confining as any prison. This means that many foreigners sent to Afghanistan to help rebuild the country and the state machinery seldom meet Afghans aside from their drivers and a few Afghans with whom they work.
"Risk avoidance is crippling the international aid effort," said one aid expert in Kabul. "If governments are so worried about risk then they really should not be sending people here and having them work under such restricted conditions."
The effectiveness of foreign advisers and experts in Iraq is often further reduced by the very short time they stay in the country. "Many people move on after six months," said one expatriate who did not want to be named. "In addition some embassy employees receive two weeks off work for every six weeks they are in the country, on top of their usual holidays."
Some officials working for non-governmental organisations in Afghanistan are themselves troubled by the amount of money which foreign government officials and their aid agencies spend on staff compared to the poverty of the Afghan government.
"I was in Badakhshan province in northern Afghanistan which has a population of 830,000, most of whom depend on farming," said Matt Waldman, the head of policy and advocacy for Oxfam in Kabul. "The entire budget of the local department of agriculture, irrigation and livestock, which is extremely important for farmers in Badakhshan, is just $40,000. This would be the pay of an expatriate consultant in Kabul for a few months."
Mr Waldman, the author of several highly-detailed papers on the failures of aid in Afghanistan, says that a lot of money is put in at the top in Afghanistan but it is siphoned off before it reaches ordinary Afghans at he bottom. He agrees that the problems faced are horrendous in a country which was always poor and has been ruined by 30 years of war. Some 42 per cent of Afghanistan's 25 million inhabitants live on less than a dollar a day and life expectancy is only 45 years. Overall literacy rate is just 34 per cent and 18 per cent for women.
But much of the aid money goes to foreign companies who then subcontract as many as five times with each subcontractor in turn looking for between 10 per cent and 20 per cent or more profit before any work is done on the project. The biggest donor in Afghanistan is the US, whose overseas aid department USAID channels nearly half of its aid budget for Afghanistan to five large US contractors.
Examples cited in an Oxfam report include the building of a short road between Kabul city centre and the international airport in 2005 which, after the main US contractor had subcontracted it to an Afghan company, cost $2.4m a kilometre – or four times the average cost of road construction in Afghanistan. Often aid is made conditional on spending it in the donor country.
Another consequence of the use of foreign contractors is that construction has failed to make the impact on unemployment among young Afghans which is crucial if the Taliban is to be defeated. In southern provinces such as Farah, Helmand, Uruzgan and Zabul, up to 70 per cent of Taliban fighters are non-ideological unemployed young men given a gun before each attack and paid a pittance according to a report by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. By using these part-time fighters as cannon-fodder, the Taliban can keep down casualties among its own veteran fighters while inflicting losses on government forces.
Some simple and obvious ways of spending money to benefit Afghans have been neglected. Will Beharrell of the Turquoise Mountain charity, which is encouraging traditional Afghan crafts and reconstruction of part of the old city, says tangible and visible improvements are important. He said: "We went in for rubbish clearing because it is simple and provides employment. We brought the street level down by two metres in some places when we had cleared it away."
A striking feature of Kabul is that while the main roads are paved, the side streets are often no more than packed earth with high ridges, deep potholes and grey pools of dirty water. New roads have been built between the cities, such as Kabul and Kandahar, but these are often too dangerous to use because of mobile Taliban checkpoints where anybody connected to the central government is killed on the spot.
The international aid programme is particularly important in Afghanistan because the government has few other sources of revenue. Donations from foreign governments make up 90 per cent of public expenditure. Aid is far more important than in Iraq, where the government has oil revenues. In Afghanistan a policeman's monthly salary is only $70, which is not enough to live on without taking bribes.
Since the fall of the Taliban the Afghan government has been trying to run a country in which the physical infrastructure has been destroyed. Kabul is now getting electricity from Uzbekistan but 55 per cent of Afghans get no electricity at all and just one in 20 get power all day. Money can be distributed more swiftly by the US military but this may not undercut the political support of the Taliban to the degree expected.
Afghans themselves are unenthusiastic about President Obama's plan for more US military and civilian involvement in Iraq. And the failure of foreign aid to deliver a better life to Afghans also helps explain plummeting support for the Kabul government and its Western allies. Oxfam's Mr Waldman believes better-organised aid could still deliver the benefits Afghans hoped for when the Taliban were overthrown in 2001, but he warns: "It is getting very late in the day to get things right."
Go figure: The West's spending in Afghanistan
$57 The foreign aid per capita to Afghanistan, compared with $580 per capita in the aftermath of the Bosnian conflict.
$250,000 Typical salary of foreign consultants in Afghanistan, including 35 per cent hardship allowance and 35 per cent danger money. Afghan civil servants typically receive less than $1,000 a year.
$22bn The shortfall in donations compared to the international community's estimate of Afghanistan's need – around 48 per cent.
40 per cent Share of international aid budget returned to aid countries in corporate profit and consultant salaries – more than $6bn since 2001.
$7m Daily aid spend in Afghanistan. The daily military spend by the US government is around $100m.
Iraq bloodshed rises as US allies defect.
This is from TimesonLine.
This is a type of blowback. Funding these Sons of Iraq certainly helped get rid of Al Qaeda in some Sunni areas but now that the US is not giving them their checks there is conflict with the Shia majority and some of these militia members are rejoining insurgents now better trained and armed no doubt.
Iraq bloodshed rises as US allies defect
Obama’s withdrawal pledge is at risk as militias paid by the US begin to rejoin the insurgency
Ali Rifat, Hala Jaber and Sarah Baxter in Washington
IRAQ is threatened by a new wave of sectarian violence as members of the “Sons of Iraq” – the Sunni Awakening militias that were paid by the US to fight Al-Qaeda – begin to rejoin the insurgency.
If the spike in violence continues, it could affect President Barack Obama’s pledge to withdraw all combat troops from Iraqi cities by the end of June. All US troops are due to leave the country by 2012.
A leading member of the Political Council of Iraqi Resistance, which represents six Sunni militant groups, said: “The resistance has now returned to the field and is intensifying its attacks against the enemy. The number of coalition forces killed is on the rise.”
The increase in attacks by such groups, combined with a spate of bombings blamed on Al-Qaeda, has had a chilling effect on the streets of Iraq. More than 370 Iraqi civilians and military – and 80 Iranian pilgrims – lost their lives in April, making it the bloodiest month since last September. On Wednesday, five car bombs exploded in a crowded market in Sadr City, Baghdad, killing 51 people and injuring 76. Three US soldiers were killed on Thursday and two more yesterday when a gunman in Iraqi army uniform opened fire near Mosul.
Richard Haass, president of the US Council on Foreign Relations, who returned from a visit to Iraq last week, said: “It is obvious there are still multiple faultlines in society. In my view, Iraq and the United States are going to have to adjust the timelines and leave a residual force of tens of thousands beyond 2011.”
The resistance council recently issued a call to disaffected Sons of Iraq to take up arms against US and Iraqi troops after the government of Nouri al-Maliki failed to integrate them into the national security forces.
Many fighters have abandoned their security posts, allowing militant groups to fill the gap. Abu Omar, the leader of an Awakening militia in northern Baghdad, said more than 50 out of 175 fighters had quit.
The Iraqi resistance representative claimed some militias had lost even more. “Up to half their members have resigned from the Awakening and rejoined the resistance,” he said.
The US had been paying nearly 100,000 Sons of Iraq to participate in its security “surge”, but handed over responsibility for their welfare to the Iraqi government last month. Their pay has since dried up. Only 5,000 members of the Awakening have been employed by the Iraqi security forces.
Ginger Cruz, America’s deputy inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction, warned that disillusioned Sunnis could join forces with Al-Qaeda as well as resistance groups.
“The Sons of Iraq provided a critical turning point for Iraq, so the question now becomes: what will the Iraqi government do with them?” Cruz said. “In fragile states, you need to take unemployed young men with access to weapons and give them something to do to ensure they don’t turn to Al-Qaeda or other groups.”
The gradual emergence of the Shi’ite Maliki as an Iraqi strongman has alienated some Sunnis and corruption is worse than ever, according to Cruz.
There is also growing Sunni anger about arrests of Awakening leaders, including Adil al-Mashhadani, from Baghdad, who warned recently: “There’s a 50-50 chance that Awakening guys who are not very loyal to Iraq or who need to support their families will join Al-Qaeda again.”
Local Sunni leaders have been quitting their posts, disillusioned with the government. Khalaf Ibrahim recently resigned as leader of Huwaija council near Kirkuk in northern Iraq.
“Our members have become targets for Al-Qaeda and the government security forces at the same time,” he said.
Haass, a critic of the Iraq war who served in the administrations of George Bush Sr and George Bush Jr, said: “Some people are hedging their bets and moving in the direction of ‘alternative loyalties’.”
Obama may now become a hostage to events, Haass fears. “This administration has so much on its plate in terms of foreign policy that the last thing it needs is an Iraq that unravels. If it has to do a bit more than it wanted, that could be a pretty good investment.”
The heavy toll of the bomb attack in Sadr City last week shocked inhabitants who had witnessed improvements in security in recent months. Aqeel Ali, a 19-year-old labourer, said: “My brother was killed in that bomb.
“I left school and started work to pay for his education. He was 10 years old and I wanted him to be an engineer. I will never forget the sight of my brother’s corpse, covered in blood and mud.”
Um Batool, a young mother whose husband died, called for the return of the Mahdi Army, a Shi’ite militia, to protect the community. “Who will feed my five daughters?” she cried.
Many Iraqis believe deteriorating security may provide a pretext for the US to prolong its stay in Iraq.
Colonel Andrew Bacevich, a military historian who lost his son in Iraq, said the rise in casualties threatened Obama’s withdrawal plans. The US military, including General Jim Jones, Obama’s national security adviser, wanted troops to leave the country “in a condition in which they can plausibly claim to have achieved success”, he said.
Iraq has already begun negotiating with the United States about exceptions to the June 30 deadline, according to press reports.
In Karrada, an affluent district of Baghdad where a suicide bomber killed dozens 10 days ago, Esam Omar, 44, a father of two, said: “I fear the violence is back. Sectarian war may be the next step.”
The Iraqi security forces were not yet ready to assume control, he said, even if the US was worried about the cost of the war. “I think American forces will have to stay here much longer. It will be shameful if the Americans leave us sinking in blood, simply to escape their economic crisis
This is a type of blowback. Funding these Sons of Iraq certainly helped get rid of Al Qaeda in some Sunni areas but now that the US is not giving them their checks there is conflict with the Shia majority and some of these militia members are rejoining insurgents now better trained and armed no doubt.
Iraq bloodshed rises as US allies defect
Obama’s withdrawal pledge is at risk as militias paid by the US begin to rejoin the insurgency
Ali Rifat, Hala Jaber and Sarah Baxter in Washington
IRAQ is threatened by a new wave of sectarian violence as members of the “Sons of Iraq” – the Sunni Awakening militias that were paid by the US to fight Al-Qaeda – begin to rejoin the insurgency.
If the spike in violence continues, it could affect President Barack Obama’s pledge to withdraw all combat troops from Iraqi cities by the end of June. All US troops are due to leave the country by 2012.
A leading member of the Political Council of Iraqi Resistance, which represents six Sunni militant groups, said: “The resistance has now returned to the field and is intensifying its attacks against the enemy. The number of coalition forces killed is on the rise.”
The increase in attacks by such groups, combined with a spate of bombings blamed on Al-Qaeda, has had a chilling effect on the streets of Iraq. More than 370 Iraqi civilians and military – and 80 Iranian pilgrims – lost their lives in April, making it the bloodiest month since last September. On Wednesday, five car bombs exploded in a crowded market in Sadr City, Baghdad, killing 51 people and injuring 76. Three US soldiers were killed on Thursday and two more yesterday when a gunman in Iraqi army uniform opened fire near Mosul.
Richard Haass, president of the US Council on Foreign Relations, who returned from a visit to Iraq last week, said: “It is obvious there are still multiple faultlines in society. In my view, Iraq and the United States are going to have to adjust the timelines and leave a residual force of tens of thousands beyond 2011.”
The resistance council recently issued a call to disaffected Sons of Iraq to take up arms against US and Iraqi troops after the government of Nouri al-Maliki failed to integrate them into the national security forces.
Many fighters have abandoned their security posts, allowing militant groups to fill the gap. Abu Omar, the leader of an Awakening militia in northern Baghdad, said more than 50 out of 175 fighters had quit.
The Iraqi resistance representative claimed some militias had lost even more. “Up to half their members have resigned from the Awakening and rejoined the resistance,” he said.
The US had been paying nearly 100,000 Sons of Iraq to participate in its security “surge”, but handed over responsibility for their welfare to the Iraqi government last month. Their pay has since dried up. Only 5,000 members of the Awakening have been employed by the Iraqi security forces.
Ginger Cruz, America’s deputy inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction, warned that disillusioned Sunnis could join forces with Al-Qaeda as well as resistance groups.
“The Sons of Iraq provided a critical turning point for Iraq, so the question now becomes: what will the Iraqi government do with them?” Cruz said. “In fragile states, you need to take unemployed young men with access to weapons and give them something to do to ensure they don’t turn to Al-Qaeda or other groups.”
The gradual emergence of the Shi’ite Maliki as an Iraqi strongman has alienated some Sunnis and corruption is worse than ever, according to Cruz.
There is also growing Sunni anger about arrests of Awakening leaders, including Adil al-Mashhadani, from Baghdad, who warned recently: “There’s a 50-50 chance that Awakening guys who are not very loyal to Iraq or who need to support their families will join Al-Qaeda again.”
Local Sunni leaders have been quitting their posts, disillusioned with the government. Khalaf Ibrahim recently resigned as leader of Huwaija council near Kirkuk in northern Iraq.
“Our members have become targets for Al-Qaeda and the government security forces at the same time,” he said.
Haass, a critic of the Iraq war who served in the administrations of George Bush Sr and George Bush Jr, said: “Some people are hedging their bets and moving in the direction of ‘alternative loyalties’.”
Obama may now become a hostage to events, Haass fears. “This administration has so much on its plate in terms of foreign policy that the last thing it needs is an Iraq that unravels. If it has to do a bit more than it wanted, that could be a pretty good investment.”
The heavy toll of the bomb attack in Sadr City last week shocked inhabitants who had witnessed improvements in security in recent months. Aqeel Ali, a 19-year-old labourer, said: “My brother was killed in that bomb.
“I left school and started work to pay for his education. He was 10 years old and I wanted him to be an engineer. I will never forget the sight of my brother’s corpse, covered in blood and mud.”
Um Batool, a young mother whose husband died, called for the return of the Mahdi Army, a Shi’ite militia, to protect the community. “Who will feed my five daughters?” she cried.
Many Iraqis believe deteriorating security may provide a pretext for the US to prolong its stay in Iraq.
Colonel Andrew Bacevich, a military historian who lost his son in Iraq, said the rise in casualties threatened Obama’s withdrawal plans. The US military, including General Jim Jones, Obama’s national security adviser, wanted troops to leave the country “in a condition in which they can plausibly claim to have achieved success”, he said.
Iraq has already begun negotiating with the United States about exceptions to the June 30 deadline, according to press reports.
In Karrada, an affluent district of Baghdad where a suicide bomber killed dozens 10 days ago, Esam Omar, 44, a father of two, said: “I fear the violence is back. Sectarian war may be the next step.”
The Iraqi security forces were not yet ready to assume control, he said, even if the US was worried about the cost of the war. “I think American forces will have to stay here much longer. It will be shameful if the Americans leave us sinking in blood, simply to escape their economic crisis
John Bolton: We may have to acquiesce in a Pakistani military takeover...
This is from RawStory.
Actually Bolton makes quite a bit of sense--he always did from a neo con viewpoint. On the issue of the US tolerating a Pakistani military takeover Bolton may very well be prophetic. His article is probably right to in that training the Pakistani military in the US and ensuring that they are dependent upon the US for equipment etc. helps to make the Pakistani armed forces more pro-US. However, there is also no doubt some who react to this dependence in a negative way.
The tone and rhetoric may be quite different but I think that Bolton is wrong to think that Obama is that much different in his approach than Bolton himself.k">John Bolton: We may have to acquiesce in a ‘Pakistani military takeover’href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=Share">
By Muriel Kane Published: May 1, 2009 Updated 2 days ago
Perennial Neoconservative gadfly John Bolton, who has often been accused of making exaggerated claims about Middle Eastern threats, is now suggesting that a military coup in Pakistan may be the only viable response to the growing power of the Taliban.
In an op-ed for Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, Bolton writes, “To prevent catastrophe will require considerable American effort and unquestionably provoke resistance from many Pakistanis, often for widely differing reasons. We must strengthen pro-American elements in Pakistan’s military so they can purge dangerous Islamicists from their ranks; roll back Taliban advances; and, together with our increased efforts in Afghanistan, decisively defeat the militants on either side of the border. This may mean stifling some of our democratic squeamishness and acquiescing in a Pakistani military takeover, if the civilian government melts before radical pressures. So be it.”
Bolton’s stance on Pakistan appear to go hand-in-hand with his recent attempts to describe the Obama administration’s international outreach efforts as amounting to a “tangible projection of weakness” and “revealing a Jimmy Carter-style unwillingness to do what’s necessary in a hard world to protect America’s interest.”
Both Bolton’s temper and his attempts to force intelligence analysis to match his own preconceptions are legendary. When he was nominated by former President Bush to be United Nations ambassador in 2005, the former head of the State Department’s intelligence bureau, Carl Ford, testified that Bolton was “a serial abuser” who had tried to have an analyst fired because he disagreed with Bolton’s belief that Cuba has a biological weapons program.
In his current op-ed, Bolton somewhat surprisingly blames the Bush administration for creating the current crisis by “pushing former President Pervez Musharraf into unwise elections and effectively removing him from power,” a policy which Bolton compares to the 1963 CIA-sponsored overthrow and assassination of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem.
Bolton also paradoxically argues that the current danger of Pakistan’s atomic weapons falling into the hands of the Taliban is actually the result of earlier US efforts to discourage Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation.
“We are reaping the consequences of failed nonproliferation policies that in the past penalized Pakistan for its nuclear program by cutting off military assistance and scaling back the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program that brought hundreds of Pakistani officers to the U.S.” Bolton insists. “Perhaps inevitably, the Pakistani officers who haven’t participated in IMET are increasingly subject to radical influences.”
Actually Bolton makes quite a bit of sense--he always did from a neo con viewpoint. On the issue of the US tolerating a Pakistani military takeover Bolton may very well be prophetic. His article is probably right to in that training the Pakistani military in the US and ensuring that they are dependent upon the US for equipment etc. helps to make the Pakistani armed forces more pro-US. However, there is also no doubt some who react to this dependence in a negative way.
The tone and rhetoric may be quite different but I think that Bolton is wrong to think that Obama is that much different in his approach than Bolton himself.k">John Bolton: We may have to acquiesce in a ‘Pakistani military takeover’href="http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=Share">
By Muriel Kane Published: May 1, 2009 Updated 2 days ago
Perennial Neoconservative gadfly John Bolton, who has often been accused of making exaggerated claims about Middle Eastern threats, is now suggesting that a military coup in Pakistan may be the only viable response to the growing power of the Taliban.
In an op-ed for Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, Bolton writes, “To prevent catastrophe will require considerable American effort and unquestionably provoke resistance from many Pakistanis, often for widely differing reasons. We must strengthen pro-American elements in Pakistan’s military so they can purge dangerous Islamicists from their ranks; roll back Taliban advances; and, together with our increased efforts in Afghanistan, decisively defeat the militants on either side of the border. This may mean stifling some of our democratic squeamishness and acquiescing in a Pakistani military takeover, if the civilian government melts before radical pressures. So be it.”
Bolton’s stance on Pakistan appear to go hand-in-hand with his recent attempts to describe the Obama administration’s international outreach efforts as amounting to a “tangible projection of weakness” and “revealing a Jimmy Carter-style unwillingness to do what’s necessary in a hard world to protect America’s interest.”
Both Bolton’s temper and his attempts to force intelligence analysis to match his own preconceptions are legendary. When he was nominated by former President Bush to be United Nations ambassador in 2005, the former head of the State Department’s intelligence bureau, Carl Ford, testified that Bolton was “a serial abuser” who had tried to have an analyst fired because he disagreed with Bolton’s belief that Cuba has a biological weapons program.
In his current op-ed, Bolton somewhat surprisingly blames the Bush administration for creating the current crisis by “pushing former President Pervez Musharraf into unwise elections and effectively removing him from power,” a policy which Bolton compares to the 1963 CIA-sponsored overthrow and assassination of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem.
Bolton also paradoxically argues that the current danger of Pakistan’s atomic weapons falling into the hands of the Taliban is actually the result of earlier US efforts to discourage Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation.
“We are reaping the consequences of failed nonproliferation policies that in the past penalized Pakistan for its nuclear program by cutting off military assistance and scaling back the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program that brought hundreds of Pakistani officers to the U.S.” Bolton insists. “Perhaps inevitably, the Pakistani officers who haven’t participated in IMET are increasingly subject to radical influences.”
Philippines has most internally displaced persons in 2008: Report
This is from the Tribune (Manila)
This is rather surprising. One would think that there would be more in Iraq or Afghanistan. I imagine most of the displaced are in parts of Mindanao where there has been considerable conflict after the peace treaty failure. Rebel commanders wreaked havoc for a while and then the AFP took back most of the territory but civilians fled the area as their homes and property were ruined by the battles.
RP has most displaced persons in 2008 — report
05/03/2009
The country chalked up another dismal world record yesterday after a United Nations-backed report stated the biggest number of internally displaced people last year was in the country where an estimated 600,000 Filipinos fled fighting between the government and a break-away faction of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) after the aborted signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD) that sought to create a Bangsa Moro homeland for the rebels.
The report said the common agent of displacement in the country has been the Army, “operating across the country against communist New People’s Army (NPA) rebels, and in Basilan and Sulu provinces against the Abu Sayyaf Group and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), as well as against the MILF throughout Mindanao and particularly in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).”
The Supreme Court (SC) ruled on Oct. 14 last year that the MoA-AD was unconstitutional. The ruling was issued a day before the agreement was signed in Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia.
The report released by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) of the Norwegian Refugee Council stated that international efforts failed to reduce the number of those internally displaced by conflicts around the world which was unchanged from the previous year at around 26 million, the highest level since the mid-1990s
Break-away groups of the MILF led by three of its base commanders conducted pillages and killings in parts of Mindanao in response to the SC decision. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), in turn, sent 10 battalions of soldiers to Mindanao to contain the atrocities.
The IDMC said conflict and displacement have continued for many years in the Philippines.
It said the government’s response to displacement has been mixed, with frequent discrepancies between policies and their implementation.
“The quality of assistance has varied according to the center into which internally displaced persons have been evacuated, due to the inconsistent implementation of guidelines and standards,” it added.
“Before the last upsurge in fighting, it was estimated that conflict had displaced more than two million people since 2000,” it said.
By the end of 2008 only low-level fighting persisted, but it continued to cause displacement and more than 300,000 people remained unable or unwilling to return to their homes, according to the report.
It also cited development projects backed by military support as disproportionately affecting indigenous groups who are also mostly displaced.
“Two groups have been particularly vulnerable to displacement: Moro people living in conflict-affected areas of Mindanao, and indigenous groups whose territory is rich in natural resources,” it added.
The report also said counter-insurgency operations against the NPA have often resulted in human rights violations against civilians suspected of supporting the insurgents and caused regular displacement although on a smaller scale.
“While most displacement has been short-term and localised, with people returning to their homes as soon as fighting has subsided, some groups have remained displaced for years where insecurity has continued,” it said.
IDMC said internally displaced persons have faced many threats to their physical security and integrity, while facing barriers to their enjoyment of the basic necessities of life, education, property, livelihoods and other rights.
“With no access to their lands, they have been forced to engage in irregular, low-paid jobs to survive,” it added.
Displaced children, many of whom have had their education interrupted by their displacement, have been vulnerable to trafficking, recruitment into armed groups,
malnutrition and health problems due to their prolonged stay in overcrowded emergency centres, it added.
It said, moreover, that many of those who managed to return still have acute assistance and rehabilitation needs.
It noted that despite genuine government efforts to assist the displaced and improve its response, more remains to be done.
The National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) has responded to the recent situation in Mindanao broadly as it would for displacement caused by a natural disaster,without taking into account the specific protection problems and the risks of protracted displacement, it said.
Coordination and response mechanisms could be further decentralized and the government could be more open about the severity of emergencies, allowing international agencies to better fund assistance programs, it said.
In past years UNDP led the UN response to internal displacement in the Philippines, with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) focusing on the protection needs of vulnerable groups including displaced persons.
In October 2008, however, coordination between agencies responding to the Mindanao emergency was minimal, and so the UN informally extended the cluster approach to the conflict there, a year after activating it in response to natural disaster.
By the end of the year, however, no agency had been formally designated to lead the protection cluster, it said.
Chito Lozada
This is rather surprising. One would think that there would be more in Iraq or Afghanistan. I imagine most of the displaced are in parts of Mindanao where there has been considerable conflict after the peace treaty failure. Rebel commanders wreaked havoc for a while and then the AFP took back most of the territory but civilians fled the area as their homes and property were ruined by the battles.
RP has most displaced persons in 2008 — report
05/03/2009
The country chalked up another dismal world record yesterday after a United Nations-backed report stated the biggest number of internally displaced people last year was in the country where an estimated 600,000 Filipinos fled fighting between the government and a break-away faction of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) after the aborted signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MoA-AD) that sought to create a Bangsa Moro homeland for the rebels.
The report said the common agent of displacement in the country has been the Army, “operating across the country against communist New People’s Army (NPA) rebels, and in Basilan and Sulu provinces against the Abu Sayyaf Group and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), as well as against the MILF throughout Mindanao and particularly in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).”
The Supreme Court (SC) ruled on Oct. 14 last year that the MoA-AD was unconstitutional. The ruling was issued a day before the agreement was signed in Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia.
The report released by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) of the Norwegian Refugee Council stated that international efforts failed to reduce the number of those internally displaced by conflicts around the world which was unchanged from the previous year at around 26 million, the highest level since the mid-1990s
Break-away groups of the MILF led by three of its base commanders conducted pillages and killings in parts of Mindanao in response to the SC decision. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), in turn, sent 10 battalions of soldiers to Mindanao to contain the atrocities.
The IDMC said conflict and displacement have continued for many years in the Philippines.
It said the government’s response to displacement has been mixed, with frequent discrepancies between policies and their implementation.
“The quality of assistance has varied according to the center into which internally displaced persons have been evacuated, due to the inconsistent implementation of guidelines and standards,” it added.
“Before the last upsurge in fighting, it was estimated that conflict had displaced more than two million people since 2000,” it said.
By the end of 2008 only low-level fighting persisted, but it continued to cause displacement and more than 300,000 people remained unable or unwilling to return to their homes, according to the report.
It also cited development projects backed by military support as disproportionately affecting indigenous groups who are also mostly displaced.
“Two groups have been particularly vulnerable to displacement: Moro people living in conflict-affected areas of Mindanao, and indigenous groups whose territory is rich in natural resources,” it added.
The report also said counter-insurgency operations against the NPA have often resulted in human rights violations against civilians suspected of supporting the insurgents and caused regular displacement although on a smaller scale.
“While most displacement has been short-term and localised, with people returning to their homes as soon as fighting has subsided, some groups have remained displaced for years where insecurity has continued,” it said.
IDMC said internally displaced persons have faced many threats to their physical security and integrity, while facing barriers to their enjoyment of the basic necessities of life, education, property, livelihoods and other rights.
“With no access to their lands, they have been forced to engage in irregular, low-paid jobs to survive,” it added.
Displaced children, many of whom have had their education interrupted by their displacement, have been vulnerable to trafficking, recruitment into armed groups,
malnutrition and health problems due to their prolonged stay in overcrowded emergency centres, it added.
It said, moreover, that many of those who managed to return still have acute assistance and rehabilitation needs.
It noted that despite genuine government efforts to assist the displaced and improve its response, more remains to be done.
The National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) has responded to the recent situation in Mindanao broadly as it would for displacement caused by a natural disaster,without taking into account the specific protection problems and the risks of protracted displacement, it said.
Coordination and response mechanisms could be further decentralized and the government could be more open about the severity of emergencies, allowing international agencies to better fund assistance programs, it said.
In past years UNDP led the UN response to internal displacement in the Philippines, with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) focusing on the protection needs of vulnerable groups including displaced persons.
In October 2008, however, coordination between agencies responding to the Mindanao emergency was minimal, and so the UN informally extended the cluster approach to the conflict there, a year after activating it in response to natural disaster.
By the end of the year, however, no agency had been formally designated to lead the protection cluster, it said.
Chito Lozada
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Australia gives 70 billion boost to its military
This is from AFP via Yahoo news.
Even though the government has changed in Australia it would seem that Australia will remain as US ally and a promoter of the US global military industrial complex. Australia is buying 100 jet fighters from the U.S. Note that Australia is renewing its commitment to the US lead occupation--sorry, liberation-- of Afghanistan.
Australia in $70 billion boost to military
by Amy Coopes Amy Coopes Sat May 2, 5:29 am ET
SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia will spend more than 70 billion US dollars boosting its defences over the next 20 years in response to a regional military build-up and global shifts in power, the government said Saturday.
A long-term strategic blueprint for the future of Australia's armed forces warned that war could be possible in the Asia-Pacific region in the next two decades, as emerging powers such as China flexed their military might.
The United States would continue its military dominance and be an "indispensable" ally for Australia, the defence white paper said.
But as emerging or resurgent powers such as China, India and Russia tested US primacy, the paper said there was "a small but still concerning possibility of growing confrontation between some of these powers."
"China will be the strongest Asian military power, by a considerable margin," the paper said. "A major power of China's stature can be expected to develop a globally significant military capability befitting its size.
"But the pace, scope and structure of China's military modernisation have the potential to give its neighbours cause for concern if not carefully explained, and if China does not reach out to others to build confidence regarding its military plans," it said.
If it did not take these steps, the paper said, there would be "a question in the minds of regional states about the long-term strategic purpose of its force development plans, particularly as the modernisation appears potentially to be beyond the scope of what would be required for a conflict over Taiwan.
"China will have even more interest in convincing regional countries that its rise will not diminish their sovereignty," the paper said.
Greater engagement with Beijing was essential for encouraging transparency about Chinese military capabilities and intentions, and securing greater cooperation in areas of shared interest, the paper said.
China's Premier Wen Jiabao in March vowed to modernise his nation's military across the board, asking legislators for a 15.3 percent increase in defence spending for 2009 to 472.9 billion yuan (69 billion dollars) -- double 2006 funding levels. The global financial crisis was likely to accelerate a shift of power to the Asia-Pacific, and regional security would pivot on how strategic dynamics were managed between the US, China and Japan, the blueprint said.
A major conflict on the Korean peninsula remained a possibility, and the paper said the collapse of North Korea could not be ruled out, while Myanmar remained a "serious challenge."
An escalation in tensions between India and Pakistan was also of "significant concern," and the paper said Islamist extremism would pose a direct threat to Australia and its interests.
The paper reiterated Canberra's commitment to the conflict in Afghanistan, which it said could endure another decade or longer.
Canberra will acquire long-range cruise missiles, double its submarine fleet to 12 and buy 100 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets and eight new warships under the plan, titled "Force 2030."
"Force 2030 will mean the best fighter jets, the most versatile armoured vehicles and the most sophisticated submarines available to defend Australia?s national security," said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the report's Sydney launch.
The Sino-focused strategy, which was widely leaked to the press, was met with unease in Beijing, where it was reportedly perceived by some as Australia aligning itself with the United States against China.
"China definitely will not accept Australia adopting the so-called 'China threat' thesis," Beijing professor Shi Yinhong told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper on Friday.
"(China) will have to publicly criticise (the paper)," added Yinhong, international relations specialist from the People's University.
Copyright © 2009 Agence France Presse.
Even though the government has changed in Australia it would seem that Australia will remain as US ally and a promoter of the US global military industrial complex. Australia is buying 100 jet fighters from the U.S. Note that Australia is renewing its commitment to the US lead occupation--sorry, liberation-- of Afghanistan.
Australia in $70 billion boost to military
by Amy Coopes Amy Coopes Sat May 2, 5:29 am ET
SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia will spend more than 70 billion US dollars boosting its defences over the next 20 years in response to a regional military build-up and global shifts in power, the government said Saturday.
A long-term strategic blueprint for the future of Australia's armed forces warned that war could be possible in the Asia-Pacific region in the next two decades, as emerging powers such as China flexed their military might.
The United States would continue its military dominance and be an "indispensable" ally for Australia, the defence white paper said.
But as emerging or resurgent powers such as China, India and Russia tested US primacy, the paper said there was "a small but still concerning possibility of growing confrontation between some of these powers."
"China will be the strongest Asian military power, by a considerable margin," the paper said. "A major power of China's stature can be expected to develop a globally significant military capability befitting its size.
"But the pace, scope and structure of China's military modernisation have the potential to give its neighbours cause for concern if not carefully explained, and if China does not reach out to others to build confidence regarding its military plans," it said.
If it did not take these steps, the paper said, there would be "a question in the minds of regional states about the long-term strategic purpose of its force development plans, particularly as the modernisation appears potentially to be beyond the scope of what would be required for a conflict over Taiwan.
"China will have even more interest in convincing regional countries that its rise will not diminish their sovereignty," the paper said.
Greater engagement with Beijing was essential for encouraging transparency about Chinese military capabilities and intentions, and securing greater cooperation in areas of shared interest, the paper said.
China's Premier Wen Jiabao in March vowed to modernise his nation's military across the board, asking legislators for a 15.3 percent increase in defence spending for 2009 to 472.9 billion yuan (69 billion dollars) -- double 2006 funding levels. The global financial crisis was likely to accelerate a shift of power to the Asia-Pacific, and regional security would pivot on how strategic dynamics were managed between the US, China and Japan, the blueprint said.
A major conflict on the Korean peninsula remained a possibility, and the paper said the collapse of North Korea could not be ruled out, while Myanmar remained a "serious challenge."
An escalation in tensions between India and Pakistan was also of "significant concern," and the paper said Islamist extremism would pose a direct threat to Australia and its interests.
The paper reiterated Canberra's commitment to the conflict in Afghanistan, which it said could endure another decade or longer.
Canberra will acquire long-range cruise missiles, double its submarine fleet to 12 and buy 100 F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets and eight new warships under the plan, titled "Force 2030."
"Force 2030 will mean the best fighter jets, the most versatile armoured vehicles and the most sophisticated submarines available to defend Australia?s national security," said Prime Minister Kevin Rudd at the report's Sydney launch.
The Sino-focused strategy, which was widely leaked to the press, was met with unease in Beijing, where it was reportedly perceived by some as Australia aligning itself with the United States against China.
"China definitely will not accept Australia adopting the so-called 'China threat' thesis," Beijing professor Shi Yinhong told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper on Friday.
"(China) will have to publicly criticise (the paper)," added Yinhong, international relations specialist from the People's University.
Copyright © 2009 Agence France Presse.
Reports: Pakistani Military Killing Buner Civilians
These sorts of attacks create a considerable internal refugee problem for Pakistan as people in droves flee to safer areas of the country. Reports of militants killed must be taken with a big grain of salt. Official reports of this sort are unreliable whether from the US or Pakistanis or whomever. Usually the Taliban simply retreat to other areas but in this case they seem to be resisting in some areas successfully.
Reports: Pakistani Military Killing Buner Civilians
Pakistani Military Reports Killing 55-60 Militants
by Jason Ditz, May 01, 2009
Pakistani Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas reported that “55 to 60 Taliban have been killed over the last 24 hours in the Buner operation,” adding that all entry points to the contested district have been sealed off. He also confirmed that two members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) had been killed and eight others wounded.
Residents of the Buner District, however, told a different story. The New York Times quotes Abdul Bakht as saying that “they have not fired on a single Taliban yet. All they are doing is hitting the houses.” Anecdotal reports point to several civilians being killed and a growing humanitarian crisis, but the Pakistani military rarely reports civilian killings and the overall civilian toll rarely emerges until long after the offensive.
Pakistan launched the Buner offensive earlier this week in an attempt to drive Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) followers from the district, just 60 miles from Islamabad. While most such offensives simply chase the militants into neighboring districts, the TTP has put up a surprisingly fierce resistance, capturing scores of security forces and even taking total control of the town of Sultanwas.
Reports: Pakistani Military Killing Buner Civilians
Pakistani Military Reports Killing 55-60 Militants
by Jason Ditz, May 01, 2009
Pakistani Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas reported that “55 to 60 Taliban have been killed over the last 24 hours in the Buner operation,” adding that all entry points to the contested district have been sealed off. He also confirmed that two members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) had been killed and eight others wounded.
Residents of the Buner District, however, told a different story. The New York Times quotes Abdul Bakht as saying that “they have not fired on a single Taliban yet. All they are doing is hitting the houses.” Anecdotal reports point to several civilians being killed and a growing humanitarian crisis, but the Pakistani military rarely reports civilian killings and the overall civilian toll rarely emerges until long after the offensive.
Pakistan launched the Buner offensive earlier this week in an attempt to drive Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) followers from the district, just 60 miles from Islamabad. While most such offensives simply chase the militants into neighboring districts, the TTP has put up a surprisingly fierce resistance, capturing scores of security forces and even taking total control of the town of Sultanwas.
Lawyers credit Obama team for dismissing the AIPAC case.
THis is from JTA.
This shows that AIPAC is powerful within the Obama administration. There is no mention in the article that the person who supplied the information got years in prison and that a prominent democrat, Jane Harman, was involved in trying to have the case dropped and was caught on a wiretap.
A different take on the case from the JTA is given by Winograd from the Huffington Post. This scandal seems to be dissolving into nothingness because of the power of AIPAC and the worry about a decline in contribution for the Democrats.
Lawyers credit Obama team for dismissing AIPAC case
By Ron Kampeas · May 1, 2009
WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Lawyers for the two former AIPAC staffers charged four years ago with dealing in government secrets credited the Obama administration for dropping the case.
“We are extremely grateful that this new Administration, in coordination with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Virginia, has taken seriously their obligation to evaluate cases on the merits and not to allow an unjust prosecution to continue solely due to momentum,” said the joint statement by lawyers for Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman issued Friday, hours after the government filed for a dismissal of the charges against the two former senior staffers for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “This Administration truly shows that theirs is a Department of Justice, where the justice of any case can be re-evaluated and the government can admit that a case should not be pursued.”
Sources close to the defense said the investigation, which first came to light in 2004 when FBI agents raided AIPAC offices, appeared to be of a piece with the Bush administration policy of expanding its secrecy powers that President Obama has said he will reverse. Rosen and Weissman were the first civilians to be prosecuted under 1917 statute that criminalizes the receipt and retention of classified information.
JTA has learned that the defense lawyers two months ago launched an intensified effort to get Obama appointees at the Justice Department to review the case.
Abbe Lowell, Rosen’s lead lawyer, said now was a time for AIPAC and the organized Jewish community to consider its treatment of the two.
“Now, we mostly look for ways for Keith and Steve to get their life back,” Lowell said. “What happened to them at AIPAC, how the community treated them, how they get on with their lives.”
The others lawyers signing the statement included: Erica Paulson for Rosen; and John Nassikas, Baruch Weiss, Kate Briscoe and Kavitha Babu for Weissman.
From Huffington Post.
Marcy Winograd
Harman's Wiretap Woes and the AIPAC Cabal
How ironic that I made my decision to challenge Jane Harman in 2006 after watching her Meet the Press interview in which she lambasted the New York Times for breaking the story about the Bush administration's massive illegal wiretapping. "Oh my God," I told my husband, who was doing Sunday sit-ups in front of the television set, "this woman needs to be challenged -- on the wiretaps, on the war, and on her collusion with the Bush mob." By the time I poured my coffee and grabbed my cell phone, I was off and running, campaigning as an insurgent Democratic Party peace candidate in the 36th congressional district.
Now we see another page in the script. Reporter Jeff Stein tells us that Harman's sycophantic defense of the FISA violations was part of the deal: Harman, in return for then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' help in halting an FBI investigation, would do her best to defend and deflect attention from the illegal wiretaps. The fact that Harman, herself, was wiretapped, perhaps with good reason, is simply serendipitous poetry.
And now it gets interesting. Will the Democratic Party establishment ignore this latest development in a longstanding corruption scandal? With Harman's next primary more than a year away, ignoring her quid-pro-quo may seem to be a viable strategy. But if ignoring it doesn't work, then the party establishment may need to distract people with something even more insidious than a Democratic Party congresswoman in bed with agents of a foreign power. Diverting attention elsewhere could make establishment Democrats do something they have so far refused to do -- prosecute the Bush administration torturers, shine the spotlight on those who gave the orders and provided legal cover to water board and more. This is the kind of diversion a progressive Democrat could relish. Impeach the war criminals. Prosecute those who gave the orders to torture.
Since the Harman-AIPAC story broke -- again -- friends and bloggers, including members of the Progressive Democrats of America have emailed me, asking, "Will you run again in 2010?" My response has been, "Or sooner?" (Politicians, even grassroots activists like myself, know how to answer a tough question with a question.) Whether Harman and the Democratic establishment can stand this heat, this pall, remains to be seen, though I wouldn't be surprised if a special election snuck up on us before 2010. Demands that Harman step down are already echoing in the halls of the blogosphere and among the grassroots of the 36th district.
The best part about this story is not what we know, but what we don't know, the questions that beg to be answered.
According to the New York Times, the AIPAC lobbyists had it all figured out. Haim Saban, the wealthy television producer, would threaten to withhold campaign contributions to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party if Pelosi refused to appoint Harman as Chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
Surely, this wasn't the first time AIPAC representatives promised to harness the almighty dollar for political purposes. Who else has AIPAC colluded with on the Hill? If the tapes are out there, Harman got caught, but isn't this a much larger story than just one woman bedazzled by men with money in their pockets and nuclear warheads in their backyards.
It is time AIPAC register as a foreign lobbyist.
During my congressional challenge to Harman, I dreaded answering questions about Israel and Palestine. The subject was nothing but a landmine, especially for a Jewish woman, like myself -- a believer in universal human rights -- challenging another Jewish woman, like Harman, in a district that included a substantial number of Israel supporters.
Right after the 2006 primary, however, Israel's invasion of Lebanon put the issue squarely on the table. As the Israeli bombs turned Lebanese neighborhoods into blood-filled craters, Harman went on television to justify the invasion. Never mind the carpet bombing.
Days later, after I, together with LA Jews for Peace, organized demonstrations in front of the Israeli consulate, Harman invited me and a dozen others who worked on my campaign to meet with her in her office. I implored her, literally begged her, to call for a cease-fire in the middle east. She wouldn't hear of it and drew back when I suggested she at least talk to members of Americans for Peace Now, a US offshoot of an Israeli peace group.
Was Harman a true believer in Israel and AIPAC or was she caught up in a script that had spun out of control?
Hard to say -- given the fact that so many of our Los Angeles-area law makers, from hawkish Howard Berman, Chair of the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee, to Henry Waxman, Chair of the House Energy Committee, have yet to raise a critical question about US military dollars funding Israel's use of white phosphorous and DIME explosives that instantly amputate in the open-air prison of Gaza.
As much as this story is about Harman, about her collusion with a Bush administration bent on breaking the law, it is also about the pernicious influence wielded in Washington by lobbyists for a foreign government.
It doesn't matter if it is Israel or China or Saudi Arabia.
We need to remind Harman and the rest of Congress who they represent: we the people of the United States of America. Marcy Winograd is the Co-founder of Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles, LA Chapter of Progressive Democrats of America.
This shows that AIPAC is powerful within the Obama administration. There is no mention in the article that the person who supplied the information got years in prison and that a prominent democrat, Jane Harman, was involved in trying to have the case dropped and was caught on a wiretap.
A different take on the case from the JTA is given by Winograd from the Huffington Post. This scandal seems to be dissolving into nothingness because of the power of AIPAC and the worry about a decline in contribution for the Democrats.
Lawyers credit Obama team for dismissing AIPAC case
By Ron Kampeas · May 1, 2009
WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Lawyers for the two former AIPAC staffers charged four years ago with dealing in government secrets credited the Obama administration for dropping the case.
“We are extremely grateful that this new Administration, in coordination with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Virginia, has taken seriously their obligation to evaluate cases on the merits and not to allow an unjust prosecution to continue solely due to momentum,” said the joint statement by lawyers for Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman issued Friday, hours after the government filed for a dismissal of the charges against the two former senior staffers for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “This Administration truly shows that theirs is a Department of Justice, where the justice of any case can be re-evaluated and the government can admit that a case should not be pursued.”
Sources close to the defense said the investigation, which first came to light in 2004 when FBI agents raided AIPAC offices, appeared to be of a piece with the Bush administration policy of expanding its secrecy powers that President Obama has said he will reverse. Rosen and Weissman were the first civilians to be prosecuted under 1917 statute that criminalizes the receipt and retention of classified information.
JTA has learned that the defense lawyers two months ago launched an intensified effort to get Obama appointees at the Justice Department to review the case.
Abbe Lowell, Rosen’s lead lawyer, said now was a time for AIPAC and the organized Jewish community to consider its treatment of the two.
“Now, we mostly look for ways for Keith and Steve to get their life back,” Lowell said. “What happened to them at AIPAC, how the community treated them, how they get on with their lives.”
The others lawyers signing the statement included: Erica Paulson for Rosen; and John Nassikas, Baruch Weiss, Kate Briscoe and Kavitha Babu for Weissman.
From Huffington Post.
Marcy Winograd
Harman's Wiretap Woes and the AIPAC Cabal
How ironic that I made my decision to challenge Jane Harman in 2006 after watching her Meet the Press interview in which she lambasted the New York Times for breaking the story about the Bush administration's massive illegal wiretapping. "Oh my God," I told my husband, who was doing Sunday sit-ups in front of the television set, "this woman needs to be challenged -- on the wiretaps, on the war, and on her collusion with the Bush mob." By the time I poured my coffee and grabbed my cell phone, I was off and running, campaigning as an insurgent Democratic Party peace candidate in the 36th congressional district.
Now we see another page in the script. Reporter Jeff Stein tells us that Harman's sycophantic defense of the FISA violations was part of the deal: Harman, in return for then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' help in halting an FBI investigation, would do her best to defend and deflect attention from the illegal wiretaps. The fact that Harman, herself, was wiretapped, perhaps with good reason, is simply serendipitous poetry.
And now it gets interesting. Will the Democratic Party establishment ignore this latest development in a longstanding corruption scandal? With Harman's next primary more than a year away, ignoring her quid-pro-quo may seem to be a viable strategy. But if ignoring it doesn't work, then the party establishment may need to distract people with something even more insidious than a Democratic Party congresswoman in bed with agents of a foreign power. Diverting attention elsewhere could make establishment Democrats do something they have so far refused to do -- prosecute the Bush administration torturers, shine the spotlight on those who gave the orders and provided legal cover to water board and more. This is the kind of diversion a progressive Democrat could relish. Impeach the war criminals. Prosecute those who gave the orders to torture.
Since the Harman-AIPAC story broke -- again -- friends and bloggers, including members of the Progressive Democrats of America have emailed me, asking, "Will you run again in 2010?" My response has been, "Or sooner?" (Politicians, even grassroots activists like myself, know how to answer a tough question with a question.) Whether Harman and the Democratic establishment can stand this heat, this pall, remains to be seen, though I wouldn't be surprised if a special election snuck up on us before 2010. Demands that Harman step down are already echoing in the halls of the blogosphere and among the grassroots of the 36th district.
The best part about this story is not what we know, but what we don't know, the questions that beg to be answered.
According to the New York Times, the AIPAC lobbyists had it all figured out. Haim Saban, the wealthy television producer, would threaten to withhold campaign contributions to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party if Pelosi refused to appoint Harman as Chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
Surely, this wasn't the first time AIPAC representatives promised to harness the almighty dollar for political purposes. Who else has AIPAC colluded with on the Hill? If the tapes are out there, Harman got caught, but isn't this a much larger story than just one woman bedazzled by men with money in their pockets and nuclear warheads in their backyards.
It is time AIPAC register as a foreign lobbyist.
During my congressional challenge to Harman, I dreaded answering questions about Israel and Palestine. The subject was nothing but a landmine, especially for a Jewish woman, like myself -- a believer in universal human rights -- challenging another Jewish woman, like Harman, in a district that included a substantial number of Israel supporters.
Right after the 2006 primary, however, Israel's invasion of Lebanon put the issue squarely on the table. As the Israeli bombs turned Lebanese neighborhoods into blood-filled craters, Harman went on television to justify the invasion. Never mind the carpet bombing.
Days later, after I, together with LA Jews for Peace, organized demonstrations in front of the Israeli consulate, Harman invited me and a dozen others who worked on my campaign to meet with her in her office. I implored her, literally begged her, to call for a cease-fire in the middle east. She wouldn't hear of it and drew back when I suggested she at least talk to members of Americans for Peace Now, a US offshoot of an Israeli peace group.
Was Harman a true believer in Israel and AIPAC or was she caught up in a script that had spun out of control?
Hard to say -- given the fact that so many of our Los Angeles-area law makers, from hawkish Howard Berman, Chair of the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee, to Henry Waxman, Chair of the House Energy Committee, have yet to raise a critical question about US military dollars funding Israel's use of white phosphorous and DIME explosives that instantly amputate in the open-air prison of Gaza.
As much as this story is about Harman, about her collusion with a Bush administration bent on breaking the law, it is also about the pernicious influence wielded in Washington by lobbyists for a foreign government.
It doesn't matter if it is Israel or China or Saudi Arabia.
We need to remind Harman and the rest of Congress who they represent: we the people of the United States of America. Marcy Winograd is the Co-founder of Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles, LA Chapter of Progressive Democrats of America.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
US Courts Leader of the Opposition.
This is from the NYTimes.
The US never tires of trying to manipulate Pakistani politics to ensure that a US friendly regime is in power. In the case of Sharif the US move is rather surprising since he has reasonably good relations with militants and certainly will be difficult to persuade to go on the offensive against them. The US would probably prefer a power sharing agreement with Zardari and Sharif a coalition but that did not work before. However, with Pakistan politics one never knows. The US always can threaten to withold funds but then Pakistan might seek help in quarters that inimical to US interests.
May 2, 2009
In Pakistan, U.S. Courts Leader of Opposition
By HELENE COOPER and MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON — As American confidence in the Pakistani government wanes, the Obama administration is reaching out more directly than before to Nawaz Sharif, the chief rival of Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president, administration officials said Friday.
American officials have long held Mr. Sharif at arm’s length because of his close ties to Islamists in Pakistan, but some Obama administration officials now say those ties could be useful in helping Mr. Zardari’s government to confront the stiffening challenge by Taliban insurgents.
The move reflects the heightened concern in the Obama administration about the survivability of the Zardari government. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the United States Central Command, has said in private meetings in Washington that Pakistan’s government is increasingly vulnerable, according to administration officials.
General Petraeus is among those expected to attend an all-day meeting on Saturday with senior administration officials to discuss the next steps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in advance of high-level sessions next week in Washington, when Mr. Zardari and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan will meet with President Obama at the White House.
Washington has a bad history of trying to engineer domestic Pakistani politics, and no one in the administration is trying to broker an actual power-sharing agreement between Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif, administration officials say. But they say that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, have both urged Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif to look for ways to work together, seeking to capitalize on Mr. Sharif’s appeal among the country’s Islamist groups.
That could be a tall order, given the intense animosity between the men, not to mention the ambivalence that many American officials still have toward Mr. Sharif, a former prime minister who was overthrown in a military coup in 1999.
Some Pakistani officials said that members of Mr. Zardari’s government already were reaching out to Mr. Sharif and that officials in Washington were exaggerating their influence over Pakistani politics. According to one Pakistani official, the government in Islamabad recently asked Mr. Sharif to rejoin the governing coalition. The two tried power-sharing last year, and that dissolved in acrimony only a week after Mr. Sharif and Mr. Zardari had banded together to force the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf.
Obama administration officials have been up front in expressing dissatisfaction with the response shown by Mr. Zardari’s government to increasing attacks by Taliban fighters and insurgents with Al Qaeda in the country’s tribal areas, and along its western border with Afghanistan. During a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Obama said he was “gravely concerned” about the stability of the Pakistani government; on Friday, a Defense Department official described Mr. Zardari as “very, very weak.”
The official said the administration wanted to broker an agreement not so much to buoy Mr. Zardari personally, but to accomplish what the administration believes Pakistan must do. “The idea here is to tie Sharif’s popularity to things we think need to be done, like dealing with the militancy,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity to speak more candidly about American differences with Pakistan’s government.
Mr. Sharif, 59, represents the Pakistan Muslim League-N, a coalition that includes a number of Islamist groups. He was prime minister twice during the 1990s, and received hero status in Pakistan for ordering nuclear weapons tests in 1998.
Both Mr. Holbrooke and Mrs. Clinton have spoken with Mr. Sharif by telephone in the past month, and have urged Mr. Zardari’s increasingly unpopular government to work closely with Mr. Sharif, administration officials said. “We told them they’re facing a national challenge, and for that, you need bipartisanship,” a senior administration official said. “The president’s popularity is in the low double digits. Nawaz Sharif is at 83 percent. They need to band together against the militants.”
Sir Mark Lyall Grant, director of political affairs at the British Foreign Office, was in Washington on Monday for talks with Mr. Holbrooke and Mrs. Clinton on Pakistan, according to American and European officials. The three discussed Mr. Sharif, but no conclusions were reached, a European official said. “There’s certainly no agreement that Nawaz should become Zardari’s prime minister,” the official said, speaking on grounds of anonymity. He said the enmity between the two would make such a situation impossible. But he added: “We need people who have influence over the militancy in Pakistan to calm it down. Who’s got influence? The army, yes. And Nawaz, yes.”
The Obama administration’s contemplation of a closer alliance with Mr. Sharif was first reported in The Wall Street Journal last week. Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said that Mr. Zardari was open to talking to Mr. Sharif. “The president and prime minister of Pakistan have been striving for national consensus and continue to be in close contact with the leadership of all political parties,” Mr. Haqqani said.
The Bush administration struggled in 2007 to find a way to keep Mr. Musharraf in power amid a political crisis. The administration prodded him to share authority with his longtime rival, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, but those efforts ended after Mrs. Bhutto — the wife of Mr. Zardari — was shot and killed. The situation in Pakistan has become so dire, with the fragile government battling Taliban insurgents who have gotten close to Islamabad, that both American and Pakistani officials are looking hard to bring stability to the nuclear-armed nation.
“For the United States, there’s no ambiguity about where the danger lies; it’s in the people who are attacking the state,” said Teresita C. Schaffer, a Pakistan expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. She said Mr. Sharif could broaden the appeal of the Zardari government, and his ties to Islamist militants give him added heft right now. “So the U.S. would dearly love to see both of those parties on the same page.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.
The US never tires of trying to manipulate Pakistani politics to ensure that a US friendly regime is in power. In the case of Sharif the US move is rather surprising since he has reasonably good relations with militants and certainly will be difficult to persuade to go on the offensive against them. The US would probably prefer a power sharing agreement with Zardari and Sharif a coalition but that did not work before. However, with Pakistan politics one never knows. The US always can threaten to withold funds but then Pakistan might seek help in quarters that inimical to US interests.
May 2, 2009
In Pakistan, U.S. Courts Leader of Opposition
By HELENE COOPER and MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON — As American confidence in the Pakistani government wanes, the Obama administration is reaching out more directly than before to Nawaz Sharif, the chief rival of Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president, administration officials said Friday.
American officials have long held Mr. Sharif at arm’s length because of his close ties to Islamists in Pakistan, but some Obama administration officials now say those ties could be useful in helping Mr. Zardari’s government to confront the stiffening challenge by Taliban insurgents.
The move reflects the heightened concern in the Obama administration about the survivability of the Zardari government. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the United States Central Command, has said in private meetings in Washington that Pakistan’s government is increasingly vulnerable, according to administration officials.
General Petraeus is among those expected to attend an all-day meeting on Saturday with senior administration officials to discuss the next steps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in advance of high-level sessions next week in Washington, when Mr. Zardari and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan will meet with President Obama at the White House.
Washington has a bad history of trying to engineer domestic Pakistani politics, and no one in the administration is trying to broker an actual power-sharing agreement between Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif, administration officials say. But they say that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, have both urged Mr. Zardari and Mr. Sharif to look for ways to work together, seeking to capitalize on Mr. Sharif’s appeal among the country’s Islamist groups.
That could be a tall order, given the intense animosity between the men, not to mention the ambivalence that many American officials still have toward Mr. Sharif, a former prime minister who was overthrown in a military coup in 1999.
Some Pakistani officials said that members of Mr. Zardari’s government already were reaching out to Mr. Sharif and that officials in Washington were exaggerating their influence over Pakistani politics. According to one Pakistani official, the government in Islamabad recently asked Mr. Sharif to rejoin the governing coalition. The two tried power-sharing last year, and that dissolved in acrimony only a week after Mr. Sharif and Mr. Zardari had banded together to force the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf.
Obama administration officials have been up front in expressing dissatisfaction with the response shown by Mr. Zardari’s government to increasing attacks by Taliban fighters and insurgents with Al Qaeda in the country’s tribal areas, and along its western border with Afghanistan. During a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Obama said he was “gravely concerned” about the stability of the Pakistani government; on Friday, a Defense Department official described Mr. Zardari as “very, very weak.”
The official said the administration wanted to broker an agreement not so much to buoy Mr. Zardari personally, but to accomplish what the administration believes Pakistan must do. “The idea here is to tie Sharif’s popularity to things we think need to be done, like dealing with the militancy,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity to speak more candidly about American differences with Pakistan’s government.
Mr. Sharif, 59, represents the Pakistan Muslim League-N, a coalition that includes a number of Islamist groups. He was prime minister twice during the 1990s, and received hero status in Pakistan for ordering nuclear weapons tests in 1998.
Both Mr. Holbrooke and Mrs. Clinton have spoken with Mr. Sharif by telephone in the past month, and have urged Mr. Zardari’s increasingly unpopular government to work closely with Mr. Sharif, administration officials said. “We told them they’re facing a national challenge, and for that, you need bipartisanship,” a senior administration official said. “The president’s popularity is in the low double digits. Nawaz Sharif is at 83 percent. They need to band together against the militants.”
Sir Mark Lyall Grant, director of political affairs at the British Foreign Office, was in Washington on Monday for talks with Mr. Holbrooke and Mrs. Clinton on Pakistan, according to American and European officials. The three discussed Mr. Sharif, but no conclusions were reached, a European official said. “There’s certainly no agreement that Nawaz should become Zardari’s prime minister,” the official said, speaking on grounds of anonymity. He said the enmity between the two would make such a situation impossible. But he added: “We need people who have influence over the militancy in Pakistan to calm it down. Who’s got influence? The army, yes. And Nawaz, yes.”
The Obama administration’s contemplation of a closer alliance with Mr. Sharif was first reported in The Wall Street Journal last week. Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said that Mr. Zardari was open to talking to Mr. Sharif. “The president and prime minister of Pakistan have been striving for national consensus and continue to be in close contact with the leadership of all political parties,” Mr. Haqqani said.
The Bush administration struggled in 2007 to find a way to keep Mr. Musharraf in power amid a political crisis. The administration prodded him to share authority with his longtime rival, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, but those efforts ended after Mrs. Bhutto — the wife of Mr. Zardari — was shot and killed. The situation in Pakistan has become so dire, with the fragile government battling Taliban insurgents who have gotten close to Islamabad, that both American and Pakistani officials are looking hard to bring stability to the nuclear-armed nation.
“For the United States, there’s no ambiguity about where the danger lies; it’s in the people who are attacking the state,” said Teresita C. Schaffer, a Pakistan expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. She said Mr. Sharif could broaden the appeal of the Zardari government, and his ties to Islamist militants give him added heft right now. “So the U.S. would dearly love to see both of those parties on the same page.”
Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.