News reports during this past week indicate further strains in Pakistan-US relations. The tension is long-lived but has in recent months escalated over the increased allied interventions via special forces and predator drones into Pakistan’s territory. The US policy on Afghanistan under the Bush and Obama administrations has been to attack suspected Taliban safe havens identified by US intelligence on the Pakistan side of the Afghan-Pakistan border. The goal: to reduce the ability of the Taliban to go back and forth across the border.
Despite protests from the Pakistan government, the US military has continued to seek out and kill Taliban leaders who are believed to be in Pakistan. In the process, Pakistani civilians have been killed and the sovereignty of Pakistan has been ignored.
Herbert P. Bix reports on Znet that Obama has increased drone attacks since becoming president
“and that those attacks have killed nearly 1,500 Pakistani men, women, and children; that the rank and file of the Pakistani army regard the U.S. as "a most untrustworthy ally" -- indeed, no friend at all, and that the Pakistanis were deeply angered after several earlier incidents of American criminal conduct on their territory….Later Pakistan demanded that "about 335 American personnel -- C.I.A. officers and contractors and Special Operations forces" -- leave the country. (See http://mobile.zcommunications.org./the-assassination-of-osama-bin-laden-american-vengeance-as-justice-by-herbert-p-bix.)
Jason Ditz refers to a study released in January of this year by the Conflict Monitoring Centre which “reported that 2,043 Pakistanis have been slain in CIA drone strikes in the past five years, with the vast majority of them innocent civilians” and “over 75% of them…killed in the past two years since Obama took office.” Further, the number of such deaths continues to rise, with 700 people killed in CIA drones strikes in 2009 and 929 killed in 2010. (See: http://news/antiwar.com, January 2, 2011.)
Reporting for Los Angeles Times (5-27-11), David S. Cloud identifies examples of acts carried out in Pakistan by CIA or special forces personnel (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwide/la-fg-pakistan-20110527,0,5278643.story) . Here are two of them. Cloud writes that in January, “Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor, shot dead two men in Lahore who he said were attempting to rob him. He was arrested on charges of murder but was released and left the country in mid-March, prompting violent protests in several cities.” Cloud continues: Then, on May 2, five U.S. helicopters secretly entered Pakistani airspace” with a team of U.S. Navy special forces.
There has been mounting anger over such interventions among Pakistan military and government leaders, and the population generally. Cloud reports on one recent response from the Pakistanis:
“The move to close the three [intelligence fusion] facilities, plus a recent written demand by Pakistan to reduce the number of U.S. military personnel in the country from approximately 200, signals mounting anger in Pakistan over a series of incidents.”
The assassination of Osbama bin Laden is yet another incident of US intervention into Pakistan, aggravating tensions already existing between Pakistan and the US. Initial reports have not yet been able to draw to a definitive and comprehensive analysis of what happened.
Of the many media reactions to the assassination, Herbert P. Bix’s article on Znet titled “The Assassination of Osama bin Laden: American Vengeance as Justice” is enlightening (5-26-11).
Bix reviews the early evidence about what is known of the assassination. He makes three general points, namely, that the assassination was illegal by all relevant international law, that President Obama was celebratory in his remarks to the American people in reaction to the report of bin Laden’s death, and that the President’s remarks serve to reinforce the self-serving American propaganda that America is a force for virtue and goodness in a world of innumerable evil-doers.
“On May 1, two American "Black Hawk" helicopters carrying twenty-three Navy SEALS and three "Chinook" helicopters with twenty-four backup soldiers aboard crossed the Afghanistan-Pakistan border undetected by Pakistani radar and without the Pakistani government's consent. A short time later they swooped down in the dark on a large, walled, three-storied compound in a residential area of the garrison town of Abbottabad, Pakistan, less than a mile from Pakistan's leading military academy.
“So began the final moments of a carefully plotted, unilateral American operation, kept secret from Pakistani government officials, to gather intelligence on al Qaeda and to kill bin Laden. The CIA had suspected that he was living in Abottabad with some of his wives and children for the past five or more years. President Obama had reviewed the goals of the plan and the means for implementing them….
“During the first stage of the raid -- lasting fifteen to twenty-minutes -- the commandos, wearing helmet-mounted digital cameras to record their actions, forced their entry into the ground floor of the building, and killed three men and one woman while collecting computers, floppy disks, thumb drives, DVDS, computers and cellphones….
“… the commandos encountered an unarmed, unresisting bin Laden, who made no attempt to shield himself from harm or to threaten them. In the circumstances, there was no military necessity to kill him. He could have been taken alive, interrogated, and eventually sent to trial where he might have stated his case and the world could have judged him, as other mass murderers have been judged. But the commandos were psychologically primed and explicitly ordered by the Obama administration to kill rather than capture, so they spurned their opportunity and illegally murdered him on the spot -- Mafia-style with two bullets to the head and chest. Then they flew his body to the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, from which it was dumped into the North Arabian Sea. The swift disposal of the bin Laden corpse without providing any visual evidence or independent verification of his assassination was Obama's and the Pentagon's attempt to manage the media.
“The result was to defy the maxim that justice must be seen to be done -- a point that two of bin Laden's sons also made in a statement that decried "arbitrary killing" as ‘not a solution to political problems.’ These were the same sons who rejected their father's use of violence. The truth, unwelcome as it may be to celebratory Americans, is that bin Laden was illegally assassinated for domestic American political purposes, in violation of international law, U.S. military law, and the oath the commandos and their superiors had sworn to uphold the Constitution. Because the rule of law was systematically trampled upon, justice could neither be applied nor served.[7]
Second, from Bix’s viewpoint, President Obama misconstrues the facts and celebrates bin Laden’s killing as a great victory and affirmation of US policies and exceptionalismBix writes:
“Yet that did not prevent the U.S. president from proclaiming untruthfully that there had been ‘a firefight,’ that bin Laden's execution was ‘a testament to the greatness of our country,’ and that ‘Justice has been done.’ Nor did it deter him from saying three days later in a ‘60 Minutes’ interview that any critic of this action ‘needs to have their heads examined.’ In his speech Obama lauded the ‘heroic work of our military’ and the Special Operation death squad that carried out his order.
“...drawing on two centuries of presidential rhetoric honed in wars of continental and overseas conquest, Obama gave expression to classic American arrogance, stating, ‘America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it is the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens, our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place’ [italics added].[8] In the president's lexicon vengeance is justice and citizens should take pride in any action sanctioned by the U.S. government in the fight against foreign enemies.”
Third, the strongly militarized foreign policy of America will continue, Obama says. His poll numbers go up. Patriotism is refueled. The policy is sanctified. America is a force for good in the world against evil-doers, Obama proclaims.
Bix’ finishes his article by alluding to Obama’s patriotic statements of how the US was right in killing bin Laden and that the policy will continue because it works and because it is the morally correct path reflecting America’s exceptional role in international affairs.
“… the rightness of Obama appealed to key elements of the American credo: He told the nation that the intentions and purposes of their leaders were virtuous; he implied that the U.S. had a mission to lead the world and combat evil; and he asserted that by intervening militarily in foreign countries and eliminating arch criminals such as bin Laden peace could be restored.[9] His message resonated widely at home, causing his approval ratings in opinion polls to rise. He had shown the American people that in pursuit of his benevolent objectives he, like George W. Bush whom American voters had rewarded with a second term in office in 2004, would ignore the constitution and the laws of war that proscribe the killing of unresisting, unarmed captives.”
Reactions to assassination of bin Laden among Pakistani public, militants, and the Pakistani parliament
Bix refers to three such reactions.
#1 – Public disapproval in Pakistan against assassination. “When Gallup surveyed Pakistani opinion eight days after the assassination, nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of all Pakistanis disapproved of the U.S. military action and thought bin Laden ‘should have been taken alive’ or at least captured rather than killed.
#2 – Militants retaliate – “About a week later in northwest Pakistan, militants who accuse the Islamabad government and its security forces of ‘being puppets in . . . an American war against Muslims’ launched a series of three retaliatory attacks for bin Laden's killing, setting off suicide bombs that took the lives of eighty Pakistanis and injured more than a hundred-forty others; setting off bombs near oil trucks headed for U.S. forces in Afghanistan; and ‘storming [the] important [Mehran] naval base in the southern port city of Karachi.’
#3 – Pakistan’s parliament acts –“…meeting in Islamabad, [the parliament] passed a joint resolution demanding an immediate end to U.S. drone attacks and consideration by the civilian government of anti-U.S. sanctions.
David S. Cloud provides further details on how the Pakistani parliament has reacted to US interventions and the assassination of bin Laden. Cloud writes:
“In a clear sign of Pakistan's deepening mistrust of the United States, Islamabad has told the Obama administration to reduce the number of U.S. troops in the country and has moved to close three military intelligence liaison centers, setting back American efforts to eliminate insurgent sanctuaries in largely lawless areas bordering Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.
“The liaison centers, also known as intelligence fusion cells, in Quetta and Peshawar are the main conduits for the United States to share satellite imagery, target data and other intelligence with Pakistani ground forces conducting operations against militants, including Taliban fighters who slip into Afghanistan to attack U.S. and allied forces.”
Pakistan has other options to use in restraining US interventions into their country, options that indicate the diminution of US influence in the country.
We shouldn’t forget that Pakistan has nuclear weapons, which would lead any potential adversary to show restraint. There are two other options that Pakistan can utilize, has utilized, or is in the process of developing.
The first of these is that the US/NATO forces in Afghanistan have a limited number of routes for supplying their troops. Kate Brannen, writing for Defense News (5-18-11) considers this potential bottleneck for the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan (http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i+6544248&c=LAN&s=TOP)
According to Brannen:
“Of the supplies it delivers by land, the U.S. brings in 60 percent to Afghanistan from the north through Central Asia and the Baltic states and 40 percent from the south through Pakistan. There, supplies arrive in the port of Karachi and travel over land by contractor-driven trucks.” The US military brass are considering alternatives to the Pakistan route, but, according to Army Lt. Gen Mitchell Stevenson, “deputy chief of logistics,” “it would be a challenge.”
Brannen refers to more of the US military’s thinking on this matter as follows:
“If the southern routes were shut down, the U.S. would increase its use of airdrops and flow more in from the north. However, that route takes much longer and is more expensive, Stevenson said.
“The U.S. relies on airlift for all of its "sensitive" and "high-tech" equipment, Stevenson said. This is due to restrictions placed on the U.S. by countries along the northern route, as well as frequent attacks on supply trucks.
“To keep supplies off the roads, the U.S. also relies on a large pool of "theater-provided" equipment. The challenge there is that the equipment requires major overhaul and refurbishment about every two years. The capability to do that in Afghanistan is now available, the three-star said.”
Brannen also reports that the Army is working on a project that would channel more supplies from a “friendly country” (e.g., Bahrain).
When all is said and done, however, the US now depends on the Pakistan route and the pursuit of any alternative would be costly to the US/NATO occupation.
The second development that may reduce Pakistan’s ties to the US is that Pakistan is entering into an ever close relationship with China. Juan Cole provides an informative, up-dated, post on this development on his blog, Informed Comment (5-23-2011), the title of which is “Pakistan’s China Gambit.”
Cole’s central point is stated in the opening sentence of the post: “Pakistan’s relations with the United States are troubled, and Islamabad may be turning to China as a result.” Cole offers the following evidence for this position.
#1 – “Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani just ended a 4-day visit to Beijing, which turned into a love fest. The visit commemorated 60 years of Sino-Pakistan relations. (China has been a key Pakistan ally in the latter’s struggle with India over issues such as Kashmir).”
#2 – “Pakistan wants China to build for it a naval base at Gwadar, a deep water port now managed by Singapore, but to which Chinese engineers and Chinese capital made key contributions. (There are 10,000 Chinese working in Pakistan nowadays.) The port was 75% financed by China.”
#3 – “When the lease on the port ends, China is being asked to step in to manage it. Pakistan is offering itself to China, in other words, as Hong Kong West. If China has standing access to the new naval base for its own growing fleet of military vessels, that opening would give it a new position in the Arabian Sea near the strategic Persian Gulf, which has nearly two-thirds of the world’s proven petroleum reserves and a significant amount of natural gas, as well.”
#4 – “China will also give Pakistan 50 JF-17 Thunder fighter jets . China and Pakistan co-produce these jets, but the 50 being proffered have more sophisticated avionics than the co-produced version. China will also provide Pakistan with “J-20 stealth jets and Xiaolong/FC-1 multi-purpose light fighter aircraft”, though talks are in train about how exactly they will be paid for….Pakistan will thus have some 260 Chinese jets, and these aircraft are the core of its air force.”
#5 - On August 14, China will launch a satellite into orbit for Pakistan. The two countries are being vague about its use but it can hardly be irrelevant to Pakistan’s military competition with India.”
#6 - Two branches of China’s Industrial and Commercial Bank opened in Pakistan during Gilani’s visit to China.”
#7 – “Pakistan and China do $9 bn. a year in trade with one another each year, and Gilani wants it to rise to $15 bn by 2015. In contrast, two-way annual trade between the US and Pakistan is only $5.4 bn. a little more than half that of China-Pakistan. Likewise, US investments in Pakistan in 2010 seem only to have been 1/3 those of China.”
#8 – “Even the Muslim fundamentalist group, the Jama’at-i Islami, is urging closer ties with Communist China as a way of escaping Pakistan’s dependence on (“slavery to”) the United States.”
Implications? The US/NATO occupation of and ongoing fighting in Afghanistan has never been limited to Afghanistan alone.
It’s impossible to isolate a country in South-Central Asia for military conquest and regime-building. Afghanistan and Pakistan are connected by geography, transportation routes, and ethnic ties.
Afghanistan is important both to Pakistan and India, neither of which will be content to step aside and let the other become dominant in Afghanistan. (See Ben Arnoldy’s article on Pakistan and Afghanistan at: http://www.cmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2011/1020/How-the-Afghanistan-war-became-tangled-in-India-vs.-Pakistan.rivalry).
War and military occupation spur resistance and squander resources that could be used economic reconstruction.
US foreign wars and occupations are costly in human lives, economically, environmentally, for all involved. Insofar as the US is concerned, wars and occupations divert scarce resources away from critical human, economic, and environmental needs in the US itself.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
The words of democracy conflict with the actions of empire in the Middle East
The US military and quasi-military interventions and ambitions are virtually worldwide, even greater than the over 1,000 US military bases already in place in scores of countries across the globe. The continuing war in and occupation of Afghanistan and the ongoing “non-combatant” occupation of largely devastated Iraq, the long-term support of un-democratic regimes in Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea regions, the US efforts to militarily bulk up India’s military and nuclear might (against China) – all are indications of US global special interests in these particular parts of the world And for what: for access to oil, potential oil/gas pipelines, sea lanes for the transport of other commodities, the sale of military equipment by US arms makers, the supplying of US troops, and the ability to move goods and military shipments to and from the Arabian Sea or Mediterranean Sea.
Afghanistan is an important component of this grand and ever-adapting, but mostly imperialistic, grand plan to advance hegemony wherever feasible. Afghanistan has a wealth of untapped minerals, a location desirable for a pipeline from the Central Asian countries (e.g., Turkmenistan), through Pakistan, to the Arabian Sea, an important geopolitical position, and a potential, and sought after, example of US/NATO power - e.g., another “mission accomplished.”
The imperialistic thrust of US power also has repercussions on domestic politics and policies. Imperialism is based unequal exchange, access to perceived vital resources, sought advantages in competition with other powerful or potentially powerful countries, the cooptation of elites who will serve the interests of the imperialist state. Generating fear of foreign attacks in the US population is a significant part of the willingness of many Americans to go on supporting a vast military-industrial complex. State and media propaganda also help to instill in the minds of many Americans that national pride is at stake and a hyper-patriotism is called for by all good Americans. It also serves the interests of other parts of the US corporate-dominated economy and polity to keep citizens confused about why their jobs and conditions of life are in decline. That is, the decline in the situations of most Americans is touted not to be rooted in the profit-driven plutocracy and imperialism but in their own alleged mis-directed consumer practices or poor life choices – or perhaps in immigration to the US.
Hence, one of the outcomes of imperialism is a huge transfer of tax obligations from the corporations and rich to other Americans – i.e., we are said to need their entrepreneurial inventiveness, and their investments, so that good things will trickle down to the rest of us. So, imperialism is linked to inequality at home as well as abroad. This is not a stable system because inequality, in its turn, generates tensions and conflict. In the meantime, the US is expanding a surveillance state that attempts to nip potentially serious criticism and action in the bud. We’ll see whether protests against Republican policies succeed to change the thrust of domestic policies and reign in US imperialism.
Here are some excerpts from articles published this past week that illustrate my points.
US military power an expression of empire“
James Carroll authors an article printed on commondreams.org titled “A Declaration of Empire: Proposed law would vastly expand boundaries of US military mission.
Carroll writes that the “House of Representatives is debating a new definition of America’s military mission….the proposed National Defense Authorization Act expands the notion of America’s enemy to include forces ‘associated’ with named antagonists like Al Qaeda and the Taliban.” He continues:
“ According to its critics (including numerous House Democrats who asked last week that such language be dropped), this seemingly innocuous expansion would, in effect, license an open-ended bleeding of the American battle away from Iraq and Afghanistan to any location in which such vaguely defined associates operate. The two present wars could become three, four, or five, and could shift from the Middle East to Africa, South Asia, or anywhere that a photo, say, of Osama bin Laden hung in the barracks.”
But Carroll reminds us:
“…For most of a decade, the US military has already operated against an amorphous, transnational terrorist enemy under the broadest possible reading of its 9/11 authorization. Drones, cruise missiles, special-ops, and mercenary forces have hit targets with impunity well beyond the officially acknowledged battle zones. The Obama administration, otherwise so different from its predecessor, is freelancing militarily, just as the Bush administration did.”
Carroll asks why such an expanded mandate is perceived to be needed now.
“Though the language in the proposed legislation simply affirms what has become White House and Pentagon practice, more than policy is at stake. The law after 9/11 made an implicit claim to global force projection based on an emergency; the new legislation would explicitly reject any time or place limitations on that force. In other words, a seemingly subtle shift marks a movement from the exceptional to the threshold of normal. There is a word for the realm into which that threshold opens: The legislation is a step toward an open declaration of American empire.”
Carroll then makes the point that the expanded conception of “empire” is indicates that the US policymakers see the US as an exception to the use of military force and interventions “for the sake of political order and economic well-being – not only of Americans but of the world…the idea that the global rules of order apply to every nation except the one that enforces them.”
The consequence?
“Even so, the more far-reaching consequence of 21st-century American empire will be the final destruction of authentic internationalism — nations bound by the power of agreed democratic law, cross-border systems of checks and balances, all abiding by the same rules, mutually enforced. The destruction, that is, of the only world with a hope of real peace and justice.”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/17
The illegal use of US military power rolls on in the Middle East: For oil, not democracyRep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) crafted the following message, which appeared on several sites, including the progressivenetwork.wordpress.com on May 19. The title: “US Actions, Not Obama’s Words, Tell Story of US Middle East Policy.”
“…When the President says ‘[i]t will be the policy of the United States to promote reform across the region, and to support transitions to democracy,’ we must look more carefully at how this policy has been implemented as well as the implications of the actions that have already been taken.
“President Obama violated the Constitution by pursuing war against Libya without a Constitutionally-required authorization for the use of military force or declaration of war from Congress. His actions, and now his policy recitations, set the stage for more interventions, presumably in Syria and Iran. His recounting of the reasons for U.S. intervention in Libya is at odds with the facts. There was no clear evidence of an impending massacre in Libya. There was menacing rhetoric and a violent government put-down of an armed insurrection which may have been joined by some with legitimate non-violent aspirations. No one can justify the actions of any parties to this conflict. In any case, discretion requires leaders to move with the utmost care in developing military responses to rhetoric and similar care to intervention in a civil war.
“The UN mandate to protect civilians was exceeded almost immediately and used as a pretext for regime change. The U.S. and NATO are one in Libya. Our nation, through NATO, has taken sides in a civil war which is spreading more violence throughout Libya and putting more civilians' at risk. The Interim Council of the rebels moved quickly to a $100 million oil marketing agreement with Qatar, unmasking a potential reason for intervention: control over Libya's vast oil fields which can yield over $300 million in oil daily. The military intervention in a civil war against the backdrop of a struggle for oil casts a shadow of doubt upon lofty rhetoric about positive change, peace and stability. That the U.S. has not intervened militarily in Bahrain and Yemen demonstrates that violent intervention carries high risks and political resolution of conflict is desirable. We must be prepared to seek political resolution of conflicts through statecraft not through military force.
“NATO's expansion as ‘globocop’ is hardly about peace and stability. It has people in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the streets loudly protesting NATO's onslaught against innocent civilians.
“We have an obligation to work together to make America safe, but it is important to note that our intervention in Iraq was based on lies, that ‘the end of combat operations’ in Iraq is not the end of American occupation, and the war in Afghanistan could drag on for another decade. These wars, along with the conflicts over Pakistan, Yemen and Libya will continue to cost the American people hundreds of billions of dollars and add trillions to the deficit, diverting resources from pressing domestic needs in health care, education, job creation and retirement security.
“The President wants to ‘advance economic development for nations that transition to democracy.’ It would be good to advance economic development in the United States, since there are over 14 million Americans are out of work. Such a high level of unemployment degrades our own democracy.”
Arming Middle East Dictators despite rhetorical support of “Arab Spring”
Nick Turse pens a typically insightful and well documents article on the following blog, and other sites, “Obama’s Reset: Arab Spring or Same Old Thing? His answer is to analyze “how the President and the Pentagon Prop Up Both Middle Eastern Despots and American Arms Dealers.” http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2011/05/barack-obama-arms-his-muslim-dictators.html
Turse opens his article: “If you follow the words, one Middle East comes into view; if you follow the weapons, quite another.
“This week, the words will take center stage. On Thursday, according to administration officials, President Obama will ‘reset’ American policy in the Middle East with a major address offering a comprehensive look at the Arab Spring, ‘a unified theory about the popular uprisings from Tunisia to Bahrain,’ and possibly a new administration approach to the region.”
His central argument: “In the meantime, all signs indicate that the Pentagon will quietly maintain antithetical policies, just as it has throughout the Obama years. Barring an unprecedented and almost inconceivable policy shift, it will continue to broker lucrative deals to send weapons systems and military equipment to Arab despots. Nothing indicates that it will be deterred from its course, whatever the president says, which means that Barack Obama’s reset rhetoric is unlikely to translate into meaningful policy change in the region.
Turse finds the contradiction, the hypocrisy, illustrated in many parts of the Middle East, and points out:
“For months now, the world has watched as protesters have taken to the streets across the Middle East to demand a greater say in their lives. In Tunisia and Egypt, they toppled decades-old dictatorships. In Bahrain and Yemen, they were shot down in the streets as they demanded democracy. In the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, they called for reforms, free speech, and basic rights, and ended up bloodied and often in jail cells. In Iraq, they protested a lack of food and jobs, and in response got bullets and beatings.”
US weapons were used to suppress critics of regimes.
“As the world watched, trained eyes couldn’t help noticing something startling about the tools of repression in those countries. The armored personnel carriers, tanks, and helicopters used to intimidate or even kill peaceful protesters were often American models.
“For decades, the U.S. has provided military aid, facilitated the sale of weaponry, and transferred vast quantities of arms to a host of Middle Eastern despots. Arming Arab autocrats, however, isn’t only the work of presidents past. A TomDispatch analysis of Pentagon documents finds that the Obama administration has sought to send billions of dollars in weapons systems -- from advanced helicopters to fighter jets -- to the very regimes that have beaten, jailed, and killed pro-democracy demonstrators, journalists, and reform activists throughout the Arab Spring.”
[….]
“Since the summer of 2009, President Obama, by way of the Pentagon and with State Department approval, has regularly notified Congress of his intent to sell advanced weaponry to governments across the Middle East, including Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Under U.S. law, Congress then has 30 days to review the sale before the Pentagon and associated military contractors enter into more formal contract talks with individual nations.”
Turse’s analysis goes into detail to illustrate his thesis that the US has for years sold conventional and advanced weapons to dictators throughout the Middle East and continues to do so now.
Here are just a few of his examples.
“Last year, notifications also went out concerning the sale of F-16 fighters, armored personnel carriers, tank ammunition, and advanced computer systems to Iraq, C-17 military transport aircraft for Kuwait, mobile missile systems for Bahrain, and Apache attack helicopters and tactical missile systems for the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia, however, was the big winner by far with a blockbuster $60 billion agreement for helicopters, fighter jets, radar equipment, and advanced smart bombs that will represent, if all purchases are made, the largest foreign arms deal in American history.”
He discusses the importance of military sales to US weapons makers and names some of the chief lobbyists for the Pentagon. And he points out that the Pentagon’s Arab partners across the Middle East have “deep pockets” for the purchase of weapons. The political and ideological “price” is that the long-standing US support of dictators. As Turse writes US weapons’ sales
“…may help to explain the Obama administration’s willingness to support dictators like Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak until their ousters were givens, and to essentially look the other way as security forces in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and elsewhere, sometimes using American-supplied equipment, suppressed pro-democracy activists. After all, the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, along with regional partner Jordan -- are set to spend $70 billion on American weaponry and equipment this year, and as much as $80 billion per year by 2015.”
US weapons have been used against critics rallying against Middle East regimes in Iraq. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates sent armed forces “into neighboring Bahrain to help put down pro-democratic protests.” They were rewarded by the Obama administration with clearance for “$330 million worth of advanced night vision and thermal-imaging equipment.”
With questions being raised in the US about the size of the military budget, Turse’s following points are particularly relevant.
“…the Pentagon is leaning ever more heavily on rich rulers in the Arab world to prop up the military-corporate complex at home. If the Pentagon and the weapons makers have their way, the provisional successes of the demonstrators in Egypt and Tunisia will turn out to be outliers as an Arab Spring turns distinctly wintry.”
The Point
The militarized foreign policy is a central aspect of US imperialism and the country’s elites and power-brokers continuing efforts to maintain US hegemony across the globe, especially in the Middle East and nearby regions in Africa and Central Asia that are important for their resources, geopolitical locations, and for shoring up the US “empire” against rising competition from China.
We should be vigilant against this policy and, among other things, be discriminating in distinguishing “words” from “actions.”
Afghanistan is an important component of this grand and ever-adapting, but mostly imperialistic, grand plan to advance hegemony wherever feasible. Afghanistan has a wealth of untapped minerals, a location desirable for a pipeline from the Central Asian countries (e.g., Turkmenistan), through Pakistan, to the Arabian Sea, an important geopolitical position, and a potential, and sought after, example of US/NATO power - e.g., another “mission accomplished.”
The imperialistic thrust of US power also has repercussions on domestic politics and policies. Imperialism is based unequal exchange, access to perceived vital resources, sought advantages in competition with other powerful or potentially powerful countries, the cooptation of elites who will serve the interests of the imperialist state. Generating fear of foreign attacks in the US population is a significant part of the willingness of many Americans to go on supporting a vast military-industrial complex. State and media propaganda also help to instill in the minds of many Americans that national pride is at stake and a hyper-patriotism is called for by all good Americans. It also serves the interests of other parts of the US corporate-dominated economy and polity to keep citizens confused about why their jobs and conditions of life are in decline. That is, the decline in the situations of most Americans is touted not to be rooted in the profit-driven plutocracy and imperialism but in their own alleged mis-directed consumer practices or poor life choices – or perhaps in immigration to the US.
Hence, one of the outcomes of imperialism is a huge transfer of tax obligations from the corporations and rich to other Americans – i.e., we are said to need their entrepreneurial inventiveness, and their investments, so that good things will trickle down to the rest of us. So, imperialism is linked to inequality at home as well as abroad. This is not a stable system because inequality, in its turn, generates tensions and conflict. In the meantime, the US is expanding a surveillance state that attempts to nip potentially serious criticism and action in the bud. We’ll see whether protests against Republican policies succeed to change the thrust of domestic policies and reign in US imperialism.
Here are some excerpts from articles published this past week that illustrate my points.
US military power an expression of empire“
James Carroll authors an article printed on commondreams.org titled “A Declaration of Empire: Proposed law would vastly expand boundaries of US military mission.
Carroll writes that the “House of Representatives is debating a new definition of America’s military mission….the proposed National Defense Authorization Act expands the notion of America’s enemy to include forces ‘associated’ with named antagonists like Al Qaeda and the Taliban.” He continues:
“ According to its critics (including numerous House Democrats who asked last week that such language be dropped), this seemingly innocuous expansion would, in effect, license an open-ended bleeding of the American battle away from Iraq and Afghanistan to any location in which such vaguely defined associates operate. The two present wars could become three, four, or five, and could shift from the Middle East to Africa, South Asia, or anywhere that a photo, say, of Osama bin Laden hung in the barracks.”
But Carroll reminds us:
“…For most of a decade, the US military has already operated against an amorphous, transnational terrorist enemy under the broadest possible reading of its 9/11 authorization. Drones, cruise missiles, special-ops, and mercenary forces have hit targets with impunity well beyond the officially acknowledged battle zones. The Obama administration, otherwise so different from its predecessor, is freelancing militarily, just as the Bush administration did.”
Carroll asks why such an expanded mandate is perceived to be needed now.
“Though the language in the proposed legislation simply affirms what has become White House and Pentagon practice, more than policy is at stake. The law after 9/11 made an implicit claim to global force projection based on an emergency; the new legislation would explicitly reject any time or place limitations on that force. In other words, a seemingly subtle shift marks a movement from the exceptional to the threshold of normal. There is a word for the realm into which that threshold opens: The legislation is a step toward an open declaration of American empire.”
Carroll then makes the point that the expanded conception of “empire” is indicates that the US policymakers see the US as an exception to the use of military force and interventions “for the sake of political order and economic well-being – not only of Americans but of the world…the idea that the global rules of order apply to every nation except the one that enforces them.”
The consequence?
“Even so, the more far-reaching consequence of 21st-century American empire will be the final destruction of authentic internationalism — nations bound by the power of agreed democratic law, cross-border systems of checks and balances, all abiding by the same rules, mutually enforced. The destruction, that is, of the only world with a hope of real peace and justice.”
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/05/17
The illegal use of US military power rolls on in the Middle East: For oil, not democracyRep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) crafted the following message, which appeared on several sites, including the progressivenetwork.wordpress.com on May 19. The title: “US Actions, Not Obama’s Words, Tell Story of US Middle East Policy.”
“…When the President says ‘[i]t will be the policy of the United States to promote reform across the region, and to support transitions to democracy,’ we must look more carefully at how this policy has been implemented as well as the implications of the actions that have already been taken.
“President Obama violated the Constitution by pursuing war against Libya without a Constitutionally-required authorization for the use of military force or declaration of war from Congress. His actions, and now his policy recitations, set the stage for more interventions, presumably in Syria and Iran. His recounting of the reasons for U.S. intervention in Libya is at odds with the facts. There was no clear evidence of an impending massacre in Libya. There was menacing rhetoric and a violent government put-down of an armed insurrection which may have been joined by some with legitimate non-violent aspirations. No one can justify the actions of any parties to this conflict. In any case, discretion requires leaders to move with the utmost care in developing military responses to rhetoric and similar care to intervention in a civil war.
“The UN mandate to protect civilians was exceeded almost immediately and used as a pretext for regime change. The U.S. and NATO are one in Libya. Our nation, through NATO, has taken sides in a civil war which is spreading more violence throughout Libya and putting more civilians' at risk. The Interim Council of the rebels moved quickly to a $100 million oil marketing agreement with Qatar, unmasking a potential reason for intervention: control over Libya's vast oil fields which can yield over $300 million in oil daily. The military intervention in a civil war against the backdrop of a struggle for oil casts a shadow of doubt upon lofty rhetoric about positive change, peace and stability. That the U.S. has not intervened militarily in Bahrain and Yemen demonstrates that violent intervention carries high risks and political resolution of conflict is desirable. We must be prepared to seek political resolution of conflicts through statecraft not through military force.
“NATO's expansion as ‘globocop’ is hardly about peace and stability. It has people in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the streets loudly protesting NATO's onslaught against innocent civilians.
“We have an obligation to work together to make America safe, but it is important to note that our intervention in Iraq was based on lies, that ‘the end of combat operations’ in Iraq is not the end of American occupation, and the war in Afghanistan could drag on for another decade. These wars, along with the conflicts over Pakistan, Yemen and Libya will continue to cost the American people hundreds of billions of dollars and add trillions to the deficit, diverting resources from pressing domestic needs in health care, education, job creation and retirement security.
“The President wants to ‘advance economic development for nations that transition to democracy.’ It would be good to advance economic development in the United States, since there are over 14 million Americans are out of work. Such a high level of unemployment degrades our own democracy.”
Arming Middle East Dictators despite rhetorical support of “Arab Spring”
Nick Turse pens a typically insightful and well documents article on the following blog, and other sites, “Obama’s Reset: Arab Spring or Same Old Thing? His answer is to analyze “how the President and the Pentagon Prop Up Both Middle Eastern Despots and American Arms Dealers.” http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2011/05/barack-obama-arms-his-muslim-dictators.html
Turse opens his article: “If you follow the words, one Middle East comes into view; if you follow the weapons, quite another.
“This week, the words will take center stage. On Thursday, according to administration officials, President Obama will ‘reset’ American policy in the Middle East with a major address offering a comprehensive look at the Arab Spring, ‘a unified theory about the popular uprisings from Tunisia to Bahrain,’ and possibly a new administration approach to the region.”
His central argument: “In the meantime, all signs indicate that the Pentagon will quietly maintain antithetical policies, just as it has throughout the Obama years. Barring an unprecedented and almost inconceivable policy shift, it will continue to broker lucrative deals to send weapons systems and military equipment to Arab despots. Nothing indicates that it will be deterred from its course, whatever the president says, which means that Barack Obama’s reset rhetoric is unlikely to translate into meaningful policy change in the region.
Turse finds the contradiction, the hypocrisy, illustrated in many parts of the Middle East, and points out:
“For months now, the world has watched as protesters have taken to the streets across the Middle East to demand a greater say in their lives. In Tunisia and Egypt, they toppled decades-old dictatorships. In Bahrain and Yemen, they were shot down in the streets as they demanded democracy. In the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, they called for reforms, free speech, and basic rights, and ended up bloodied and often in jail cells. In Iraq, they protested a lack of food and jobs, and in response got bullets and beatings.”
US weapons were used to suppress critics of regimes.
“As the world watched, trained eyes couldn’t help noticing something startling about the tools of repression in those countries. The armored personnel carriers, tanks, and helicopters used to intimidate or even kill peaceful protesters were often American models.
“For decades, the U.S. has provided military aid, facilitated the sale of weaponry, and transferred vast quantities of arms to a host of Middle Eastern despots. Arming Arab autocrats, however, isn’t only the work of presidents past. A TomDispatch analysis of Pentagon documents finds that the Obama administration has sought to send billions of dollars in weapons systems -- from advanced helicopters to fighter jets -- to the very regimes that have beaten, jailed, and killed pro-democracy demonstrators, journalists, and reform activists throughout the Arab Spring.”
[….]
“Since the summer of 2009, President Obama, by way of the Pentagon and with State Department approval, has regularly notified Congress of his intent to sell advanced weaponry to governments across the Middle East, including Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Under U.S. law, Congress then has 30 days to review the sale before the Pentagon and associated military contractors enter into more formal contract talks with individual nations.”
Turse’s analysis goes into detail to illustrate his thesis that the US has for years sold conventional and advanced weapons to dictators throughout the Middle East and continues to do so now.
Here are just a few of his examples.
“Last year, notifications also went out concerning the sale of F-16 fighters, armored personnel carriers, tank ammunition, and advanced computer systems to Iraq, C-17 military transport aircraft for Kuwait, mobile missile systems for Bahrain, and Apache attack helicopters and tactical missile systems for the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia, however, was the big winner by far with a blockbuster $60 billion agreement for helicopters, fighter jets, radar equipment, and advanced smart bombs that will represent, if all purchases are made, the largest foreign arms deal in American history.”
He discusses the importance of military sales to US weapons makers and names some of the chief lobbyists for the Pentagon. And he points out that the Pentagon’s Arab partners across the Middle East have “deep pockets” for the purchase of weapons. The political and ideological “price” is that the long-standing US support of dictators. As Turse writes US weapons’ sales
“…may help to explain the Obama administration’s willingness to support dictators like Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak until their ousters were givens, and to essentially look the other way as security forces in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and elsewhere, sometimes using American-supplied equipment, suppressed pro-democracy activists. After all, the six member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council -- Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, along with regional partner Jordan -- are set to spend $70 billion on American weaponry and equipment this year, and as much as $80 billion per year by 2015.”
US weapons have been used against critics rallying against Middle East regimes in Iraq. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates sent armed forces “into neighboring Bahrain to help put down pro-democratic protests.” They were rewarded by the Obama administration with clearance for “$330 million worth of advanced night vision and thermal-imaging equipment.”
With questions being raised in the US about the size of the military budget, Turse’s following points are particularly relevant.
“…the Pentagon is leaning ever more heavily on rich rulers in the Arab world to prop up the military-corporate complex at home. If the Pentagon and the weapons makers have their way, the provisional successes of the demonstrators in Egypt and Tunisia will turn out to be outliers as an Arab Spring turns distinctly wintry.”
The Point
The militarized foreign policy is a central aspect of US imperialism and the country’s elites and power-brokers continuing efforts to maintain US hegemony across the globe, especially in the Middle East and nearby regions in Africa and Central Asia that are important for their resources, geopolitical locations, and for shoring up the US “empire” against rising competition from China.
We should be vigilant against this policy and, among other things, be discriminating in distinguishing “words” from “actions.”
Monday, May 16, 2011
US options in Afghanistan
Now that a team of US Special Forces has found and killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, what are the chances of the US government withdrawing the hundred thousand US troops from Afghanistan over the next 12 months or so.
Bear in mind the cost of maintaining this large force is not a piddling sum in an economy with 16 percent of the work force unemployed, given up looking for a job after months of searching for one, plus those working part-time only because they cannot find a full-time job. There other signs of decline, including 59 million or so Americans who are without health insurance for part of a year or the entire year. There are also an unprecedented number of Americans who have been forced into foreclosure or who are paying more for their mortgages than their houses are worth and they can afford. There are other social indicators that times are hard for Americans. While wealthy people and most large corporations, especially in finance, pharmaceuticals, and oil, are making substantial profits and paying low actual rates of taxes, the overall trend in both income and wealth distributions show that only the top few percent of the population are reaping benefits. In the meantime wages stagnate or fall and more and more families are lucky to have even one member in a job.
If US policymakers decided to end the war/occupation in Afghanistan, and used the savings from the occupation/war for pressing domestic needs in our country, it would make a significant difference. Just one example. The Center for Budget Policies and Priorities estimates that the budget shortfalls for 44 of the 50 states will total $112 billion for fiscal year 2012, which begins on July 2, 2011. The anticipated state deficits could be paid for by what is now being spent on the US occupation of Afghanistan. The CBPP report notes that one of the reasons for why the state deficits is this: “Federal assistance for states, which has been enormously helpful in allowing states to avert some of the most harmful potential budget cuts, will be largely gone by the end of fiscal year 2011.” The $120 billion spent annually by the US government on the Afghanistan war/occupation would go a long way in averting the state deficits and in the process save tens of thousands of public-sector jobs. (http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=711)
Afghanistan War OptionsThere are three general options being considered on the issue of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, and this has been true for some years. I’ll start with the most conservative option, then consider the slow and hedged withdrawal option, and finally focus on the accelerated withdrawal option, the option that we at “stopafghanwar” have advocated.
The Republican/Conservative Option: Increase or sustain US troop levels and do what it takes to “win” the war in Afghanistan.From this perspective, US government policymakers and military leaders should support an increase the number of troops in Afghanistan. This is the position of Sen. McCain and most Republicans, excluding those with libertarian values. Max Boot writes in an article for Commentary magazine (4-19-11) that we need to build more military bases in Afghanistan to assure the Afghan government and people that the US will not again abandon them. Boot contends: “ if we are to safeguard hard-fought gains, we will need to maintain a military presence in that country for many years too, just as we have in Germany, Japan, South Korea, etc.”
Anthony Dimaggio refers to other Republican positions on Afghanistan, and writes:
“John McCain announced shortly following the ’09 Afghanistan escalation that any inclusion of a withdrawal date was ‘dispiriting,’ and would guarantee that Afghans would be less likely to ‘risk their lives to take our side in this fight.’ The withdrawal date, McCain argued, is one that ‘enemies can exploit to weaken and intimidate our friends.’ In March of this year, Republican Congressman Mike Coffman similarly announced that he was skeptical of a possible withdrawal, considering the ‘security interests in Afghanistan that we must accept…we need to make sure that the Taliban don’t take over the country.’ Coffman’s comments came at a time when a non-binding House resolution calling for a full, accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan (by year’s end) was defeated by a vote of 93-321, with only eight Republicans voting in support.” (http://www.counterpunch.org/dimaggio04262011.html)
The expectation of the Republicans and most conservatives is that additional US forces, as many as are deemed necessary, will finally result in the conquest of the Taliban and any other insurgents, the creation of a stable central government, the realization of Afghan military and police forces capable of maintaining law and order in the country, and a situation where warlords, drug lords, and tribal elders are willing to go along with the US project. When all of this is accomplished, the US would then be able to withdraw some of its troops with honor, its stature as the strongest military power intact, and in a position to influence geopolitical and fossil fuel issues in the Middle East and Caspian Sea regions. After all is said and done, winning and maintaining the US hegemonic position is what matters most.
The Republican/Conservative vision is, in the end, wishful thinking that will waste resources and lives and serve the further destabilize the world.
Second Option, Realists/Pragmatists in the Political Center: Surges in troop levels coupled with the Promise of Token Withdrawals of troops
President Obama and his administration are among the paramount realists/pragmatists when it comes to Afghanistan. They want to compromise. On the one hand, they want to continue the war toward an ultimate victory, that is, continuing the status quo in troop levels with periodic surges in troop levels. On the other hand, they will bend to public opinion and political realities with promises of the withdrawal of some troops and even actual, though token, withdrawal of some troops now and again.
The compromise is likely next to be based on token withdrawals, referring to an end date, say, the end of 2014, and hedging this date by specifying that “conditions on the ground” and recommendations from the military brass may lengthen the time the same level of troops, or more than now, stay in Afghanistan. The Pentagon has recently recommended that 5,000 US troops be withdrawn from Afghanistan beginning in July of this year (2011) and another 5,000 in December.
It’s not clear yet what Obama will do in July with respect of the status of US troops in Afghanistan. But it is clear that he savored the “victory” of bin Laden’s killing. Here again from our last post on this site is a summary of what Obama said on May 2 to the nation and world in his celebratory announcement of bin Laden’s death.
He suggested that after ten years Osama bin Laden had been located, thanks to “the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals,” and then killed by the heroic “men who carried out the operation.” The implications of bin Laden’s death are profound, in Obama’s view, because they take out the leader and symbol of al-Qaeda. His death “is not the end of our efforts,” the President said. Al Qaeda groups may be in disarray but they “continue to pursue attacks against us.” The President maintains that the costs of the war in Afghanistan and anywhere else al-Qaeda threatens the US or its friends, are justified and necessary for the sake of our country’s security. The war(s) will continue because “the cause of security [for] our country is not complete.” In the end, the President says, America will prevail because “America can do whatever we set out mind to” and because we are “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Will the president tilt to the status quo or support a token withdrawal in July? Whichever it is, Obama was exalted by the killing of bin Laden, with the implication that we can “win” this war in time. Bear in mind also that if there are token withdrawals, this does not rule out surges in troop levels in the future.
Anthony Dimaggo, whose article is cited above, suggests also that Obama will tilt for the foreseeable future toward the status quo, with perhaps periodic emergency surges. His argument is persuasive.
“In the case of Afghanistan, the Obama administration announced that the beginning of a phased withdrawal could begin as early as July of 2011, and continue through 2014. The 2011 withdrawal date was promised as far back as late 2009, at the same time that Obama announced his ‘surge’ of an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. Obama’s ‘09 withdrawal announcement, made simultaneously alongside his announcement of the escalation of war, was unprecedented in U.S. history. Rarely do aggressors provide an ‘exit strategy’ at the onset of their onslaughts. This novel development, however, reflected not so much the ‘democratic’ responsiveness of the Obama administration to the public (considering that most Americans opposed the war at the time, and continue to do so today), but rather a begrudging concession on the part of the Democrats that they can no longer pursue (a la Bush) bloody wars without a (at least vague) promised end in sight. Still the unprecedented escalation-de-escalation strategy should hardly be viewed as a ‘revolutionary’ development in U.S. foreign policy. After all, under Obama the Afghan war is set to endure for a grueling 13 years at minimum, considering the initial escalation of the conflict began immediately following the September 11th attacks. Furthermore, through the first four years of his presidency, Obama will have spent more on the military than even George W. Bush did by the end of his first term. If anything, Obama has demonstrated that imperialist policies and military escalation can be even more effectively pursued under Democratic regimes, with ‘anti-war’ figures like Obama farcically celebrated as a proponent of ‘de-escalation’ and ‘peace.’
A third option, Liberals, progressives, leftists: Planning for a responsible withdrawal of US Troops from Afghanistan over the coming 12 months
This is generally the position we on this blog take and which, according to recent surveys of American attitudes, a growing number of Americans endorse, namely, to have policymakers plan for a full withdrawal by some date in the near future.
Proponents - There are those, like us, who advocate the position for a quick withdrawal of troops, removing a majority of US troops by the end of this year and the remainder by the end of July 2012. After setting aside some of the “historic” reasons supporting our position, we then turn to immediate justifications, and finish by consideration a general consequence of ending the US occupation of Afghanistan in these terms.
PUTTING ASIDE SOME HISTORIC FACTS - Putting aside the fact that the US, with the significant assistance of Saudi Arabia, supported bin Laden and other foreign mujahedeen to fight against the Soviet occupation of the country during the 1980s. We helped to create al Qaeda in the first place. Putting aside the question of whether the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was necessary or not and the assertion that the Taliban leaders were unwilling to negotiate on whether to hand over bin Laden to the US or not. As Noam Chomsky has documented, the Taliban leaders had not slammed the door on further negotiations. Putting aside the fact that the US did too little to support the Afghan government and people after bin Laden fled and the Taliban were defeated. Putting aside the concern that the escalated and surged military occupation of Afghanistan is based on US interests in having an oil pipeline built through from the Casipan Sea region down through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. Putting such flawed or self-interest-based policies aside, there are other justifications for our position in favor of a quick withdrawal.
#1 - NO CLEAR GOAL - The US has not stated publicly a goal for staying in Afghanistan, except somehow to ensure that bin Laden is killed or captured (this is done), that al Qaeda is eliminated from Afghanistan (haven’t had a substantial number for years), and that al Qaeda must not return to Afghanistan in large numbers and use the country as its base of worldwide terrorist operations. This last point is based on the assumption that the Taliban will take over the Afghan government when and if a US/NATO occupation is ended and that this government will welcome al Qaeda to return to Afghanistan. The issue is taken up in the next point.
#2 – TALIBAN ARE NOT AL QAEDA – An article from Reuters, “Separating the Taliban from al Qaeda (February 7 2001) captures one of the basic differences between. The article refers to research by Kandahar-based researchers Alex Strick, van Linschoten and Felex Kuehn that has recently be released by New York University. The researchers found that:
“the relationship between the Taliban and al Qaeda was strained both before and after the September 11 2001 attacks, partly because of their very different ideological roots. Al Qaeda grew out of militant Islamism in the Middle East, notably in Egypt, which — when fused with the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan — created its own view of global jihad. Taliban leaders grew up in rural southern Afghanistan, isolated from world events. Many were too young to play a big role in the Afghan jihad, and had no close ties to al Qaeda until after they took power in 1996.
“’Many Taliban leaders of the older generation are still potential partners for a negotiated settlement. They are not implacably opposed to the U.S. or West in general but to specific actions or policies in Afghanistan. These figures now understand the position of the international community much better than they did before 2001. They are not seeking a return to the failed interactions between the Taliban and the international community of the 1990s. At present they still represent the movement,’ the report concludes.
http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/2011/02/08/separating-the-taliban-from-al-qaeda
#3 – SUICIDE ATTACKS IN AFGHANISTAN ARE LINKED TO OCCUPATION, NOT TO ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST AND SUPRA-NATIONAL GOALS
Consider the facts notes by Robert A. Pape and James K. Feldman in their book, Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It. They maintain that suicide bombings in Afghanistan increased in response to the impact of the occupation.
“In the immediate aftermath of America’s conquest, Afghanistan experienced only a small number of suicide attacks – fewer than 15 total attacks from 2002 through 2005. Suddenly suicide attacks began to increase by an order of magnitude – with 93 in 2006, 137 in 2007, 136 in 2008, and 98 in 2009. Moreover, the overwhelming percentage of the suicide attacks (80%) has been against security targets related to American and allied forces, and nearly all (90%) carried out by Afghan nationals.”
Pape and Feldman make the following point about the principal cause of the rise in suicide bombing. “Although there are multiple causes, one stands out: the growth and redeployment outside of Kabul of Western Forces in Afghanistan” (p. 34).
The implication of their analysis is that if you end the occupation, you diminish or end suicide bombings. Another implication is that the principal opposition to the occupation is home-grown, not international in its participants or ideology.
ETCETERA – The goals of making Afghanistan a democracy, social order, economic progress, etc., have not been achieved over the last ten years of the US military presence and surges.
Consider the following incomplete, but telling, list of points, which have been discussed one time or another on our blog over the last18 months of the costs and lack of success.
• the corruption used to consolidate central government power
. the central Afghan government has not earned legitimacy in the minds of the majority of Afghan people
• the continuing ethnic divisions
• the fact that the Afghan economy remains dependent on foreign aid and the production and distribution of drugs
• the warlords sometimes with their own militia
• infrastructure problems have not been adequately addressed
• the continuing discrimination against girls/women in state law and traditions
• the absence of a well trained and committed Afghan army and police force
• the poverty, limited education, and lack of opportunities for the majority of Afghans
• the US cannot afford to spend tens of billions of dollars on another endless war
• the casualties and deaths to American troops
• the rising health care costs for US Afghan veterans for both long-term or life-long physical and psychological health services
• public opinion polls indicate support for a withdrawal of troops – a Gallup poll conducted May 5-8 found that 59% of those surveyed favored bringing the troops home
Some implications
The withdrawal of a large percentage of US troops in Afghanistan is not likely next year or for several or even many years (decades?). At the same time, the opposition to the war is likely to grow. The difficulty is that there are so many problems besetting Americans that they may not be sufficiently galvanized for the level of protests that are necessary to achieve the quick withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan that the liberal/progressive/left so desires. And the electoral alternatives may not give voters the option of a genuine and heightened withdrawal of troops.
In the meantime, those reporting on the war, those engaging in the sustained collection of evidence on the war and its effects, and those offering proposals for an end to the Afghanistan war, will serve an important purpose – helping to keep the significance
Bear in mind the cost of maintaining this large force is not a piddling sum in an economy with 16 percent of the work force unemployed, given up looking for a job after months of searching for one, plus those working part-time only because they cannot find a full-time job. There other signs of decline, including 59 million or so Americans who are without health insurance for part of a year or the entire year. There are also an unprecedented number of Americans who have been forced into foreclosure or who are paying more for their mortgages than their houses are worth and they can afford. There are other social indicators that times are hard for Americans. While wealthy people and most large corporations, especially in finance, pharmaceuticals, and oil, are making substantial profits and paying low actual rates of taxes, the overall trend in both income and wealth distributions show that only the top few percent of the population are reaping benefits. In the meantime wages stagnate or fall and more and more families are lucky to have even one member in a job.
If US policymakers decided to end the war/occupation in Afghanistan, and used the savings from the occupation/war for pressing domestic needs in our country, it would make a significant difference. Just one example. The Center for Budget Policies and Priorities estimates that the budget shortfalls for 44 of the 50 states will total $112 billion for fiscal year 2012, which begins on July 2, 2011. The anticipated state deficits could be paid for by what is now being spent on the US occupation of Afghanistan. The CBPP report notes that one of the reasons for why the state deficits is this: “Federal assistance for states, which has been enormously helpful in allowing states to avert some of the most harmful potential budget cuts, will be largely gone by the end of fiscal year 2011.” The $120 billion spent annually by the US government on the Afghanistan war/occupation would go a long way in averting the state deficits and in the process save tens of thousands of public-sector jobs. (http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=711)
Afghanistan War OptionsThere are three general options being considered on the issue of the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, and this has been true for some years. I’ll start with the most conservative option, then consider the slow and hedged withdrawal option, and finally focus on the accelerated withdrawal option, the option that we at “stopafghanwar” have advocated.
The Republican/Conservative Option: Increase or sustain US troop levels and do what it takes to “win” the war in Afghanistan.From this perspective, US government policymakers and military leaders should support an increase the number of troops in Afghanistan. This is the position of Sen. McCain and most Republicans, excluding those with libertarian values. Max Boot writes in an article for Commentary magazine (4-19-11) that we need to build more military bases in Afghanistan to assure the Afghan government and people that the US will not again abandon them. Boot contends: “ if we are to safeguard hard-fought gains, we will need to maintain a military presence in that country for many years too, just as we have in Germany, Japan, South Korea, etc.”
Anthony Dimaggio refers to other Republican positions on Afghanistan, and writes:
“John McCain announced shortly following the ’09 Afghanistan escalation that any inclusion of a withdrawal date was ‘dispiriting,’ and would guarantee that Afghans would be less likely to ‘risk their lives to take our side in this fight.’ The withdrawal date, McCain argued, is one that ‘enemies can exploit to weaken and intimidate our friends.’ In March of this year, Republican Congressman Mike Coffman similarly announced that he was skeptical of a possible withdrawal, considering the ‘security interests in Afghanistan that we must accept…we need to make sure that the Taliban don’t take over the country.’ Coffman’s comments came at a time when a non-binding House resolution calling for a full, accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan (by year’s end) was defeated by a vote of 93-321, with only eight Republicans voting in support.” (http://www.counterpunch.org/dimaggio04262011.html)
The expectation of the Republicans and most conservatives is that additional US forces, as many as are deemed necessary, will finally result in the conquest of the Taliban and any other insurgents, the creation of a stable central government, the realization of Afghan military and police forces capable of maintaining law and order in the country, and a situation where warlords, drug lords, and tribal elders are willing to go along with the US project. When all of this is accomplished, the US would then be able to withdraw some of its troops with honor, its stature as the strongest military power intact, and in a position to influence geopolitical and fossil fuel issues in the Middle East and Caspian Sea regions. After all is said and done, winning and maintaining the US hegemonic position is what matters most.
The Republican/Conservative vision is, in the end, wishful thinking that will waste resources and lives and serve the further destabilize the world.
Second Option, Realists/Pragmatists in the Political Center: Surges in troop levels coupled with the Promise of Token Withdrawals of troops
President Obama and his administration are among the paramount realists/pragmatists when it comes to Afghanistan. They want to compromise. On the one hand, they want to continue the war toward an ultimate victory, that is, continuing the status quo in troop levels with periodic surges in troop levels. On the other hand, they will bend to public opinion and political realities with promises of the withdrawal of some troops and even actual, though token, withdrawal of some troops now and again.
The compromise is likely next to be based on token withdrawals, referring to an end date, say, the end of 2014, and hedging this date by specifying that “conditions on the ground” and recommendations from the military brass may lengthen the time the same level of troops, or more than now, stay in Afghanistan. The Pentagon has recently recommended that 5,000 US troops be withdrawn from Afghanistan beginning in July of this year (2011) and another 5,000 in December.
It’s not clear yet what Obama will do in July with respect of the status of US troops in Afghanistan. But it is clear that he savored the “victory” of bin Laden’s killing. Here again from our last post on this site is a summary of what Obama said on May 2 to the nation and world in his celebratory announcement of bin Laden’s death.
He suggested that after ten years Osama bin Laden had been located, thanks to “the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals,” and then killed by the heroic “men who carried out the operation.” The implications of bin Laden’s death are profound, in Obama’s view, because they take out the leader and symbol of al-Qaeda. His death “is not the end of our efforts,” the President said. Al Qaeda groups may be in disarray but they “continue to pursue attacks against us.” The President maintains that the costs of the war in Afghanistan and anywhere else al-Qaeda threatens the US or its friends, are justified and necessary for the sake of our country’s security. The war(s) will continue because “the cause of security [for] our country is not complete.” In the end, the President says, America will prevail because “America can do whatever we set out mind to” and because we are “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Will the president tilt to the status quo or support a token withdrawal in July? Whichever it is, Obama was exalted by the killing of bin Laden, with the implication that we can “win” this war in time. Bear in mind also that if there are token withdrawals, this does not rule out surges in troop levels in the future.
Anthony Dimaggo, whose article is cited above, suggests also that Obama will tilt for the foreseeable future toward the status quo, with perhaps periodic emergency surges. His argument is persuasive.
“In the case of Afghanistan, the Obama administration announced that the beginning of a phased withdrawal could begin as early as July of 2011, and continue through 2014. The 2011 withdrawal date was promised as far back as late 2009, at the same time that Obama announced his ‘surge’ of an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. Obama’s ‘09 withdrawal announcement, made simultaneously alongside his announcement of the escalation of war, was unprecedented in U.S. history. Rarely do aggressors provide an ‘exit strategy’ at the onset of their onslaughts. This novel development, however, reflected not so much the ‘democratic’ responsiveness of the Obama administration to the public (considering that most Americans opposed the war at the time, and continue to do so today), but rather a begrudging concession on the part of the Democrats that they can no longer pursue (a la Bush) bloody wars without a (at least vague) promised end in sight. Still the unprecedented escalation-de-escalation strategy should hardly be viewed as a ‘revolutionary’ development in U.S. foreign policy. After all, under Obama the Afghan war is set to endure for a grueling 13 years at minimum, considering the initial escalation of the conflict began immediately following the September 11th attacks. Furthermore, through the first four years of his presidency, Obama will have spent more on the military than even George W. Bush did by the end of his first term. If anything, Obama has demonstrated that imperialist policies and military escalation can be even more effectively pursued under Democratic regimes, with ‘anti-war’ figures like Obama farcically celebrated as a proponent of ‘de-escalation’ and ‘peace.’
A third option, Liberals, progressives, leftists: Planning for a responsible withdrawal of US Troops from Afghanistan over the coming 12 months
This is generally the position we on this blog take and which, according to recent surveys of American attitudes, a growing number of Americans endorse, namely, to have policymakers plan for a full withdrawal by some date in the near future.
Proponents - There are those, like us, who advocate the position for a quick withdrawal of troops, removing a majority of US troops by the end of this year and the remainder by the end of July 2012. After setting aside some of the “historic” reasons supporting our position, we then turn to immediate justifications, and finish by consideration a general consequence of ending the US occupation of Afghanistan in these terms.
PUTTING ASIDE SOME HISTORIC FACTS - Putting aside the fact that the US, with the significant assistance of Saudi Arabia, supported bin Laden and other foreign mujahedeen to fight against the Soviet occupation of the country during the 1980s. We helped to create al Qaeda in the first place. Putting aside the question of whether the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was necessary or not and the assertion that the Taliban leaders were unwilling to negotiate on whether to hand over bin Laden to the US or not. As Noam Chomsky has documented, the Taliban leaders had not slammed the door on further negotiations. Putting aside the fact that the US did too little to support the Afghan government and people after bin Laden fled and the Taliban were defeated. Putting aside the concern that the escalated and surged military occupation of Afghanistan is based on US interests in having an oil pipeline built through from the Casipan Sea region down through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. Putting such flawed or self-interest-based policies aside, there are other justifications for our position in favor of a quick withdrawal.
#1 - NO CLEAR GOAL - The US has not stated publicly a goal for staying in Afghanistan, except somehow to ensure that bin Laden is killed or captured (this is done), that al Qaeda is eliminated from Afghanistan (haven’t had a substantial number for years), and that al Qaeda must not return to Afghanistan in large numbers and use the country as its base of worldwide terrorist operations. This last point is based on the assumption that the Taliban will take over the Afghan government when and if a US/NATO occupation is ended and that this government will welcome al Qaeda to return to Afghanistan. The issue is taken up in the next point.
#2 – TALIBAN ARE NOT AL QAEDA – An article from Reuters, “Separating the Taliban from al Qaeda (February 7 2001) captures one of the basic differences between. The article refers to research by Kandahar-based researchers Alex Strick, van Linschoten and Felex Kuehn that has recently be released by New York University. The researchers found that:
“the relationship between the Taliban and al Qaeda was strained both before and after the September 11 2001 attacks, partly because of their very different ideological roots. Al Qaeda grew out of militant Islamism in the Middle East, notably in Egypt, which — when fused with the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan — created its own view of global jihad. Taliban leaders grew up in rural southern Afghanistan, isolated from world events. Many were too young to play a big role in the Afghan jihad, and had no close ties to al Qaeda until after they took power in 1996.
“’Many Taliban leaders of the older generation are still potential partners for a negotiated settlement. They are not implacably opposed to the U.S. or West in general but to specific actions or policies in Afghanistan. These figures now understand the position of the international community much better than they did before 2001. They are not seeking a return to the failed interactions between the Taliban and the international community of the 1990s. At present they still represent the movement,’ the report concludes.
http://blogs.reuters.com/pakistan/2011/02/08/separating-the-taliban-from-al-qaeda
#3 – SUICIDE ATTACKS IN AFGHANISTAN ARE LINKED TO OCCUPATION, NOT TO ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST AND SUPRA-NATIONAL GOALS
Consider the facts notes by Robert A. Pape and James K. Feldman in their book, Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It. They maintain that suicide bombings in Afghanistan increased in response to the impact of the occupation.
“In the immediate aftermath of America’s conquest, Afghanistan experienced only a small number of suicide attacks – fewer than 15 total attacks from 2002 through 2005. Suddenly suicide attacks began to increase by an order of magnitude – with 93 in 2006, 137 in 2007, 136 in 2008, and 98 in 2009. Moreover, the overwhelming percentage of the suicide attacks (80%) has been against security targets related to American and allied forces, and nearly all (90%) carried out by Afghan nationals.”
Pape and Feldman make the following point about the principal cause of the rise in suicide bombing. “Although there are multiple causes, one stands out: the growth and redeployment outside of Kabul of Western Forces in Afghanistan” (p. 34).
The implication of their analysis is that if you end the occupation, you diminish or end suicide bombings. Another implication is that the principal opposition to the occupation is home-grown, not international in its participants or ideology.
ETCETERA – The goals of making Afghanistan a democracy, social order, economic progress, etc., have not been achieved over the last ten years of the US military presence and surges.
Consider the following incomplete, but telling, list of points, which have been discussed one time or another on our blog over the last18 months of the costs and lack of success.
• the corruption used to consolidate central government power
. the central Afghan government has not earned legitimacy in the minds of the majority of Afghan people
• the continuing ethnic divisions
• the fact that the Afghan economy remains dependent on foreign aid and the production and distribution of drugs
• the warlords sometimes with their own militia
• infrastructure problems have not been adequately addressed
• the continuing discrimination against girls/women in state law and traditions
• the absence of a well trained and committed Afghan army and police force
• the poverty, limited education, and lack of opportunities for the majority of Afghans
• the US cannot afford to spend tens of billions of dollars on another endless war
• the casualties and deaths to American troops
• the rising health care costs for US Afghan veterans for both long-term or life-long physical and psychological health services
• public opinion polls indicate support for a withdrawal of troops – a Gallup poll conducted May 5-8 found that 59% of those surveyed favored bringing the troops home
Some implications
The withdrawal of a large percentage of US troops in Afghanistan is not likely next year or for several or even many years (decades?). At the same time, the opposition to the war is likely to grow. The difficulty is that there are so many problems besetting Americans that they may not be sufficiently galvanized for the level of protests that are necessary to achieve the quick withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan that the liberal/progressive/left so desires. And the electoral alternatives may not give voters the option of a genuine and heightened withdrawal of troops.
In the meantime, those reporting on the war, those engaging in the sustained collection of evidence on the war and its effects, and those offering proposals for an end to the Afghanistan war, will serve an important purpose – helping to keep the significance
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Implications of bin Laden's killing for US Afghanistan and broader military policies
The killing of Osama bin Laden by 25 special force members of the Navy Seals Team Six has produced a speech-for-the-moment from President Obama, followed by a media frenzy of news and commentary.
President Obama offered his views in a televised statement to the country (and world). He suggested that after ten years Osama bin Laden had been located, thanks to “the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals,” and then killed by the heroic “men who carried out the operation.” The implications of bin Laden’s death are profound, in Obama’s view, because they take out the leader and symbol of al-Qaeda. His death “is not the end of our efforts,” the President said. Al Qaeda groups may be in disarray but they “continue to pursue attacks against us.” The President maintains that the costs of the war in Afghanistan and anywhere else al-Qaeda threatens the US or its friends, are justified and necessary for the sake of our country’s security. The war(s) will continue because “the cause of security [for] our country is not complete.” In the end, the President says, America will prevail because “America can do whatever we set out mind to” and because we are “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
The media, at least initially echoed the president’s themes. Joshua Holland sums it up nicely:
“The Obama administration deftly shaped the media coverage of its prized kill by detailing a picture-perfect, morally unambiguous special forces operation, which culminated in the death of Osama bin Laden. Most of the details of that narrative have now unraveled, but the conventional wisdom that the tale established remains. As Glenn Greenwald put it, that's par for the course: ‘the narrative is set forever by first-day government falsehoods uncritically amplified by establishment media outlets, which endure no matter how definitively they are disproven in subsequent days.’”
(http://www.alternet.org/story/150857/7_deceptions_about_bin_laden%27s_killing_pushed_by_the_obama_administration)
In this celebratory account by the President, the killing of Osama is a “victory,” honorable, something only the US can do, and it enhances America’s security. Any terrorist group that threatens America or its allies will eventually be squashed. Former President Bush, Jr., could not have told the story any better. There is no context here, no history, no accounting of how US interference has been significant for over thirty years in bringing al-Qaeda to life and shaping, directly and indirectly, the devastation of an already impoverished Afghanistan society. There is no reference to any US interests in oil pipelines, minerals, and the sheer geo-political desire to maintain some semblance of US dominance in the region.
There are a few other issues that stand out for many of us who opposed the war in Afghanistan from the beginning and who support an expedited withdrawal. The ten-year-old war against and the occupation of Afghanistan have been overwhelmingly against a multi-faceted Taliban, who are variously fighting to advance their own interests, the commands of warlords, the corruption of the national police in their areas and a society ridden by corruption, the US air war, the Special Forces’ mid-night raids, the weakness of reconstruction projects, the illegitimate central government, conflicting interests among ethnic groups, prisons known for torture, refugee camps, high rates of poverty, homelessness, and unemployment. This is a classic story of neo-colonialism, hardly a story of democracy, let alone a march toward true equality. By the way, there are no credible sources that establish that most so-called Taliban are linked to or dominated by the regional and international ambitions of al-Qaeda.
Democracy Now covered well the critical narrative of this killing of Osama. On the May 5th program, co-host Amy Goodman asked Allan Nairn, award-winning journalist and activist, for his thoughts on the event and whether, in his view, this could “mean the end of the US war with Afghanistan?” Before turning to Nairn’s answer to the first part of this question, consider the second part of it. Obama did not explicitly address the question of withdrawal; however, the thrust of his statement is in praise of military valor and an endless commitment to fighting our “enemies.” We’ll see by July whether Obama decides to withdraw many US troops from Afghanistan or not. His decision then will tell us something about his intentions and how much powerful military and corporate interests in the society continue to influence him.
ALLAN NAIRN [in response to Amy Goodman’s question]: “I don’t think it will [change much]. It should. It definitely should be an occasion for rethinking everything on a much bigger scale than Afghanistan.
“The first thing that struck me was seeing the Americans out in the streets celebrating outside the White House, outside the old World Trade Center site, people cheering, people exultant. And while some of that may come from bloodlust, I think a lot of it comes from a sense of justice. People like justice. They want to see it. And in this case, I think many people have the feeling, well, he got what he deserved. This was a man who had massacred civilians; he got what he deserved. And there’s a lot of truth to that. But if we recognize that someone who is willing to kill civilians en masse, someone who is willing to send young people out with weapons and bombs to, as President Obama put it, see to it that a family doesn’t have a loved one sitting at the dinner table anymore, see to it that a child and a parent never meet again, if we say that someone like that deserves to die, then we have to follow through on that idea, and we have to recognize, OK, if these things really are so enormous, we have to stop them. Killing bin Laden does not stop them. Bin Laden is dead, but the world is still governed by bin Ladens. People cheer because they thought they saw justice, but this was not justice delivered by—a kind of rough justice delivered by victims. This was one killer killing another, a big killer, the United States government, killing another, someone who’s actually a smaller one, bin Laden….
“Every day, the U.S., directly with its own forces, or indirectly through its proxy forces, its clients, is killing, at a minimum, dozens of people. I mean, just since Obama came in, in the one limited area of drone strikes in Pakistan, something like 1,900 have been killed just under Obama. And that started decades before 9/11. We have to stop these people, these powerful people like Obama, like Bush, like those who run the Pentagon, and who think it’s OK to take civilian life. And it doesn’t seem that they can be stopped by normal, routine politics, because under the American system, as in most other systems, people don’t even know this is happening. People know the face of bin Laden. They know the evil deeds that he’s done. They see that he is dead, and they say, "Oh, great, we killed bin Laden." But they don’t see the other 20, 30, 50, 100 people who the U.S. killed that day, many of them children, many of them civilians. If they did, they probably wouldn’t be out in the street cheering about those deaths.
“We’ve got to stop this practice. And Americans aren’t doing it. Egyptians, Tunisians are doing their part. They’ve risen up against the repression they face. I think we need an American uprising, if we’re to put a stop to this kind of killing of innocent people. And we need an American Romero, someone like Archbishop Romero of Salvador, who, in the face of massacres, of daily massacres of what in the end was more than 70,000 Salvadorans, stood up and said to the army of his country, 'Stop the repression. Defy your orders to kill, because there’s a higher principle.' About a little more than a week ago, I was in El Salvador and visited Romero’s old home, which I had never been to before, and saw that on his bookshelf he had Why Not the Best?, a campaign book by Jimmy Carter, which he had apparently been reading. Romero wrote to Jimmy Carter in his capacity as the archbishop in 1980, asking Carter to stop supporting the Salvadoran military that was slaughtering his people. And from what I know of Romero, he probably really believed that Carter would respond. He didn’t. Carter kept sending the aid. And within weeks, Romero himself was assassinated by death squad, that had originated from U.S. backing. Writing letters didn’t work in that case. And it doesn’t work here. You know, we’ve got to put a stop to this. Bin Laden is dead. And bin-Ladenism, if you want to call it that, should die also.”
Implications of Nairn’s statements.
The US has not brought peace and justice anywhere in the last 50 years or so through its military interventions or through US supported military dictatorships. Rather, it has supported regimes that have suppressed and stolen from their people, or allowed foreign transnational corporations ravage their environments and take their wealth.
(See Robert Scheer’s article, “A Monster of Our Own Creation,” for an overview of US involvement in Afghanistan over the last 30 years: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_monster_of_our_own_creation_20110504)
The American people are by and large ignorant of this long and brutal history. Nairn contends that the only way to challenge the US power structure and its militarized foreign policy is for the people to engage in massive protests and civil disobedience. It’s not clear how Americans will go from relative ignorance to involvement in such engagements. If it should happen, such an eruption would likely stem initially from declining economic conditions rather than the squandering of resources on foreign wars against poor countries. But once riled up, Americans may come to see the connection as salient, that is, the money spent on foreign wars and the military-industrial complex is mis-spent and needs to be redirected to building a sustainable and just society here at home.
Other issues connected to the killing of Osama include how much the Pakistan military and government knew about Bin Laden’s whereabouts, whether carrying out assassinations (killings) in other countries is legal and moral, whether it is time to withdraw troops or build on this “victory” and stay the course in Afghanistan. The question of what Pakistan’s authorities knew is still not resolved, though it doesn’t look like it will much alter Pakistan-US relations. It is indeed a violation of another country’s sovereignty, one of the bedrock assumptions of international law, such as it is. And the odds are in favor of keeping US troops in Afghanistan until the end of 2014 at least, that is, continuing the policy that has already be espoused by the President and military leaders.
There is another issue as well, that is, the issue of how helpful “torture” of key captives helped US intelligence to identify Bin Laden’s place of residence.
Is the right-wing assertion correct that “torture,” or what government officials have called “enhanced interrogation,” provided the information that enabled US authorities to locate the whereabouts of bin Laden? Many of us thought this was an issue long ago resolved, that is, torture has not borne useful intelligence about bin Laden’s location or on any other important issue related to this war.
Democracy Now provides the following summary of a position that rebuts right-wing assertions on its May 4th program.
“The death of Osama bin Laden has sparked a debate over whether torture of suspects held at places such as the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay helped track down and kill the al-Qaeda leader. Some claim the mission vindicated controversial Bush policies on harsh interrogation techniques. We speak with Matthew Alexander, a former senior military interrogator in Iraq. "The laying of the groundwork, if you will, of these [Bush-era] techniques, I believe wholeheartedly, slowed us down on the road towards Osama bin Laden and numerous other members of al-Qaeda," Alexander says. "I’m convinced we would have found him a lot earlier had we not resorted to torture and abuse." (http://democracynow.org/2011/5/4/former_military_interrogator_matthew_alexander_despite
Here are excerpts from the interview.
MATTHEW ALEXANDER:
“The debate is skewed at this point. And one reason why is because we don’t know all the details, and secondly, because a lot is being left out of the conversation. And let me talk a little bit about that. One of the things that people aren’t talking about is the fact that one of the people that was confronted with this information that bin Laden had a courier is Sheikh al-Libi, who was held in a CIA secret prison and was tortured and who gave his CIA interrogators the name of the courier as being Maulawi Jan. And the CIA chased down that information and found out that person didn’t exist, that al-Libi had lied. And nobody is talking about the fact that al-Libi caused us to waste resources and time by chasing a false lead because he was tortured.
“The other thing that’s being left out of this conversation is the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed certainly knew the real name of the courier, whose nom de guerre or nickname was Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. But Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had to have known his real name or at least how to find him, a location that we might look, but he never gave up that information. And so, what we’re seeing is that waterboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques, just like professional interrogators have been saying for years, always result in either limited information, false information or no information.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet, what’s happening now is being used by many to justify torture.
MATTHEW ALEXANDER: “That’s correct. And, you know, when you look at the use of waterboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques in the case of the trail of evidence that leads to Osama bin Laden, what you find is, time and time again, it slows down the chase. In 2003, when we—or '02, when we have Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, we have the person most likely to be able to lead us to bin Laden, and yet we don't get to him until 2011. You know, by any interrogation standard, eight years is a long time to not get information from people, and that’s probably directly related to the fact that he was waterboarded 183 times.
“The other piece of the story that we don’t know yet is we don’t know how the CIA learned the real family name of the courier, who again, his nickname was Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. And we don’t know how the CIA got his real family name, which really was the key piece of information that led us to be able to monitor phone calls and emails and discover his first name, his full name, which led to us finding him and then him leading us to the compound. So, until we have that information, which we don’t even know if it came from interrogations or if it came from a source, then we really don’t have a complete picture of how we got to bin Laden.
[….]
MATTHEW ALEXANDER: “ I was a senior interrogator in charge of an interrogation team. I conducted quite a few interrogations myself, over 300. I went out with the raid teams on these kill-or-capture missions to try and kill or capture, you know, leaders of al-Qaeda specifically. The time I was on the team, we were hunting a man named Zafar, who was in charge of the suicide bombing operations in northern Iraq.
And what I found is a couple things, Amy. The first is that non-coercive techniques, time and time again, proved extremely effective against al-Qaeda, especially techniques that came from law enforcement that were based on rapport building.
[….]
“And American interrogators have proven this time and time again, from World War II through Vietnam, through Panama, through the First Gulf War. And let’s go back to the successes of American interrogators. You know, American interrogators found Saddam Hussein without using torture. We found and killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda Iraq, which helped turn the Iraq war, without using torture. And numerous other leaders that we have found and captured—another guy named Zafar, that I describe in my book—all these successes have come without the use of torture.” [The title of Alexander’s book is Kill or Capture.]
The Upshot –
It’s great that Osama bin Laden has been killed, though the illegal means used to do this give us pause. In the broad scope of US involvement in Afghanistan, it is like a blink of an eye. It is probably a morale booster for those who favor the war and helps to confirm in their minds that we are still a great military power and can do whatever we set our sights on. For critics of the war, it could –doubtfully - open up an opportunity to withdraw the troops: Mission Accomplished.
Close scrutiny of the US intervention in Afghanistan should leave little doubt that Obama and Congress should take decisive steps to bring it to a responsible end
President Obama offered his views in a televised statement to the country (and world). He suggested that after ten years Osama bin Laden had been located, thanks to “the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals,” and then killed by the heroic “men who carried out the operation.” The implications of bin Laden’s death are profound, in Obama’s view, because they take out the leader and symbol of al-Qaeda. His death “is not the end of our efforts,” the President said. Al Qaeda groups may be in disarray but they “continue to pursue attacks against us.” The President maintains that the costs of the war in Afghanistan and anywhere else al-Qaeda threatens the US or its friends, are justified and necessary for the sake of our country’s security. The war(s) will continue because “the cause of security [for] our country is not complete.” In the end, the President says, America will prevail because “America can do whatever we set out mind to” and because we are “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
The media, at least initially echoed the president’s themes. Joshua Holland sums it up nicely:
“The Obama administration deftly shaped the media coverage of its prized kill by detailing a picture-perfect, morally unambiguous special forces operation, which culminated in the death of Osama bin Laden. Most of the details of that narrative have now unraveled, but the conventional wisdom that the tale established remains. As Glenn Greenwald put it, that's par for the course: ‘the narrative is set forever by first-day government falsehoods uncritically amplified by establishment media outlets, which endure no matter how definitively they are disproven in subsequent days.’”
(http://www.alternet.org/story/150857/7_deceptions_about_bin_laden%27s_killing_pushed_by_the_obama_administration)
In this celebratory account by the President, the killing of Osama is a “victory,” honorable, something only the US can do, and it enhances America’s security. Any terrorist group that threatens America or its allies will eventually be squashed. Former President Bush, Jr., could not have told the story any better. There is no context here, no history, no accounting of how US interference has been significant for over thirty years in bringing al-Qaeda to life and shaping, directly and indirectly, the devastation of an already impoverished Afghanistan society. There is no reference to any US interests in oil pipelines, minerals, and the sheer geo-political desire to maintain some semblance of US dominance in the region.
There are a few other issues that stand out for many of us who opposed the war in Afghanistan from the beginning and who support an expedited withdrawal. The ten-year-old war against and the occupation of Afghanistan have been overwhelmingly against a multi-faceted Taliban, who are variously fighting to advance their own interests, the commands of warlords, the corruption of the national police in their areas and a society ridden by corruption, the US air war, the Special Forces’ mid-night raids, the weakness of reconstruction projects, the illegitimate central government, conflicting interests among ethnic groups, prisons known for torture, refugee camps, high rates of poverty, homelessness, and unemployment. This is a classic story of neo-colonialism, hardly a story of democracy, let alone a march toward true equality. By the way, there are no credible sources that establish that most so-called Taliban are linked to or dominated by the regional and international ambitions of al-Qaeda.
Democracy Now covered well the critical narrative of this killing of Osama. On the May 5th program, co-host Amy Goodman asked Allan Nairn, award-winning journalist and activist, for his thoughts on the event and whether, in his view, this could “mean the end of the US war with Afghanistan?” Before turning to Nairn’s answer to the first part of this question, consider the second part of it. Obama did not explicitly address the question of withdrawal; however, the thrust of his statement is in praise of military valor and an endless commitment to fighting our “enemies.” We’ll see by July whether Obama decides to withdraw many US troops from Afghanistan or not. His decision then will tell us something about his intentions and how much powerful military and corporate interests in the society continue to influence him.
ALLAN NAIRN [in response to Amy Goodman’s question]: “I don’t think it will [change much]. It should. It definitely should be an occasion for rethinking everything on a much bigger scale than Afghanistan.
“The first thing that struck me was seeing the Americans out in the streets celebrating outside the White House, outside the old World Trade Center site, people cheering, people exultant. And while some of that may come from bloodlust, I think a lot of it comes from a sense of justice. People like justice. They want to see it. And in this case, I think many people have the feeling, well, he got what he deserved. This was a man who had massacred civilians; he got what he deserved. And there’s a lot of truth to that. But if we recognize that someone who is willing to kill civilians en masse, someone who is willing to send young people out with weapons and bombs to, as President Obama put it, see to it that a family doesn’t have a loved one sitting at the dinner table anymore, see to it that a child and a parent never meet again, if we say that someone like that deserves to die, then we have to follow through on that idea, and we have to recognize, OK, if these things really are so enormous, we have to stop them. Killing bin Laden does not stop them. Bin Laden is dead, but the world is still governed by bin Ladens. People cheer because they thought they saw justice, but this was not justice delivered by—a kind of rough justice delivered by victims. This was one killer killing another, a big killer, the United States government, killing another, someone who’s actually a smaller one, bin Laden….
“Every day, the U.S., directly with its own forces, or indirectly through its proxy forces, its clients, is killing, at a minimum, dozens of people. I mean, just since Obama came in, in the one limited area of drone strikes in Pakistan, something like 1,900 have been killed just under Obama. And that started decades before 9/11. We have to stop these people, these powerful people like Obama, like Bush, like those who run the Pentagon, and who think it’s OK to take civilian life. And it doesn’t seem that they can be stopped by normal, routine politics, because under the American system, as in most other systems, people don’t even know this is happening. People know the face of bin Laden. They know the evil deeds that he’s done. They see that he is dead, and they say, "Oh, great, we killed bin Laden." But they don’t see the other 20, 30, 50, 100 people who the U.S. killed that day, many of them children, many of them civilians. If they did, they probably wouldn’t be out in the street cheering about those deaths.
“We’ve got to stop this practice. And Americans aren’t doing it. Egyptians, Tunisians are doing their part. They’ve risen up against the repression they face. I think we need an American uprising, if we’re to put a stop to this kind of killing of innocent people. And we need an American Romero, someone like Archbishop Romero of Salvador, who, in the face of massacres, of daily massacres of what in the end was more than 70,000 Salvadorans, stood up and said to the army of his country, 'Stop the repression. Defy your orders to kill, because there’s a higher principle.' About a little more than a week ago, I was in El Salvador and visited Romero’s old home, which I had never been to before, and saw that on his bookshelf he had Why Not the Best?, a campaign book by Jimmy Carter, which he had apparently been reading. Romero wrote to Jimmy Carter in his capacity as the archbishop in 1980, asking Carter to stop supporting the Salvadoran military that was slaughtering his people. And from what I know of Romero, he probably really believed that Carter would respond. He didn’t. Carter kept sending the aid. And within weeks, Romero himself was assassinated by death squad, that had originated from U.S. backing. Writing letters didn’t work in that case. And it doesn’t work here. You know, we’ve got to put a stop to this. Bin Laden is dead. And bin-Ladenism, if you want to call it that, should die also.”
Implications of Nairn’s statements.
The US has not brought peace and justice anywhere in the last 50 years or so through its military interventions or through US supported military dictatorships. Rather, it has supported regimes that have suppressed and stolen from their people, or allowed foreign transnational corporations ravage their environments and take their wealth.
(See Robert Scheer’s article, “A Monster of Our Own Creation,” for an overview of US involvement in Afghanistan over the last 30 years: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_monster_of_our_own_creation_20110504)
The American people are by and large ignorant of this long and brutal history. Nairn contends that the only way to challenge the US power structure and its militarized foreign policy is for the people to engage in massive protests and civil disobedience. It’s not clear how Americans will go from relative ignorance to involvement in such engagements. If it should happen, such an eruption would likely stem initially from declining economic conditions rather than the squandering of resources on foreign wars against poor countries. But once riled up, Americans may come to see the connection as salient, that is, the money spent on foreign wars and the military-industrial complex is mis-spent and needs to be redirected to building a sustainable and just society here at home.
Other issues connected to the killing of Osama include how much the Pakistan military and government knew about Bin Laden’s whereabouts, whether carrying out assassinations (killings) in other countries is legal and moral, whether it is time to withdraw troops or build on this “victory” and stay the course in Afghanistan. The question of what Pakistan’s authorities knew is still not resolved, though it doesn’t look like it will much alter Pakistan-US relations. It is indeed a violation of another country’s sovereignty, one of the bedrock assumptions of international law, such as it is. And the odds are in favor of keeping US troops in Afghanistan until the end of 2014 at least, that is, continuing the policy that has already be espoused by the President and military leaders.
There is another issue as well, that is, the issue of how helpful “torture” of key captives helped US intelligence to identify Bin Laden’s place of residence.
Is the right-wing assertion correct that “torture,” or what government officials have called “enhanced interrogation,” provided the information that enabled US authorities to locate the whereabouts of bin Laden? Many of us thought this was an issue long ago resolved, that is, torture has not borne useful intelligence about bin Laden’s location or on any other important issue related to this war.
Democracy Now provides the following summary of a position that rebuts right-wing assertions on its May 4th program.
“The death of Osama bin Laden has sparked a debate over whether torture of suspects held at places such as the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay helped track down and kill the al-Qaeda leader. Some claim the mission vindicated controversial Bush policies on harsh interrogation techniques. We speak with Matthew Alexander, a former senior military interrogator in Iraq. "The laying of the groundwork, if you will, of these [Bush-era] techniques, I believe wholeheartedly, slowed us down on the road towards Osama bin Laden and numerous other members of al-Qaeda," Alexander says. "I’m convinced we would have found him a lot earlier had we not resorted to torture and abuse." (http://democracynow.org/2011/5/4/former_military_interrogator_matthew_alexander_despite
Here are excerpts from the interview.
MATTHEW ALEXANDER:
“The debate is skewed at this point. And one reason why is because we don’t know all the details, and secondly, because a lot is being left out of the conversation. And let me talk a little bit about that. One of the things that people aren’t talking about is the fact that one of the people that was confronted with this information that bin Laden had a courier is Sheikh al-Libi, who was held in a CIA secret prison and was tortured and who gave his CIA interrogators the name of the courier as being Maulawi Jan. And the CIA chased down that information and found out that person didn’t exist, that al-Libi had lied. And nobody is talking about the fact that al-Libi caused us to waste resources and time by chasing a false lead because he was tortured.
“The other thing that’s being left out of this conversation is the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed certainly knew the real name of the courier, whose nom de guerre or nickname was Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. But Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had to have known his real name or at least how to find him, a location that we might look, but he never gave up that information. And so, what we’re seeing is that waterboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques, just like professional interrogators have been saying for years, always result in either limited information, false information or no information.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet, what’s happening now is being used by many to justify torture.
MATTHEW ALEXANDER: “That’s correct. And, you know, when you look at the use of waterboarding and enhanced interrogation techniques in the case of the trail of evidence that leads to Osama bin Laden, what you find is, time and time again, it slows down the chase. In 2003, when we—or '02, when we have Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, we have the person most likely to be able to lead us to bin Laden, and yet we don't get to him until 2011. You know, by any interrogation standard, eight years is a long time to not get information from people, and that’s probably directly related to the fact that he was waterboarded 183 times.
“The other piece of the story that we don’t know yet is we don’t know how the CIA learned the real family name of the courier, who again, his nickname was Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. And we don’t know how the CIA got his real family name, which really was the key piece of information that led us to be able to monitor phone calls and emails and discover his first name, his full name, which led to us finding him and then him leading us to the compound. So, until we have that information, which we don’t even know if it came from interrogations or if it came from a source, then we really don’t have a complete picture of how we got to bin Laden.
[….]
MATTHEW ALEXANDER: “ I was a senior interrogator in charge of an interrogation team. I conducted quite a few interrogations myself, over 300. I went out with the raid teams on these kill-or-capture missions to try and kill or capture, you know, leaders of al-Qaeda specifically. The time I was on the team, we were hunting a man named Zafar, who was in charge of the suicide bombing operations in northern Iraq.
And what I found is a couple things, Amy. The first is that non-coercive techniques, time and time again, proved extremely effective against al-Qaeda, especially techniques that came from law enforcement that were based on rapport building.
[….]
“And American interrogators have proven this time and time again, from World War II through Vietnam, through Panama, through the First Gulf War. And let’s go back to the successes of American interrogators. You know, American interrogators found Saddam Hussein without using torture. We found and killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda Iraq, which helped turn the Iraq war, without using torture. And numerous other leaders that we have found and captured—another guy named Zafar, that I describe in my book—all these successes have come without the use of torture.” [The title of Alexander’s book is Kill or Capture.]
The Upshot –
It’s great that Osama bin Laden has been killed, though the illegal means used to do this give us pause. In the broad scope of US involvement in Afghanistan, it is like a blink of an eye. It is probably a morale booster for those who favor the war and helps to confirm in their minds that we are still a great military power and can do whatever we set our sights on. For critics of the war, it could –doubtfully - open up an opportunity to withdraw the troops: Mission Accomplished.
Close scrutiny of the US intervention in Afghanistan should leave little doubt that Obama and Congress should take decisive steps to bring it to a responsible end
Monday, May 2, 2011
Continuities of Torture in US wars
All wars are savage, barbaric, immoral, as well as often illegal with respect to international law. They are also often in recent times asymmetric, in the sense that one side has enormous supplies of modern weapons and resources, while the other side is bereft of tanks, cannons, fighter aircraft, navies, predatory drones, advanced electronic communications, and the other deadly accoutrements that accompany such warfare. Certainly all this is true in the US/Allied wars on and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Richard Falk refers to such warfare as “one-sided” in one of the articles in a recently published collection titled The United States and Tortures: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse, edited by Marjorie Cohn. Here is some relevant text from Falk’s article.
“The United States and some of its allies, rely on and seek to sustain and enhance a posture of military dominance enabling the pursuit of political goals throughout the world. And this dominance basically relies upon American technological superiority in warfare that enables it to inflict limitless devastation on a foreign country anywhere on earth without fearing retaliation at home. It is an accepted idea in national defense planning in all countries to develop the most effective weaponry that is technologically and financially feasible. The disposition is reinforced by strategic thinking about how to inflict maximal damage in battlefield situations and as an instrument of coercive diplomacy. The US government, without any serious domestic challenge, has carried this image of national security to absurd limits, currently with an annual military budget about equal to that of the entire rest of the world” (p. 122).
US and its allies have devastated or compounded the devastation of the infrastructures, economies, medical and educational systems of Afghanistan and Iraq, killed tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians, created the conditions that facilitated such carnage, and wounded many others, physically and/or psychologically. These foreign interventionists have created refugee populations, produced homeless families, intensified and expanded already impoverished populations, and imprisoned tens of thousands of people arbitrarily, with an absence of due process and often with no or scant credible evidence of guilt.
In the process, the waste of American lives and resources in particular has been mind-boggling and -nauseating. The steep expenditures on the wars have helped to drive the US more deeply into debt, to leave other pressing national needs under-supported or ignored, and to create a heart rending situation in which the medical needs of hundreds of thousands of wounded or psychologically impaired veterans, not mentioning their families and communities, will often remain in need of health care for many years.
Torture – the continuities
I focus in this essay on just one aspect of the US-dominated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. My principal argument is that the US has been itself the perpetrator of torture in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. These are well documented claims and accepted by informed people throughout the world.
The issue here is that torture does not go away when US or allied troops turn over prisons and prisoners to Iraqi or Afghan military authorities. It continues, though the US distances itself from the consequences. The culpability in now indirect rather than direct, but there is still culpability.
For some years now, the US military has been in the process of turning over US-controlled prisons and/or the prisoners to their Afghan and Iraqi military and police forces, trained and armed by the US. This process is not new. It is a process that was employed by the US in the Philippines at the turn of the century, as documented by Alfred W. McCoy in his book Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines and the Rise of the Surveillance State and in many instances since then.
The example of Iraq – three sources
Tens of thousands of Iraqi men spent years in American prisons in Iraq. The prisons or detention centers and prisoners have been transferred to Iraqi officials, who are known for the brutal treatment of prisoners. The last detention center was handed over the Iraq’s justice minister in July of 2010. From torture to torture.
>#1 - Leila Fadel reports on this event and provides background information in an article for the Washington Post Foreign Service, “Some worry about abuse as US hands over final detention center to Iraq, published on July 16, 2010. Here are excerpts from the article.
“That moment closed a controversial chapter of the U.S.-led occupation, after seven years in which tens of thousands of Iraqis have passed through American detention centers. Often they were never charged with a crime. At Abu Ghraib, some were infamously abused and humiliated.
“Now human rights groups and Iraqis worry that detainees will be subjected to abuse in Iraq's crowded prison system. Torture was rampant during the reign of Saddam Hussein, deposed in the U.S.-led invasion. In the past two years, hundreds of torture cases in Iraqi facilities were confirmed by the country's Human Rights Ministry. This year, a secret prison was uncovered where inmates had been beaten and sodomized.
“’Unfortunately, Iraq is prone to detention and torture abuses, whether it's the former regime, the occupying powers or now the Iraqi government,’ said Samer Muscati, an Iraq expert at Human Rights Watch. ‘Under international law, you're not supposed to transfer detainees if they will get tortured. But how long can the Americans hold on to them? There is no ideal solution, but the Americans have a responsibility.’”
#2 Amy Goodman interviewed Malcolm Smart, the Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North African Programs, on Democracy Now, September 20, 2010.
AMY GOODMAN: Amnesty International has released a new report that finds more than 30,000 prisoners are being held in Iraq without charge, including 10,000 prisoners who were recently transferred from US custody. Amnesty’s report is called "New Order, Same Abuses: Unlawful Detentions and Torture in Iraq." [….]
MALCOLM SMART: Well, I think part of the problem is really a problem of impunity. This has been going on for all too long, and there’s a culture of abuse that has taken root. It was certainly there during the days of Saddam Hussein, but what we wanted to see from 2003 was a turning of the page, and that hasn’t happened. So we see secret prisons, people being tortured and ill-treated, being forced to make confessions. And the courts, although routinely detainees claim that they were made to sign false confessions, the courts are really not investigating those and coming to grips with them. And the perpetrators are not being held to account. They’re not being identified. On a number of occasions, the government has reacted by saying it will appoint inquiries after secret prisons have been disclosed and their locations have been found and prisoners in them have been found to be in a very severely ill-treated position. But the outcomes of those investigations have not been made known. [….]
MALCOLM SMART: Likewise with deaths in custody. We have in our report details of several cases where deaths are alleged to have occurred as a result of torture or ill treatment. Now, the standard practice of any authority in that situation, required by national law and required by international law, is to carry out an independent investigation. What were the causes, what was the circumstances, of the death? Now, this hasn’t happened. And again, we’re calling attention to the need for the government to show the political will to take measures against the torturers.
AMY GOODMAN: Malcolm, there were 10,000 prisoners, in your Amnesty report, transferred from US custody in Iraq to Iraqi custody—US basically transferring prisoners to a system that tortures them, unclear what happened to them in US custody.
MALCOLM SMART: [….] Since the beginning of 2009, under what’s called the Status of Forces Agreement, the two governments agreed to transfer custody of the prisons and prisoners to the Iraqi forces. Now, many of those detainees held by the US forces had been held without charge or trial for years without any means to challenge their detention. We’ve not made the claim that all those people are innocent of crimes….And here, we saw this Status of Forces Agreement at the end of 2008 making the way for the transfer, with no human rights safeguards written into that, although, quite clearly, US forces know that the record of Iraqi forces is a very grim one.
AMY GOODMAN: And the US is pouring millions, if not billions, into Iraq. The US forces are still there. They could do something.
MALCOLM SMART: Well, you know, I’m being told that the US forces now see it as an Iraqi issue, and the last of the prisoners, except for 200 who remain in US custody, have been handed over. In some cases, as we describe in our report, actually, the US recommended some of the people they had detained be released. But, in fact, the Iraqi authorities have continued to detain them.
>#3 - David Leigh and Maggie O’Kan, “Iraq war logs: US turned over captives to Iraqi torture squads, Guardian, Oct. 24, 2010 – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/24/iraq-war-logs-us-iraqi-torture. Here are excerpts that capture another aspect of the torture reality in Iraq.
[….]
“Fresh evidence that US soldiers handed over detainees to a notorious Iraqi torture squad has emerged in army logs published by WikiLeaks.
“The 400,000 field reports published by the whistle blowing website at the weekend contain an official account of deliberate threats by a military interrogator to turn his captive over to the Iraqi ‘Wolf Brigade’.
“The interrogator told the prisoner in explicit terms that: ‘He would be subject to all the pain and agony that the Wolf battalion is known to exact upon its detainees.’
[….]
“Within the huge leaked archive is contained a batch of secret field reports from the town of Samarra. They corroborate previous allegations that the US military turned over many prisoners to the Wolf Brigade, the feared 2nd battalion of the interior ministry's special commandos.
[….]
“The field reports chime with allegations made by New York Times writer Peter Maass, who was in Samarra at the time. He told Guardian Films : ‘US soldiers, US advisers, were standing aside and doing nothing,’ while members of the Wolf Brigade beat and tortured prisoners. The interior ministry commandos took over the public library in Samarra, and turned it into a detention centre, he said.
“An interview conducted by Maass in 2005 at the improvised prison, accompanied by the Wolf Brigade's US military adviser, Col James Steele, had been interrupted by the terrified screams of a prisoner outside, he said. Steele was reportedly previously employed as an adviser to help crush an insurgency in El Salvador.
“The Wolf Brigade was created and supported by the US in an attempt to re-employ elements of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard, this time to terrorise insurgents. Members typically wore red berets, sunglasses and balaclavas, and drove out on raids in convoys of Toyota Landcruisers. They were accused by Iraqis of beating prisoners, torturing them with electric drills and sometimes executing suspects. The then interior minister in charge of them was alleged to have been a former member of the Shia Badr militia.” [….]
The example of Afghanistan
Gareth Porter provides background information on the situation of the transfer of prisoners from US and NATO forces to Afghanistan military/police forces and the perpetuation of torture. Porter’s article, “The Torture Mill,” appeared in Counter Punch on April 27, 2011.
“Starting in late 2005, U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan began turning detainees over to the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS), despite its well-known reputation for torture.
“Interviews with former U.S. and NATO diplomats and other evidence now available show that United States and other NATO governments become complicit in NDS torture of detainees for two distinctly different reasons. [….]
“The transfers to the NDS were a direct violation of the United Nations Convention against Torture, which forbids the transfer of any person by a State Party to "another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." [….]
“….the detainees were turned over the NDS, which had long had a reputation for torturing suspected enemies of the state, starting when it was the secret police and intelligence agency during the Soviet occupation. That reputation had continued under the government of President Hamid Karzai. [….]
“By the time U.S. and Canadian military commanders began large-unit sweeps in areas where the Taliban had been operating in 2004-2005, the George W. Bush administration had already decided to consider all Afghans in detention as "unlawful combatants".
“But most of the Afghans picked up in those sweeps were not Taliban fighters. After U.S. and NATO forces began turning over detainees to the NDS, the intelligence agency's chief Amrullah Saleh told NATO officials that the agency had to release two-thirds of the detainees who had been transferred to it, according to the NATO diplomat. [….]
“In an interview with the Ottawa Citizen published May 16, 2007, Canadian Brig. Gen. Jim Ferron, then the intelligence chief for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) command in Afghanistan, referred to the intelligence motive for both detention and transferring detainees to NDF. [….]
" much of the information provided by detainees was "not truthful and is aimed at deceiving military forces". Ferron explained that detainees went through "basic questioning" by NATO interrogators about "why they joined the insurgency" and the information was then turned over to NDS. [….]
“Ferron said senior NDS officials had assured him that "detainees are treated humanely." But only three weeks earlier, the Toronto Globe and Mail had published a series of investigative articles based on interviews with detainees turned over by the Canadians who had been tortured by NDS. [….]
“The British and Dutch also joined with U.S. officials in trying to get the Afghan government to shift responsibility for detainees from NDS to the Afghan Ministry of Defence, the NATO diplomat recalled.
“But there were two problems: under Afghan law, there was no provision for long-term legal internment, and a 1987 Afghan law gave NDS the responsibility for handling security cases through its own "security courts".
“The U.S. and its two European NATO allies wanted President Hamid Karzai to remove those legal obstacles to long-term detention by the Defence Ministry. "The idea was that Karzai would declare a state of emergency, so the government could hold people for the length of the conflict," the diplomat said. [….]
“But Karzai refused to declare a state of emergency, according to the NATO diplomat, because he didn't want to make concessions to the Afghan parliament to get it. Meanwhile, Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak "wanted nothing to do with detainee policy", said the NATO diplomat. [….]
“During 2009, ISAF transferred a total of 350 detainees to NDS, according to official data provided to IPS by a knowledgeable U.S. source. An even more detainees were transferred to NDS by U.S. troops operating separately from the NATO command, according to the source.”
Implications
State authorities and a compliant media can create an atmosphere of lawlessness and inhumanity by demonizing “enemies of America” and creating a climate of fear in the American population. But also the US government can break the law when the population is kept ignorant of relevant information because “national security” is said to be at stake.
We may think that the scandals that brought to light the terrible treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib are now behind us or in the process of being fixed. Then we learn they go on, sometimes under the authority of those who US forces have trained and for whom they have set examples. Through it all, though, the brutish and callous treatment toward the “enemy” is perpetuated by the darker, but essential, aspects of war.
Richard Falk refers to such warfare as “one-sided” in one of the articles in a recently published collection titled The United States and Tortures: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse, edited by Marjorie Cohn. Here is some relevant text from Falk’s article.
“The United States and some of its allies, rely on and seek to sustain and enhance a posture of military dominance enabling the pursuit of political goals throughout the world. And this dominance basically relies upon American technological superiority in warfare that enables it to inflict limitless devastation on a foreign country anywhere on earth without fearing retaliation at home. It is an accepted idea in national defense planning in all countries to develop the most effective weaponry that is technologically and financially feasible. The disposition is reinforced by strategic thinking about how to inflict maximal damage in battlefield situations and as an instrument of coercive diplomacy. The US government, without any serious domestic challenge, has carried this image of national security to absurd limits, currently with an annual military budget about equal to that of the entire rest of the world” (p. 122).
US and its allies have devastated or compounded the devastation of the infrastructures, economies, medical and educational systems of Afghanistan and Iraq, killed tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians, created the conditions that facilitated such carnage, and wounded many others, physically and/or psychologically. These foreign interventionists have created refugee populations, produced homeless families, intensified and expanded already impoverished populations, and imprisoned tens of thousands of people arbitrarily, with an absence of due process and often with no or scant credible evidence of guilt.
In the process, the waste of American lives and resources in particular has been mind-boggling and -nauseating. The steep expenditures on the wars have helped to drive the US more deeply into debt, to leave other pressing national needs under-supported or ignored, and to create a heart rending situation in which the medical needs of hundreds of thousands of wounded or psychologically impaired veterans, not mentioning their families and communities, will often remain in need of health care for many years.
Torture – the continuities
I focus in this essay on just one aspect of the US-dominated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. My principal argument is that the US has been itself the perpetrator of torture in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. These are well documented claims and accepted by informed people throughout the world.
The issue here is that torture does not go away when US or allied troops turn over prisons and prisoners to Iraqi or Afghan military authorities. It continues, though the US distances itself from the consequences. The culpability in now indirect rather than direct, but there is still culpability.
For some years now, the US military has been in the process of turning over US-controlled prisons and/or the prisoners to their Afghan and Iraqi military and police forces, trained and armed by the US. This process is not new. It is a process that was employed by the US in the Philippines at the turn of the century, as documented by Alfred W. McCoy in his book Policing America’s Empire: The United States, the Philippines and the Rise of the Surveillance State and in many instances since then.
The example of Iraq – three sources
Tens of thousands of Iraqi men spent years in American prisons in Iraq. The prisons or detention centers and prisoners have been transferred to Iraqi officials, who are known for the brutal treatment of prisoners. The last detention center was handed over the Iraq’s justice minister in July of 2010. From torture to torture.
>#1 - Leila Fadel reports on this event and provides background information in an article for the Washington Post Foreign Service, “Some worry about abuse as US hands over final detention center to Iraq, published on July 16, 2010. Here are excerpts from the article.
“That moment closed a controversial chapter of the U.S.-led occupation, after seven years in which tens of thousands of Iraqis have passed through American detention centers. Often they were never charged with a crime. At Abu Ghraib, some were infamously abused and humiliated.
“Now human rights groups and Iraqis worry that detainees will be subjected to abuse in Iraq's crowded prison system. Torture was rampant during the reign of Saddam Hussein, deposed in the U.S.-led invasion. In the past two years, hundreds of torture cases in Iraqi facilities were confirmed by the country's Human Rights Ministry. This year, a secret prison was uncovered where inmates had been beaten and sodomized.
“’Unfortunately, Iraq is prone to detention and torture abuses, whether it's the former regime, the occupying powers or now the Iraqi government,’ said Samer Muscati, an Iraq expert at Human Rights Watch. ‘Under international law, you're not supposed to transfer detainees if they will get tortured. But how long can the Americans hold on to them? There is no ideal solution, but the Americans have a responsibility.’”
#2 Amy Goodman interviewed Malcolm Smart, the Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North African Programs, on Democracy Now, September 20, 2010.
AMY GOODMAN: Amnesty International has released a new report that finds more than 30,000 prisoners are being held in Iraq without charge, including 10,000 prisoners who were recently transferred from US custody. Amnesty’s report is called "New Order, Same Abuses: Unlawful Detentions and Torture in Iraq." [….]
MALCOLM SMART: Well, I think part of the problem is really a problem of impunity. This has been going on for all too long, and there’s a culture of abuse that has taken root. It was certainly there during the days of Saddam Hussein, but what we wanted to see from 2003 was a turning of the page, and that hasn’t happened. So we see secret prisons, people being tortured and ill-treated, being forced to make confessions. And the courts, although routinely detainees claim that they were made to sign false confessions, the courts are really not investigating those and coming to grips with them. And the perpetrators are not being held to account. They’re not being identified. On a number of occasions, the government has reacted by saying it will appoint inquiries after secret prisons have been disclosed and their locations have been found and prisoners in them have been found to be in a very severely ill-treated position. But the outcomes of those investigations have not been made known. [….]
MALCOLM SMART: Likewise with deaths in custody. We have in our report details of several cases where deaths are alleged to have occurred as a result of torture or ill treatment. Now, the standard practice of any authority in that situation, required by national law and required by international law, is to carry out an independent investigation. What were the causes, what was the circumstances, of the death? Now, this hasn’t happened. And again, we’re calling attention to the need for the government to show the political will to take measures against the torturers.
AMY GOODMAN: Malcolm, there were 10,000 prisoners, in your Amnesty report, transferred from US custody in Iraq to Iraqi custody—US basically transferring prisoners to a system that tortures them, unclear what happened to them in US custody.
MALCOLM SMART: [….] Since the beginning of 2009, under what’s called the Status of Forces Agreement, the two governments agreed to transfer custody of the prisons and prisoners to the Iraqi forces. Now, many of those detainees held by the US forces had been held without charge or trial for years without any means to challenge their detention. We’ve not made the claim that all those people are innocent of crimes….And here, we saw this Status of Forces Agreement at the end of 2008 making the way for the transfer, with no human rights safeguards written into that, although, quite clearly, US forces know that the record of Iraqi forces is a very grim one.
AMY GOODMAN: And the US is pouring millions, if not billions, into Iraq. The US forces are still there. They could do something.
MALCOLM SMART: Well, you know, I’m being told that the US forces now see it as an Iraqi issue, and the last of the prisoners, except for 200 who remain in US custody, have been handed over. In some cases, as we describe in our report, actually, the US recommended some of the people they had detained be released. But, in fact, the Iraqi authorities have continued to detain them.
>#3 - David Leigh and Maggie O’Kan, “Iraq war logs: US turned over captives to Iraqi torture squads, Guardian, Oct. 24, 2010 – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/24/iraq-war-logs-us-iraqi-torture. Here are excerpts that capture another aspect of the torture reality in Iraq.
[….]
“Fresh evidence that US soldiers handed over detainees to a notorious Iraqi torture squad has emerged in army logs published by WikiLeaks.
“The 400,000 field reports published by the whistle blowing website at the weekend contain an official account of deliberate threats by a military interrogator to turn his captive over to the Iraqi ‘Wolf Brigade’.
“The interrogator told the prisoner in explicit terms that: ‘He would be subject to all the pain and agony that the Wolf battalion is known to exact upon its detainees.’
[….]
“Within the huge leaked archive is contained a batch of secret field reports from the town of Samarra. They corroborate previous allegations that the US military turned over many prisoners to the Wolf Brigade, the feared 2nd battalion of the interior ministry's special commandos.
[….]
“The field reports chime with allegations made by New York Times writer Peter Maass, who was in Samarra at the time. He told Guardian Films : ‘US soldiers, US advisers, were standing aside and doing nothing,’ while members of the Wolf Brigade beat and tortured prisoners. The interior ministry commandos took over the public library in Samarra, and turned it into a detention centre, he said.
“An interview conducted by Maass in 2005 at the improvised prison, accompanied by the Wolf Brigade's US military adviser, Col James Steele, had been interrupted by the terrified screams of a prisoner outside, he said. Steele was reportedly previously employed as an adviser to help crush an insurgency in El Salvador.
“The Wolf Brigade was created and supported by the US in an attempt to re-employ elements of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard, this time to terrorise insurgents. Members typically wore red berets, sunglasses and balaclavas, and drove out on raids in convoys of Toyota Landcruisers. They were accused by Iraqis of beating prisoners, torturing them with electric drills and sometimes executing suspects. The then interior minister in charge of them was alleged to have been a former member of the Shia Badr militia.” [….]
The example of Afghanistan
Gareth Porter provides background information on the situation of the transfer of prisoners from US and NATO forces to Afghanistan military/police forces and the perpetuation of torture. Porter’s article, “The Torture Mill,” appeared in Counter Punch on April 27, 2011.
“Starting in late 2005, U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan began turning detainees over to the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS), despite its well-known reputation for torture.
“Interviews with former U.S. and NATO diplomats and other evidence now available show that United States and other NATO governments become complicit in NDS torture of detainees for two distinctly different reasons. [….]
“The transfers to the NDS were a direct violation of the United Nations Convention against Torture, which forbids the transfer of any person by a State Party to "another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture." [….]
“….the detainees were turned over the NDS, which had long had a reputation for torturing suspected enemies of the state, starting when it was the secret police and intelligence agency during the Soviet occupation. That reputation had continued under the government of President Hamid Karzai. [….]
“By the time U.S. and Canadian military commanders began large-unit sweeps in areas where the Taliban had been operating in 2004-2005, the George W. Bush administration had already decided to consider all Afghans in detention as "unlawful combatants".
“But most of the Afghans picked up in those sweeps were not Taliban fighters. After U.S. and NATO forces began turning over detainees to the NDS, the intelligence agency's chief Amrullah Saleh told NATO officials that the agency had to release two-thirds of the detainees who had been transferred to it, according to the NATO diplomat. [….]
“In an interview with the Ottawa Citizen published May 16, 2007, Canadian Brig. Gen. Jim Ferron, then the intelligence chief for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) command in Afghanistan, referred to the intelligence motive for both detention and transferring detainees to NDF. [….]
" much of the information provided by detainees was "not truthful and is aimed at deceiving military forces". Ferron explained that detainees went through "basic questioning" by NATO interrogators about "why they joined the insurgency" and the information was then turned over to NDS. [….]
“Ferron said senior NDS officials had assured him that "detainees are treated humanely." But only three weeks earlier, the Toronto Globe and Mail had published a series of investigative articles based on interviews with detainees turned over by the Canadians who had been tortured by NDS. [….]
“The British and Dutch also joined with U.S. officials in trying to get the Afghan government to shift responsibility for detainees from NDS to the Afghan Ministry of Defence, the NATO diplomat recalled.
“But there were two problems: under Afghan law, there was no provision for long-term legal internment, and a 1987 Afghan law gave NDS the responsibility for handling security cases through its own "security courts".
“The U.S. and its two European NATO allies wanted President Hamid Karzai to remove those legal obstacles to long-term detention by the Defence Ministry. "The idea was that Karzai would declare a state of emergency, so the government could hold people for the length of the conflict," the diplomat said. [….]
“But Karzai refused to declare a state of emergency, according to the NATO diplomat, because he didn't want to make concessions to the Afghan parliament to get it. Meanwhile, Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak "wanted nothing to do with detainee policy", said the NATO diplomat. [….]
“During 2009, ISAF transferred a total of 350 detainees to NDS, according to official data provided to IPS by a knowledgeable U.S. source. An even more detainees were transferred to NDS by U.S. troops operating separately from the NATO command, according to the source.”
Implications
State authorities and a compliant media can create an atmosphere of lawlessness and inhumanity by demonizing “enemies of America” and creating a climate of fear in the American population. But also the US government can break the law when the population is kept ignorant of relevant information because “national security” is said to be at stake.
We may think that the scandals that brought to light the terrible treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib are now behind us or in the process of being fixed. Then we learn they go on, sometimes under the authority of those who US forces have trained and for whom they have set examples. Through it all, though, the brutish and callous treatment toward the “enemy” is perpetuated by the darker, but essential, aspects of war.
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