Bush, Obama and torture

The NYT reported last week that the US is increasingly relying on foreign allies to capture, detain and interrogate terrorist suspects.

Jack Goldsmith, a former assistant attorney general in the Bush administration, has a good article in the Washington Post tracing the strategy of Bush and Obama on torture.

He argues the same thing as this blog argued yesterday, namely, that even though Guantanamo detainees have received more legal protections over time, this has caused the Bush and Obama administrations to merely evade those restrictions by sending fewer detainees to Guantanamo and more of them to other prisons which offer fewer legal protections, like Bagram and foreign prisons under the supervision of allies' intelligence services.

Goldsmith writes: "But closing Guantanamo or bringing American justice there does not end the problem of terrorist detention. It simply causes the government to address the problem in different ways. A little-noticed consequence of elevating standards at Guantanamo is that the government has sent very few terrorist suspects there in recent years. Instead, it holds more terrorists -- without charge or trial, without habeas rights, and with less public scrutiny -- at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Or it renders them to countries where interrogation and incarceration standards are often even lower.

The cat-and-mouse game does not end there. As detentions at Bagram and traditional renditions have come under increasing legal and political scrutiny, the Bush and Obama administrations have relied more on other tactics. They have secured foreign intelligence services to do all the work -- capture, incarceration and interrogation -- for all but the highest-level detainees. And they have increasingly employed targeted killings, a tactic that eliminates the need to interrogate or incarcerate terrorists but at the cost of killing or maiming suspected terrorists and innocent civilians alike without notice or due process."

Obama and torture

During his electoral campaign, Barack Obama raised the hopes of many progressives around the world that his foreign policy would be less immoral than Bush’s. But after a few months in office, many are disappointed-and rightly so. His policies on torture are a case in point, dangerously resembling those of his predecessor.

The “torture memos” recently released by the White House give details on how the Bush administration authorized torture by CIA agents in order to find links between al-Qaeda and Iraq to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Those links were non-existent, but that was irrelevant.

But after the release of the memos, Obama toed the Bush line in several instances. His administration made several declarations that amounted to “effectively conferring impunity for acts of torture,” as Amnesty International noted.

For instance, Obama said that “the men and women of the CIA” who had followed the memos’ guidelines would not be prosecuted, and that anyway, “This is a time for reflection, not retribution… Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”

Up to this day, Obama opposes the creation of a “Truth Commission” that would shed light on the torture-related crimes of the Bush administration.

On a related front, Obama has also fought against the release of some 2,000 photographs depicting acts of abuse of detainees.

Obama also disappoints on his policies toward the prisoners held in the prisons at Guantanamo (Cuba) and Bagram (Afghanistan). There are 240 detainees at Guantanamo and 600 at Bagram.

In June 2008, the US Supreme Court rejected as unconstitutional the Bush administration claim that prisoners in Guantanamo are not entitled to the right of habeas corpus (the right to challenge one’s detention). This was an important step against Bush policies.

But Bush wanted to ship abducted people to Bagram instead and argue that there the Supreme Court ruling did not apply. Believe it or not, Obama has adopted the Bush position, arguing that detainees can be imprisoned indefinitely with no rights-as long as they are kept in Bagram rather than Guantanamo. A US judge has ruled against Obama, but his administration is appealing.

Obama had also promised to close Guantanamo, but now hesitates to do so.

Moreover, he is backtracking on his promise to shut down Bush’s “military commission” to try detainees, and now plans to revive them. Obama’s commissions offer some improvements over Bush’s, but they still fall far short of providing the due process guarantees found in US federal (civil) courts.

There is much discussion about whether torture has been effective in extracting information from detainees-as if its effectiveness could justify it. This is a misplaced debate, as torture is never legal nor justified under international law, whether or not it is effective.

But in any case, there is growing evidence that torture is counterproductive in that it leads to killing more Americans by “creating terrorists” who are outraged by the abuses-nothing very surprising here when one thinks about it.

This is what a US Major declared after overseeing more than 1,000 interrogations and conducting more than 300 personally in Iraq.

“Torture does not save lives,” he said in a recent interview. “And the reason why is that our enemies use it, number one, as a recruiting tool…These same foreign fighters who came to Iraq to fight because of torture and abuse… literally cost us hundreds if not thousands of American lives.”

So even out of self-interest, Obama would have a good reason to reverse his Bushite policies on torture. If moral reasons are included as well, the case becomes even stronger.

Gaza offensive: war crimes

Stephen Zunes has an excellent summary article of the main reports on human rights violations during the recent Gaza offensive. Those reports note war crimes on the part of both Hamas and Israel, but of course, the overwhelming responsibility lies with the IDF.

For instance, Hamas lobbed rockets into civilian-populated areas in southwestern Israel, violating Article 48 of Protocol I to the Geneva Convention of 1948, which states: "Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives."

However, Israel also violated that same provision on a far grander scale. During the fighting, Palestinians killed 10 Israelis, 3 of whom were civilians, while Israeli forces killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, the vast majority of whom were civilians.

Zunes also addresses the question of human shields:

Hamas is often accused of "using these civilians as human shields." But independent human rights groups have accused Hamas of less-severe violations of international humanitarian law, such as not taking all necessary steps it should to prevent civilian casualties when it positioned fighters and armaments too close to concentrations of civilians. However, this isn't the same thing as deliberately using civilians as shields. Furthermore, the nature of urban warfare, particularly in a territory as densely populated as the Gaza Strip, makes the proximity of retreating fighters and their equipment to civilians unavoidable in many cases.

Even if Hamas were using human shields in the legal definition of the term, it still does not absolve Israel from its obligation to avoid civilian casualties. Amnesty International has noted that the Geneva Conventions make it clear that even if one side is shielding itself behind civilians, such a violation "shall not release the Parties to the conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian population and civilians."

US War on Drugs

The US says it wants to eradicate opium production in Afghanistan (although it's not making big efforts at doing it since many of its allies in the Afghan government are benefiting from the drugs trade). This is not new; the US successive "Wars on Drugs" have not been effective since the early 1970s, when they were first launched by Nixon. Indeed, as history professor and drugs specialist Alfred McCoy said: "after fighting five drug wars in 30 years at a cost of US$150 billion, Washington has presided over a [fivefold] increase" in the world illicit-opium supply, from 1,000 tonnes in 1970 to between 5,000 and 6,000 tonnes in the mid-2000s."

Iran-Pakistan pipeline deal signed

As Pepe Escobar at Asia Times explains, " A silent, reptilian war had been going on for years between the US-favored Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline and its rival, the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline, also known as the "peace pipeline". This past weekend, a winner emerged. And it's none of the above: instead, it's the 2,100-kilometer, US$7.5 billion IP (the Iran-Pakistan pipeline), with no India attached."
The deal means that Iran will sell gas from its mega South Pars fields to Pakistan for the next 25 years. The last 250 km of a 900-km pipeline stretch in Iran between Asalouyeh and Iranshahr, near the border with Pakistan, still needs to be built. The whole IP pipeline should be operational by 2014.
Only in transit fees, Pakistan could collect as much as $500 million a year. India may become the ultimate recipient of Iranian gas, or else China has shown interest.

The pipeline agreement is a victory for China and Russia, and Asia in general. First, Asia integrates its energy resources towards the formation of an "Asian Energy Grid" and denies those resources to the West. Second, China can possibly ensure a significant supply of gas to itself. Third, Russia is happy to see Iranian going to Asia and not Europe, as this increases Europe's dependence on Russia gas. If Iran's gas goes to Europe, then Europe would diversify its gas imports and reduce its dependence on Russia, which would be a disadvantage for Moscow.
So all this is bad news for the US, who wants to isolate Iran, penetrate the Eurasian continent, and capture Pakistan as an ally.

US planning a mega-embassy in Pakistan, after Iraq's

McClatchy reports that the White House has asked Congress for — and seems likely to receive — $736 million to build a new U.S. embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, along with permanent housing for U.S. government civilians and new office space in the Pakistani capital.
The scale of the projects rivals the giant U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which was completed last year after construction delays at a cost of $740 million.
Other major projects are planned for Kabul, Afghanistan; and for the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Peshawar.
This shows the "surge" of interest in Pakistan and Afghanistan on the part of the Obama administration.

Secret abuse photos show rape

Obama had promised that he would release pictures of abuse and torture in Iraq and Afghanistan but he is now blocking their release. Major General Antonio Taguba, the former army officer who conducted an inquiry into the Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq, has now revealed that the pictures show apparent rape and sexual abuse.

Irish troops in Afghanistan

There have been 7 Irish troops in Afghanistan since 2002, in rotation (for a total of 99). Mary Fitzgerald of the Irish Times reports on them. They are based in ISAF headquarters in Kabul. They serve in counternarcotics and counterinsurgency operations.
Ireland is not part of NATO but Irish troops in Afghanistan operate under NATO command, which gives rise to worries that Ireland is moving closer to NATO and could well join it one day.

The case against Shell

Shell will finally face a trial in New York over its complicity in human rights abuses with the Nigerian military and government. The Guardian has an article about it here. Watch this video about the story:

Obama revives military commissions

The Obama administration announced that it would resume trials of Guantanamo detainees by military commissions, albeit under new rules that would offer defendants greater legal protections. The additional rules prohibit the introduction of evidence obtained through cruel treatment, tighten the rules on hearsay evidence, and allow detainees greater choice in selecting defense lawyers. While the revised commissions improve somewhat on the model used by the Bush administration, they still fall far short of providing the due process guarantees found in U.S. federal courts.
Critics argue that trying detainees in the US federal court system would endanger "national security", as usual. But the federal court system also has a long history of providing fair trials in difficult cases. Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and Zacarias Moussaoui, implicated in the 9/11 attacks, were both tried and convicted in the federal courts. During the seven-year period when military commissions prosecuted three terrorism suspects, the federal courts tried more than 145 terrorism cases.

Non-violent resistance in Palestine

The Guardian reports on the non-violent resistance tactics of Palestinians in the village of Bil'in against the Israeli occupation and in particular the construction of the separation wall, which stole some 60% of Bil'in's land.

Palestinians, Israelis, and international activists are involved in the protests together against the IDF:
The brutal behavior of the IDF at the demonstration has motivated a broad contingent of activists from around the world and Israel to descend on Bil'in every Friday – as they know the IDF will be less inclined to murder at will if they have passports belonging to countries that sell them the guns. When we were there on Friday there was a 15-strong contingent of trade unionists, artists and charity workers from Canada, alongside a group of young Israelis. The IDF's explicit policy is not to fire live ammunition when Israelis or internationals are in the area, which gives you an indication of their attitude to the expendability of Palestinian life. It also makes it clear how vital it is that the brigade of internationals and Israelis continue to show up and protest peacefully alongside Palestinians.

Evidence that torture creates terrorists

There is mounting evidence that US torture has and still does create terrorists that kill Americans (and others)--not a surprising finding in any case.
Major Matthew Alexander (a pseudonym) recently declared so. He says he oversaw more than 1,000 interrogations, conducting more than 300 in Iraq personally.

Watch the Brave New Film video where he appears.

“Torture does not save lives,” Alexander said in his interview. “And the reason why is that our enemies use it, number one, as a recruiting tool…These same foreign fighters who came to Iraq to fight because of torture and abuse….literally cost us hundreds if not thousands of American lives.”

Moreover, Alexander avers that many — as many as 90 percent — of those captured in Iraq said they joined the fight against the United States because of the torture conducted at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

“At the prison where I conducted interrogations,” Alexander said, “we heard day in and day out, foreign fighters who had been captured state that the number one reason that they had come to fight in Iraq was because of torture and abuse, what had happened at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.”

Alexander had made the same revelations to PAtrick Cockburn not long ago.

France opens first military base in oil-rich Persian Gulf

France opened its first overseas military base since the end of colonialism in the United Arab Emirates. It is also France's first military base in the oil-rich Persian Gulf and the first foreign military installation built by France for 50 years and its first ever base outside French or African soil. The base is called "Peace Camp", just to make sure you think it's got nothing to do with the military. The base will host 500 troops.
The move sends a signal to Iran that France is determined to isolate it.
Sarkozy went in person to the UAE to open the base. The base and his visit seek to raise France's commercial profile in the Emirates, the world's third-largest oil exporter, and win key defence contracts and nuclear energy deals. The UAE is already a faithful buyer of French arms – now Sarkozy is pressuring its leadership to sign a €6bn to €8bn deal to purchase French Rafale fighter jets, which are yet to find a foreign buyer anywhere in the world. He also wants to secure French contracts for two major civil nuclear reactors in the region. But in both cases deals are far from being signed and there is heavy competition from the US.
But this is not all, as "cultural" links are also in the plans: Sarkozy also officially launched the opening of building works on the Louvre Abu Dhabi, an unprecedented project to build a museum and loan works from French museums to the Gulf state. The museum, competing with a neighbouring Guggenheim outpost, is expected to be finished in 2012 or 2013. The Sorbonne university has already cemented Gulf links and France is heavily investing in cultural initiatives on French language-teaching in the region.

North Korea's nuclear test in perspective

North Korea recently conducted a nuclear test. No one should have nuclear weapons and they should be eliminated worldwide. Over the 1945-2009 period, 8 countries carried out 2,054 nuclear explosions: North Korea has 2, the US 1,032. The full list according to Associated Press:

UNITED STATES - 1,032

RUSSIA (SOVIET UNION) - 715

FRANCE - 210

CHINA - 45

BRITAIN - 45

INDIA - 3

PAKISTAN - 2

NORTH KOREA - 2

So there should be more panic about American tests than about North Korea's.

Obama's Guantanamo plan

Marjorie Cohn has a good concise summary of Obama's plan for Guantanamo detainees. Obama had promised he would close Guantanamo, but he has faced much opposition, for instance, Dick Cheney claims that closing it would endanger Americans, etc. Even Democrats have recently voted in the Senate to deny Obama the funds to close Guantanamo until he comes up with a more concrete "plan" to deal with the detainees. Reacting to this political pressure, Obama presented an "appeasement plan" to deal with the 240 detainees remaining in Guantanamo. This plan presents 5 ways in which detainees will be dealt with once Guantanamo is closed. According to Cohn, only #5 is acceptable, the other 4 ways are not:

1) Those who violated the laws of war will be tried in military commissions.
This would use the military commissions again, backtracking on a promise to eliminate them. Obama claims that his military commissions are improved, but they still have major problems: for instance, those tried in the military commissions are forbidden from seeing all the evidence against them, a violation of the bedrock principle that the accused must have an opportunity to confront his accusers.

2) Those who have been ordered released from Guantánamo will remain in custody.
Seventeen Uighurs from China were ordered released after they were found not to be enemy combatants. But they continue to languish in custody because they would be imperiled if returned to China, which considers them enemies of the state. Suggestions that they be brought to the United States have been met with paranoid NIMBY (not in my backyard!) protestations. So, under Obama's plan they will remain incarcerated in a state of legal limbo.

3) Those who cannot be prosecuted yet “pose a clear danger to the American people” will remain in custody with no right to legal process of any kind.
These are people who have never been charged with a crime. Obama did not say why they cannot be prosecuted.

4) Those who can be safely transferred to other countries will be transferred.
Obama noted that 50 men fall into this category. It is unclear what will happen to them when they reach their destinations.

5) Those who violated U.S. criminal laws will be tried in federal courts.
Obama cited the examples of Ramzi Yousef, who tried to blow up the World Trade Center, and Zacarias Moussaoui, who was identified as the 20th 9/11 hijacker. Both were tried and convicted in U.S. courts and both are serving life sentences.
This is the only clearly acceptable part of Obama's plan. All detainees slated to remain in custody should be placed into this category. The federal courts provide due process as required by the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which does not limit due process rights to U.S. citizens: “No person . . . shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”

51% of Israelis want to attack Iran

51% of Israelis want to attack Iran and support an immediate strike. This is according to a new poll of 509 Israeli adults.

Spanish judges pursue international investigations on human rights

Judges at Spain's National Court, acting on complaints filed by human rights groups, are pursuing 16 international investigations into suspected cases of torture, genocide and crimes against humanity, according to prosecutors. Among them are two probes of Bush administration officials for allegedly approving the use of torture on terrorism suspects, including prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
The Spanish judges are pursuing cases against the US, China and Israel among other countries, which is causing diplomatic pressure from those countries on Spain to block the investigations.

Radio host tries waterboarding and can only last 6 seconds

Watch it here.

Chomsky on torture

Noam Chomsky has an essay on the US and torture. Some main points:

-Torture by the US is nothing new:
"In the past sixty years, victims worldwide have also endured the CIA's "torture paradigm," developed at a cost reaching $1 billion annually, according to historian Alfred McCoy, who shows that the methods surfaced with little change in Abu Ghraib. There is no hyperbole when Jennifer Harbury entitles her penetrating study of the U.S. torture record Truth, Torture, and the American Way. It is highly misleading, to say the least, when investigators of the Bush gang's descent into the sewer lament that "in waging the war against terrorism, America had lost its way.""

-The Obama ban on torture is merely a return to torture as it was practiced before Bush, i.e., it only eliminates a small part of torture now done by Americans but does nothing to eliminate torture by foreign allies under US patronage:
"Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld et al. did introduce important innovations. Ordinarily, torture is farmed out to subsidiaries, not carried out by Americans directly in their government-established torture chambers. Alain Nairn, who has carried out some of the most revealing and courageous investigations of torture, points out that "What the Obama [ban on torture] ostensibly knocks off is that small percentage of torture now done by Americans while retaining the overwhelming bulk of the system's torture, which is done by foreigners under US patronage. Obama could stop backing foreign forces that torture, but he has chosen not to do so." Obama did not shut down the practice of torture, Nairn observes, but "merely repositioned it," restoring it to the norm, a matter of indifference to the victims. Since Vietnam, "the US has mainly seen its torture done for it by proxy -- paying, arming, training and guiding foreigners doing it, but usually being careful to keep Americans at least one discreet step removed." Obama's ban "doesn't even prohibit direct torture by Americans outside environments of 'armed conflict,' which is where much torture happens anyway since many repressive regimes aren't in armed conflict ... his is a return to the status quo ante, the torture regime of Ford through Clinton, which, year by year, often produced more US-backed strapped-down agony than was produced during the Bush/Cheney years.""

-Obama, like Bush, uses Bagram prison in Afghanistan to circumvent the law:
"Bush, of course, went beyond his predecessors in authorizing prima facie violations of international law, and several of his extremist innovations were struck down by the Courts. While Obama, like Bush, eloquently affirms our unwavering commitment to international law, he seems intent on substantially reinstating the extremist Bush measures. In the important case of Boumediene v. Bush in June 2008, the Supreme Court rejected as unconstitutional the Bush administration claim that prisoners in Guantanamo are not entitled to the right of habeas corpus. Glenn Greenwald reviews the aftermath. Seeking to "preserve the power to abduct people from around the world" and imprison them without due process, the Bush administration decided to ship them to Bagram, treating "the Boumediene ruling, grounded in our most basic constitutional guarantees, as though it was some sort of a silly game -- fly your abducted prisoners to Guantanamo and they have constitutional rights, but fly them instead to Bagram and you can disappear them forever with no judicial process." Obama adopted the Bush position, "filing a brief in federal court that, in two sentences, declared that it embraced the most extremist Bush theory on this issue," arguing that prisoners flown to Bagram from anywhere in the world -- in the case in question, Yemenis and Tunisians captured in Thailand and the UAE -- "can be imprisoned indefinitely with no rights of any kind -- as long as they are kept in Bagram rather than Guantanamo." In March, a Bush-appointed federal judge "rejected the Bush/Obama position and held that the rationale of Boumediene applies every bit as much to Bagram as it does to Guantanamo." The Obama administration announced that it would appeal the ruling, thus placing Obama's Department of Justice "squarely to the Right of an extremely conservative, pro-executive-power, Bush 43-appointed judge on issues of executive power and due-process-less detentions," in radical violation of Obama's campaign promises and earlier stands."

Did Pelosi know that US was using torture?

A nice summary of the debate on what Pelosi knew or not regarding torture can be found here.
The key question is "Was Pelosi aware that aggressive interrogation methods were being used on terrorism suspects early on in 2002"?
The differing interpretations of the briefing memos mirror the conflicting recollections of Pelosi and three other congressional leaders about what they were told roughly a year after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Porter J. Goss, R-Fla., the former representative who chaired the intelligence panel in 2002, has suggested that he and Pelosi left their briefing understanding "what the CIA was doing" and offering their support, while Pelosi said waterboarding and other aggressive techniques were mentioned only as legal tactics for future interrogations.

Obama's policy on detainees

McClatchy has a few articles on Obama's recent speech on detainees, like this one.

Canada worse than US on detainees' rights

The Canadian Supreme Court rejected the right of detainees to have recourse to Canadian courts, in this case Afghan detainees held by Canadian troops who may be transferred to torture.
In the United States, its Supreme Court has ruled, repeatedly, that detainees held by U.S. forces both at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Bagram, the main U.S. prison in Afghanistan, have recourse to U.S. courts.
In Afghanistan, tortured and abused prisoners had claimed they had been handed over to Afghan security forces after being captured by Canadian troops.

The decision is separate from a public inquiry process launched by the Military Police Complaints Commission into whether Canadian military police were complicit in handing over detainees because they knew – or should have known – that transferred prisoners were likely to be tortured in Afghanistan's notorious jails.

Pakistan Taliban article

My article on the insurgency in Pakistan is here.

Obama on Guantanamo

A federal judge has ruled that the power of the US president to hold "war on terror" suspects at Guantanamo Bay jail is more limited than the administration would like, paving the way for a legal battle. In his ruling, Judge John Bates said the US government cannot detain a person merely for having shown "substantial support" for the Taliban or Al Qaeda.
The Obama administration had made the case in March that detainees could be kept at Guantanamo if they had shown "substantial support" for the Taliban or Al Qaeda. This was intended to be used as a reason for the indefinite detentions of "war on terror" suspects without charge.
The absurdity of the Obama administration's claim that it has a right to jail people who give substantial support to the Taliban is highlighted by Juan Cole, who notes that "If you wanted to jail people for thinking well of the Taliban, you'd have to imprison 5% of the Afghan population, or nearly a million and a half people, and 14% of the Pakistani population, or about 24 million people."
Basically, Obama thinks he has the right to imprison all those 25 million people...

US weapons end up in Taliban hands

A NYT investigation found that "of 30 rifle magazines recently taken from insurgents’ corpses, at least 17 contained cartridges, or rounds, identical to ammunition the United States had provided to Afghan government forces." So this provides evidence that arms supplied by the US to Afghan forces leaks to the Taliban, through theft or corrupt officials.

Tamils and Tigers

A good article on the Tamil Tigers' history from Asia Times online. And another one here.

Pakistani military kills civilians

The Pakistani military killed an estimated 12-14 civilians fleeing the fighting in Swat.

Afghanistan killings

Patrick Cockburn on the recent US bombing that reportedly killed at least 117 civilians, including 26 women and 61 children.

Zalmay Khalilzad could be "Afghan CEO and Prime Minister"

Zalmay Khalilzad could take up an unelected position in the Afghan government described as the "CEO of Afghanistan". This would allow Karzai to run as president, and the US to have some influence over policy in the country. The position would allow Mr. Khalilzad to serve as “a prime minister, except not prime minister because he wouldn’t be responsible to a parliamentary system,” a senior Obama administration official said.
Khalilzad was US ambassador to Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005.

Drugs in Afghanistan

Gretchen Peters's op-ed in the NYT discusses drugs in Afghanistan and how they support the Taliban through the revenue generated.
Se says that drug traffickers in Afghanistan hire the Taliban to protect their drugs shipments and that traffickers also pay corrupt officials in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran to look the other way.
But although he mentions that corrupt officials in the government or police forces also benefit from the drugs trade, he seems not to be aware that those officials are therefore the main reason why NATO has not acted against drugs in any significant way and that in fact the drugs trade has increased significantly under the occupation is that the very officials that NATO put in power are benefiting hugely from the drugs trade. In a way, NATO has an incentive to let the drugs trade flourish as it strengthens its own allies in government. There is nothing new in this policy, it has been going on for several decades in US foreign policy (in Central America and Asia in particular).

The Taliban’s opium profits are estimated to be about $400 million a year; but as Peters observes, "Many experts believe that corrupt officials on both sides of the [Afghanistan-Pakistan] border earn even more off the drug trade than the Taliban do." This conforms to some tentative assessment from the United Nations' "Opium Survey".

In another article, Gretchen Peters argues that the Afghan Taliban should be seen less as terrorists than as mafia-style businessmen who run an economic "empire" worth almost half a billion dollars.

Here is a 2007 article written by Craig Murray, the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan (2002-2004). He states that "The four largest players in the heroin business are all senior members of the Afghan government -- the government that our soldiers are fighting and dying to protect. When we attacked Afghanistan, America bombed from the air while the CIA paid, armed and equipped the dispirited warlord drug barons -- especially those grouped in the Northern Alliance -- to do the ground occupation. We bombed the Taliban and their allies into submission, while the warlords moved in to claim the spoils. Then we made them ministers."

He makes the important point that "Britain is protecting the biggest heroin crop of all time", stating: "[I] watched the Jeeps with blacked-out windows bringing the heroin through from Afghanistan [and into Uzbekistan], en route to Europe. I watched the tankers of chemicals roaring into Afghanistan.Yet I could not persuade my country to do anything about it."

Since the NATO/ISAF occupation, opium cultivation has increased significantly in Afghanistan, mostly due to the fact that US/NATO allies in government and warlords benefit so much from drugs, so they are left alone and the US/NATO do not take serious steps to end the drugs trade. It of course benefits NATO to have strong allies in power, hence the toleration for the drugs trade.

Afghanistan review

Here is a good article on Afghanistan with many interesting statistics on refugees, poverty, etc.

US using white phosphorus in Afghanistan

The US is using white phosphorus in Afghanistan to attack the Taliban. The official US military policy on the use of white phosphorus is to use it only as a source of illumination or as a smoke screen, but in the case reported in that article, white phosphorus was used to attack Taliban.

Pakistan's nuclear arsenal rapidly increasing

The NYT reports that "Pakistan is producing an unknown amount of new bomb-grade uranium and, once a series of new reactors is completed, bomb-grade plutonium for a new generation of weapons."
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said he had seen evidence of an increase in the size of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.

US military bases

Chalmers Johnson has a review of a recent book about US military bases worldwide here.

Torture photos

The Sydney Morning Herald released new pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib. Presumably they are among the photos, the release of which President Obama is now attempting to block.

Articles on Pakistan

Here are a few good resources to better understand the current attacks on militants in Pakistan on the part of the US military and the Pakistani military.
An article by Pepe Escobar arguing that the hype surrounding Pakistan and the Pakistani Taliban is misplaced, and Escobar has another good article on the role of energy resources in Eurasia and the Middle East in motivating US interest in Pakistan and Afghanistan here; interviews with Tariq Ali here and here; and interviews with Noam Chomsky here and here.

Restricted movements in Occupied Territories

One of my readers, a Palestinian, sent me this story about a Palestinian couple separated now for one year because Israel restricts movement within the Occupied Territories.

58% of Israeli Jews back two-state solution

The two state-solution is supported by 58% of Israeli Jews, and this support comes more from secular than religious Jews: 70% of Israel's religious population, including the ultra-Orthodox, is opposed to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, while 73% of the country's secular Jews support it.

Pakistan

Asia Times online reports on the fighting in Pakistan and has pictures of the refugee camps set up for the fleeing population. The number of refugees should soon reach 1 million.

John Pilger on Sri Lanka

John Pilger on Sri Lanka: an excerpt:

"This is not to suggest that those who resist attempts to obliterate them culturally if not actually are innocent in their methods. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have spilt their share of blood and perpetrated their own atrocities. But they are the product, not the cause, of an injustice and a war that long predate them."

Pakistani public opinion on Taliban

A Gallup poll conducted in December 2008 (before the current military operation) and just released suggests that the population of Pakistan thinks the Taliban in Pakistan have a negative influence.
According to the survey, 47% of Pakistanis believed the Taliban's presence in some areas of the country has a negative influence; 14% said it has a positive influence and 39% had no opinion.
The survey revealed differences of opinion by region:

Gallup Poll Results: Presence of Taliban in Parts of the Country Negative or Positive?

Punjab:

Negative: 60%

Sindh:

Negative: 44%

North-West Frontier Province:

Negative: 49%
Positive: 10%
Don't Know: 41%

Baluchistan:

Negative: 22%
Postive: 21%
Don't Know: 58%

Pakistan as a whole:

Negative: 47%
Positive: 14%
Don't Know: 39%

Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Asian energy grid

Pepe Escobar places the US involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan within the geopolitical and geoeconomic contexts of Eurasia's large energy reserves. In a nutshell, China and Russia are seeking to integrate the Eurasian continent and preserve its natural resources (natural gas, oil) for themselves. However, the US is seeking to get a foothold on the continent to prevent Russia and China, two emerging and challenging powers, from getting stronger. Putting governments friendly to the West/US in Afghanistan and Pakistan would go a long way towards accomplishing that goal--otherwise, the countries could be captured by Russia and China.

140 dead in Afghanistan US bombing

The Afghan government claims 140 were killed by US airstrikes a few days ago in Farah province, according to an investigation they conducted. The government paid $2,000 per dead to their relatives.
FAIR gave a good review of how the tragedy has been covered by the corporate media, which emphasized its negative effects on US strategy in Afghanistan and played up denials by the US military of its responsibility.

Taliban growing

Over the last three years, the Taliban insurgency has grown from about 3-4,000 to 15,000 today.

88% of prisoners in Palestinian jails held without trial

Some problems faced by the Palestinian Authority in the judicial field are discussed here, in particular the fact that many prisoners are held without trial.

NATO, US and drugs in Afghanistan

McClatchy has another good article on the problem of drugs in Afghanistan. This one show that NATO and the US have not made much effort to fight the drug problem in Afghanistan.

It is reported that Afghan and Western officials say that U.S. and NATO-led forces failed to take the drug problem seriously for more than six years after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 ousted the Taliban regime."They (the Western military) didn't want anything to do with either interdiction or eradication," said Thomas Schweich, a former Bush administration ambassador for counter-narcotics and justice reform for Afghanistan. Schweich said that for example, U.S.-backed Afghan President Hamid Karzai was seen in 2007 as "trying to prevent serious law-enforcement efforts in Helmand and Kandahar to ensure that he did not lose the support of drug lords in the area whose support he wanted in the upcoming election."

So this is the story in Afghanistan: drugs benefit so many officials in government (just like it benefits the Taliban) that the Afghan government and the US are not interested in seriously eradicating the drugs, since this would weaken their allies.

Since the 2001 US invasion, opium production has jumped in Afghanistan: "After the Taliban banned poppy cultivation in July 2000, Afghanistan produced some 185 tons of opium in 2001. The next year, production was 3,400 tons, according to U.N. statistics, and by 2007 it was about 8,200 tons, making Afghanistan the source of roughly 93 percent of the world's opium and heroin."

Afghanistan's warlords

Patrick Cockburn has a good article that describes the power of the warlords in Afghanistan and how they have dominated the political landscape since at least the 1990s (in addition to the Taliban). They are still in power today because the US showered them with money in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Today they run the country like a mafia.

King Abdullah's solution to Israel/Palestine

King Abdullah of Jordan proposed a "new" peace initiative with Israel based on the 2002 Arab peace plan. Essentially, Israel would need to withdraw to 1967 borders, in exchange for peace with the Arab world.
Juan Cole comments on this and on the statelessness of the Palestinians, which he sees as the key problem to be solved.

Pashtun autonomy in Pakistan

Selig Harrison proposes a strategy for the Obama administration in Pakistan:

-Stop airstrikes.
-Support Pashtuns in their desire for a stronger position vis-a-vis the Punjabi-dominated government in Pakistan.
The Taliban are pashtuns and their al-Qaeda allies are mostly Arab Islamists coming from other countries. The idea is that separating the ethnic tensions (Pashtuns vs. Punjabis) from the religious ones (Islamists vs. moderates) could prevent a dangerous fusion of ethnic and religious tensions. So if you deal with Pashtuns' requests for autonomy in Pakistan, you eliminate one important aspect of the tensions and increase the likelihood that support for al-Qaeda will decrease. In short, the key is to separate the Taliban from al-Qaeda.

Muslim public opinion on Al Qaeda, attack on Americans, and bin Laden

A recent poll taken in Muslim countries indicates the following:

-Large majorities oppose attacks on American civilians and the use of violence to achieve political ends; however, in the case of US military troops (as opposed to civilians) the answer is different, as significant numbers, and in some countries majorities, approve of attacks on US troops based in Muslim countries. In line with this, large majorities oppose the presence of US troops in Muslim countries.
-Views of Al-Qaeda are somewhat more complex. The survey reveals that majorities of Muslims agree with Al-Qaeda's objectives (to change US behavior in the Muslim world, to promote Islamist governance, and to preserve and affirm Islamic identity). However, only minorities (between 10-20%) approve of Al-Qaeda's methods--such as terrorism towards civilians--to achieve those goals.
-Feelings toward Osama bin Laden were divided, but seemed on balance to be somewhat more positive than negative. But this depends on the country: for instance, in Turkey, bin Laden is clearly not seen favorably (68% see him negatively), but in other places bin Laden is seen more positively, as in the Palestinian territories (56% positive) and Egypt (44% positive).

Drugs in Afghanistan

A very good story from McClatchy on how the drug trade in Afghanistan benefits both the Taliban and many officials in the Karzai government.

Obama increases defense spending over 2009

The fiscal 2010 defense budget proposal is $533.7 billion, not including $130 billion more for overseas combat operations. Together the total is $663.7 billion--that's a 1.4% increase in total military spending from fiscal 2009. Maybe when one considers inflation this is actually keeping military expenditure at the same level as in 2009.
It was to be expected that military spending would not be cut drastically, and that it could even be increased, in order to stimulate the economy in times of economic crisis. This is one of the main functions of military spending, especially in the US.

An Israeli-Palestine story from the Guardian

An Israeli woman and a Palestinian "ex-revolutionary" who both lost close relatives in Israeli-Palestine violence are now campaigning together to end the conflict...

US bombing killed as many as 147 Afghans

The US bombing may have killed as many as 147 Afghans, including many women and children, according to press reports. If the reports of over 100 dead are true it will be the most deadly incident involving civilians since foreign troops invaded Afghanistan in 2001.

US killings of innocent civilians are also going on in Pakistan. A recent investigation found that in the last three years, US predator drone strikes killed 701 people in Pakistan, among which 687 were innocent civilians.

Ireland has deployed 7 troops who operate in Afghanistan under NATO command.

Obama is planning to send 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, a move opposed by a clear majority of Afghans.

US nuclear weapons

A good review article on Obama's policy on nuclear weapons, with hopeful and less hopeful signs. Obama's recent 2010 budget reserves $6.4 billion for nuclear weapons programs, in line with longer term plans for upgrading the nuclear weapons complex over the next two decades, an endeavor that could cost tens and tens of billions of dollars.

Who are the Pakistani Taliban?

A good article here on the Pakistani Taliban fighting the Pakistani military at the moment. It say among other things that the Pakistani Taliban collaborate loosely with Al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban.

Pentagon's $664 billion budget shifts to Afghanistan

The Pentagon's budget for 2010 will be $664 billion ($536 billion regular + $130 billion for war funding, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan).
the war in Iraq will receive $61 billion and Afghanistan $65 billion, showing a shift of resources toward the latter war.
The Pentagon's black budget will increase to more than $50 billion in the 2010 budget. This is used for secret operations, the CIA, etc.

Obama's AfPak strategy

Pepe Escobar at Asia Times online clarifies some aspects of Obama's AfPak strategy. For instance, he says that the focus on destroying poppies to cut off Taliban funding is not the whole picture: drugs also generate much income for warlords, druglords and politicians in government today, who are allies of the US and NATO--so that makes it hard to destroy poppy production and stop the drug trade. Also, the Taliban get funding from groups and individuals in the Gulf countries and Saudia Arabia, which are US allies. That's in part why Robert Gates was recently in Saudia Arabia to try to convince them to reduce support for the Taliban.
It's amazing how it is US allies who are supporting the Taliban enemies, but they suffer no consequences from the US.

Escobar also says that "Pakistani public opinion overwhelmingly abhors the Taliban as much as it abhors yet another military dictatorship". Indeed, "over the past few weeks Pakistani public opinion as a whole shot up to around 95% against the Taliban because Sufi Muhammad said democracy is an infidel thing; and because videos of Taliban floggings for the fist time were all over Pakistani media."

Obama's budget cuts social spending

Obama's 2010 budget makes cuts in education and other social programs. But Obama won't cut military spending--an old practice in US politics.

Bombing of Afghanistan at record high

US and coalition forces dropped 438 bombs on Afghanistan in April 2009, the highest number ever. The actual numbers are even higher because the 438 doesn’t include attacks by helicopters and special operations gunships. The numbers also don’t include strafing runs or launches of small missiles.

Over Iraq, 26 bombs were released in April 2009.

Karzai's popularity

There has been a lot of commentary recently that Karzai's popularity among Afghans has decreased, in line with the Obama administration's drop of confidence in him. However, Asia Times online argues the opposite: the fact that Karzai has been rejected by the West and Obama has led to him gaining respectability in Afghan eyes.

The supreme irony is that what is probably helping Karzai more than anything else to wrap up his re-election is that Western politicians like Schaffer [NATO secretary general] and Biden rubbished him and distanced themselves ostentatiously from him. Without the opprobrium of their company, Karzai's political fortunes began looking up. At once he began gaining a new credibility - even respectability - in Afghan eyes.

Obama's defense budget: close to $1 trillion

See this article showing that Obama will spend about $1 trillion in military spending for Fiscal year 2010. This is the cost of the regular defense budget, plus costs of Iraq and Afghanistan, and other things.

UN rejects further inquiry of Gaza attack

Ban Ki-moon rejected a further UN inquiry into the Gaza attack, limiting the UN work to the just released inquiry on attacks on UN compounds in Gaza.
But the separate inquiry by the UN human rights council, led by Richard Goldstone, is still moving forward. But the fact is that such an inquiry carries less weight than one that would be ordered by the UN Secretary-General.
There is also another good article about this here.

The issues in Afghanistan

A nice and concise report on three current issue sin Afghanistan: the upcoming August presidential elections; Obama's "Af-Pak" strategy; and the Taliban resurgence.

Taliban in Pakistan make money from resources

Asia Times online describes how the Taliban in Pakistan, who are now involved in a fight with the Pakistani military, raise funds for their activities. The Taliban have taken control of some important economic sectors and are reaping the profits, for instance, they generate income from a marble mine, emerald mining, timber, in addition to collecting Islamic taxes.

Torture in Iraq's prisons

Torture is common in Iraqi prisons. A UN human rights report gives the details.

Karzai's running mates

Karzai enlisted a former warlord, Muhammad Qasim Fahim, as one of two running mates for vice-president. Karzai’s second running mate is a current vice president, Muhammad Karim Khalili, who is a powerful Shiite leader and also a former mujahedeen commander.

This is important, as it illustrates once again perhaps the key problem in Afghanistan's domestic politics: warlords, drug lords and former mujahideen still hold the power in the country. This is a result of US policy, which has supported and funded warlords since the 2001 invasion, and in the 1980s against the Soviet invasion and occupation. Progressive groups and individuals in Afghanistan have basically been ignored. So now we're stuck with a pack of warlords and fundamentalists running the country.

Asia Times online has a very good article on Karzai's two running mates, Fahim and Khalili, the two former warlords.

Hamas' position on 2-state solution

The NYT reports that "The leader of the militant Palestinian group Hamas said on Monday that its fighters would stop firing rockets at Israel for now and reached out in a limited way to the Obama administration and others in the West, saying the movement was seeking a state only in the areas Israel won in 1967." However, the leader, Khaled Meshal, said he would not recognize Israel, although "he urged outsiders to ignore the Hamas charter, which calls for the obliteration of Israel through jihad and cites as fact the infamous anti-Semitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Mr. Meshal did not offer to revoke the charter but said it was 20 years old, adding “We are shaped by our experiences.”
The Obama administration has said it would only talk to Hamas if it renounces violence, recognizes Israel and accepts previous Palestinian-Israeli accords.

Other important excerpts:
"On the two-state solution sought by the Americans, he said, “We are with a state on the 1967 borders, based on a long-term truce. This includes East Jerusalem, the dismantling of settlements and the right of return of the Palestinian refugees.” Asked what “long-term” meant, he said 10 years.

Apart from the time restriction and the refusal to accept Israel’s existence, Mr. Meshal’s terms approximate the Arab League peace initiative and what the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas says it is seeking. Israel rejects a full return to the 1967 borders as well as a Palestinian right of return to Israel itself.

Regarding recognition of Israel, Mr. Meshal said that the former Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, and Mr. Abbas had granted such recognition but to no avail. “Did that recognition lead to an end of the occupation? It’s just a pretext by the United States and Israel to escape dealing with the real issue and to throw the ball into the Arab and Palestinian court.”

Asked whether his movement, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist in outlook, wanted to bring strict Muslim law to Gaza and the West Bank, he said no: “The priority is ending the occupation and achieving the national project. As for the nature of the state, it’s to be determined by the people. It will never be imposed upon them.”"

Hamas' acceptance of the two-state solution is nothing new, however. Jennifer Loewenstein had an article in 2006 providing many examples of statements by Hamas leaders saying they accepted the two-state solution. Excerpts with some of those statements:

"When asked by Newsweek-Washington Post correspondent Lally Weymouth on 26 February 2006 what agreements Hamas was prepared to honor, the new Hamas Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh answered, "the ones that will guarantee the establishment of a Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital with 1967 borders." Weymouth went on, "Will you recognize Israel?" to which Haniyeh responded, "If Israel declares that it will give the Palestinian people a state and give them back all their rights then we are ready to recognize them." (5) This view encapsulates the Hamas demand for reciprocity." (Hamas' reputation as a "rejectionist" movement stems in part from its unwillingness to act alone, without reciprocal moves by Israel.)

In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer four days after the PLC elections, the new Hamas Foreign Minister, Mahmoud Zahar (considered the party's hard-liner) remarked, "We can accept to establish our independent state on the area occupied [in] 1967." Like Haniyeh and other Hamas members, Zahar insists that once such a state is established a long-term truce "lasting as long as 10, 20 or 100 years" will ensue ending the state of armed conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. (6)" See report here.

See also this report.

Of course, Hamas has made less conciliatory statements many times. Nevertheless, the trend over the last few years has been toward a more pragmatic, or realistic, stance. As analyst Mouin Rabbani has written, "On Hamas I would not hesitate to say that the organization as a whole has essentially reconciled itself to a two-state settlement as a strategic option but has not formally adopted this as an organisational position. Yasin, Rantisi, Abu Shanab, Mashal, etc. have all made such statements. Have they made others that contradict them? Of course. But I think it can safely be concluded the strategic decisions have been made, the tactics remain unresolved and the formalities will come last." The question for us is whether or not we will give Hamas the chance to translate their words into actions. Rabbani writes, "it would be as naive to take the above statements on faith as it would be foolish not to put them to the test."(15)

Remember Kent State 1970

On May 4 1970, National Guardsmen killed 4 students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University in Ohio. There is a memorial video here. Next time you hear that governments represent their citizens' interests, watch it.

Lebanese parliamentary elections

Thomas Strouse has an article about Lebanon's June parliamentary elections here.

Give Guantanamo back to Cuba

As argued in an op-ed in the Washington Post, the US should not only close Guantanamo as a prison but give the base back to Cuba.

Home destruction in East Jerusalem

At least 60,000 of the 225,000 Palestinians in annexed east Jerusalem risk having their homes demolished by the Israeli authorities because they were built without permits, a UN agency said on Friday.

Aid in Afghanistan

Patrick Cockburn has an article on aid in Afghanistan. He notes as others have done that whereas only $7 million is spent every day on aid in Afghanistan, the US alone spends $100 million on the military there every day.