Category Archives: Lands

Colin Powell called Benghazi a ‘stupid witch hunt’ — and Condi Rice agreed

BuzzFeed reports: Former Secretary of State Colin Powell called the events surrounding and following the attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, “a stupid witch hunt,” saying that fault partially lies with the US ambassador who was killed in the attack, according to personal emails seen by BuzzFeed News.

“Benghazi is a stupid witch hunt. Basic fault falls on a courageous ambassador who thoughts Libyans now love me and I am ok in this very vulnerable place,” Powell wrote in a December 2015 email exchange with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, who died in the 2012 incident.

Hillary Clinton was secretary of state during the attack, which was the subject of a special congressional committee and remains an issue in the current presidential campaign.

“But blame also rests on his leaders and supports back here. Pat Kennedy, Intel community, DS and yes HRC” — the last acronym short for Hillary Clinton, added Powell, who served under former President George W. Bush.

“Completely agree,” Rice responds, adding, “Let me know when you’re in town and we’ll have that glass of wine (or two).” [Continue reading…]

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As ISIS closed in, a race to remove chemical-weapon precursors in Libya

The Washington Post reports: Late last year, as Islamic State fighters battled to expand their stronghold on Libya’s coast, ­militants came within 45 miles ­of the country’s sole remaining ­chemical-weapons site, unnerving Libyan and American officials who feared that potentially deadly chemicals could fall into extremist hands.

In May, when the fighters struck a mile from the lightly guarded desert facility, killing two security officers at a checkpoint, they decided it was time to act.

The Islamic State’s encroachment on an installation outside the remote oasis town of Waddan, where 500 metric tons of ­chemical-weapon precursor materials were stored, set off a hurried chain of events culminating in a disarmament operation involving the United States, European countries and the United Nations.

The international effort, which concluded last week when a Danish ship unloaded the materials at a German port for destruction, is one of the rare successes that Western nations can claim in Libya since dictator Moammar Gaddafi’s ouster in 2011 pitched the North African country into lawlessness and civil war. [Continue reading…]

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Details of Syria pact widen rift between John Kerry and Pentagon

The New York Times reports: The agreement that Secretary of State John Kerry announced with Russia to reduce the killing in Syria has widened an increasingly public divide between Mr. Kerry and Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter, who has deep reservations about the plan for American and Russian forces to jointly target terrorist groups.

Mr. Carter was among the administration officials who pushed against the agreement on a conference call with the White House last week as Mr. Kerry, joining the argument from a secure facility in Geneva, grew increasingly frustrated. Although President Obama ultimately approved the effort after hours of debate, Pentagon officials remain unconvinced.

On Tuesday at the Pentagon, officials would not even agree that if a cessation of violence in Syria held for seven days — the initial part of the deal — the Defense Department would put in place its part of the agreement on the eighth day: an extraordinary collaboration between the United States and Russia that calls for the American military to share information with Moscow on Islamic State targets in Syria. [Continue reading…]

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Haftar forces now control Libya’s ‘oil crescent’ along coast

Al Jazeera reports: Forces opposed to Libya’s unity government have seized a fourth oil port, Brega, completing their takeover of vital installations in the North African country’s “oil crescent”, according to military sources.

The UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) based in Tripoli is struggling to assert its authority and has faced staunch resistance from a rival administration based in Libya’s remote east.

Forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar, a renegade general, on Sunday launched an offensive on Libya’s “oil crescent” along the northern coast. [Continue reading…]

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Syria ceasefire takes effect with Assad emboldened, opposition wary

Reuters reports: A nationwide ceasefire in Syria brokered by the United States and Russia went into effect on Monday evening, the second attempt this year by Washington and Moscow to halt the five-year-old civil war.

The Syrian army announced the truce at 7 p.m. (11.00 a.m. ET), the moment it took effect, saying the seven-day “regime of calm” would be applied across Syria. It reserved the right to respond with all forms of firepower to any violation by “armed groups”.

Rebel groups fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad issued a joint statement listing deep reservations with the agreement they described as unjust, echoing concerns outlined in a letter to the United States on Sunday. While the statement did not explicitly back the ceasefire, rebel sources said the groups were abiding by it.

“Regarding a truce, a ceasefire, the delivery of aid, this is a moral question and there is no debate around this, we absolutely welcome this, but there are other articles around which there are reservations,” Zakaria Malahifji of an Aleppo-based rebel faction told Reuters.

Combatant sources on both sides said calm prevailed in the first hours of the ceasefire but reported violations increased later in the night. [Continue reading…]

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Confusion over cease-fire as U.S. walks back Kerry comments

The Associated Press reports: Confusion reigned Monday over Syria’s new cease-fire as Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States and Russia could permit President Bashar Assad’s government to launch new airstrikes against al-Qaida-linked militants. The State Department quickly reversed itself.

Spokesman John Kirby said later there were no provisions under the nationwide truce for U.S.-Russian authorization of bombing missions by Assad’s forces. “This is not something we could ever envision doing,” he said.

Kerry’s comments at a news conference were the closest any American official had come to suggesting indirect U.S. cooperation with Assad since the civil war started in 2011. President Barack Obama called on Assad to leave power more than five years ago; the U.S. blames the Syrian leader for a war that has killed perhaps a half-million people.

While Kirby called his boss’ remarks “incorrect,” Kerry’s statement reflected the general murkiness of an agreement that hasn’t been presented publicly in written form. The deal came after a marathon negotiation between Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov last Friday; descriptions by the two diplomats represent the only public explanation of what was agreed to. [Continue reading…]

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Analysis: Russia-U.S. deal unlikely to end Syria’s war

Samer Abboud writes: Is the Russia-US agreement on Syria the beginning of the end of the conflict?

Unlikely. The agreement merely reflects a shared commitment to a military strategy, with its major strategic goals being to delink and separate Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly known as al-Nusra Front) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) from other rebel groups.

To be sure, the agreement also calls for a cessation of regime bombardment of civilian areas, an opening up of humanitarian corridors, and the demilitarisation of key supply routes – positive measures in the short-term.

However, the agreement cannot possibly serve as a blueprint for a resolution because it fails to set in motion any political mechanisms to do so. Instead, it represents the convergence of interest and strategy between the Americans and Russians, which will ultimately reshape the political possibilities for post-conflict Syria. Once heralded as necessary to ending the conflict, though, this convergence is unlikely to achieve that goal due to its narrow military focus. [Continue reading…]

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One ISIS recruiter tied to at least four plots to attack France since June

The Associated Press reports: A single French Islamic State jihadi has emerged as the link among at least four plots to attack France since June, three people with knowledge of the investigation said.

The precise role of the extremist, Rachid Kassim, is under investigation, but the officials say he has become a key instigator who directs recruits in encrypted forums on how and where to carry out the Islamic State’s call for European Muslims to strike at home. Most recently, he was believed to be in contact with a 19-year-old in an unprecedented cell of French women who failed in their attempts to detonate a car bomb and kill police.

From the Loire River town of Roanne, the 29-year-old Kassim is believed to be in either Syria or Iraq yet figures in multiple French anti-terror investigations.

Kassim’s virtual fingerprints were found as early as the June 14 knifing of two police officials at their home in the Paris suburb of Magnanville, in which the killer left behind not only a video that he had streamed on Facebook Live but a hit list of politicians, journalists and public personalities. That list is believed to have been drawn up by Kassim ahead of time, one of the officials said. All spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing investigation. [Continue reading…]

BBC News reports: By early August came the first indication that Rashid Kassim was targeting women and children to carry out attacks.

His name has been linked a girl of 16 arrested at Melun, south of Paris, and to another teenager in Clermont-Ferrand. The 16 year old had gone on Telegram to announce her plan to launch an attack.

And on 11 September, a boy of 15 was arrested in Paris on suspicion of planning an attack in a public place. Investigators said he too was in contact with Kassim and been under surveillance since April.

Another plot in Paris this month involved several women and was, in the words of Paris prosecutor Francois Molins, “remote-controlled” from Syria. Unconfirmed reports said Rashid Kassim was the inspiration.

In the early hours of 4 September, a car packed with gas canisters and jerry-cans of diesel was abandoned by female jihadists in a street near Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. [Continue reading…]

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Seizure of Libyan oil terminals prompts call for military action

The Guardian reports: Forces opposed to the UN-backed Libyan government in Tripoli appear to be making a clean sweep through the country’s “oil crescent”, seizing control of oil terminal headquarters and gaining a stranglehold over the export of Libya’s economic lifeblood.

The capture of the oil terminals through the weekend and Monday changes the balance of political forces inside Libya and makes the survival of the UN-backed, Tripoli-based government of national accord (GNA) less likely.

The oil ports were seized by forces under the control of General Khalifa Haftar, who opposes the GNA and supports the rival government in the east of the country. The victory for Haftar is likely to increase his prestige and his negotiating power in the event of Libya being carved up.

The clashes also mean that the possibility of an economic revival driven by oil production and export is further away than ever. Six western nations had issued a joint appeal in August urging that oil facilities be freed from the civil war.

The Libyan national oil corporation, one of the few technocratic bodies left in Libya, had produced a clear plan to revive oil production and exports this year.

Oil production, pipelines and terminals have been at the centre of the civil war since the collapse of the government of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Oil production has collapsed from a potential of more than 1.5 million barrels a day to just 200,000. [Continue reading…]

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Assad vows to retake Syria, calling into question impending cease-fire

The Washington Post reports: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reiterated his determination to reconquer all of Syria, hours before the scheduled start of a U.S.- and Russian-sponsored cease-fire Monday aimed at ending five years of conflict.

Assad’s comments, made during a visit to the Damascus suburb of Darayya, called into question whether his government will comply with the entirety of the agreement. The pact spells out a process that intends — at least according to the Obama administration — to culminate in Assad’s departure.

Under the agreement announced in Geneva on Saturday by Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the Syrian government and the rebels are expected to halt all fighting and bombing at 7 p.m. local time on Monday (noon Eastern time). That sets in motion a sequence of events intended to lead to new negotiations for a possible transition away from Assad’s rule.

Assad, however, made it clear he has no plans to completely stop fighting to crush the five-year-old rebellion against his regime. [Continue reading…]

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Bitter foes weigh up chance of peace, but prepare for war to rage on in Syria

Martin Chulov reports: Inside east Aleppo, talk of ways to bring a lasting peace were long ago discounted. On the eve of the latest deal being implemented by Russia and the US to bring calm to a five-year war, those trying to oust Bashar al-Assad in the opposition half of the city are now more sceptical than ever.

The pact, announced by Moscow and Washington late on Friday, aims to ease in a ceasefire, mainly by phasing out attacks by Russian and Syrian jets, which have pounded opposition areas for most of the past year, and allowing in desperately needed aid supplies.

While a potential end to the bombings was welcomed by militants inside the city, distrust has remained about the caveats – particularly an insistence that al-Qaida-linked elements be disentangled from more mainstream rebels – for much of the deal to kick in.

“Jabhat Fateh al-Sham [the renamed jihadi group Jabhat al-Nusra] are among us, that is true,” said Dawood Mahmudi, a senior rebel based in east Aleppo. “They are here because no one else is. They have kept the city open and have reopened it when it was besieged. Where were Russia and the US then? I’ll tell you where, the US was nowhere, and Russia was bombing us. And now they say ‘trust us’.” [Continue reading…]

The Associated Press reports: Rebel factions in Syria expressed deep reservations on Sunday about the terms of a U.S.-Russian deal that seeks to restart the peace process for the war-torn country, with the leader of at least one U.S.-backed rebel faction publicly calling the offer a “trap.”

The second in command of the powerful, ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham group condemned the superpower agreement as an effort to secure President Bashar Assad’s government and drive rebel factions apart.

“A rebellious people who have fought and suffered for six years cannot accept half-solutions,” said Ali al-Omar in a video statement.

But the commander and other rebel leaders stopped short of fully rejecting the agreement’s interim cease-fire, which is slated to come into effect in stages beginning on Monday at sunset. [Continue reading…]

The Wall Street Journal reports: Mostafa Mahamed, the director of foreign media relations for Syria Conquest Front [previously known as Nusra Front], declared in written responses to questions that his group had the support of “numerous groups on the ground” despite the ultimatum to other rebels to split from his bloc.

“We expect a united stance of all major players in Syria against this deal. The sincere groups in Syria will never be tools used by external governments that fight their proxy wars,” Mr. Mahamed said. “Make no mistake about it. The U.S. and Russia have agreed to end this revolution.”

He slammed members of the political opposition who accepted the U.S.-Russian agreement to halt fighting as disingenuous representatives of the revolution who occupy “five star hotels and conference halls abroad.” [Continue reading…]

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For more than 100 years, Britain has been perpetually at war

Ian Cobain writes: For more than a hundred years, not a single year has passed when Britain’s armed forces have not been engaged in military operations somewhere in the world. The British are unique in this respect: the same could not be said of the Americans, the Russians, the French or any other nation.

Only the British are perpetually at war.

One reason that this is rarely acknowledged could be that in the years following the second world war, and before the period of national self-doubt that was provoked in 1956 by the Suez crisis, Britain engaged in so many end-of-empire scraps that military activity came to be regarded by the British public as the norm, and therefore unremarkable. Another is that since 1945, British forces have engaged in a series of small wars that were under-reported and now all but forgotten, or which were obscured, even as they were being fought, by more dramatic events elsewhere.

A great deal is known about some conflicts, such as the 1982 Falklands war and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and Britain’s role in the two world wars has become in many ways central to the national narrative. But other conflicts are remembered only dimly or have always remained largely hidden.

One strategically vital war, waged by Britain for more than a decade, was fought for most of that time in complete secrecy. In January 1972, readers of the Observer opened their newspaper to see a report headlined “UK fighting secret Gulf war?” On the same day, the Sunday Times ran a very similar article, asking: “Is Dhofar Britain’s hush-hush war?” British troops, the newspapers revealed, were engaged in the war that the sultan of Oman was fighting against guerrillas in the mountains of Dhofar in the south of the country.

Four years earlier, the devaluation crisis had forced Harold Wilson’s government to pledge that British forces would be withdrawn from all points east of Suez by December 1971 – the only exemption being a small force that was to remain in Hong Kong. Now the Observer article was demanding to know: “Has Britain really withdrawn all her forces from the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula? Or is the British government, like the Americans in Laos, waging a secret war without the full knowledge of parliament and public?” The Observer located one of the insurgency’s leaders, who told its reporter that the war had begun with an “explosion” in the country on 9 June 1965, triggered by what he described as poor local governance and “the oppression of the British”. By the time the Observer and Sunday Times were publishing their first, tentative reports, Britain had been at war in Oman for six-and-a-half years. [Continue reading…]

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Bill Moyers: Money and power in America

Hope: it’s in short supply in America this year. I was reminded of that recently when I spoke at a kick-off event for the school year hosted by the Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas. The Institute’s namesake is, of course, Bob Dole, the war hero turned Republican congressman, senator, minority and then majority leader, and finally presidential nominee in 1996. On a beautiful summer evening, on the front lawn of the Institute, my host, a KU senior named Cody, and I discussed — what else is there to talk about this year? — The Donald, Hillary, and Bernie. Then we plunged into the perilous topic of the media and its curious future and the life of a journalist (me) covering the gravity-defying spectacle commonly known as election 2016. More than 100 students showed up — nothing to do, I’m sure, with the free burgers and soda — and when it came time for the Q-and-A portion of the event, I couldn’t help but be struck by the acuity and thoughtfulness of their questions.

Afterward, I met a smaller group of them at a nearby basement bar. During my five years as an undergraduate, I can’t recall having a conversation as substantive as that evening’s. Kansas’s state government, led by its governor, Sam Brownback, has plunged into a radical experiment in “conservative” governing, and it was on their minds. We talked about a variety of depressing topics, including the devastating effects of the legislature’s repeated budget cuts to higher education and another grim signature legislative issue: the open carry of guns on campus. “No gun” signs were ubiquitous there, but everyone wondered: For how long? The students spoke eloquently and knowledgeably. More than that, they spoke with passion and in detail about how such problems might be dealt with and even fixed, and they did so with the Dole Institute’s bipartisan ethos in mind. Some of it may have been the youthful idealism of the undergraduate but, believe me, it was refreshing.

I say all this because, as a journalist in this crazy year of our lord 2016, on a good day the temptation is to tilt toward cynicism. It’s our job to rake the muck and expose the trolls, to cast light on the wrongdoing and the failings in our society, but it’s up to others to set them right. Today, at this site, Bill Moyers writes about the greatest failing, the true disaster, of our time: the scourge of growing inequality, economic and political. He describes it as “a despicable blot on American politics,” as the very wealthy convert their financial might into political power to guard that wealth while exacerbating inequality further. The statistics Moyers deploys are chilling. Consume enough of them and you’re liable to feel a bit gloomy. But like those undergraduates, Moyers (very distinctly a post-graduate of our difficult political world) holds onto the hope, as today’s piece suggests, that Americans can still fix our world, make it a better place. 

Those students I met gave me hope and Moyers does the same — hope for a more equitable future brought on by the hard work of Americans, whether as journalists, legislators, or activists, as lawyers, doctors, engineers, or teachers. These are strange, often grim, times, and such bursts of hope are what keep us going. Andy Kroll

We, the Plutocrats vs. We, the People
Saving the soul of democracy
By Bill Moyers

Sixty-six years ago this summer, on my 16th birthday, I went to work for the daily newspaper in the small East Texas town of Marshall where I grew up. It was a good place to be a cub reporter — small enough to navigate but big enough to keep me busy and learning something every day.  I soon had a stroke of luck.  Some of the paper’s old hands were on vacation or out sick and I was assigned to help cover what came to be known across the country as “the housewives’ rebellion.”

Fifteen women in my hometown decided not to pay the social security withholding tax for their domestic workers.  Those housewives were white, their housekeepers black. Almost half of all employed black women in the country then were in domestic service.  Because they tended to earn lower wages, accumulate less savings, and be stuck in those jobs all their lives, social security was their only insurance against poverty in old age. Yet their plight did not move their employers.

The housewives argued that social security was unconstitutional and imposing it was taxation without representation. They even equated it with slavery.  They also claimed that “requiring us to collect [the tax] is no different from requiring us to collect the garbage.”  So they hired a high-powered lawyer — a notorious former congressman from Texas who had once chaired the House Un-American Activities Committee — and took their case to court. They lost, and eventually wound up holding their noses and paying the tax, but not before their rebellion had become national news.

The stories I helped report for the local paper were picked up and carried across the country by the Associated Press. One day, the managing editor called me over and pointed to the AP Teletype machine beside his desk. Moving across the wire was a notice citing our paper and its reporters for our coverage of the housewives’ rebellion.

I was hooked, and in one way or another I’ve continued to engage the issues of money and power, equality and democracy over a lifetime spent at the intersection between politics and journalism. It took me awhile to put the housewives’ rebellion into perspective.  Race played a role, of course.  Marshall was a segregated, antebellum town of 20,000, half of whom were white, the other half black.  White ruled, but more than race was at work. Those 15 housewives were respectable townsfolk, good neighbors, regulars at church (some of them at my church).  Their children were my friends; many of them were active in community affairs; and their husbands were pillars of the town’s business and professional class. 

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Will the U.S.-Russia deal bring Syria peace? Don’t hold your breath

Michael Weiss writes: In the late summer of 2011, President Barack Obama declared the reign of Bashar al-Assad “illegitimate” and told him the time had come to “step aside.” In the early fall of 2015, U.S. officials laughingly dismissed Vladimir Putin’s unexpected direct military intervention into Syria as an accident waiting to happen at Russia’s expense.

Today, Secretary of State John Kerry formally legitimized Assad’s military by way of delimiting its zone of combat; and he welcomed the Russian Air Force as a prospective U.S. partner prosecuting an increasingly complex and muddled war against the so-called Islamic State and al-Qaeda, two separate and competitive terrorist organizations in Syria. Significantly, the latter group often intermingles with U.S.-backed insurgents.

In a tardy press conference in Geneva that most reporters were so sure would never happen they began ordering champagne and pizza, Kerry mapped out this fingers-crossed bilateral plan of action. His remarks were leavened with repeated qualifications and conditional tenses as he described an agreement that must perforce be founded on trust between the United States and Russia would not in fact be based on anything of the sort.

“If, and again I want to emphasize the if –” Kerry began his presser tonight, “If the plan is implemented in good faith, if the stakeholders do the things that are available to them to do and are being called on them to do, this can be a moment where the multilateral efforts at the diplomatic table… could take hold and you could really provide the people of Syria with a transition.”

Except that nobody really believes that. [Continue reading…]

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The imperfect world of the new deal on Syria

Bassam Barabandi, Hassan Hassan, and Faysal Itani write: The new US-Russian deal to reduce violence and combat extremists in Syria has been met with a great deal of scepticism among Syria watchers. Scepticism is both unsurprising and understandable, given the poor track record of ceasefires in the country. Indeed, senior American officials have indicated the deal is not going to produce calm any time soon, but they hope it will lead to a reduction in violence.

The deal, agreed between Washington and Moscow on Friday, should nonetheless be judged by its details and in the broader context of the war. We were privy to contents of the agreement yet to be publicly released. Also, conversations with senior American officials and rebel leaders offer insights into what the US seeks to achieve from the agreement and how the plan can strengthen the moderate elements within the opposition.

In many ways, the agreement looks good on paper and can in principle strengthen the opposition by constraining violence and bringing relief to civilian populations in rebel-held areas. The danger to the rebels emanates not from the agreement’s terms but from unanswered questions about the role of pro-government militias and the lack of an enforcement mechanism. [Continue reading…]

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U.S.-Russian Syria ceasefire deal explained

Al Jazeera reports: A nationwide ceasefire by Assad’s forces and the US-backed opposition is set to begin across Syria at sundown on Monday.

That sets off a seven-day period that will allow for humanitarian aid and civilian traffic into Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, which has faced a recent onslaught.

Fighting forces are to also pull back from the Castello Road, a key thoroughfare and access route into Aleppo, and create a “demilitarised zone” around it.

Also on Monday, the US and Russia will begin preparations for the creation of a Joint Implementation Centre that will involve information sharing needed to define areas controlled by the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham group (formerly known as al-Nusra Front) and opposition groups in areas “of active hostilities”.

The centre is expected to be established a week later, and is to launch a broader effort towards delineating other territories in control of various groups.

As part of the arrangement, Russia is expected to keep Syrian air force planes from bombing areas controlled by the opposition. The US has committed to help weaken Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria that has intermingled with the US-backed opposition in several places.

A resumption of political dialogue between the government and opposition under UN mediation, which was halted amid an upsurge in fighting in April, will be sought over the longer term. [Continue reading…]

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Stopping the killing in Syria is not a question of feasibility; it’s a question of political will

Muhamed Sacirbey writes: Syria’s largest city is on the brink of starvation. Bombed from the skies and besieged on the ground, Aleppo’s 2 million residents may soon be exterminated. A little more than two decades ago, my country’s capital confronted a similar catastrophe. In the spring of 1992, regular and paramilitary units, snipers, artillery and tanks surrounded Sarajevo, Bosnia, inflicting what would become the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare.

Like in Aleppo, the situation inside Sarajevo was dire. Extremists (ostensibly seeking to deliver a “Greater Serbia”) sought to pummel, choke and starve a cosmopolitan city with a long tradition of diversity. Major access roads were cut. Utilities including water, electricity and heat were shut off. Snipers made daily life a living hell. But Sarajevo’s 400,000 residents escaped many of the horrors now awaiting Aleppo’s residents. They survived, not because then-President Slobodan Milosevic’s forces were any more humane than Bashar al-Assad’s or because Yugoslav air forces were any less capable, but because NATO opted (albeit belatedly and, too often, inadequately) to uphold its responsibility to protect Bosnian civilians.

Calls for military intervention — even for the most noble of reasons — have developed a bad reputation in the decades since NATO’s intervention in Bosnia. The catastrophe of Iraq and the disastrous post-intervention rebuilding of Libya have caused many to doubt whether military intervention could ever work. While the West’s military intervention in Bosnia didn’t solve all our problems, it was decisive in moving Bosnia and the region from war to peace — a process that still continues, albeit highly imperfectly. There is every reason to believe that similar action and determination, centered on stopping aerial bombardment of civilians, would provide similar benefits to Syria and the world. [Continue reading…]

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