Category Archives: Lands

Refugee crisis magnified by European divisions

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Der Spiegel reports: A rickety gate of galvanized wire is all that separates desperation from hope. The gate is part of the fence erected in the farming village of Idomeni on the border between Greece and Macedonia. At this moment, some 12,000 people are waiting for it to be opened.

It’s the gateway to Europe and the gateway to Germany.

A woman in boots and a blue uniform stands guard in front of the gate. Her name is Foteini Gagaridou and she is an official with the Greek border police — and she looks exhausted. All it would take for her to open the border would be to pull a thin metal pin out of the latch, but she’s not allowed to.

If it were up to her, she says, she would let every single one of these people pass through, just as they were able to do just a few weeks earlier — across the border to Macedonia and on through Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia to Austria, where they could continue their journey to Germany on what is known as the Balkan Route. It’s the same path chosen by hundreds of thousands of refugees last year, but the Balkan Route is now closed. It ends at Gagaridou’s wire gate.

This is where Fortress Europe begins, secured with razor wire and defended with tear gas. Desperate scenes played out here on Monday, reminiscent of those witnessed in Hungary back in September. A group of young men used a steel beam as a battering ram to break down the gate. Rocks flew through the air as the gate flew off its hinges, prompting the volleying of tear gas cartridges and stun grenades from the Macedonian side. Men could be seen running and children screaming. One woman lay on the ground with her daughter, crying.

This frontier has become Europe’s new southern border, with Greece serving as Europe’s waiting room — and the possible setting for a humanitarian disaster. Around 32,000 migrants are currently stranded in the country, a number that the Greek Interior Ministry says could quickly swell to 70,000. The aid organization Doctors Without Borders is even expecting 200,000 refugees. Greece’s reception camps are already full, and the highly indebted country is stretched well beyond its capacity.

The decision as to whether and how many refugees will be able to cross the border isn’t one for border guard Gagaridou to make. Rather, it will be taken by the Macedonian government. Macedonia, for its part, is pointing fingers at countries further to the north, noting it is they who have tightened their borders, especially Austria, which created a chain reaction of border closures last week. The countries apparently felt they could wait no longer for the broader European solution German Chancellor Angela Merkel has promised will result from a special EU summit scheduled for March 7.

Merkel wants to see Turkey stem the flow of refugees and put a stop to the exodus to Europe. European leaders agreed on Feb. 18 that this plan remains the “priority.” But Austria and the Balkan states nevertheless moved ahead and closed their borders.

Idomeni has become a symbol of the current political chaos in Europe and the crumbling of a joint European refugee policy. The town is emblematic of the new Europe of fences. It is here that German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open border policies have met their end. Under Austria’s leadership, the Balkan Route has been closed in the precise move Berlin had hoped to avoid.

Merkel has begun warning of the EU’s disintegration “into small states” that will be unable to compete in a globalized world, as well as of the possibility that border controls might soon be reintroduced all across Europe.

Were Europe in agreement, it would be unproblematic to accommodate 2-3 million refugees, given the Continent’s population of a half billion people. From such a perspective, the current spat actually seems somewhat ridiculous. But in the run up to next week’s EU summit, Europe is gripped by strife. Europe’s greatest achievement, the opening of its borders through the Schengen agreement, is at stake, and the increasingly toxic atmosphere between countries has reached alarming dimensions. [Continue reading…]

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Migration evidence shows how badly the EU needs to rethink its strategy

By Vicki Squire, University of Warwick and Nina Perkowski, University of Warwick

European leaders continue to be stumped by the so-called migration crisis. Fences are going up in the east and warnings are being issued that there is no more room. But people keep coming.

Europe’s agenda on migration is primarily focused on preventing people from reaching Europe. It seems to rest on the assumption that an unending number of people want to come to the EU, and that deterrent measures are therefore necessary.

But our new research shows that these are flawed assumptions. It suggests that people don’t always move with the aim of reaching Europe as an ideal end goal. Often they simply seek a place of safety.

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The Arab revolutions have been misunderstood or even wilfully mischaracterised by Western leftists

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In a review of Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War, by Robin Yassin-Kassab and Leila al-Shami, Joe Gill writes: As well as a non-orthodox telling of the conflict from the point of view of the activists and fighters who took part in the revolution, the book also speaks to the confusion and reluctance of western progressives to engage in the reality of Syria. “What’s happening is of immense human, cultural importance, not just for Syria and the Middle East but for the whole world. We do actually live in age of very messy revolutions,” says Yassin-Kassab.

Western suspicion of Islamists of whatever hue colours how the Syrian revolution is perceived, leading to potentially disastrous conclusions as to how the war might be ended. “There are a huge range of Islamists – we don’t at all agree with them, but nevertheless they are there. Some are foreigners and criminals, some of them are Syrians and represent a constituency,” said Yassin-Kassab.

By late 2013, and certainly by 2015, a consensus had emerged in the West, if not in the Gulf and Turkey, that there were no good opposition forces left on the ground who could take the reigns if and when Assad fell.

The Arab revolutions, because they do not conform to a traditional Marxist or anti-colonial narrative of liberation struggles, and in the case of Syria and Libya are ranged against nominally “anti-imperialist” regimes, have also been misunderstood or even wilfully mischaracterised by western leftists, according to al-Shami and Yassin-Kassab. “I actually fail to see the difference between the left and right as a result of all this. You don’t hear anything about [the Syrian revolutionary movement] in western leftist circles. You need to go to the grassroots to what people are really thinking and feeling.” Without this bottom up approach, the author says that outsiders are “open to the first propagandist narrative that comes along.” [Continue reading…]

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Reports of uprising against ISIS in Raqqa are false, Syrian activists say

The Independent reports: Syrian activists say media reports of a popular uprising against Isis in Raqqa are false.

It has been reported that 200 Isis militants had switched sides to fight against their former comrades, securing at least five neighbourhoods in the city and replacing the black flag of Isis with the Syrian national flag.

​”About 200 Syrian militants of Daesh took the side of residents of Raqqa, which forced the terrorists to organize roadblocks at the entrance to the city,” one source told Sputnik, the Russian government’s news agency.

However, the reports are false according to Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), a group of citizen journalists reporting on life under Isis. [Continue reading…]

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Rivalries stall push to retake Mosul

The Wall Street Journal reports: Defense Secretary Ash Carter said last week that the Syrian town of Shaddadi had been cleared of militants, cutting off an important supply line between Mosul and Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria. Mr. McGurk [President Obama’s envoy on the fight against ISIS] described Shaddadi’s liberation and a similar victory in the Iraqi city of Sinjar as the beginning of an effort to isolate Mosul.

Over the weekend, Iraq’s military airdropped leaflets over the occupied city addressed to “the patient sons of Mosul.” “Your security forces settled the fight in Ramadi in Iraq’s favor,” it read. “Now they are readying for the biggest battle…be ready.”

But Iran, through the Shiite militias it supports, is insisting on a role in Mosul after being sidelined in recently liberated Ramadi, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials. Iraq’s Sunni groups and the U.S. fear militia participation will fan sectarian tensions and expand Iran’s already sizable influence in Iraq.

Kurdish officials insist their forces should have a role in the fight to recapture Mosul, as well. But Baghdad worries the Kurds will use the fight to take territory that helps strengthen their case for an autonomous Kurdish homeland.

The jockeying among Iraq’s splintered groups, and the foreign powers that back them, have repeatedly pushed back the timetable to retake Mosul. As a result, some Iraqi and U.S. officials are now predicting the offensive won’t even begin this year. [Continue reading…]

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Iraq is broke — add that to its list of worries

The Washington Post reports: Some Iraqi officials refer to it as “the gap,” and it is becoming as pressing a concern as the fight against the Islamic State.

Each month, Iraq’s government pays out nearly $4 billion in salaries and pensions to the military and a bloated array of public-sector workers. But with more than 90 percent of government revenue coming from oil, it is bringing in only about half that as crude prices plunge.

The United States is stepping in to try to make sure the country can continue military spending while it seeks international loans and embarks on an austerity plan. Still, some Iraqi officials and analysts say the government might struggle later this year to pay the 7 million people on the public payroll, which could trigger mass unrest.

With oil prices hovering around $30 a barrel, the entire region is being forced to cut budgets, reduce state handouts and make other painful adjustments. But for Iraq, the decline comes in the midst of an already destabilizing war. There are bills for reconstructing flattened cities and assistance for 3.3 million Iraqis who have been internally displaced over the past two years, with more expected to come. [Continue reading…]

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Tunisia: At least 45 dead in clashes near Libyan border

The Associated Press reports: At least 45 people were killed Monday near Tunisia’s border with Libya in one of the deadliest clashes seen so far between Tunisian forces and extremist attackers, the government said.

The fighting in the border town of Ben Guerdane in eastern Tunisia comes amid increasing concern that violent extremism in Libya could destabilize the region.

The government closed its two border crossings with Libya because of the attack that left 28 “terrorists,” seven civilians and 10 members of Tunisia’s security forces dead, the Tunisian interior and defense ministries said in a statement. [Continue reading…]

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Russophobia is a problem of Putin’s own creation

Lucian Kim writes: If Russian officials are to be believed, the reason people worry about what Russia might do next is because they suffer from Russophobia, an irrational fear of all things Russian.

In February, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov assailed the “fashion of Russophobia in certain capitals” during a visit to Germany. Then Russia’s defense ministry accused General Philip Breedlove of Russophobia. The commander of U.S. forces in Europe had testified that the United States and its allies were “deterring Russia now and preparing to fight and win if necessary” following the Kremlin’s military adventures in Ukraine and Syria.

“Russophobe” has become a convenient label for anyone who disagrees with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggressive behavior at home and abroad. You are not criticizing an authoritarian leader and his erratic policies; you are instead attacking the Russian nation.

Russia’s state media churns out reports on how enemies are tirelessly seeking to isolate the country — when in fact it is Putin’s own actions that are closing off Russia. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. considering boosting forces in Europe for defense against Russia

Military Times reports: The Pentagon is discussing plans to permanently move one or more Army brigade combat teams back to Europe, where the top American commander has signaled an urgent need to shore up allied defenses against the Russians, Military Times has learned.

If approved, the move could involve thousands of troops — an average BCT is composed of between 3,000 and 5,000 personnel — and mark the first time in decades that U.S. European Command has increased its footprint on the continent.

The EUCOM Commander, Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, discussed his proposals with top-level Pentagon officials while in Washington last week, according to a defense official familiar with the plans. Any increase would come in addition to the brigade-size force that would rotate through Eastern Europe as part of the $3.4 billion “European Reassurance Initiative,” which was included in the Pentagon’s latest budget request. [Continue reading…]

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Former Petraeus adviser, Lt Col David Kilcullen: ‘No ISIS if we didn’t invade Iraq’

In a review of Kilcullen’s new book, Blood Year: Islamic State and the Failures of the War on Terror, David Gardner writes: “The greatest strategic screw-up since Hitler’s invasion of Russia” is how David Kilcullen describes George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. If anyone thinks that is a throwaway line they should read on. For it comes from one of the architects of the 2007-08 “surge” into Iraq that sought to restore security to a society the US-led occupation broke, and to create space to rebuild a state it destroyed.

Kilcullen was a young lieutenant colonel in the Australian army who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, a scholar steeped in counter-insurgency theory, “watching closely and keeping notes as this enormous slow-motion train wreck took place”. In 2007 he was seconded to US forces as chief adviser to General David Petraeus, commander of the surge. This strategy combined a big influx of American troops with co-opted Sunni tribal fighters to defeat al-Qaeda. The jihadis, later to transmute into the far greater threat of Isis, had virtually no presence in Iraq prior to the invasion — but used it to turn the country into a charnel house and trigger the region-wide war between Sunni and Shia Islam that has now ripped Syria apart.

Put simply, Kilcullen argues we should never have gone into Iraq, with the job still unfinished in Afghanistan after 9/11. But the US and its allies were morally and legally obliged afterwards to try to “halt the carnage and restore some normality”. Like many soldiers, Kilcullen does not do gore. So when he mentions, in the sparest of prose given the depravity of the sectarian bloodletting, the “commercial kidnapping gangs auctioning off terrified children for slaughter, in a makeshift night market that operated under lights near the soccer stadium”, it is a kick in the stomach.

The surge sharply reduced the violence. But the US, now under President Barack Obama, had exhausted its attention span. Meanwhile, Iraqi leaders twisted by sectarianism would not use the space this success created for reconciliation.

Mr Obama, to be fair, was elected on a pledge to extract Americans from Middle East wars. Yet in Kilcullen’s judgment, he left Iraq irresponsibly early. He failed to register how Nouri al-Maliki, the Shia Islamist premier and joint protégé of the US and Iran, was stampeding Iraq’s Sunni minority into jihadi arms by his sectarian power grab. With al-Qaeda wounded by its “near death experience” with the surge, few noticed its rebirth in the ashes of Syria. Recklessness in Iraq was followed by fecklessness in Syria — “passivity in the face of catastrophe” that spells strategic disaster for the US and the west. [Continue reading…]

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Decoding the changing nature of ISIS’s insurgency

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Hassan Hassan writes: The war against ISIL is changing, and how its opponents adapt will be a key test of the group’s ability to achieve its goals.

A string of attacks and counter-attacks over the course of this year so far signal a major shift in the way the group is conducting its military operations, leaning back on insurgency tactics it used when US troops were still present in Iraq.

The change comes amid widespread perception in western capitals that the group is now on the back foot. But it also follows a variety of crises – financial and political – that may cause deeper western involvement in the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts.

Last Sunday, the group launched an assault inside the city of Abu Ghraib, 15 kilometres from Baghdad International Airport. More than 50 people were killed and the attack was repelled. In the process, the militants reportedly controlled the grain silo in Khan Dhari and took with them a dozen lorries full of badly needed grain into besieged Fallujah, which is around 30 kilometres away. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. planning to strike ISIS in Libya based on ‘faulty intelligence’

The Telegraph reports: The United States is basing plans for military intervention in Libya on faulty intelligence, Western officials and country experts have told the Sunday Telegraph.

American intelligence agencies assess that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) has doubled in size in Libya, with between 5,000 and 6,500 fighters in the country.

Privately, however, some US officials say they believe these estimates to be overblown. Independent experts have come to the same conclusion.

“The estimates of the number of jihadists is grossly exaggerated,” said Karim Mezran, a Libya expert with the Atlantic Council in Washington.

Whilst Mr Mezran and other analysts were loathe to put a number on the size of the organisation, citing the chaos and lack of access to Isil areas in Libya, all said they believed the real figure to be only 20 to 40 per cent of the US estimate. [Continue reading…]

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Russia freezes delivery of S-300 missile defense to Iran, reports Kuwaiti newspaper

The Times of Israel reports: ssian President Vladmir Putin reportedly froze the transfer of the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system to Iran after receiving evidence from Israel that Tehran had transferred advanced weapons to Hezbollah.

The Kuwaiti newspaper al-Jarida published the unconfirmed report on Saturday, citing an unnamed source allegedly “familiar” with Putin.

The source said that Putin scuppered the delivery after Israel showed that Iran had repeatedly attempted to transfer the SA-22 Greyhound short-range air defense system to the Lebanese-based terrorist group.

The report also said that Russian pilots claimed to have detected the presence of advance anti-aircraft systems in Hezbollah-controlled territory straddling the Syria-Lebanon border.

Israel, according to the report, has turned a blind eye to the Iranian-backed group’s possession of the Soviet-made SA-5 Gammon surface-to-air missile system, known also as the S-200. [Continue reading…]

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Israel employs legal principle of collective punishment used by Nazi Germany

In an editorial, Haaretz says: Over the past few months, Israel has adopted the principle known in German as sippenhaft – meaning a family’s shared responsibility for a crime committed by one of its members. Its origins lie in ancient times, when an offender’s entire tribe would be punished for his crimes. In the modern era, this principle was characteristic of totalitarian regimes, when the relatives of “enemies of the state” were punished by exile, imprisonment or execution. Today, this method is common in North Korea.

The Netanyahu government’s response to shooting, knifing and car-ramming attacks is based on the same principle: The family that “supports and assists” the terrorist, as Netanyahu put it, is as guilty of terror as the offender. That is why house demolitions have been renewed. According to figures by the nonprofit B’Tselem, 31 Palestinian homes have been demolished whose relatives were involved in attacks, with other demolitions planned. That is also why Israel is holding the bodies of attackers from East Jerusalem and punishing their families by delaying burials. Israeli advocates of sippenhaft argue that it’s the only way to deter the Palestinians, citing cases in which families gave up suspects as proof that the method works. To them, the deportation of families to Gaza seems the ultimate weapon against lone-wolf attacks.

But the Palestinians are not the only ones who’ll pay the price for punishing the families; Israel will, too. Because a state that adopts the legal methods and laws of totalitarian states begins to look like those countries, even if it calls itself “the only democracy in the Middle East.” [Continue reading…]

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Police homicides in the United States

Patrick Ball writes: Americans are afraid of many threats to their lives – serial killers, crazed gunmen, gang bangers, and above all terrorists – but these threats are surprisingly unlikely. Approximately three-quarters of all homicide victims in America are killed by someone they know. And the real threat from strangers is quite different from what most fear: one-third of all Americans killed by strangers are killed by police.

This is the story of the hidden numbers of police homicides in the United States. The killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Walter Scott have increased the world’s attention to US police violence, yet most Americans underestimate the threat posed by the people charged with keeping them safe.

Let’s turn to the facts.

There is no national registry of civilians killed by police and corrections officers in the United States. Several states, including Texas, Connecticut and California, maintain complete records, but in most parts of the United States, local law enforcement chooses whether to report officer-involved homicides to the federal government. The lack of systematic data poses a challenge both for those who wish to hold police accountable for their actions and for those who want to propose reform measures to reduce police violence. How many killings are committed by police? [Continue reading…]

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As airstrikes ease, Syrian revolution continues

The New York Times reports: Street protests erupted across insurgent-held areas of Syria on Friday, as demonstrators took advantage of the relative lull in airstrikes during a partial truce, coming out in the largest numbers seen in years to declare that even after five punishing years of war they still wanted political change.

Under the slogan “The Revolution Continues,” demonstrators waved the green, white and black pre-Baathist flag adopted during the early, largely peaceful stages of the revolt, before the proliferation of armed Islamist factions with black jihadist banners.

It was impossible to gauge what percentage of Syrians the demonstrators represented, out of the millions living in insurgent-held areas or, for that matter, in government-held areas or living as refugees abroad. But many protesters, reached by telephone and text message, said they aimed to show that they were determined to resume demonstrations asking for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad as soon as there was even a partial respite from airstrikes by the government and its Russian allies.

The protests were all the more surprising in that the insurgency is on the back foot militarily, squeezed between pro-government forces and those of the extremist group Islamic State. [Continue reading…]

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The EU risks major ructions if Greece is offered no help with its refugees

Costas Lapavitsas writes: he current influx of refugees into Greece has major humanitarian implications but it also poses a direct threat to the European Union. Together with the neverending eurozone crisis and the Brexit referendum, it could throw the EU into an existential crisis in 2016. Visionary leadership is called for, which at present looks in short supply.

According to the UNHCR, in 2014 Syria was the main source of refugees in the world, and 95% of Syrian refugees were located in surrounding countries. Turkey held the largest number at roughly 1.6 million. It is worth noting that developing countries took 86% of the world’s refugees in 2014. The poor proved more compassionate and generous than the rich yet again.

In 2015 Greece became the main point of entry into the EU of refugees and migrants from Turkey; it is believed 850,000 people undertook the perilous crossing of the Aegean. In January and February more than 120,000 have arrived – far more than the same period last year. At this rate there will be millions of men, women and children who will risk their lives in shoddy rubber dinghies between Turkey and Greece in 2016. Up to 90% are likely to be from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

These are not economic migrants. There is absolutely no doubt that the wave of refugees and migrants into Europe is a direct result of the destruction of the three countries largely due to western intervention during the last three decades. [Continue reading…]

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