Lawrence Wilkerson: for truth, justice and the American way
Libya rebels frustrated by Nato’s safety-first strategy
The Guardian reports:
Tension between Libyan rebels and Nato commanders is growing over the military tactics being used to put pressure on Colonel Gaddafi’s forces.
Rebel leaders in Misrata say they are being urged not to launch further pushes against regime troops to the east of the city, and claim they have been told not to cross certain “red lines”, even though they feel prepared for battle.
The frustration on the ground has been heightened by their belief that Gaddafi’s troops are demoralised and depleted after nearly three months of conflict.
While coalition officials insist they have not issued any direct orders not to attack, they concede they are worried about civilians being caught up in further chaotic fighting, and do not want rebel troops being accidentally hit in bombing raids by Nato warplanes. These continued on Monday and Tuesday, when Tripoli experienced what were perhaps the heaviest daylight bombardments by Nato since the air strikes began in March.
The ‘fallen’ heroines of the Arab spring
Nesrine Malik writes:
Since the start of the wave of uprisings that have swept the Arab world, “establishment” figures, especially women, have been celebrated as the “icons” of the revolution – symbols of its homegrown, indigenous nature.
Tawakkol Karman in Yemen, and Saida Saadouni in Tunisia are examples of this fierce matriarchy. They are of the tradition, and respected more so because of it. Hijab-clad, religiously conservative and socially conventional, they reserve their rebellion for the political arena, rendering them relatively immune to accusations of immorality or harsh personal attacks.
Karman is a member of an Islamic political reform party and a mother of three in a stable marriage, and Saadouni is in her late seventies and hailed as “the mother of the Tunisian revolution”.
But there is another breed of vanguard, whose members exist somewhat on the periphery, or who have been ostracised and dismissed as eccentric or louche. Those who, for some reason, in their personal or professional lives, have “fallen”.
The latest member of this contingent is the controversial “Gay Girl in Damascus” – a half-American half-Syrian blogger based in Damascus who was allegedly kidnapped two days ago. There are allegations that she is an agent, a hoax, her very existence doubted. Hardly an everywoman, but she has nevertheless captured attention and galvanised people. As a blogger she has garnered more support than the unpublished.
More importantly however, whether real or fake, or real with a dash of poetic licence, she demonstrates the benefits of opting out of mainstream values:
My views are heavily informed by being both a member of a small marginal minority as an Arab Muslim in America and as a part of a majority as a Sunni in Syria, and of course as a woman and as a sexual minority.
Being, as she describes herself, “the ultimate outsider”, is a position that is bittersweet: you are denied the cushioning comfort and acceptance of an extended circle of friends and family, a warm cocoon of predictable familiarity (she speaks of the terror she felt when she realised the life that was mapped out for her was not to be), but also given a vantage point, from which to criticise and point out the truths that others cannot.
European powers step up pressure on Syria
Al Jazeera reports:
European powers are increasing pressure on the UN Security Council to break its silence on events in Syria following a bloody government crackdown on pro-democracy protests in the country.
Britain, France, Germany and Portugal have circulated a draft resolution that would condemn the crackdown and demand an immediate end to the violence in Syria.
However, the proposal falls short of calling for military action or further UN sanctions against the Syrian government.
“Today in New York, Britain and France will be tabling a resolution at the Security Council condemning the repression and demanding accountability and humanitarian access,” David Cameron, the British prime minister, said on Wednesday.
“And if anyone votes against that resolution or tries to veto it, that should be on their conscience,” he told parliament members.
Egyptian celebrities who backed Mubarak become pariahs
Hannah Allam reports:
Before Egypt’s revolution, Tamer Hosny’s rakish, goateed face was everywhere. His Pepsi billboards dotted the Cairo skyline, his videos played non-stop on music channels, and his catchy love songs were the ringtones of choice for millions of teenage fans.
Then came what Egyptian bloggers, borrowing from American teen parlance, dubbed his “epic fail.”
In a now-notorious phone call to state television, Hosny, 33, the top-selling singer whose nickname is “star of a generation,” professed support for then-President Hosni Mubarak. Speaking early in the uprising, when security forces were tear-gassing and shooting unarmed protesters, Hosny chided Egyptians for turning against their “father.”
Punishment was swift, and forgiveness remains elusive for what many Egyptians viewed as Hosny’s deep betrayal. Protesters ripped down his posters, trashed his CDs and vowed to boycott his music. Four months after Mubarak’s ouster, Hosny is still regarded as an outcast. Last week, Cairo tabloid newspapers reported, a group of young men attacked a film set to stop Hosny from shooting a TV series in their neighborhood. Reports say the pop star has doubled the size of his security staff.
Ahmadinejad isolated by battle with Iran’s supreme leader
Golnaz Esfandiari and Kourosh Rahimkhani write:
Speaking at the mausoleum of the founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Khomeini last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was interrupted several times by chants against his closest aide and the man he’d like to succeed him, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei.
It was déjà vu for the Iranian president, who had in the past waged similar attacks against his critics, haranguing them at public events. But now he, after a few months of bruising political battles that have damaged what remained of his credibility and popularity within Iran, had become the victim.
The incident gave the Iranian public yet another glimpse into a power struggle between Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei that has been unfolding over the past several months.
Iraq’s Chalabi, who sought invasion, now wants U.S. out
Laith Hammoudi reports:
Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi politician who played a key role in persuading the administration of President George W. Bush to invade Iraq and overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, said Tuesday that it’s time for U.S. forces to go home.
“Are Iraqis ready to carry the responsibility for their country?” he asked rhetorically during a panel discussion held with political supporters at his family compound in Baghdad. “Is Iraq ready to be its own master?”
“We want to be the masters of ourselves and to carry our responsibilities in this region,” Chalabi said.
Chalabi’s presentation comes as Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki struggles with whether to ask the U.S. to stay on past the Dec. 31 withdrawal date both countries agreed to three years ago. Maliki has taken no position, but he promised last month to seek advice from military experts and Iraqi political leaders and to make a decision by July 30 on whether to ask U.S. forces to remain.
To date, only the followers of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al Sadr had come out publicly opposed to extending the American stay, with most Iraqi politicians remaining mum on the topic. Whether Chalabi’s formal opposition will matter is unclear. Although he’s a member of Iraq’s parliament from the largest political bloc, he doesn’t lead that bloc.
Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11
Gareth Porter on the new book by recently murdered Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad.
The untold story of the deal that shocked the Middle East
Robert Fisk reports:
Secret meetings between Palestinian intermediaries, Egyptian intelligence officials, the Turkish foreign minister, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal – the latter requiring a covert journey to Damascus with a detour round the rebellious city of Deraa – brought about the Palestinian unity which has so disturbed both Israelis and the American government. Fatah and Hamas ended four years of conflict in May with an agreement that is crucial to the Paslestinian demand for a state.
A series of detailed letters, accepted by all sides, of which The Independent has copies, show just how complex the negotiations were; Hamas also sought – and received – the support of Syrian President Bachar al-Assad, the country’s vice president Farouk al-Sharaa and its foreign minister, Walid Moallem. Among the results was an agreement by Meshaal to end Hamas rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza – since resistance would be the right only of the state – and agreement that a future Palestinian state be based on Israel’s 1967 borders.
“Without the goodwill of all sides, the help of the Egyptians and the acceptance of the Syrians – and the desire of the Palestinians to unite after the start of the Arab Spring, we could not have done this,” one of the principal intermediaries, 75-year old Munib Masri, told me. It was Masri who helped to set up a ‘Palestinian Forum’ of independents after the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority and Hamas originally split after Hamas won an extraordinary election victory in 2006. “I thought the divisions that had opened up could be a catastrophe and we went for four years back and forth between the various parties,” Masri said. “Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) asked me several times to mediate. We opened meetings in the West Bank. We had people from Gaza. Everyone participated. We had a lot of capability.”
Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports:
Arsonists torched a West Bank mosque early Tuesday and scrawled Hebrew graffiti on one of its walls.
The Palestinian mayor of el-Mughayer village said a tire was set ablaze inside the mosque in an apparent attempt to burn down the building.
No one claimed responsibility for the act, but suspicion fell upon Jewish settlers, both because they have carried out similar acts in the past and because the graffiti read, “Price tag, Aley Ayin.”
“Price tag” is a settler practice of attacking Palestinians in revenge for Israeli government operations against settlers. Aley Ayin is a small, unauthorized settler outpost that was evacuated by security forces last week.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the act, calling it “a heinous act of provocation.”
Noting Netanyahu’s comment, U.N. Mideast envoy Robert Serry said in a statement, “The actions of Israeli extremists are highly provocative and threatening.” He called on Israel to “ensure the accountability of those responsible and protect the human rights of Palestinians and their property.”
Talking democracy
Maria Golia writes:
Several years ago, I attended a posh dinner party where conversation turned to Gamal Mubarak’s chances of becoming president. Most guests said they didn’t mind the idea and even supported it. They were intelligent, well-travelled Egyptians who might have known better. “The people will never go for it,” I said, “they’ve had enough of having nothing”. Protests arose regarding the number of families who owned satellite dishes, as if this signaled some great achievement. Populist outrage overcame good manners as I accused both Mubarak fils and my dinner companions of not knowing much about where they lived or with whom. “Oh come on, he’s a good man,” said a well-known businessman, “you can’t hold it against him just because he’s the son of the president”. This bit of sideways logic silenced me; nothing I could say would matter and dinner was anyway about to be served. I didn’t see this circle of acquaintances much afterwards; some have lately gone to jail and others into politics.
I was reminded of that conversation at a very different, recent gathering, where concerned members of the 30-40-something bourgeoisie and academia spent a convivial evening talking about the revolution. One woman asked if I’d seen it coming. She said she didn’t: “We knew things couldn’t go on like this, but still…”. She wanted to be involved, had attended revolutionary youth meetings but found them incoherent and was wondering what to do. So was an articulate young man who felt the real revolution must come from within the privileged class who should step up to the plate and present alternatives. “We can’t leave this to the masses”, someone else said. But who were these masses, anyway? For many of my companions, Tahrir was their first real contact apart from exchanges with cab drivers and employees.
The separation between Egypt’s haves and have-nots has never been quite so profound, partly because there have never been so many millions belonging to the latter category, but also because the opportunities for encounters between Egyptians of different backgrounds have grown slim. To reduce the stress of urban life – the overcrowding, traffic, pollution, noise – we stick to our neighborhoods, workplaces and shopping routines. People who once regularly visited village relatives stopped going; they were too busy, those places too far and painfully deteriorated. The Emergency Law has made public entertainments rare and civic activities nil; mosques and churches became the default gathering places in the absence of more inclusive, accessible venues. The consequences of this social disconnect are now unfolding.
The press and the Arab spring: six reasons for failure
Chris Doyle writes:
Most people in the West, analysts and experts included, were stunned and amazed at the revolts which spread across the Arab World that started in Tunisia in January. At least, they were surprised at the speed, the scale and the breadth of the popular movements and that they were largely non‐violent and non‐sectarian. Few were surprised that they were met with violence. This sadly seems to have been the default setting of too many of the region’s regimes.
It has been an extraordinary media event as well, with 24‐hour news stations devoting huge resources to covering the Arab Spring, creating mesmerising images, especially during the 18 days that shook Egypt.
Yet the reality was all the ingredients for such uprisings were present and well known. Events in Tunisia had been bubbling for some time, with Kasserine and Sidi Bouzid at the centre of socioeconomic discontent. Egypt too had been in turmoil with increased workers’ strikes and opposition action. In most Arab states, there is a dangerous combination of high unemployment, high food prices and corruption together with a lack of political freedom and abuse of human rights. Perhaps the more pertinent question is why such uprisings had not happened before?
It begs the question as to why the media were part of a collective failure: how come there was no sense in the press of this impending tempest that has swept away two Presidents, four Prime Ministers, and has shaken every regime from Morocco to Iran?
Waves of NATO aircraft intensify strikes on Tripoli
Reuters reports:
Waves of NATO aircraft hit Tripoli on Tuesday in the most sustained bombardment of the Libyan capital since Western forces began air strikes in March.
By Tuesday afternoon, war planes were striking different parts of the city several times an hour, hour after hour, rattling windows and sending clouds of grey smoke into the sky, a Reuters correspondent in the center of the city said.
The Libyan government attributed earlier blasts to NATO air strikes on military compounds in the capital, a day after rebels drove Muammar Gaddafi’s forces out of a western town.
Bombs have been striking the city every few hours since Monday, at a steadily increasing pace. On Tuesday they began before 11 a.m. (5 a.m. ET) and were continuing five hours later.
Air strikes were previously rarer and usually at night.
The New York Times reports:
The nightly propaganda tour to NATO bombing sites around the Libyan capital — the main component of every foreign reporter’s routine in a city controlled by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi — led to a rustic backyard in the predawn hours of Monday where a family with several small, frightened children, said to have been dining outside late into the night, had supposedly endured a narrow escape from a NATO missile.
But a NATO missile with Cyrillic script on its components? With that discovery from the wreckage, the official briefing about 50 journalists paused in his fulminations against NATO, but only to recalibrate his account. Yes, he said, it was a Russian missile, part of Libya’s armory, but it had reached the backyard by what foreign reporters familiar with arcade games quickly dubbed the “bank shot” or “pinball” method.
In that sequence, a NATO bomb or missile first hits a Libyan arsenal somewhere out in the dark, igniting the Russian missile and sending it blasting off into the night. The effect, the handler said, was the same, regardless of the missile’s provenance. NATO had nearly killed innocent Libyan civilians.
“It is an aggression,” he said. “It is evil.”
The Libyan government has a growing record of improbable statements and carefully manipulated news events, but four months into the conflict here, it is showing signs of desperation and disorganization. The loyalist locker seems increasingly bare.
The Associated Press reports:
The small note in curly handwriting was quietly passed by a medic to a foreign reporter in a Tripoli hospital.
Its hastily scrawled contents suggested that Libyan officials were lying when they said a baby girl was wounded in a NATO attack. Government officials had bused reporters to the Tripoli Central Hospital to see the baby, whom they identified as Haneen.
She lay on a stark hospital cot, with colorful tubes attached to her body. Her foot was bandaged.
“This is a case of road traffic accident,” the medic’s note read.
“This is the trouth,” said the last line, the word misspelled.
That small scrap of paper underlines the absurdity confronting reporters who try to cover Moammar Gadhafi’s regime in Tripoli, the Libyan capital.
It appears that officials exaggerate the scope of and casualties from two months of NATO airstrikes that have targeted sites critical to Gadhafi. Regime officials try to prove that alliance strikes, instead of protecting Libyan civilians, is doing them harm.
Those thundering NATO strikes do sometimes kill and wound civilians. They do cause damage to homes, hospitals and roads.
But some government officials appear determined, understandably, to exagerate the damage done and casualties caused.
Yemen, and the trouble with ‘democratic transition’
Brian Whitaker writes:
The US said on Monday that it wants to see an orderly, peaceful and democratic transition of power in Yemen. But, as one tweeter pointed out, that is not quite the same thing as saying it wants a transition to democracy.
The US has always viewed Yemen as a security problem and very little else – a view reinforced by media scares about al-Qaida taking over – but beyond providing military and economic aid it has very little influence on the ground. It is therefore relying on one of the world’s least democratic countries, Saudi Arabia, to help manage this “democratic transition”.
The Saudis have always been deeply involved in Yemen’s politics, though their meddling has often failed miserably. They backed the losing side in the 1960s when Yemenis overthrew the monarchy, and again in 1994 when secessionists took up arms in the south.
This time, however, they hold a strong card in the shape of President Ali Abdullah Saleh himself, who reluctantly agreed to be treated in Saudi Arabia for the injuries he received in Friday’s explosion. His injuries seem to be far more serious than was originally claimed – which should keep him in Riyadh for a while. Even as he recuperates, the likelihood is that he will remain as the king’s more or less involuntary guest, being showered with financial and other inducements until he eventually resigns.
Bahrain medics say tortured to confess
Shiite medics on trial in Bahrain on charges of involvement in anti-government protests said on Monday that they had been tortured into signing false confessions, family members said.
The medics told their families and lawyers after a hearing at a special court that they had been “subjected to physical and psychological torture to extract confessions,” a relative said.
They were also tortured to “force them to sign statements that contained untrue accusations,” a relative added, requesting anonymity.
The medics appeared in the court set up under emergency laws decreed by King Hamad in mid-March on the eve of an all-out crackdown on Shiites who led a month of pro-democracy protests.
A total of 24 doctors and 23 nurses working at Salmaniya hospital were in May referred to the court on an array of charges.
Syrian blogger Amina Abdallah kidnapped by armed men
The Guardian reports:
A blogger whose frank and witty thoughts on Syria’s uprising, politics and being a lesbian in the country shot her to prominence was last night seized by armed men in Damascus.
Amina Arraf, who blogged under the name Amina Abdallah, holds dual Syrian and American citizenship and is the author of the blog A Gay Girl in Damascus, which has drawn fans from Syria and across the world.
She was kidnapped last night as she and a friend were on their way to a meeting in Damascus. The kidnapping was reported on her blog by a cousin.
“Amina was seized by three men in their early 20s. According to the witness (who does not want her identity known), the men were armed,” wrote Rania Ismail.
“Amina hit one of them and told the friend to go find her father. One of the men then put his hand over Amina’s mouth and they hustled her into a red Dacia Logan with a window sticker of Basel Assad.”
Basel is the brother of president Bashar al-Assad, and was being groomed for the presidency until his death in a car crash in 1994.
Amina, who was midway through writing a book, had become increasingly popular after capturing the imagination of the Syrian opposition as the protest movement struggled in the face of the government crackdown.
Meanwhile, The Guardian reports:
The Syrian government has vowed to retaliate after claiming that dozens of its police and security forces were killed in attacks in and around the north-western town of Jisr al-Shughour.
In an indication they will intensify the crackdown on protesters that has already killed an estimated 1,200 civilians, authorities rapidly upgraded the toll in the town 20 miles from the Turkish border.
The state news agency, Sana, initially said 28 personnel had been killed, including in an armed ambush and at a state security post. It revised the figure up to 43, 80 and then 120 within the space of an hour without an explanation. The claims could not be independently verified.
“We will act firmly and decisively based on the law [and] will never be silent over any armed attack that targets the country’s security,” the interior minister, Ibrahim Shaar, said in a statement broadcast on state television.
A military operation took place in the town as part of a wider crackdown on 12 weeks of protests calling for the end of President Bashar al-Assad’s rule, although residents said the town was calm on Monday.
The regime and state media have little credibility, having waged an unprecedented war of disinformation while refusing to acknowledge a role in the crackdown, blaming the escalating violence on armed gangs and extremist insurgents.
Naksa Day, unarmed resistance sends Israel into violent contortions
Max Blumenthal writes:
Last week, I interviewed Rami Zurayk, an agronomist at the American University of Beirut and Palestinian refugee rights activist, about the planning of the May 15 and June 5 demonstrations in Lebanon. Zurayk described to me a meeting that took place in Beirut before the Fatah-Hamas unity deal took where the May 15 movement planned its strategy. All Palestinian factions were represented, however, each leader received only a single vote on the motions being deliberated. “It was unbelievable to see the Hamas guy who represents 100,000 people have the same power as an independent person from the camps,” Zurayk told me. “In this setting, the lines began to blur and you could not tell who was from what faction any more. In the past, it was impossible to get people from the camps to agree on rallying under one flag and one symbol. But in this meeting everything changed.”
Zurayk said the refugees and their Lebanese allies (the involvement of Lebanese youth and civil society also reflected a new trend) resolved to carry out a mode of resistance that was “pacifistic in nature.” “Like the demonstrations in Tahrir Square and throughout Tunisia, the [May 15] demonstrators were audacious, tenacious and most of all, repetitive,” he explained. “Repetition is why Tahrir worked — you put your body on the line against repression. So that became our modality.” Zurayk described scenes he witnessed of refugee youth rushing the Israeli controlled frontier at Maroun al-Ras with nothing but Palestinian flags in their hands, and of the Israeli response: soldiers shot the youth dead, killing one almost every five minutes.
After an international outcry, Israel blamed the Syrian regime and Iran for the demonstrations at the frontiers (it had little to say about the killings it committed in Maroun al Ras, Lebanon, however). I asked Zurayk about the Israeli claim. He remarked, “No amount of Syrian money can make people run to a border knowing they will be shot at. If the Syrians are being clever, that is their consideration. But do you really think Palestinians need Syrians to make them want to return to Palestine? They are living in camps with sewage running openly, with no jobs and no opportunities.”
Israelis afraid of threat from outer space
Cassiopeia constellation -- 54 to 610 light years away from Earth.
Ynet reports:
The security forces’ fear of an infiltration of hostile elements into Israel appears to be so deep, that air traffic controllers recently sent two warplanes and two assault helicopters towards suspicious lights in the sky, which turned out to be… stars.
Weekly magazine Bamahane, published by the Israel Defense Forces, reports that on the evening after the ‘Nakba Day’ events two weeks ago, the control tower at the Air Force’s Haifa base spotted a number of unidentified aircraft.
The Air Control Unit immediately sent out warplanes and assault helicopters to search for the intruders. As they were scanning the sky, the pilots began suspecting that the flashing lights mistaken as aircraft were in fact a Cassiopeia constellation formed by five bright stars in the northern skies.
War fatigue in America
Paul Pillar writes:
Signs are increasing that the American people are growing tired enough over fighting two and a half (or whatever the right number is, depending on how you count what’s going on in Libya) wars for their fatigue to affect policy, especially through the actions of their elected representatives in Congress. The war in Afghanistan, now the largest and most expensive in terms of ongoing operations, and now in its tenth year of U.S. involvement, has been the subject of several expressions of impatience. Less than two weeks ago a resolution in the House of Representatives calling on the administration to accelerate a withdrawal from Afghanistan came very close to passing (the vote was 204 to 215). Now Norm Dicks (D-WA), an influential Democrat on national security matters who is the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee and its subcommittee on defense, has become an outspoken critic of the war. “I just think that there’s a war fatigue setting in up here,” says Dicks, “and I think the president is going to have to take that into account.” Skepticism about the war is increasingly being voiced by Republicans as well. Even Sarah Palin is expressing unease.
On Libya—on which Congressional dissent is fueled in part by the administration’s blatant violation of the War Powers Resolution—two resolutions of protest were put to a vote in the House of Representatives on Friday. One that was introduced by Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and called directly for a withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Libyan conflict was defeated but attracted 148 votes, including 87 Republicans. The other, which was proposed by Speaker John Boehner as an alternative to the Kucinich resolution and passed, called on the administration to provide a more detailed explanation of the costs and objectives of the U.S. involvement in the war.
Then, of course, there is the Iraq War. It is still by far the most expensive of the expeditions in terms of cumulative costs, with the bill now exceeding $800 billion in direct costs and with all the eventual indirect costs making it more like a three trillion dollar war. But simply adhering to existing policy and agreements will mean that an end to this nightmare is just seven months away. There is no need for new action by Congress.
In general, bowing to popular fatigue is not necessarily a very careful and effective way of formulating national security policy. And throwing into the same hopper three wars that have been fought for different reasons (whether looking at the original rationales or at objectives that later emerged, which in each case were different from the original rationales) doesn’t necessarily represent careful policy-making either. But when drawing down or terminating each of these expeditions is in the national interest—which it is—then the national war fatigue is a force for good. It can and should be harnessed to effect a change of course in Afghanistan and Libya and to resist any diversion from the course toward the exit in Iraq.
The New York Times reports:
President Obama’s national security team is contemplating troop reductions in Afghanistan that would be steeper than those discussed even a few weeks ago, with some officials arguing that such a change is justified by the rising cost of the war and the death of Osama bin Laden, which they called new “strategic considerations.”
These new considerations, along with a desire to find new ways to press the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, to get more of his forces to take the lead, are combining to create a counterweight to an approach favored by the departing secretary of defense, Robert M. Gates, and top military commanders in the field. They want gradual cuts that would keep American forces at a much higher combat strength well into next year, senior administration officials said.
The cost of the war and Mr. Karzai’s uneven progress in getting his forces prepared have been latent issues since Mr. Obama took office. But in recent weeks they have gained greater political potency as Mr. Obama’s newly refashioned national security team takes up the crucial decision of the size and the pace of American troop cuts, administration and military officials said. Mr. Obama is expected to address these decisions in a speech to the nation this month, they said.
Abdul Salam Zaeef, a former ambassador of the Taliban to Pakistan, and Hekmat Karzai, the Director of the Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies (CAPS) in Kabul, write:
In December 2009, President Obama sent an additional 30,000 troops to confront growing violence in Afghanistan. Though the impact of the US military and diplomatic surge remains uncertain, we can nevertheless conclude that 2010 was easily the most violent year in the decade-old conflict.
The Taliban’s response, however, to this renewed attention by the international community was a surge of their own, which they launched through bold attacks and targeted assassinations of senior Afghan government officials. Their efforts have clearly made an impact on the ground.
The past three decades in Afghan history are filled with nothing but violence: cities turned into rubble; atrocities committed by countless different factions and – most importantly – generations lost to the violence.
Indeed, Afghans are now tired and just want to live in peace in a country where their children can go to school and live a normal life.
The process of reconciliation has become an important demand of Afghans and most are convinced, and will tell you, that the only way to end this bloody conflict is through a political settlement with the Taliban. Of course, there are a few voices that claim this blood bath should continue until the Taliban is “defeated”, but their arguments are divorced from the reality on the ground.
Glenn Greenwald writes:
When Dennis Kucinich earlier this month introduced a bill to compel the withdrawal of all American troops from Libya within 15 days, the leadership of both parties and the political class treated it the way they do most of Kucinich’s challenges to establishment political orthodoxy: they ignored it except to mock its unSeriousness. But a funny thing happened: numerous liberal House Democrats were joined by dozens of conservative GOP members to express support for his bill, and the White House and GOP House leadership became jointly alarmed that the bill could actually pass; that’s why GOP House Speaker John Boehner introduced a Resolution purporting to rebuke Obama for failing to comply with the War Powers Resolution, but which, in fact, was designed to be an utterly inconsequential act. Its purpose was to protect Obama’s war by ensuring that Kucinich’s bill failed; the point of Boehner’s alternative was to provide a symbolic though meaningless outlet for those House members angry over Obama’s failure to get Congressional support.
Still, Kucinich’s bill attracted an extraordinary amount of support given that it would have forced the President to withdraw all troops from an ongoing war in a little over 2 weeks. A total of 148 House members voted for it; even more notable was how bipartisan the support was: 61 Democrats and 87 Republicans. Included among those voting for mandatory withdrawal from Libya were some of the House’s most liberal members (Grijalva, Holt, Woolsey, Barney Frank) and its most conservative members identified with the Tea Party (McClintock, Chaffetz, Bachmann). Boehner’s amendment — demanding that Obama more fully brief Congress — ultimately passed, also with substantial bipartisan support, but most media reports ultimately recognized it for what it was: a joint effort by the leadership of both parties and the White House to sabotage the anti-war efforts of its most liberal and most conservative members.
Senator Richard Lugar writes:
The president promised that he would act consistent with the War Powers Resolution, which requires congressional approval to continue military action beyond 60 days after it commences, and to consult closely with Congress. These commitments have gone unfulfilled. The administration even barred Defense Department officials from testifying at a public hearing and canceled a private briefing for senators by a Marine general. This disdain for Congress and constitutional principles led to Friday’s nonbinding House resolution.
Belatedly, the president and his allies are trying to establish congressional endorsement for the war through a nonbinding Senate resolution approving “the limited use of military force by the United States in Libya.” But this illustration of the president’s go-it-alone attitude would set a dangerous precedent.
These “sense of the Senate” resolutions are most often used to commemorate non-controversial events such as last month’s resolution celebrating National Train Day — not to authorize a war. The resolution would have no force of law and would not have to be passed by the House. Nonetheless, it would be touted by the administration as evidence of congressional approval for the war.
Passing this resolution would be a profound mistake that would lower the standard for congressional authorization for the use of military force and would forfeit the Senate’s own constitutional role. By setting this precedent in the interests of expediency, Congress would make it far more likely that future presidents will deem a nonbinding vote in one house as sufficient to initiate or continue a war, or marginalize Congress’s involvement in far more consequential war-making decisions than we face now in Libya.