Listening Post – The shootout, the US agent and the media
Bradley Manning’s forced nudity to occur daily
Glenn Greenwald writes:
To follow-up on yesterday’s observations about the prolonged forced nudity to which Bradley Manning has been subjected the last two days: brig officials now confirm to The New York Times that Manning will be forced to be nude every night from now on for the indefinite future — not only when he sleeps, but also when he stands outside his cell for morning inspection along with the other brig detainees. They claim that it is being done “as a ‘precautionary measure’ to prevent him from injuring himself.”
Has anyone before successfully committed suicide using a pair of briefs — especially when under constant video and in-person monitoring? There’s no underwear that can be issued that is useless for killing oneself? And if this is truly such a threat, why isn’t he on “suicide watch” (the NYT article confirms he’s not)? And why is this restriction confined to the night; can’t he also off himself using his briefs during the day?
Let’s review Manning’s detention over the last nine straight months: 23-hour/day solitary confinement; barred even from exercising in his cell; one hour total outside his cell per day where he’s allowed to walk around in circles in a room alone while shackled, and is returned to his cell the minute he stops walking; forced to respond to guards’ inquiries literally every 5 minutes, all day, everyday; and awakened at night each time he is curled up in the corner of his bed or otherwise outside the guards’ full view. Is there anyone who doubts that these measures — and especially this prolonged forced nudity — are punitive and designed to further erode his mental health, physical health and will?
US anti-Muslim rally raises fears
This is war, not revolution
The #Libyan people are no longer protesting, we’re simply trying to survive. This is war, not revolution. #Gaddafi changed the game. @Libyan4life
At least 15 people have been killed and 200 more wounded in the Libyan city of Zawiya, an eyewitness told CNN.
Wounded people started arriving at the hospital Friday morning. Most of the injuries resulted from gunshots, and many of the injuries were to the head and chest.
The eyewitness said the hospital is running out of medical supplies.
“There is a river of blood here in the hospital. The situation is very bad,” he said.
The Washington Post reports:
Forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi unleashed their fiercest counterattack yet against the opposition on Friday, assaulting rebel-held positions by ground and air and firing on demonstrators in the government stronghold of Tripoli.
The lethal force of the government offensive – including what rebels described as a “bloodbath” in the strategic western port city of Zawiyah – raised the stakes for Washington and its western allies. They have threatened military intervention should the Gaddafi government cross red lines including the systematic endangerment of defenseless civilians or if the battle for Libya evolved into a long-term, bloody stalemate.
Yet if anything, the events Friday underscored Gaddafi’s ability to press defiantly ahead with a brutal campaign to reclaim land already lost to the rebels and squelch dissent within bastions of government control. The government appeared to be attempting to secure a buffer zone around Tripoli and target areas vital to the country’s oil industry, taking aim at cities and ports that have given the rebels a foothold close to the capital.
The White House expressed renewed alarm, saying that President Obama is “appalled by the use of force against unarmed, peaceful civilians.” Obama is being briefed on Libya three times a day, and “we’re not taking any options off the table,” said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary.
With thousands of refugees stuck on the Tunisian border with Libya, the U.S. Air Force flew in humanitarian supplies for them Friday aboard two C-130 cargo planes and planned to return Saturday to pick up Egyptian refugees and fly them home.
The fiercest attack on Friday fell on the opposition-held city of Zawiyah, home to one of Libya’s largest oil refineries and situated just 27 miles west of Tripoli. Official Libyan media claimed the government had retaken the city, though the rebels there denied it. As of late Friday, however, the city remained under siege.
“We are still in the square,” said Mohamed Magid, an opposition spokesman. “Zawiyah has not fallen.”
Gaddafi loyalists armed with tanks and heavy machine guns and reportedly led by his son, Khamis Gaddafi, launched an offensive around midday, rebels said. Forces loyal to Gaddafi entered the city from several directions, using tanks, SUVs and trucks armed with heavy machine guns, witnesses said. They also laid siege to the city with mortar fire.
Though details were impossible to verify, witnesses in Zawiyah said at least 15 people were killed and 200 wounded, with a senior rebel leader reported to be among the dead. Some reports put the death toll as high as 50.
The Cable reports:
Libyan Ambassador to the United States Ali Aujali, who joined the opposition in the early days of the crisis, issued an urgent plea for the United States to take more aggressive actions against the Libyan government in an interview with Foreign Policy today.
Aujali strongly supported the implementation of a no-fly zone over Libya, calling it “a historic responsibility for the United States.” He also criticized the arguments about the risks of no-fly zone, which have been made by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other military officials. “When we say, for example, that the no-fly zone will take a long time, that it is complicated — please don’t give this regime any time to crush the Libyan people,” he said.
The ambassador, who began his diplomatic career four decades ago, raised the flag of the Libyan opposition over the ambassador’s residence in Washington after resigning last week. He told Foreign Policy that he decided to resign following Saif al-Qaddafi’s speech on Feb. 21, in which Qaddafi’s favored son warned protesters of “rivers of blood” if they did not cease their demonstrations.
Aujali warned that further delay in organizing an international response raised the risk that Qaddafi would be able to reconstitute his strength. “Time means losing lives, time means that Qaddafi will regain control,” he said. “He has weapons, he has rockets with about 450 kilometers’ distance, and we have to protect the people. These mercenaries now are everywhere.”
The Guardian reports:
Britain is to send a team of experts capable of giving military advice into eastern Libya to make contact with opposition leaders as the struggle for control of the country escalates.
The move is a clear intervention on the ground to bolster the anti-Gaddafi uprising, learn more about its leadership, and see what logistical support it needs. Whitehall sources said the diplomatic taskforce would not be providing arms to the rebels, as there is an international arms embargo.
It came as Libya’s deputy foreign minister, Khaled Kaim, said that Tripoli had accepted a peace initiative put forward by Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez, which was heavily criticised by the White House. Kaim said it stated that a committee would be formed by African, Asian and Latin American countries “to help the international dialogue and to help the restoration of peace and stability”.
Interpol issued a global alert against Muammar Gaddafi and 15 other Libyans, including his daughter and seven sons, in an effort to enforce sanctions.
The fight for Libya
The Guardian reports:
Security forces have used teargas and live ammunition to disperse hundreds of anti-government protesters who marched in Tripoli after prayers.
Several hundred demonstrators gathered in Tajura, an area east of the capital, chanting: “Gaddafi is the enemy of God.”
Protesters tore down posters of the Libyan leader and spraypainted walls with graffiti reading: “Down with Gaddafi” and “Tajura will dig your grave.”
Scores of police cars descended on the area, forcing journalists from the scene, and at least one person was detained.
Soon after the march began, officers fired teargas at the crowd. The protesters scattered, but quickly regrouped before security forces fired live ammunition, scattering the protesters again. It was not immediately clear if the shots had been fired in the air or at the marchers.
Libya unrest: the civil war begins — an interactive map in The Guardian (click image below):
Clare Morgana Gillis writes:
On Wednesday, Libyan leader Qaddafi’s warplanes bombarded opposition-held Ajdabia, a coastal town 175 km south of Benghazi, the eastern city that has become the unofficial headquarters of anti-Qaddafi forces. That same day, Qaddafi also sent mercenaries to attack the oil-rich town of Brega, 80 km to the southwest, where fighting left 17 dead and, according to some reports, eight more dragged off by mercenaries to an unknown fate. Though fighting between the regime and the opposition has raged openly in Tripoli for the past week, these attacks brought Qaddafi’s first overt hostilities against the rebel-controlled east of the country since yellow-hatted mercenaries massacred civilian protesters in Benghazi on February 17th.
Since ousting Qaddafi’s forces and seizing control over much of eastern Libya on February 21, civilians and defectors from Qaddafi’s army have been gathering in military camps in Benghazi, receiving training from former officers, arming themselves with weapons taken from now-abandoned depots, and preparing for the inevitable counterattack, which began two days ago. That morning, the nascent rebel force mobilized., Many in Ajdabia and elsewhere had received phone calls from friends and family in Brega, which they said was under attack. Newly trained and ready to fight, thousands of these volunteers sped down to help. Ultimately, this irregular force managed to hold the town. Victorious, many returned to the military camp in Ajdabia that evening.
A 26-year-old pharmacist and volunteer in the uprising who gave his name only as Mohammed, sped down the highway toward Ajdabia on Wednesday night. Also in his car was Abdallah Kamal, an Egyptian who participated in the uprising in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, as well as myself and another foreign journalist along for the ride. The road’s checkpoints were marked with burning tires and manned by young men sporting Kalashnikovs and kaffiyehs wrapped around their heads.
‘Neither with the West, nor against it’
Alain Gresh writes:
The fantasy that the Arabs are passive and unsuited to democracy has evaporated in weeks. Arabs have overthrown hated authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. In Libya, they have fought a sclerotic regime in power for 42 years that has refused to listen to their demands, facing extraordinary violence, hundreds of deaths, untold injuries, mass exodus and generalised chaos. In Algeria, Morocco, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, Iraqi Kurdistan, the West Bank and Oman, Arabs have taken to the streets in vast numbers. This defiance has spread even to non-Arab Iran.
And where promises of reform have been made but were then found wanting, people have simply returned to the streets. In Egypt, protesters have demanded faster and further-reaching reform. In Tunisia, renewed demonstrations on 25-27 February led to five deaths but won a change of prime minister (Mohamed Ghannouchi stepped down in favour of Beji Caid-Essebsi). In Iraq, renewed protests led to a promise to sack unsatisfactory ministers. In Algeria, the 19-year emergency law was repealed amid continuing protests. The demands are growing throughout the region, and will not be silenced.
The revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, the uprising in Libya, and all the other popular movements that have shaken the region are not just about how people want to live and develop, but about regional politics. For the first time since the 1970s, geopolitics cannot be analysed without taking into account, at least in part, the aspirations of people who have retaken control of their destinies.
Wadah Khanfar: A historic moment in the Arab world
Oman’s Sultan Qaboos: a classy despot
“Sultan Qaboos, Oman’s absolute ruler, is a man of culture,” writes Brian Whitaker.
“I have never encountered a place in the Arab world so well-governed as Oman, and in such a quiet and understated way,” Robert Kaplan wrote the other day in an article for Foreign Policy headed “Oman’s renaissance man”.
Last weekend, though, overshadowed by events in Libya, there were disturbances in Sohar (Oman’s second city) along with more peaceful demonstrations elsewhere in the country. Protesters’ complaints were the familiar ones heard these days in most of the Arab countries: government corruption, cronyism and youth unemployment.
Oman has an exceptionally young population – 43% are under the age of 15 – and even those who buy the line that Oman is well governed recognise that the authorities face an uphill struggle in providing jobs. “The problem is evolving faster than they can provide solutions,” one person who is familiar with the country (and asked not to be identified) told me this week.
But there’s another problem too. Even if Qaboos is a Britain-friendly, music-loving ruler with benevolent intentions he is none the less a despot. He doesn’t tolerate criticism and his citizens have very few rights. They can’t, for instance, hold a public meeting without the government’s approval. Anyone who wants to set up a non-governmental organisation of any kind needs a licence. To get it, they have to demonstrate that the organisation is “for legitimate objectives” and not “inimical to the social order”. On average, that takes two years – assuming permission is granted at all.
The Muslim Brothers in Egypt’s ‘orderly transition’
Gilbert Achcar writes:
Egypt’s uprising, contrary to most predictions, was initiated and driven by coalitions – including political parties, associations and internet networks – which were dominated by secular and democratic forces. Islamic organisations or their individual members took part on an equal footing with groups of marginal importance before the uprising, and with groups closer to eastern European dissidents of 1989 than to the usual mass parties or revolutionary elites of social revolutions.
The discretion of Tunisia’s Islamist movement can be explained to a large extent by the harshness of its suppression under Ben Ali, impeding the ability of the Islamic Nahda party to act. However, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was also discreet, but for the opposite reason: because it was a party tolerated by the military regime (although not legalised).
Anwar Sadat, when he came to power after Gamal Abdel Nasser’s death in 1970, favoured the Brotherhood’s return to the public stage and its enhanced position as a counterbalance to the Nasserist or radical left. The Brothers fully subscribed to the economic liberalisation (infitah) of Sadat when he embarked on dismantling Nasser’s legacy. This led to increased influence of members of the new Egyptian bourgeoisie within the Brotherhood. Even so, it continued to assert its piety against rampant corruption; this was a key argument for the petit bourgeois, the Brothers’ favourite constituency.
The Brotherhood built itself as a reactionary religious political movement, whose main concern was – and still is – the Islamisation of Egypt’s political and cultural institutions and the promotion of sharia as the basis for legislation. This programme is summed up by its main slogan: “Islam is the solution”. At the same time, the Brotherhood has served as a political antidote to extreme and violent fundamentalist groups.
What now for Egypt?
The New York Times reports:
Carried on the shoulders of protesters who claimed him as their own, Egypt’s new prime minister waded into a crowd of tens of thousands in Tahrir Square on Friday, delivering a speech bereft of regal bombast that illustrated the reach of Egypt’s nascent revolution and the breadth of demonstrators’ demands that remain unanswered.
“I am here to draw my legitimacy from you,” Prime Minister Essam Sharaf told the raucous, flag-waving assembly. “You are the ones to whom legitimacy belongs.”
Some protesters dismissed the speech as the savvy move of an ambitious politician in a time fraught with anxiety. Yet it was perhaps the symbolism itself that said the most about Friday’s moment when, just a day after his appointment, an Egyptian leader chose to make his first stop the square that helped topple his predecessor.
The Afghan war is brutal, expensive, unpopular, and ineffective – so why are we spending billions on it?
Sonali Kolhatkar writes:
While millions of Americans are experiencing unemployment, wage stagnation, rising tuition, dwindling social services, and poverty at levels not seen since the Great Depression, an unjustifiably large proportion of our taxes are being used to cause death and destruction in Afghanistan. With Afghanistan being the longest war the U.S. has ever officially waged, we should carefully examine the costs of the war – financial and otherwise – and ask ourselves, is it really worth it?
The war costs taxpayers between $500,000 to $1 million per soldier in Afghanistan every year. Since President Obama deployed thousands of more troops than Bush, the escalating war has come with a bloated price tag. So far, we have spent $336 billion on the war, and if Congress approves a request for additional funding, that number will go up to $455.4 billion – nearly half a trillion dollars. According to CostofWar.com, just the $120 billion in additional funding could fund 1.6 million elementary school teachers for a year, 1.9 million firefighters for a year, or $5,550 Pell Grants for 19.3 million students. A single month’s expenses on the Afghanistan war could pay for 46.9 billion meals for the hungry each month. Six months’ worth of Afghanistan war expenses could pay for school supplies for every single child in the world.
Intifada update
Demonstrators in Saudi Arabia demand prisoners’ release
Demonstrators protested in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province on Friday to demand the release of Shiite prisoners they feel are being held unjustly.
An outspoken Shiite prayer leader who demonstrators say was arrested last Friday was a focal point of the “day of rage” protest, said Ibrahim Al-Mugaiteeb, president of the Human Rights First Society.
Sheikh Tawfeeq Al-Amer was arrested Friday after a sermon stating that Saudi Arabia should become a constitutional monarchy, Al-Mugaiteeb said. (CNN)
Bahrain: Dangerous statistics and facts about the national security apparatus
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) expresses again its deep concern regarding the mounting dangerous role of the National Security Apparatus (NSA) at the expense of liberties and human rights in Bahrain. A list which the BCHR has obtained reveals that amongst the more than 1000 employees working for the NSA, 64% of them are non-citizens, mostly of Asian nationalities. The king’s relatives occupy the highest posts in the NSA; Sheikh Khalifa bin Abdulla Al-Khalifa heads it, in addition to three others from the King’s family.
The aforementioned list also reveals that the NSA is formed on sectarian basis. The percentage of Shiite citizens employed at the NSA does not exceed 4%, and they work as informants and in the low level jobs. While the Shiites, who form two thirds of the Bahraini citizens, are the main target for the NSA. This appears when verifying the sectarian identity of the villages and areas that the Security Special Forces are besieging on an almost daily basis, the organizations that are being targeted, the protest events that are being suppressed, the hundreds of people being arrested and trialed on security charges, and the activists targeted with smearing media campaigns.
Several hurt as Sunnis, Shi’ites clash in Bahrain
Several people were hurt in fighting between Sunni and majority Shi’ite Muslims in a town in central Bahrain on Friday, the first sectarian violence since protests erupted in the Sunni-ruled kingdom two weeks ago.
The overnight clashes were triggered by a family dispute or a car accident, or both, according to different accounts, although the government said the cause of the dispute was “simple.”
“There were about a hundred people involved,” one resident said as police helicopters circled overhead and ambulances rushed from the scene.
Youths with sticks and batons fled the area, residents said. (Reuters)
Protesters converge on Iraq capital
Thousands of people have converged on Baghdad’s Tahrir, or Liberation, Square for an anti-government demonstration, despite a vehicle ban that forced many to walk for hours to the heart of the Iraqi capital.
Al Jazeera’s Jane Arraf reported from Baghdad that the situation was heading towards a stand-off, as security forces demanded the protesters leave, blocking their route across a bridge leading to the Green Zone, where the government has its base.
Concrete blocks were set up by authorities on all of Baghdad’s bridges ahead of the protests.
“What we’re seeing here is a bit of a test, of how the government will respond when these people clearly want their demands to be heard,” Arraf said.
The protests in Iraq are growing in size, partly because of the instability of the coalition government formed by Nouri al-Maliki, the country’s prime minister, Arraf said.
Iraqis are increasingly unwilling to accept the nature of the democracy that has emerged in years after Saddam’s regime was overthrown.
“This is a new democracy, it’s an unusual democracy, and it’s not exactly what people bargained for,” she said.
“On top of that, people are looking around protests in Egypt and Tunisia … It has shown them, particularly these young people that if they come out and demand their rights, perhaps something will happen.”
The Baghdad demonstration was one of many taking place across the country on Friday, including in the port of Basra and the city of Najaf. (Al Jazeera)
Blowback: Weapons of Mideast oppression, ‘Made in U.S.A.’
The Times’ Feb. 22 article, “Britain, Italy condemned for Libya ties,” provides helpful insight into the uproar caused by British and Italian military aid to Libya. However, readers would be well served by further information on how, with our government’s support, U.S. companies have provided military and crowd-control equipment that has propped up authoritarian governments throughout the Middle East.
Rather than seeing the U.S. as spreading freedom, Arabs who have taken to the streets have experienced “Made in U.S.A.” tear gas used by repressive governments to kill and maim unarmed protesters and crush popular movements for justice.
For unarmed Arab protesters in Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Tunisia and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Pennsylvania may seem to be the tear-gas capital of the world judging by the labels on the canisters fired at them. Combined Systems Inc. (CSI) is headquartered in Jamestown, Pa., and NonLethal Technologies Inc.’s home is in Homer City, Pa. The apparently defunct Federal Laboratories was based in Saltsburg, Pa. (Los Angeles Times)
The fight for Libya
The BBC reports:
In Benghazi, the opposition National Libyan Council said there was no room for talks, following reports that Col Gaddafi had ordered an intelligence chief to negotiate with the rebels.
The council is led by former Libyan Interior Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who defected last month.
“If there is any negotiation it will be on one single thing – how Gaddafi is going to leave the country or step down so we can save lives. There is nothing else to negotiate,” Ahmed Jabreel, a spokesman for Mr Abdel-Jalil, told Reuters news agency.
The BBC’s Kevin Connolly in Benghazi says it appears that neither side has the capacity to move large amounts of manpower or firepower over vast expanses of desert.
He says that raises the grim prospect of a military stalemate and a political vacuum after the revolt that began in the east of the country in mid-February.
Al Jazeera reports:
Muammar Gaddafi has accepted an offer from Venezuela to mediate in Libya’s political crisis after talks with Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, Al Jazeera has learnt.
Sources told our correspondent in Caracas that Nicolas Maduro, Venezuelan’s foreign minister, had discussed the offer with Amr Moussa, the head of the Arab League, and that details of the plan could be announced by the Arab League in Cairo on Thursday.
Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of the opposition National Libyan Council, told Al Jazeera he totally rejected the concept of talks with Gaddafi, and said that no one been in contact with him regarding the Venezuelan initiative.
The plan would involve a commission from Latin America, Europe and the Middle East trying to reach a negotiated outcome between the Libyan leader and opposition forces which have seized control of large areas of the North African oil-producing country.
After decades of financing and training rebels and liberation movements, Libya’s Moamer Gathafi is accused of using his influence to amass an army of mercenaries from across sub-Saharan Africa.
Liberia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Chad, Mali and Zimbabwe: One only has to name a conflict, rebel group or despot in Africa to find someone the Libyan leader has offered finance, training or backing to during his 41-year reign.
He has also aided peacekeeping operations, given aid and built infrastructure.
And now, waving oil money to the south, Gathafi is said to have lured some 25,000 mercenaries to quash a popular revolt against his regime.
Peter Beaumont writes:
Gaddafi can no more quickly attack Benghazi with his armour than the rebels can advance on Tripoli in sufficient numbers to force the issue decisively. For either side to move the hundreds of kilometres to come into contact would require a huge logistical operation using tank and armour carriers which could not drive the long distances and still be ready to fight.
Why this matters is simple. Foreign policy – including the increasing threat of military intervention – is being driven by what the media is reporting from Libya, and that is being driven largely by reports from the opposition, some of which are true, some of them dubious. The Libyan government says that. But for once, in the midst of all the regime’s evasions, lies and fantastical notions, it may just have a point.
We are being drawn into a crisis where credible information about so much of what is happening is not simply at a premium, it is often impossible to mine from among all the exaggerations and misinformation.
Martin Chulov reports on the battle for Brega:
To the rebels of eastern Libya, it was always a matter of when. On Wednesday morning, sooner than many had expected, Gaddafi’s men came for them.
A thundering burst of machine-gun fire just before 6.30am heralded the attack on the outskirts of Brega, a sand-strewn service town about 150 miles south of Benghazi. The loyalist forces had crept in during the night, patiently set up in an industrial area on the city limits, and dug in.
“They arrived in 60-70 Toyota trucks,” said Wais Werfali, 40, who works in a nearby ammonia production plant. “They have set up a perimeter and are using families from the area as human shields.”
By sunset, the battle had been joined by rebels streaming down from the city of Ajdabiya. A decisive phase in this war for control of eastern Libya had begun.
Peter Beaumont reports from the Tripoli suburb of Tajura, the target of a crackdown on rebels where ‘disappearances’ are increasing.
Tajura, with its population of about 100,000, is made up mainly of poor and middle-class Libyans who live in three-storey apartment blocks and houses built around little squares and alleys.
It is here that residents say gunmen in pickup trucks fired wildly into the crowd last week. It now feels like a ghost town, with shops shuttered and few people on the streets, which still bear the scars of the clashes.
We had been met on a dark corner by a group of youths keeping watch on the street. They were suspicious of the driver, who was sent away after being questioned briefly. There was evidence on the roadside of felled palm trees that had been used as barricades and anti-government graffiti, painted over with red paint.
“Fifteen of them came and kicked in the door,” Bilhaj says inside the house. “They turned the house upside down. In this neighbourhood, 20 have disappeared. We don’t know where they have gone.
“The people in this area feel threatened. They are scared. The government says if there are any protests in the streets here they will burn them.”
We ask what his brothers did to be arrested. “They spoke out. They were targeted because they were ones who oppose the government. Tonight they will come and take more people. Our street is almost empty. The men have been taken and the families fled elsewhere.”
Al Jazeera reports:
Thousands of people continue to flee the violence in Libya, with most refugees attempting to enter neighbouring Tunisia or Egypt, though there are pressing concerns regarding African migrants who remain trapped in the country, unable to leave for fear of being attacked by both the government and the opposition.
Officials say that tens of thousands of people remain just inside Libya’s borders, awaiting evacuation, safe passage or the granting of asylum, while thousands more have so far not attempted to leave their homes for fear of their own safety.
International Organisation for Migration officials say that almost 200,000 people have fled Libya since violence began several weeks ago, headed towards neighbouring Egypt, Tunisia and Niger.
The New York Times reports:
President Obama demanded Thursday that the embattled Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, “step down and leave” immediately, and said he would consider a full range of options to stem the bloodshed there, though he did not commit the United States to any direct military action.
In his most forceful response to the near-civil war in Libya, Mr. Obama said the United States would consider imposing a “no-fly zone” over the country — a step his defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, warned a day earlier would carry major risks, requiring the United States to destroy Libya’s air defenses.
Mr. Obama said the United States and the world were outraged by Colonel Qaddafi’s “appalling violence against the Libyan people.” Speaking after he met with President Felipe Calderón of Mexico at the White House, he declared, “Muammar Qaddafi has lost the legitimacy to lead, and must leave.”
The president’s statement, while robust, left important questions unanswered: Where would Colonel Qaddafi go, given the lack of countries that have offered him sanctuary? And what kind of intervention, beyond airlifting refugees on military planes, would the United States be willing to undertake?
Intifada update
Anti-Saleh protests sweep Yemen
A growing wave of protests across Yemen is mounting pressure on President Ali Abdullah Saleh to end his 32-year rule
Several thousand demonstrators turned out yet again in the capital Sanaa on Wednesday for what are now almost daily rallies against him and denied any links to the US.
“The people who come to the square are youths, free youths who have no connection whatsoever to any foreign entity, their only concern is to topple the regime,” Ali Al Sakkaf, a protester, said.
In the town of Sadr, in the country’s south, witnesses said that security forces fired tear gas and shot at hundreds of protesters, to which the demonstrators responded by setting police vehicles alight. (Al Jazeera)
Saleh accuses the US and Israel of destabilizing the Arab world
[O]n Tuesday, Saleh seemed to be turning on Washington. In a speech to about 500 students and lecturers at Sanaa University, he claimed the U.S., along with Israel, is behind the protest movement.
“I am going to reveal a secret,” he said. “There is an operations room in Tel Aviv with the aim of destabilizing the Arab world. The operations room is in Tel Aviv and run by the White House.”
Saleh also alleged that opposition figures meet regularly with the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa. “Regrettably those (opposition figures) are sitting day and night with the American ambassador where they hand him reports and he gives them instructions,” Saleh said.
The Obama administration rejected these claims. White House spokesman Jay Carney called on Saleh to focus on implementing the political reforms demanded by his people instead of “scapegoating.”
Saleh’s relationship with the U.S. has been ambivalent, and he has at times attempted to play down his military alliance with Washington. Anti-U.S. sentiment remains strong in Yemen, as elsewhere in the region, and Saleh’s comments appeared to be an attempt to discredit the protesters by suggesting they are serving foreign interests. (AP)
The looming threat of tribal war
Over the 32 years of his reign, Salih, who is a former tank commander, has paid keen attention to the tribal backgrounds of his general officers and field officers. The majority of the general officers are drawn from Salih’s tribe, the Sanhaan, and many are directly linked with his family and or extended family through marriage. Most notably, the Republican Guard and the Central Security Service, the most able and well equipped of Yemen’s armed forces, are commanded by Salih’s son and nephew respectively. The field officers’ backgrounds are more varied but are still thoroughly vetted in terms of tribal affiliations. The junior officer core is more of an unknown, but even within its ranks there are few southerners and most are still from the northern tribes from which Salih has traditionally drawn most of his support.
The tribal affiliations of Yemen’s general and field officers likely mean that Salih can expect continued loyalty from much of his armed forces, especially if threatened by a Hashid-backed alliance led by members of the al-Ahmar family. The loyalty of his general officers has been further buttressed by often exorbitant salaries that allow them to carve out fiefdoms of their own. Some of the more senior officers are in a position to guarantee the loyalty of their troops, if necessary, with cash bonuses and other perks. Many within the general and field officer cores have also sought to make sure that a majority of the enlisted men within their ranks are from their own tribes and clans, to further guarantee loyalty.
While the tribal affiliations of the Yemeni Army, especially within its officer core, are likely to guarantee a significant level of loyalty to the regime, it should be noted that the Yemeni Army’s morale suffers from poor pay and living conditions. In addition, it was dealt a blow by the prolonged war against the Houthis in northern Yemen. Salaries for enlisted men, despite Salih’s recent promise of an increase, remain low, with many soldiers owed months of back pay. Corruption is also endemic. During the last war against the Houthis (2009-2010), there were numerous reports of officers selling ammunition and supplies and leaving their troops with neither food nor bullets to fight with. (Jamestown Foundation)
Radical cleric demands ouster of Yemen leader
Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, maintained a tenuous hold on power on Tuesday, blaming the United States and Israel for protests across the Arab world, while a prominent radical cleric joined the growing crowds demanding his ouster and called for an Islamic state.
American officials expressed concern about the statement of the cleric, Abdul Majid al-Zindani, a one-time mentor of Osama bin Laden, which introduced a new Islamist element to the turmoil in a country where Al Qaeda is viewed as a grave threat. The protests that toppled leaders in Tunisia and Egypt and that now have spread to Libya, Bahrain and Oman have been largely secular in nature.
Mr. Zindani spoke on an open-air stage before several thousand antigovernment protesters, guarded by 10 men carrying AK-47s and shielded from the scorching sun by two umbrellas wielded by aides. “An Islamic state is coming,” he said, drawing cries of “God is great” from some in the crowd.
He said Mr. Saleh “came to power by force, and stayed in power by force, and the only way to get rid of him is through the force of the people.”
It was not clear how much support Mr. Zindani had among the protest movement. (New York Times)
Army appoints new Egyptian PM
Egypt’s governing military council has accepted the resignation of Ahmed Shafiq, the prime minister, and appointed a former transport minister, Essam Sharaf, to form a new government, according to an army announcement.
The statement was carried on the military’s Facebook page on Thursday and then confirmed by a military spokesman.
“The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces decided to accept the resignation of Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq and appointed Essam Sharaf to form the new government,” the statement said.
The council said it had tasked Sharaf with forming a new caretaker cabinet that would oversee the country’s transition to civilian rule.
Sharaf took part in the mass rallies in Cairo’s Tahrir Square which brought down Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s president, on February 11 after three decades in power. (Al Jazeera)
Mubarak to be questioned in corruption probe
Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who is still believed to be at his residence in Sharm el-Sheikh, will be brought to Cairo next week for questioning in his corruption case, said Mustafa Bakri, a former member of parliament.
Bakri, who brought the case against Mubarak and other officials, was told of the development by the Prosecutor General’s office on Thursday.
Attorney General Abdel Maguid Mahmoud issued an order freezing assets of Mubarak and his family on Monday and prohibited them from leaving the country. (CNN)
Iranian activists appeal to UN over missing opposition leaders
A number of prominent Iranian activists have written an open letter to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urging him to intervene in the case of detained opposition leaders Mir Hossein Musavi and Mehdi Karrubi, RFE/RL’s Radio Farda reports.
The letter, published on March 1 on opposition websites, calls on Ban to use all “international levers” at his disposal to ensure the welfare of Musavi and Karrubi and seek their release from detention.
Iranian officials have denied the men have been arrested or detained.
Their family, friends, and supporters along with the opposition website Kaleme, which is close to Musavi, say he and Karrubi and their wives, Zahra Rahnavard and Fatemeh Karrubi, were taken recently to Heshmatieh prison in Tehran. (RFE/RL)
Iran forces fire teargas at protesters
Iranian security forces fired teargas and clashed with anti-government protesters demonstrating against the treatment of opposition leaders, pro-reform websites reported on Tuesday.
Thousands of demonstrators poured into the streets of Tehran and other cities, chanting slogans against the government, Sahamnews reported.
“Security forces and plainclothes agents fired teargas and clashed with demonstrators in Tehran to disperse them,” another opposition website Kaleme reported. (Reuters)
Saudi Facebook activist planning protest shot dead
Saudi activists alleged Wednesday that state security shot dead a leading online activist, who was calling for a ‘Day of Rage’ on March 11 in the oil-rich kingdom.
Faisal Ahmed Abdul-Ahadwas, 27, was believed to be one of the main administrators of a Facebook group that is calling for protests similar to that have swept North Africa and the Middle East.
The Facebook group, which has over 17,000 members, is calling for nationwide protests and reforms, including that governors and members of the upper house of parliament be elected, the release of political prisoners, greater employment, and greater freedoms.
Online activists said they believe Abdul-Ahadwas was killed by state security and that his body was taken by authorities to ‘hide evidence of the crime.’ (DPA)
Tunisian ministers continue to quit
Three more ministers left Tunisia’s interim government, following the resignations of the prime minister and two others, after weeks of protests about the caretaker authority.
Ahmed Ibrahim, higher education and scientific research minister, told the Reuters news agency he had resigned on Tuesday, while the departure of Ahmed Nejib Chebbi, local development minister, was announced by the official TAP news agency.
Also on Tuesday, private Tunisian radio broadcaster Shems FM reported Elyes Jouini, minister of economic reform, had resigned.
These resignations come after three other high profile politicians quit Tunisia’s interim unity government since the weekend, including prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, who stepped down on Sunday. (Al Jazeera)
Oman deploys army units fearing more unrest
Oman deployed troops north of the capital Muscat and near the border with the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, following three straight days of anti-government protests, a government official said.
Oman, ruled by a powerful family dynasty, is the latest Arab nation to be swept up in a wave of regional unrest that has already brought down two leaders and threatened the rule of others.
The center of protests in Oman has been the port town of Sohar, about 120 miles (200 kilometers) northwest of Muscat, where demonstrators demanding higher salaries and jobs have clashed with security forces.
Police killed a protester in Sohar on Saturday, after demonstrations turned violent. Several government buildings and a supermarket were set on fire, local media reported. (AP)
Would intervention in Libya poison the Arab revolution?
Peter Singer writes:
The situation in Libya [has become] a test of how seriously the international community takes the idea of a responsibility to protect people from their rulers. The idea is an old one, but its modern form is rooted in the tragic failure to intervene in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. A subsequent UN inquiry concluded that as few as 2,500 properly trained military personnel could have prevented the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis.
Former US President Bill Clinton has said that the mistake he most regrets making during his presidency was his failure to push for intervention in Rwanda. Kofi Annan, who was then UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace-Keeping Operations, described the situation at the UN at the time as a “terrible and humiliating” paralysis.
When Annan became Secretary-General, he urged the development of principles that would indicate when it is justifiable for the international community to intervene to prevent gross violations of human rights. In response, Canada’s government established an International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which recommended that military intervention could be justified, as an extraordinary measure, where large-scale loss of life is occurring or imminent, owing to deliberate state action or the state’s refusal or failure to act. These principles were endorsed by the UN General Assembly at its special World Summit in 2005 and discussed again in 2009, with an overwhelming majority of states supporting them.
The principle fits the situation in Libya today. Yet the Security Council resolution contains no mention of the possibility of military intervention – not even the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent Gaddafi from using planes to attack protesters.
One body with a special concern to transform the idea of the responsibility to protect into a cause for action is the Global Center for the Responsibility to Protect, at the City University of New York. It has called on UN members to uphold their 2005 commitments and put the responsibility to protect into action in Libya. It urges consideration of a range of measures, several of which were covered by the Security Council resolution, but also including a no-fly zone.
In addition to arguing that the responsibility to protect can justify military intervention, the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty recommended a set of precautionary principles. For example, military intervention should be a last resort, and the consequences of action should not be likely to be worse than the consequences of inaction.
Whether these precautionary principles are satisfied in Libya requires expert judgment of the specifics of the situation. No one wants another drawn-out war like those in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Libya is not Iraq or Afghanistan – its population is only about one-fifth of either country’s, and there is a strong popular movement for a democratic form of government. Assuming that foreign military forces rapidly overwhelmed Gaddafi’s troops, they would soon be able to withdraw and leave the Libyan people to decide their own future.
Seumas Milne writes:
Those calling for western military action in Libya seem brazenly untroubled by the fact that throughout the Arab world, foreign intervention, occupation and support for dictatorship is regarded as central to the problems of the region. Inextricably tied up with the demand for democratic freedoms is a profound desire for independence and self-determination.
That is clear in reaction on the ground in Libya to the threat of outside intervention. As one of the rebel military leaders in Benghazi, General Ahmad Gatroni, said this week, the US should “take care of its own people, we can look after ourselves”.
No-fly zones, backed by some other opposition figures, would involve a military attack on Libya’s air defences and, judging from the Iraqi experience, be highly unlikely to halt regime helicopter or ground operations. They would risk expanding military conflict and strengthening Gaddafi’s hand by allowing the regime to burnish its anti-imperialist credentials. Military intervention wouldn’t just be a threat to Libya and its people, but to the ownership of what has been until now an entirely organic, homegrown democratic movement across the region.
Timothy Garton Ash writes:
A decade ago an independent international commission that elaborated on the idea of “responsibility to protect” spelled out six criteria for deciding whether military action is justified. Essentially a modernised version of centuries-old Catholic standards for “just war”, these criteria are: right authority, just cause, right intention, last resort, proportional means, and reasonable prospects. Bitter experience, from Kosovo to Afghanistan, has taught us that “reasonable prospects” (ie of success) may be the most difficult to judge and achieve.
Applying these criteria, I remain unconvinced that a no-fly zone over Libya is justified – at the time of writing. If it turns out that Gaddafi does still have a secret stock of chemical weapons, and can drop them from the sky, this judgment could change overnight. We should prepare contingency plans. But we have not yet exhausted all other avenues, including trying to pry Gaddafi’s cronies away from him by fair means and foul. A no-fly zone would be very difficult to enforce, and might not have anything more than a marginal impact on the ground.
Above all, any form of armed intervention by the west – and the US military says a no-fly zone would require initial bombing of Libyan radar and anti-aircraft facilities – would spoil the greatest pristine glory of these events, which is that they are all about brave men and women liberating themselves.
The Gaddafi power network
Issandr El Amrani has mapped the social and power networks around Muammar Gaddafi using existing reporting, Wikileaks cables from Tripoli, and a few academic sources.
Click on the image below to see the detailed graphic (PDF).
J Street: How the pro-Israel pro-peace lobby promotes war
Chase Madar writes:
J Street, America’s premier liberal pro-Israel lobbying group, has just wrapped up its third annual conference in Washington. There have been sessions and panels on “building peace from the ground up,” on “expanding the tent” and even some passionate condemnations of the Occupation. Amid so much good feeling it’s almost possible to lose sight of one of J Street’s fundamental missions: to promote and guarantee America’s lavish and unconditional military aid to Israel.
This may seem like a harsh assessment of the lobbying group. After all, isn’t J Street routinely attacked by neocon ultras and praised by American liberals? But hack through J Street’s verbiage about “dialogue” and “conversation” and one finds this blandly phrased position statement: “American assistance to Israel, including maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge, is an important anchor for a peace process based on providing Israel with the confidence and assurance to move forward on a solution based on land for peace. J Street consistently advocates for robust US foreign aid to Israel.” This last sentence is 99% of what one needs to know about J Street.
The fight for Libya
The defense of Brega
From the feeble cover of sand dunes, under assault from a warplane overhead and heavy artillery from a hill, rebels in this strategic oil city repelled an attack by hundreds of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s fighters on Wednesday. The daylong battle was the first major incursion by the colonel’s forces in the rebel-held east of the country since the Libyan uprising began.
The battle began at daybreak, when government fighters stormed the airport and the area around the city’s oil refinery. By the early afternoon, hundreds of men from this city, wielding Kalashnikov rifles and knives — joined by confederates from neighboring cities with heavier artillery — fought Colonel Qaddafi’s men, who were backed by air power and mortars.
But as night fell, the government fighters were on the run and the rebels were celebrating in Brega and all along the road north to Benghazi, the seat of rebel power, where fireworks lighted up the sky.
The attack seemed to spearhead a broader effort by the government of Colonel Qaddafi to reassert control over strategic oil assets in the eastern part of the country, which have been seized by rebel forces. And what appeared to be a victory by the rebels continued a string of recent successes in beating back those attacks, as they did in the western city of Zawiyah earlier this week. But the rebels have not been able to shake the colonel’s hold on power.
That quandary was apparent as the fighters celebrated their victory in a Brega square: the warplane reappeared and attacked the gathering.
“Yes, they won,” said Iman Bugaighis, a spokeswoman for the rebel governing authority, which asked Western nations to conduct airstrikes against Colonel Qaddafi’s strongholds on Wednesday. “We don’t know how long it will last. He’s getting stronger.” (New York Times)
Qaddafi names intelligence chief to negotiate with opposition, Quryna says
Muammar Qaddafi named Bouzid Dourda, head of Libya’s external intelligence agency, to hold talks with the interim council that controls the country’s east, Quryna reported, citing unidentified people.
The interim council had indicated it won’t negotiate with Qaddafi, the Benghazi-based newspaper said on its website. Benghazi, the biggest city in eastern Libya, has fallen under the rule of Qaddafi’s foes who are pushing to end his four- decade rule.
Qaddafi also fired Abdallah Senoussi, his close aide and head of Libya’s domestic intelligence services, Quryna reported yesterday, citing people it didn’t name. (Bloomberg)
Fierce battles rage in Libya
Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, are reported to have regained control of two strategic towns in the country’s northwest, even as opposition fighters in the east prepare to march on the capital, Tripoli.
The claims about the fall of Gharyan and Sabratha on Wednesday came as fighting raged between pro- and anti-government forces over the control of the eastern town of Brega, the headquarters of several oil companies, and Gaddafi appeared on state television once again.
“They tried to take Brega this morning, but they failed,” Mustafa Gheriani, a spokesman for the February 17th Coalition, an anti-government group, told the Reuters news agency.
“It is back in the hands of the revolutionaries. He is trying to create all kinds of psychological warfare to keep these cities on edge.” (Al Jazeera)
Gaddafi: Libya dignity under attack
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has said that he is not a president and so cannot resign his position, and that power is in the hands of the people, during a televised public rally in the capital, Tripoli.
“Muammar Gaddafi is not a president to resign, he does not even have a parliament to dissolve,” Gaddafi said on Wednesday, his third pu8blic appearance since the uprising, surrounded by dozens of supporters in a large ballroom for a ceremony to mark 34 years of “people power”.
“Attacks on me are seen by Libyan people as attacks on their symbol and dignity.
“The foreigners want Gaddafi to step down, to step down from what? Gaddafi is just a symbol for the Libyan people… This is how the Libyan people understood it.”
He said that the world did not understand the Libyan system that puts power in the hands of the people. (Al Jazeera)
Libya’s toxic tribal divisions are greater than Qaddafi
Col Qaddafi’s main support comes from three major sources: the Warfalla, based 180km southwest of Tripoli, the largest tribe in the country with large communities within Tripoli. The Warfalla also comprise a majority of well-educated Libyans. Gaddafi’s own tribe, centred in Sirte, 500km east of Tripoli, is another pillar of his support. The allegiance between Gaddafi’s tribe, Gaddafa, and the Warfalla has been described as a “blood link”. Their ties predate Col Qaddafi’s rise to power and will be slow to change now. Prejudice against other tribes in Libya, particularly against the Misrata, make many Warfalla more hardline than Col Qaddafi himself.
Sizeable support for Col Qaddafi still exists within these two tribes, which form a triangle with the Mediterranean as its base, that points deep into Libya’s south, where Col Qaddafi also draws sizable support. Sebha, for instance, the capital of Libya’s southern region, has not seen any demonstrations so far.
This tribal landscape must be understood along with Libya’s recent history: the country has not had political parties for more than four decades. Civil society does not exist, nor does the idea of loyalty to the “state”. There is not a constitution, no nationally-accepted rule of law and no practical mechanisms to guide the country in the event of a power vacuum at the top. Col Qaddafi himself emphasises the fact that he has neither “official role” nor “legally binding responsibility”.
This structure makes it hard to see how a power vacuum could be filled and by whom. While the eastern part of Libya is beyond government control it still lacks effective leadership, let alone a clear political vision for a united Libya. The only strong message and symbol coming from eastern Libya is the flag of the country from the 1950s that is being waved by protesters. The two most viable scenarios for Libya in the long-term, however, are a country vulnerable to further division or all-out tribal war. (Mustafa Fetouri)
UN warcrimes court to name Libyan suspects
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on Thursday will name individuals to be targeted in a full-scale probe of alleged crimes committed in Libya, his office announced.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo will announce “the opening of an investigation in Libya” at a press conference in The Hague on Thursday and present “preliminary information as to the entities and persons who could be prosecuted”, it added.
The prosecutor will “put them on notice to avoid future crimes” and would also present an overview of the alleged crimes committed in Libya since an anti-government rebellion started on February 15, the statement noted.
Hundreds of people have been killed in a violent crackdown on the uprising and tens of thousands are fleeing the country, causing a humanitarian emergency. (AFP)
Europe to help Libya stranded
The governments of France, Spain and Britain have said they would evacuate thousands of workers stranded on the Tunisian border after fleeing the violence in Libya.
Emergency airlifts along Libya’s borders were launched on Wednesday, as more than 140,000 refugees pour into Tunisia and Egypt from Libya and thousands more are arriving by the day.
UN experts warned that fast action was needed to protect and feed them before the exodus turned into a full-blown humanitarian crisis.
Many of the foreigners are from countries that could not afford evacuations, or sub-Saharan African workers whose lives are in danger because they are being mistaken for mercenaries hired by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. (Al Jazeera)
