Archive for April, 2009

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CIA medics joined in Guantánamo torture sessions, says Red Cross

April 8, 2009

Leaked ICRC report claims medical staff monitored terror suspects during waterboarding

Guantánamo Bay detainee

A detainee carrying prayer beads in Guantanamo Bay. Photograph: Brennan Linsley/AP

Medical personnel committed a “gross breach of medical ethics” by taking part in torture in Guantánamo, a leaked International Committee of the Red Cross document has revealed.

The 40-page confidential report, written in 2007, describes how medical staff working for the CIA monitored prisoners’ vital signs to make sure they did not drown while being subjected to waterboarding, during which water is poured over a cloth placed over a person’s nose and mouth.

Medical personnel were also said to be present when prisoners were shackled in a “stress standing position”. The detainees were “monitored by health personnel who in some instances recommended stopping the method of ill-treatment, or recommended its continuation, but with adjustments”, according to the report.

The Red Cross concluded: “The alleged participation of health personnel in the interrogation process and, either directly or indirectly, in the infliction of ill-treatment constituted a gross breach of medical ethics and, in some cases, amounted to participation in torture and/or cruel inhuman or degrading treatment.”

As well as the monitoring of specific methods of ill-treatment, the report said, other health personnel were alleged to have directly participated in the interrogation process. One detainee alleged that a health person threatened that medical care would be conditional upon cooperation with interrogation.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed mastermind of the September 11 attacks, alleged to the ICRC that on several occasions the waterboarding was stopped “on the intervention of a health person who was present in the room each time this procedure was used”.

Mohammed, who pleaded guilty last year to the September 11 attacks, said he gave a lot of false information during the harshest period of his interrogation.

“Im sure that the false information I was forced to invent in order to make the ill-treatment stop wasted a lot of their time and led to several false red-alerts being placed in the US,” he told the Red Cross.

In another case, Encep Nuraman (aka Hambali) alleged that a medical person intervened to prevent further use of the prolonged stress standing position, but told him that “I look after your body only because we need you for information”.

Walid bin Attash, who had previously had a leg amputated, told the ICRC that when he was forced for days to stand with his arms shackled above his head and his feet touching the floor, a person he assumed to be a doctor would measure the swelling in his intact leg and eventually ordered that he be allowed to sit.

Florian Westphal, head of media at the Red Cross in Geneva, confirmed the authenticity of the document obtained by Mark Danner of New York Review of Books and posted on its website, but declined to comment on the contents of the report. “It is a legitimate document. It is extremely unusual for an ICRC document on detention procedures to be leaked publicly,” he said.

“We regret this as it is important for us to be able to discuss matters confidentially with governments, which gives us the credibility to influence them.”

Besides descriptions of how the men were tortured, the report conveys the impatience and frustration of the Red Cross in trying to extract information from the Bush administration. The Red Cross made its first written interventions to the US authorities in 2002, requesting information on the whereabouts of people allegedly held by the Americans in the context of the fight against terrorism.

“Despite repeated requests at various levels of the US government, the ICRC has not received a response to most of these written interventions,” the report said.

It took four years once the Red Cross first raised the issue with the Bush administration before it was given access to 14 detainees at Guantánamo, including Mohammed. The report welcomed the decision to grant access to the men, but “deplores the fact that these persons were held in undisclosed detention during a prolonged period by the US authorities and the conditions of treatment to which they were subjected during the time”.

The methods of ill-treatment alleged to have been used, the report said, included waterboarding, standing naked with arms extended and chained above the head for periods of two three days continuously, beatings by the use of a collar held around the detainees’ neck to bang heads and bodies against the wall, prolonged nudity for weeks or months and prolonged shackling.

Those who were shackled “had to urinate and and defecate on themselves and remain standing in their own bodily fluids for periods of several days”.

While the report described practices that have been repudiated by the Obama administration, an Red Cross official who wished to remain anonymous said it was “important for today’s authorities to have this information from an independent source”.

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The poor must be included in a global economy

April 7, 2009

By Bob Geldof | Financial Times, April 1, 2009

In an age characterised by the death of trust we find comfort in being able to blame everyone. It is entirely reasonable that thousands will protest, hopefully peacefully, against bankers who stuck their noses in the trough, regulators who turned away and governments who kept smiling as the tax take grew. The truth is they could just as easily protest against themselves for blindly succumbing to this leveraged society. We must now clear up the mess. Amid all the experts who failed to call this disaster, only one got it right. It was Bob Dylan, who said: “Money doesn’t talk. It swears.”

The system was always skewed and its rewards asymmetric. We built a global economy that excluded half of the globe. We marginalised the productive capacity of the 3bn people who live on less than $2 a day. By excluding them, we deprived them of the income they need to buy our stuff and consigned them to ill-health, lack of education and conflict. Instability is inherent in asymmetry. It will topple over. The first task of the Group of 20 nations must be to bring the peripheral economies and their people into the centre.

In Tanzania last month I spoke at an International Monetary Fund conference attended by the finance ministers of Africa. It was billed as a chance to show off improved results and offer proof that the continent is an attractive home for foreign investment. Instead, the conference was hijacked by events and became a strategy session on how to steer through a financial storm they did not create and ensure Africa is heard at the G20. The human impact of the financial crisis on the poor parts of the world are incalculable.

“Fiscal stimulus” is just another word for aid and “liquidating toxic assets” is not different from “debt cancellation” – the things that Africa has been demanding for years. It is no different except for the speed and scale with which it was delivered when we are the beneficiaries. It is all so wearing for an ageing activist.

We now need a small fiscal stimulus for Africa. It will be a tiny fraction of what we are spending on bailing out the banks. The Overseas Development Institute and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research show that a counter-cyclical investment of $50bn (€38bn, £35bn) for Africa would start paying for itself immediately. US and Chinese exports would rise by $1.4bn in 2009, UK exports by $750m, German exports by $2bn. Currently the G20 is proposing more resources for the Asian Development Bank, but what about the equally critical African Bank? Many “shovel ready” projects need funding. It is clear that African growth is part of the solution that reboots the global economy.

The G20 should insist that the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations deliver their political promises on aid to help pay for this stimulus. We should praise the UK, Germany and the US for living up to theirs, but rebuke Italy, the current president of the G8, for its shameful and cynical dishonesty in signing in Gleneagles a commitment to the poor of our world and doing nothing to meet it. Italy must address this before the G8 meeting in Sardinia in July. If they do not come up with a viable plan, their presidency should be withdrawn. What is the point of having a country leading a meeting that has no intention of living up to its word?

The G20 is rightly exercised by protectionism. A retreat would mark a return to nationalism, militarism and national bankruptcy. It would ruin nations and in their ruin they would strike out. We must, at least, end the pernicious regime of agricultural subsidies and implement a fast track, stand-alone trade deal for the poorest countries, most of which are in Africa.

Further, I do not want to hang the bankers. I want to put the more shamefaced and remorseful of them to work, Profumo style. Let them serve their penance by using their skills for a purpose other than self gain. We should employ them in an institution that tracks down cash stolen by corrupt figures in Africa and passed through global launderettes such as the City of London to nestle in an obscure Alpine bank to be used later for a coup.

This is a crisis not just in the system, but of it. But the death of distance will not be reversed and globalisation is no longer a philosophical abstraction to be argued over. The essence of globalisation must be enforced co-operation. It will be impossible to construct a new global financial architecture without permanently including the voices of the poor on the key global institutions. It is beyond time that we bring the poor in from the bitter cold.

The writer is a musician, businessman and advocate for Africa. He is also co-founder of DATA and ONE

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

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Spain investigates what America should

April 7, 2009

By Marjorie Cohn | San Francisco Chronicle, April 6, 2009

A Spanish court has initiated criminal proceedings against six former officials of the Bush administration. John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, William Haynes and Douglas Feith may face charges in Spain for authorizing torture at Guantánamo Bay.

If arrest warrants are issued, Spain and any of the other 24 countries that are parties to European extradition conventions could arrest these six men when they travel abroad.

Does Spain have the authority to prosecute Americans for crimes that didn’t take place on Spanish soil?

The answer is yes. It’s called “universal jurisdiction.” Universal jurisdiction is a well-established theory that countries, including the United States, have used for many years to investigate and prosecute foreign nationals for crimes that shock the conscience of the global community. It provides a critical legal tool to hold accountable those who commit crimes against the law of nations, including war crimes and crimes against humanity. Without universal jurisdiction, many of the most notorious criminals would go free. Countries that have used this as a basis to prosecute the most serious of crimes should be commended for their courage. They help to create a just world in which we all seek to live.

Israel used universal jurisdiction to prosecute, convict and execute Adolph Eichmann for his crimes during the Holocaust, even they had no direct relationship with Israel.

A federal court in Miami recently convicted Chuckie Taylor, son of the former Liberian president, of torture that occurred in Liberia. A U.S. court sentenced Taylor to 97 years in prison in January.

Universal jurisdiction complements, but doesn’t supersede, national prosecutions. So if the United States were investigating the Bush officials, other countries would refrain from doing so.

When the United States ratified the Convention Against Torture, it promised to extradite or prosecute those who commit, or are complicit in, the commission of torture.

President Obama, when asked whether he favored criminal investigations of Bush officials, replied, “My view is also that nobody’s above the law and, if there are clear instances of wrongdoing, that people should be prosecuted just like any ordinary citizen.”

“But,” he added, “generally speaking, I’m more interested in looking forward than I am in looking backward.” Preoccupied with the economy and two wars, Obama reportedly wants to wait before considering prosecutions that would invariably anger the GOP.

Evidence that Bush officials set a policy that led to the torture of prisoners at Guantánamo continues to emerge.

According to ABC News, Gonzales met with other officials in the White House and authorized torture, including waterboarding.

The Office of Professional Responsibility, which reports to the U.S. attorney general, drafted a report that excoriates Yoo and Bybee for writing the infamous torture memos. Haynes, Addington and Feith participated in decisions that led to torture. The release of additional graphic torture memos by the U.S. Department of Justice is imminent.

It is the responsibility of the United States to investigate allegations of torture. Almost two-thirds of respondents to a USA Today/Gallup Poll favor investigations of the Bush team for torture and warrantless wiretapping. Nearly four in 10 support criminal investigations.

Former Navy General Counsel Alberto Mora told Congress, “There are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq – as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat – are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.” Providing impunity to those who ordered the torture will be the third recruiting tool.

If the United States refuses to investigate now, it will be more likely that some future administration will repeat this scenario. The use of torture should be purged from our system, much like we eradicated slavery.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and President of the National Lawyers Guild. She is the author of Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law and co-author of Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent (with Kathleen Gilberd). Her articles are archived at http://www.marjoriecohn.com (The views expressed in this article are solely those of the writer; she is not acting on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild or Thomas Jefferson School of Law)

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US Hypocrisy on North Korea: Let’s Talk About Israel’s Nukes

April 7, 2009

RebelReports, April 6, 2009

Obama said of North Korea’s satellite launch: “Rules must be binding… Violations must be punished.” He used Iran to justify a controversial missile system. What about Israel’s nukes and violations?

By Jeremy Scahill

President Obama’s administration is pressing for diplomatic retaliation, perhaps in the form of more sanctions against North Korea, after Pyonyang launched a rocket into space. There are conflicting reports about the success of the launch. North Korea says the rocket carried a satellite, which is now orbiting the earth. That’s according to state-run media in North Korea, which reportedly broadcast patriotic songs and images of Kim Jung Il, praising him for the launch. The US, meanwhile, said the launch failed to reach orbit, landing in the Pacific Ocean. According to The New York Times, “Officials and analysts in Seoul said the North’s rocket, identified by American officials as a Taepodong-2, flew at least 2,000 miles, doubling the range of an earlier rocket it tested in 1998 and boosting its potential to fire a long-range missile.”

There is disagreement at the Security Council over whether North Korea violated any UN resolutions with the US on one side and Russia, backed by China, on the other. The Obama administration has called the launch a “provocative act.” “We think that what was launched is not the issue; the fact that there was a launch using ballistic missile technology is itself a clear violation,” said UN ambassador Susan Rice, who is pressing for more sanctions against North Korea at the Security Council. Chinese officials said North Korea, like other nations, had a right to launch satellites. “Every state has the right to the peaceful use of outer space,” said Russia’s deputy U.N. envoy, Igor N. Shcherbak.

Obama used the launch in his major address in Prague, which has been characterized as an anti-nuclear speech. “Rules must be binding,” he said of North Korea’s launch. “Violations must be punished. Words must mean something.”

Many countries around the world certainly see hypocrisy in the Obama administration’s position on North Korea. Israel has repeatedly been condemned by the UN for its occupation of Palestinian lands. Moreover, it has hundreds of nuclear weapons with estimates ranging from 200-400 warheads. What’s more, Israel and the US are in league with North Korea in the small club of nations that have refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Other nations include: China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, and Pakistan. In his Prague speech, Obama said his administration “will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification,” saying, “After more than five decades of talks, it is time for the testing of nuclear weapons to finally be banned.”

All of this must be kept in context as the “crisis” with North Korea continues to unfold. US hypocrisy on the nuclear issue takes away credibility the US has in its condemnations of North Korea, or Iran, for that matter. “Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile activity poses a real threat, not just to the United States, but to Iran’s neighbors and our allies,” Obama said in Prague. Obama used Iran to justify a controverisal central European missile system, saying, “As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward… with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven.” Obama did not mention Israel once in his speech and has never acknowledged its nuclear weapons system. Perhaps Obama should ask Arab and Muslim nations in the region what country they see as the biggest nuclear threat.

“Rules are only rules if they apply to everyone,” said Ali Abunimah, founder of ElectronicIntifada.net. “Obama’s silence in the face of Israel’s violation of international law, and UN calls for war crimes investigations in its on attacks on Gaza, contrast to his strident calls for Security Council action regarding North Korea. Israel has violated dozens of UN Security Council resolutions. Obama has even refused to acknowledge the existence of Israel’s nuclear arsenal, though former President Jimmy Carter has confirmed that the country has 150 nuclear weapons.”

And this historical fact, which to Obama’s credit he acknowledged, should never be forgotten: One nation in the world has used nuclear weapons—the United States.

In a statement, Peace Action, cautiously welcomed some of Obama’s positions outlined in Prague, but said, “President Obama’s statement that [a nuclear weapons-free] world might not be achieved in his lifetime is very disappointing.  Obama can and should announce the initiation of negotiations on the global elimination of nuclear weapons.  Similarly, his promotion of nuclear power, missile defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic and his escalation of troops in Afghanistan are all moves in the wrong direction.”

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Democrats and War Escalation

April 7, 2009

by Norman Solomon | CommonDreams.org, April 6, 2009

Top Democrats and many prominent supporters — with vocal agreement, tactical quibbles or total silence — are assisting the escalation of the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The predictable results will include much more killing and destruction. Back home, on the political front, the escalation will drive deep wedges into the Democratic Party.The party has a large anti-war base, and that base will grow wider and stronger among voters as the realities of the Obama war program become more evident. The current backing or acceptance of the escalation from liberal think tanks and some online activist groups will not be able to prevent the growth of opposition among key voting blocs.In their eagerness to help the Obama presidency, many of its prominent liberal supporters — whatever their private views on the escalation — are willing to function as enablers of the expanded warfare. Many assume that opposition would undermine the administration and play into the hands of Republicans. But in the long run, going along with the escalation is not helping Obama; by putting off the days of reckoning, the acceptance of the escalation may actually help Obama destroy his own presidency.

Ideally, in 2009, Democratic lawmakers would see as role models the senators who opposed the Vietnam War — first Wayne Morse and Ernest Gruening, and then (years later) others including Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy. Earlier and stronger opposition from elected officials could have saved countless lives. The dreams of the Great Society might not have been crushed. And Richard Nixon might never have become president.

Now, everyone has the potential to help challenge the escalation of the Afghanistan-Pakistan war — on a collision course with heightened disaster.

Over the weekend, the Sunday Times of London reported that U.S. drone attacks along the Afghan-Pakistani border on Saturday killed “foreign militants” and “women and children” — while Pakistani officials asserted that “American drone attacks on the border . . . are causing a massive humanitarian emergency.” The newspaper says that “as many as 1 million people have fled their homes in the Tribal Areas to escape attacks by the unmanned spy planes as well as bombings by the Pakistani army.”

This is standard catastrophic impact of a counterinsurgency war. In short, as former Kennedy administration official William Polk spells out in his recent book “Violent Politics,” the key elements are in place for the U.S. war in Afghanistan to fail on its own terms while heightening the death and misery on a large scale.

Citing UN poverty data, a recent essay by Tom Hayden points out that in Afghanistan and Pakistan “the levels of suffering are among the most extreme in the world, and from suffering, from having nothing to live for, comes the will to die for a cause.” While the Washington spin machine touts development aid, the humanitarian effort adds up to a few pennies for each dollar going to the U.S. war effort.

A report from the Carnegie Endowment began this year with the stark conclusion that “the only meaningful way to halt the insurgency’s momentum is to start withdrawing troops. The presence of foreign troops is the most important element driving the resurgence of the Taliban.” Hayden made the same point when he wrote that “military occupation, particularly a surge of U.S. troops into the Pashtun region in southern Afghanistan and Pakistan, is the surest way to inflame nationalist resistance and greater support for the Taliban.”

Over the weekend, in his pitch for more NATO support, President Obama tried to make the U.S. war goals seem circumscribed: “I want everybody to understand that our focus is to defeat Al Qaeda.” But there’s no evidence that Al Qaeda has a significant foothold in Afghanistan. That group long since decamped to Pakistan.

In any event, the claim that a massive war is necessary to fight terrorism is hardly new. Lest we forget: After George W. Bush could no longer cling to his claims about WMDs in Iraq, he settled on the anti-terrorist rationale for continuing the Iraq occupation.

Even among allies, the anti-terrorism rationale is not flying for a troop buildup in Afghanistan. After Obama’s latest appeal to the leaders of NATO countries, as the New York Times reported Sunday, “his calls for a more lasting European troop increase for Afghanistan were politely brushed aside.”

Europe will provide no more than 5,000 new troops, and most of them just for the Afghan pre-election period till late summer. In the words of the Times: “Mr. Obama is raising the number of American troops this year to about 68,000 from the current 38,000, which will significantly Americanize the war.”

For those already concerned about Obama’s re-election prospects, such war realities may seem faraway and relatively abstract. But escalation will fracture his base inside the Democratic Party. If the president insists on leading a party of war, then activists will educate, agitate and organize to transform it into a party for peace.

The mirage of wise counterinsurgency has been re-conjured by the Obama White House, echoing the “best and brightest” from Democratic administrations of the 1960s. But the party affiliation of the U.S. president will make no difference to people far away who mourn the loss of loved ones. And, whether in Afghanistan, Pakistan or the United States, the president will be held to the astute standard that Barack Obama laid out as he addressed unfriendly foreign leaders in his inaugural speech: “People will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.”

Norman Solomon is a journalist, historian, and progressive activist. His book “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death” has been adapted into a documentary film of the same name. His most recent book is “Made Love, Got War.” He is a national co-chair of the Healthcare NOT Warfare campaign.

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Israel created ‘terror without mercy’ in Gaza

April 7, 2009

Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem | The Guardian, Tuesday 7 April 2009

The Israeli military attacked civilians and medics and delayed – sometimes for hours – the evacuation of the injured during the January war in Gaza, according to an independent fact-finding mission commissioned by Israeli and Palestinian medical human rights groups.

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society yesterday said their findings showed Israel’s military committed serious violations of international humanitarian law. In their 92-page report, compiled by five senior health experts from across the world, they documented several specific attacks, with interviews from 44 separate witnesses.

Human rights groups have accused Israel’s military, as well as Palestinian militants in Gaza, of war crimes. “The underlying meaning of the attack on the Gaza Strip, or at least its final consequence, appears to be one of creating terror without mercy to anyone,” the report said.

In one incident, the researchers found a Palestinian, Muhammad Shurrab, 64, and his sons Qassab, 28, and Ibrahim, 18, were shot by Israeli troops at close range without warning on 16 January during a ceasefire. Qassab was hit in the face and died soon after. Ibrahim was hit in the leg. The soldiers refused to give medical aid, and only after 23 hours was an ambulance allowed to approach, by which time Ibrahim was also dead.

Yohanna Lerman, a lawyer with the medical rights groups, said although their report was a preliminary investigation this one case alone was enough to indict Israel’s political and military leaders.

The Israeli military has said it does not target civilians and is conducting its own investigations into some cases arising from the war.

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NATO backs US escalation of war in Central Asia

April 6, 2009
By Chris Marsden | wsws.org, 6 April 2009

The NATO 60th anniversary summit in Strasbourg, France, and Kehl, Germany, ended with a headline commitment for Europe to provide “up to” 5,000 additional troops for Afghanistan.

This was the smallest commitment the European leaders could make without delivering an open rebuke to the United States. Nevertheless it paves the way for an escalation of the war in Afghanistan and its extension across the border into Pakistan—aims which are at the centre of the foreign policy of the Obama administration.

While keeping substantial troop forces in Iraq, President Barack Obama has championed the shift in military focus long demanded by sections of the US bourgeoisie towards Central and indeed Southern Asia, which is a strategic focus for US imperialism. A military success in Afghanistan is seen as key in countering both Russian and Chinese global influence and securing US hegemony over strategic concerns such as oil, pipelines, transit routes and markets.

Control over Afghanistan gives the US access to traditional areas of Russian influence such as the Caucasus, ex-Soviet Central Asia, as well as Iran. It also threatens China’s main ally in the Indian sub-continent, Pakistan.

To this end Obama has announced an Iraq-style military “surge” ahead of the Afghan presidential elections in August. The US is to send 21,000 additional troops, and Obama is considering a further deployment of 10,000. America already has 38,000 troops out of the total of 70,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, and its forces make up a considerably larger proportion of those engaged in a combat role.

Fully 12,000 US troops operate separately from NATO.

By bringing America’s military presence to over 60,000, Obama hopes to reinforce US control of this strategic territory. But he still wants a substantial increase of European logistical and military backing to offset spiralling costs and to tie Europe firmly to the war.

At a public address in Strasbourg, France, on Friday, Obama emphasized that the war in Afghanistan will continue despite the change in presidencies. While the administration has ceased referring to the “war on terror,” Obama said, “I think that it is important for Europe to understand that even though I’m now president and George Bush is no longer president, Al Qaeda is still a threat…. It is going to be a very difficult challenge”.

In continuing the US occupation of Iraq and escalating attacks on Afghanistan and Pakistan, Obama has adopted the same basic pretexts employed by the Bush administration to justify its neo-colonialist actions—including the supposed threat posed by Al Qaeda. These pretexts have not been challenged by any of the European powers.

The European powers are happy to maintain a foothold in the Afghan operation to avoid it becoming the exclusive province of the US, and they do not want to see it degenerate into a worse debacle than Iraq. But they are also anxious to avoid being sucked into a worsening conflict that is deeply unpopular at home—a situation indicated by the 30,000 protesters gathered at the two-day summit in Kehl, Germany, and then Strasbourg, France.

Obama proclaimed that the NATO partners had agreed to deploy about 5,000 troops and trainers “to advance [Washington’s] new strategy”. The White House claimed a total of ten countries had pledged new forces. Outgoing NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer stated, “The bottom line is that when it comes to Afghanistan, this summit, and this alliance, have delivered”.

This is not the case. Even these small numbers are only temporary—up until the presidential elections—and are largely in a non-combat capacity.

Obama’s main ally in seeking a troop expansion is British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The day before the summit, Brown had offered up to 1,000 troops in agreement with Obama, in the hope of pressuring others to follow suit. Britain currently has 8,100 troops in Afghanistan. However, the Independent noted that Obama had in fact pressed for 2,000 to 3,000 additional UK troops permanently in the country, but this had met with “stiff opposition within the government, including the Treasury, which blocked the move on cost grounds”.

This smaller temporary deployment ending in October also includes 250 already sent earlier this year.

In any event, Brown’s gambit failed. The summit’s co-host, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, rejected any additional military commitment from France, only agreeing to 150 military police to help train Afghan civilian police.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel did not shift from an earlier agreement to send another 600 soldiers up to the Afghan election, bringing Germany’s troop levels to 4,100. These are operating in a non-combat capacity in the north.

Steve Flanagan, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, described the commitments as “the basic minimum…. The hard part of the mission is going to become more and more a US-led coalition. You still have the NATO flag, but when you look at the numbers, it’s not a great division of labour”.

Obama could not hide his disappointment, calling the commitments only a “strong down payment”. The Sunday Times commented acidly, “He is right, but he may also be optimistic if he expects further payments to follow. If a new American president armed with the most goodwill that he will ever have in office cannot persuade NATO to do more now, he never will”.

Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, there has been a consistent demand for a greater and more independent European military role, with a disagreement only over whether this should be within or external to the NATO alliance.

Obama wanted the Strasbourg summit to re-cement US-European ties. He has been championing a new “Declaration on Alliance Security”, endorsed at Strasbourg, which states, “NATO recognizes the importance of a stronger and more capable European defence and welcomes the European Union’s efforts to strengthen its capabilities and its capacity to address common security challenges…. We are determined to ensure that the NATO-EU relationship is a truly functioning strategic partnership as agreed by NATO and by the EU”.

At the public meeting prior to the Strasbourg summit, Obama declared, “We must be honest with ourselves. In recent years we have allowed our alliance to drift. I know there have been honest disagreements over policies, but we also know there has been something more that has crept into our relationship”.

Europe has a 25,000-strong NATO Response Force and the EU Rapid Defence Force of 60,000 soldiers. But continued collaboration with NATO comes with a price and is conducted in the European bourgeoisie’s own interests—as a means of projecting itself as a military force globally in a way it cannot do alone.

Strasbourg came after Sarkozy had secured the agreement for France to rejoin the command structures of NATO, 43 years after President Charles de Gaulle withdrew and set up an independent nuclear deterrent.

Sarkozy took the decision with the support of Merkel as part of their combined efforts witnessed earlier during the G20 summit to project a stronger and unified European position. At the summit Sarkozy made clear that providing troops to Afghanistan and elsewhere depended on asserting French influence. “We commit the lives of our soldiers, but do not participate in the committee that defines strategy and operations”, he said. “The time has come to put an end to this situation”.

The growing tensions between the US and Europe notwithstanding, the NATO summit will nevertheless signal a continued resort to colonial-style militarism led by Washington with the blessings and assistance of Paris, Berlin, London and Rome.

The only open conflict over Afghanistan, other than over troop numbers, was Afghan President Hamid Kharzai’s endorsing of a law governing family relations for the Shia minority. The United Nation’s Fund for Women said the law “legalises rape” within marriage by obligating wives to have sex when this is demanded, states that women should not leave their homes without a husband’s permission, gives automatic custody of children to fathers and made provision for marriage between minors. It is now to be reviewed.

Nothing was said in opposition to either the surge in Afghanistan, the US missile attacks on Pakistan’s border that have flattened entire villages and left over half a million people officially refugees, or the threat of a full-scale war in the nation of 173 million.

Rather, Obama, Merkel and Sarkozy combined together to make sure that Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen was nominated as the new secretary-general of NATO. Rasmussen was a staunch ally and friend of Bush in the war against Iraq, hailing his defence of “the ideals of liberty and against submission” and supporting the imprisoning without trial carried out at Guantanamo Bay. A leading figure in defending the provocation by the Jyllands-Posten daily, when it published cartoons of Mohammed, his nomination is itself provocative if not aggressive in its implications. Turkey’s opposition was bought off with various NATO jobs and a promise that its appeal for accession to the EU would move forward.

Even now what still unites the US and Europe is a common desire to face off any challenge from Russia and China to their global influence. Two new eastern European states joined NATO at Strasbourg: Albania and Croatia. The continued integration of former Warsaw pact countries into NATO has angered Russia, leading to sharp conflicts over US plans to establish its so-called Nuclear Missile Shield stationed in Poland and the Czech Republic and over NATO support for Georgia on the ongoing conflict over Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The “Declaration on Alliance Security” combines praise for NATO enlargement as “an historic success in bringing us closer to our vision of a Europe whole and free” and a promise that “NATO’s door will remain open to all European democracies” with pledges to maintain a “strong, cooperative partnership between NATO and Russia”. And there has even been talk of offering Russia NATO membership.

Moscow, however, knows that it is under threat. During the G20 summit, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned of further NATO expansion eastwards. “Before making decisions about expanding the bloc, one must think about the consequences”, he said. “I said this frankly to my new comrade, US President Barack Obama. NATO needs to think about preserving its unity and not harming relations with its neighbours”.

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Obama’s Neoliberals: Selling His Afghan War One Report at a Time

April 6, 2009

In its support for the Afghan war, the Center for American Progress is aligning itself with the “experts” who have been wrong about pretty much everything

By Jeremy Scahill | RebelReports, APRIL 6, 2009

An image from the CAP report supporting Obama’s Afghanistan war.

Reading the Center for American Progress’ new report supporting President Obama’s escalation of the US war against Afghanistan is a very powerful reminder of how much neoliberals and neocons are alike. This, of course, is not some genius observation, particularly since CAP and the neocons are making it hard to miss, what with their love triangle with the war. Indeed, CAP’s launch event for its report, “Sustainable Security in Afghanistan: Crafting an Effective and Responsible Strategy for the Forgotten Front,” included a leading neocon, Frederick Kagan and was promoted by William Kristol’s new version of the Project for a New American Century, the Foreign Policy Initiative. So, here is part of what we are seeing unfold: Running parallel to the bi-partisan war machine within the official government is a coordinated campaign in the shadow government—the think tanks. Or, as Naomi Klein describes them, the people paid to think by the makers of tanks. CAPs particular role in this campaign appears to be attempting to sell Obama’s war.

“The problem is not that the Bush administration’s effort in Afghanistan failed,” CAP declares. “The problem is that it was never given a chance to succeed.” The report is replete with the language of Empire and phrases like, “vital U.S. interests” and “U.S. national interests.” The phrase “Afghan interests” is never used. CAP also calls for a continuation of the US bombing raids in Pakistan. In calling for an escalation of the war in Afghanistan, CAP relies on the classic hubris of empire, saying, “U.S. policymakers and military leaders must be aware that throughout their history Afghans have resisted large numbers of foreign forces on their soil, but today the situation is different.” Why is it different? According to CAP, “Nearly two-thirds of Afghans still support U.S. forces throughout the country.” This claim would be funny if it wasn’t so lethally misleading.

US-backed leader Hamid Karzai can barely step foot outside of his palace without risking being killed. “Some intelligence officials estimate that the government of president Hamid Karzai now controls approximately one-third of Afghan territory,” CAP acknowledges. How on earth, then, do they pretend to know that Afghans actually love the US occupation? Well, check the footnotes in CAPs report and you see that CAP is basing its claim on an ABC News poll, “Public Opinion Trends in Afghanistan,” which is based on 1,534 interviews conducted in December 2008/January 2009. When you actually take the time to read the details of the poll CAP cites, that claim that “two-thirds” of Afghans “support…U.S. forces throughout the country” is extremely dubious and outright misleading. The poll actually says that 52% of Afghans have an “unfavorable” view of the United States—up from 14% in 2005. It also says Afghans give the US a 32% performance rating, down from 68% in 2005. Only 37% of Afghans say there is “support” in their area for US/NATO/ISAF forces. The statistic the CAP report singles out for its “two-thirds support” claim is one labeled “Presence of US Forces in Afghanistan,” which says that 63% of Afghans support it. However, in the next graph, only 18% of Afghans say they want the force increased and 44% want it decreased. So, read into this what you will, but do read it before buying CAP’s claim.

In its report, CAP acknowledges the growing global unpopularity of the US occupation of Afghanistan, saying, “In a U.S. poll taken in mid-March, 42 percent of the respondents said the United States made a mistake in sending military forces to Afghanistan, up from 30 percent just a month before and from 6 percent in January 2002. Europeans are even more skeptical, with majorities in Germany, Britain, France, and Italy opposing increased troop commitments to the conflict.” Such public opinion is worrying to CAP and the report says, “Convincing the American people, our NATO allies, and the countries in the region why an increased effort in Afghanistan is essential to their vital security interests will be one of the most difficult challenges facing the new administration.” In its report, CAP called on Obama to forcefully make the case for escalating the war in Afghanistan and Obama certainly did his best on his trip through Europe for the G20. The bottom line for CAP’s argument, which is also Obama’s, is this: “Unlike the war in Iraq, which was always a war of choice, the war in Afghanistan was and still is a war of necessity.” This line is hardly new. The report says “vital US interests will be served” by:

—“Ensur[ing] that Afghanistan does not again become a launching pad for international terrorism.”
—“Prevent[ing] a power vacuum in Afghanistan that would further destabilize Pakistan and the region.”
—“Prevent[ing] Afghanistan from being ruled by extreme elements of the Taliban and other extremist groups.”


Of course, there are opponents of the Obama administration’s escalation in Afghanistan who argue for a withdrawal from Afghanistan on moral grounds, as the War Resisters League, Peace Action and others have. “Others have laid out reasons ­from Afghanistan’s topography to the U.S. economic crisis ­that would make an expanded war in Afghanistan ‘unwinnable,’” declared the WRL in a recent statement. “WRL does not base our opposition on such arguments. While they may be correct, we challenge the very idea of a ‘winnable’ war and oppose this one as we oppose all war: not solely for practical and strategic reasons, but because of our, and [Martin Luther] King Jr.’s, decades-long commitment to nonviolence.” That position is very clear. However, there are others who agree with Obama and CAP in their basic portrayal of the “threats,” but who still question the military escalation, arguing that it will make the situation even worse. As Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin recently argued, “the decision to send 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan — and possibly an additional 10,000 troops next year — before fully confronting the terrorist safe havens and instability in Pakistan could very well prove ineffective, or worse, counterproductive. So long as the Taliban can flee into Pakistan and operate from there with relative ease, any gains against them in Afghanistan may well be temporary at best. Meanwhile, our troops would be threatened by forces who are largely beyond their reach, in Pakistan, while our increased military presence in Afghanistan could stoke resentment among the Afghan people.”

In late March, a bipartisan group of lawmakers sent Obama a letter arguing, “The 2001 authorization to use military force in Afghanistan allowed military action ‘to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States.’ Continuing to fight a counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan does not appear to us to be in keeping with these directives and an escalation may actually harm US security.”

CAP, however, is clearly not listening to “progressive” or anti-war lawmakers. In fact, CAP says that Bush did the war against Afghanistan “on the cheap and committed too few troops and resources.” Therefore, CAP is calling for a stunning expansion of the scope of the military occupation of Afghanistan, a “nearly 300 percent increase over the average force level for the period from 2002 to 2007,” according to the report. CAP goes beyond what Obama has already committed to and calls for 70,000 US troops and an additional 30,000 allied troops—a total of 100,000 troops, plus an expanded Afghan Army and police force. CAP calls for “a prolonged U.S. engagement using all elements of U.S. national power—diplomatic, economic, and military—in a sustained effort that could last as long as another 10 years.”

To pay for this, CAP in part suggests taking what it claims will be a $330 billion savings from “reduced combat missions in Iraq” and applying $25 billion of it every year for five years to the “increased U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan” with another $5 billion per year “to increase U.S. foreign aid and diplomatic operations.” While there is a much bigger argument to be had here about spending priorities while millions of Americans are suffering from the economic meltdown, there is serious reason to question the idea that somehow we are going to be seeing any substantial “savings” in Iraq spending (except, of course, through the kind of creative accounting that masks actual US military expenditures, particularly relating to Iraq).

While calling for the US military to hammer the regions of Afghanistan where opposition to the occupation and the puppet regime in Kabul is strongest, CAP suggests the US “disperse economic assets and development teams to more stable and cooperative parts of the country.” The goal of this is to “reward the allied population with improved economic conditions and to demonstrate to the adversarial population the tangible benefits of cooperating with U.S. and allied forces.” This is similar to the US economic wars against Iraq and Cuba where the population is punished for its leadership and the US attempts to force them into submission to occupation or subjugation.

CAP acknowledges the “Taliban’s increasing power and influence,” adding that “many Afghan leaders have become increasingly critical of the conduct of international military operations in the country… Primarily because of the increasing and understandable unpopularity of NATO and U.S. air strikes,” but doesn’t call for a halt to them. Instead, CAP concludes, “it should be noted that violent insurgent attacks, particularly the proliferation of suicide bombings, still inflict the majority of civilian casualties in Afghanistan.”

CAP doesn’t just limit its belligerence for the Afghans. The report bluntly states that Obama must “Maintain capability to conduct missile strikes in Pakistan’s border regions absent Pakistani capability and will to do so itself.” Perhaps CAP should check in with retired United States Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, and ask him why he recently declared that the U.S. should halt all Air and Predator drone strikes against Pakistan.

Filmmaker Robert Greenwald just returned from Afghanistan as part of his important documentary series, Rethink Afghanistan, which he is producing as a rolling web-based work-in-progress. In a climate where anti-war voices are being systematically kept off the corporate airwaves, Greenwald has managed to break up the party a bit, even making it onto MSNBC where he said “there is a significant belief that troops are not the answer.” While Greenwald is not exactly storming the White House to demand the immediate withdrawal of all US troops, his Brave New Films Foundation has issued a petition calling for hearings in both the House and Senate before Obama deploys more troops to Afghanistan, saying, “At a time when our country faces a credibility crisis around the world, record casualties in Afghanistan, and an economic meltdown at home, oversight hearings are needed now more than ever.” That is the least Congress could do and Greenwald’s ever-expanding film would be a good starting place for lawmakers to do some (overdue) fact-finding. The folks at CAP would be wise to watch them as well before putting out any more reports.

Here is the bottom line: the situation in Afghanistan is getting worse. As CAP states, “Last year was the deadliest on record for American troops, and fatalities in the first two months of 2009 are outpacing 2008 figures for a similar period. Afghan civilian casualties skyrocketed 40 percent in 2008—their highest since the beginning of the war.” According to the UN 2,118 civilians were killed in 2008 (other estimates put the number much higher). CAP even admits, “U.S. and NATO efforts to respond to the rise in attacks, have led to a dramatic increase in the number of civilian casualties suffered by the Afghan people.”

And yet somehow, in the eyes of CAP, all of these statistics seem to just beg for even more US troops in Afghanistan, continued bombing and sustaining the missile strikes in Pakistan. Those opposed to an escalation of the war in Afghanistan can take heart in the justice of their cause: on this issue, CAP is not on the side of those who were right about Iraq, who confronted the WMD lie, who stood up to the illegal war. No, instead, CAP is on the side of the neocons, the “experts” who know so little about so much who have been wrong about, well, almost everything for a long time.

Independent journalist Jeremy Scahill is author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He is a frequent contributor to The Nation magazine and a correspondent for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now! He is currently a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute.

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Thousands flee bomb attacks by US drones

April 6, 2009

Daud Khattakin and Christina Lamb | The Sunday Times, April 5, 2009

AMERICAN drone attacks on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan are causing a massive humanitarian emergency, Pakistani officials claimed after a new attack yesterday killed 13 people.

[File photo shows a US "Predator" drone passing overhead at a forward operating base near Kandahar. (AFP/Joel Saget)]File photo shows a US “Predator” drone passing overhead at a forward operating base near Kandahar. (AFP/Joel Saget)

The dead and injured included foreign militants, but women and children were also killed when two missiles hit a house in the village of Data Khel, near the Afghan border, according to local officials.As many as 1m people have fled their homes in the Tribal Areas to escape attacks by the unmanned spy planes as well as bombings by the Pakistani army. In Bajaur agency entire villages have been flattened by Pakistani troops under growing American pressure to act against Al-Qaeda militants, who have made the area their base.

Kacha Garhi is one of 11 tented camps across Pakistan’s frontier province once used by Afghan refugees and now inhabited by hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis made homeless in their own land.

So far 546,000 have registered as internally displaced people (IDPs) according to figures provided by Rabia Ali, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Maqbool Shah Roghani, administrator for IDPs at the Commission for Afghan Refugees.

The commissioner’s office says there are thousands more unregistered people who have taken refuge with relatives and friends or who are in rented accommodation.

Jamil Amjad, the commissioner in charge of the refugees, says the government is running short of resources to feed and shelter such large numbers. A fortnight ago two refugees were killed and six injured in clashes with police during protests over shortages of water, food and tents.

On the road outside Kacha Garhi camp, eight-year-old Zafarullah and his little brother are among a number of children begging for coins and scraps. “I want to go back to my village and school,” he said.

With the attacks increasing, refugees have little hope of returning home and conditions in the camps will worsen as summer approaches and the temperatures soar.

Many have terrible stories. Baksha Zeb lost everything when his village, Anayat Kalay in Bajaur, was demolished by Pakistani forces. His eight-year-old son is a kidney patient needing dialysis and he has been left with no means to pay.

“Our houses have been flattened, our cattle killed and our farms and crops destroyed,” he complained. “There is not a single structure in my village still standing. There is no way we can go back.”

He sold his taxi to pay for food for his family and treatment for his son but the money has almost run out. “God bestowed me with a son after 15 years of marriage,” he said. “Now I have no job and I don’t know how we will survive.”

Pakistani forces say they have killed 1,500 militants since launching antiTaliban operations in Bajaur in August. Locals who fled claim that only civilians were killed.

Zeb said he saw dozens of his friends and relatives killed. Villagers were forced to leave bodies unburied as they fled.

Pakistani officials say drone attacks have been stepped up since President Barack Obama took office in Washington, killing at least 81 people. A suicide attacker blew himself up inside a paramilitary base in Islamabad, killing six soldiers and wounding five yesterday.

Copyright 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd.

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Peace talk, war reality

April 6, 2009

Editorial

Morning Star Online, April 5, 2009

IT is certainly true that US President Barack Obama’s broad and inclusive public persona is a welcome change from the narrow bigoted fundamentalism of his predecessor George W Bush.

And it is refreshing, albeit faintly incredible, to hear the commander-in-chief of the largest nuclear power in the world say that the US seeks “the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons” and continue that the US is “ready to lead,” has a “moral responsibility to act” and stands for the right of everybody to live free of fear in the 21st century.

It is only when one stands back from the dizzy power of Mr Obama’s rhetoric and measures it against the cold realities of world politics that the doubts start to crowd in like the qhost of Christmas past steaming in on Ebenezer Scrooge.

For someone so vocally committed to nuclear detente and eventual disarmament, President Obama cuts a strange figure on the world stage, mixing mixing peace talk with a cold-warrior reality which would not disgrace the most right-wing of his predecessors.

On the one hand stands a man who declares that “the world must stand together and prevent the spread of these weapons.”

But on the other stands a president in control of sufficient nuclear firepower to turn large tracts of the world into nuclear wastelands.

The man proclaims “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” but the president continues to support Israel, whose illegal nuclear weapons clearly classify it as a rogue state among the nations of the world.

He shamelessly continues to use nuclear-armed Israel to counterbalance the regional influence of Iran and, to preserve the integrity of that counterweight, argues and threatens against an Iranian nuclear capacity while blithely disregarding the Israeli nuclear crime.

Mr Obama says that the “most immediate and extreme threat to global security” is terrorists possessing nuclear weapons.

But he continues to disregard the role of his own massive nuclear arsenal in making that possession into a logical aspiration for any organisation, be it nationally or religiously led, that wishes to become a force in world politics.

His condemnation of North Korea’s launch of a rocket on Sunday would have carried considerably more authority if it had come from a president who didn’t have a lackey following him around with the nuclear red button always within reach.

None of this is to say that Mr Obama’s initiative in reopening the issue of nuclear arms reduction should be rejected as phoney. Quitethe reverse.

Substantial bilateral reductions in the world’s nuclear arsenal would be an enormous forward move in any event.

The world would be much safer for such reductions and they should be pursued with eagerness.

But the fact remains that US influence to remove the perceived threat of an Iranian nuclear capability should be accompanied by the use of that influence to neutralise the Israeli arsenal.

And any bilateral talks should be predicated on an acknowledgement that war, whether nuclear or conventional, is not the continuation of politics by other means, but an outrage perpetrated on the weak by the strong and an inappropriate response from a man who wishes to be seen as a peacemaker.

And US policy on Afghanistan and Iran must reflect just that.

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