The decision to deliver a death sentence to Tariq Aziz has caused a stir in the international community.
Mark Seddon Last Modified: 27 Oct 2010 10:02 GMT
The decision passed down by Iraq's high tribunal to sentence Tariq Aziz, former foreign minister to death, has caused a stir in the international community. However, it is unlikely many, if any, will speak out against the decision [EPA]
So what really lies behind the decision by Iraq's high tribunal to pass a death sentence on Tariq Aziz, long serving Iraqi foreign minister and number two to Saddam Hussein? The decision has caused shock waves around the World, largely because the sentence has the feel of vengeance to it. The Iraqi High Tribunal took what must be a highly unusual step in effectively rescinding the earlier judgments against him. For Tariq Aziz’s twenty seven year sentence has effectively been reduced to a matter of months by his death sentence. Aziz has now been found guilty of “the persecution of Islamic parties”, whose leaders were assassinated, imprisoned or forced into exile.
One of Saddam’s main targets was – according to the high tribunal - the Islamic Dawa party of current Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite Muslim. Presumably there was enough proof to show that Tariq Aziz was involved with this persecution as well, and if so we can be fairly certain that retribution has indeed played a part in his death sentence. How ironic then that many Western Governments seemed so content for Saddam’s regime to contain Islamic parties at the time. But don’t hold your breath; it seems fairly unlikely that there will be calls for clemency from Washington and London.
Tariq Aziz is of course a Chaldean Christian, who along with the Assyrian Christians, have suffered terribly since the War, with more than half of their number now living in exile. Being the only Christian in a secular Ba’athist dictatorship was a factor apparently exploited by Saddam, with veiled threats being made periodically to Aziz’s family. I remember being in Iraq and hearing that Aziz feared Saddam, and that he was only too aware of the fragility of his family’s safety. Which is not to excuse Aziz for “following orders”, but it may go some way to explain why Aziz stayed in Baghdad even when it was obvious to him, if not Saddam, that America and Britain were deadly serious about invading. It was even rumoured at the time that Aziz was playing a double game towards the end – certainly that was my view when he was first incarcerated when the war ended. I fully expected him to be released in five years and retire to a bungalow in Beirut.
I reported from inside Iraq on two occasions just before the war began. I remember seeing Aziz in the foyer of the Al Rasheed hotel in Baghdad, playing court to the Nationalist Russian leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky and the late Austrian far right leader, Jorg Haider. Eventually my requests to interview him paid off. I was taken to the Foreign Ministry in a blacked out limousine, into an underground car park, and up in an elevator to the echoing corridors. Aziz was sitting alone in a large armchair, Iraqi flags to his left and right puffing on an extra large cigar. He told me that “I have met your Mr Heath and Mrs Thatcher, but not your Mr Blair”.
“Please tell Mr Blair that we have no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq”, said Aziz. “Please tell him that he is welcome to come here, or send anyone who wishes to see for themselves”. I wasn’t sure just how serious Aziz was with his offer, particularly since each attempt over the preceding week to be allowed to visit some of the sites identified by Western intelligence as containing WMD were turned down with ever more ludicrous excuses. But having interviewed the former head of the UNSCOM weapons inspections team, Scott Ritter at some length, I was pretty sure that Aziz was telling the truth about WMD when he said Iraq didn’t have any. At the time I was also an elected member of the UK Labour Party’s ruling National Executive, so I did pass the message on to Tony Blair, who looked at me quizzically. He later joked to junior Foreign Minister, Chris Mullin that “the Iraqis must be getting desperate if they are talking to Mark Seddon”.
Some months after the war ended, I began wondering what had happened to Tariq Aziz. After all he had handed himself over to the Americans when they arrived in Baghdad. I finally managed to track his wife and two sons down to a hotel in Amman, Jordan, where they were being looked after by Chaldean Christians. Mrs Aziz was distraught, as she had learned that her husband had suffered a heart attack in custody. She had finally managed to trace Tariq Aziz to a prison holding camp near Baghdad airport, and had but a very short note scrawled by her husband saying “Don’t worry, I am ok”, which had been delivered to her by the Red Cross. One of Aziz’s sons was already contemplating moving to America to qualify as a dentist, although I recall advising him at the time that he might need to change his name before he could get a visa, as ‘Saddam Aziz’ was unlikely to go down well with US Homeland Security.
Tariq Aziz is 74, and in poor health. He has been for a long time. Given his sentence, it seems unlikely that he will ever leave custody, except in a wooden box. But vengeance is clearly a powerful motivating force. Nor should he expect much help from many of those Western politicians who used to pay homage to him back in the 1980s, when Iraq was an invaluable ally against the Ayatollah’s Iran. I even remember seeing pictures of Donald Rumsfeld watching Iraqi rockets being fired on the Fawr Peninsula – rockets he had been very keen to sell them. Perhaps Aziz, who could tell the whole story of Western involvement in Iraq, before, during and after the war, is simply too embarrassing and potentially compromising a figure to be allowed to live out his days in prison.
Mark Seddon is a writer and broadcaster. He is the former United Nations correspondent for Al Jazeera English. He currently writes for among others, The Guardian, The Independent, Daily Mail, Spectator, New Statesman, and Private Eye. He is a former editor of Tribune.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Media war: WikiLeaks v the Pentagon
Analysing the media coverage of the latest WikiLeaks release reveals some interesting insights.
Danny Schechter Last Modified: 25 Oct 2010 16:07 GMT
The Pentagon is engaged in a different kind of conflictp; an information war with Julian Assange's WikiLeaks website has significantly eroded the credibility of US military planning, protocol and enactment [EPA]
It happened on a Friday, the anniversary of the first US casualties of the Vietnam War way back in 1957. It was also the anniversary, in 1964, of French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre’s announcement that he was turning down the Nobel Prize.
It was the day this year that the often shadowy WikiLeaks, chief nemesis of the Pentagon, maybe their worst nightmare - considered perhaps even more dangerous than the Taliban - surfaced again with the largest public drop of secret military documents in history. WikiLeaks is a public web site run by the Sunshine Press, a non-profit group.
WikiLeaks introduced the significance of their immense treasure trove of secrets on their website this way: “The 391,832 reports ('The Iraq War Logs'), document the war and occupation in Iraq, from 1st January 2004 to 31st December 2009 (except for the months of May 2004 and March 2009) as told by soldiers in the United States Army. Each is a 'SIGACT' or Significant Action in the war. They detail events as seen and heard by the US military troops on the ground in Iraq and are the first real glimpse into the secret history of the war that the United States government has been privy to throughout.”
This time around, and unlike the earlier dissemination of what they called Afghan "war logs," they sanitized these documents to remove names that might become targets for retribution. The gesture did not satisfy the Pentagon, which said they would provide aid and comfort to the enemy. Forcibly retired General Stanley McCrystal called the release "sad."
The Los Angeles Times reported, "In addition to the Times, the documents were made available to the Guardian newspaper in London, the French newspaper Le Monde, Al Jazeera and the German magazine Der Spiegel, on an embargoed basis."
The New York Times said it had edited or withheld any documents that would "put lives in danger or jeopardize continuing military operations." It said it redacted the names of informants, a particular concern of the defence department.
The Pentagon had been bracing for the release for months. Fearing more compromises of national security and more embarrassment for practices they wanted hidden, they had set up a WikiLeaks war room staffed with 120 operatives in anticipation.
A special intelligence unit called the Red Cell was involved. The task has been to prod the American spy networks to operate in a cleverer and more intelligent manner. (Ironically, WikiLeaks had leaked some of their internal reports earlier.)
One report dealt with perceptions abroad that the US supported terrorists. Another was oriented toward how to sell support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in Western Europe, counseling that “counting on apathy is not enough."
I can testify to their savvy. I met members of the unit at a University of Westminister conference on war and terrorism in London in September. There were three of them. Two stood out because of their crew cuts and military demeanor. A third was a Muslim woman. They were clearly on a reconnaissance mission probably linked to WikiLeaks detection since it had been reported that English students were helping the covert citizen agency target covert government activities.
I spoke at some length with their leader, an active-duty army major, who told me that his unit in Iraq handled high-value prisoners, including Saddam Hussein. (They escorted him to the hangman, he revealed.) He was very friendly and made no secret of his affiliation but clearly was not at a leftist academic conference to collect footnotes.
As we know now, the Pentagon was unable to stop the release, but may have pressured WikiLeaks not to name names. We may never know what happened until WikiLeaks finds some document about their anti-WikiLeaks operations.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange accused the Pentagon of more than document editing. CNN reported, "The founder of WikiLeaks was denied a Swedish residency permit on Monday and said his whistleblowing website had been cut off by a company that handled many of its donations. Julian Assange blamed the financial cutoff on the US government, which denied any involvement.”
He had earlier intimated the United States might have been behind the other incidents in Sweden that led to his being accused of sexual harassment: so-called "honey pot traps" used in seduction scenarios have always been part of espionage operations.
A week earlier, an American veteran of the Iraq "surge" published an open letter urging the administration to heed the revelations and change its policies.
Josh Stieber wrote:
Dear members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and other willing parties, this is an anticipatory letter aimed to advise you on your response and responsibility for the coming WikiLeaks release, expected on October 23rd. Based on the White House’s response to the last leak about Afghanistan, the temptation seems strong to once again divert attention away from accountability. I write as a young veteran who once fully embraced the concept of a preemptive war to keep my fellow citizens safe and, as President Bush declared, because 'America is a friend to the people of Iraq.' I now hope to preempt your response to the information regarding that war in which I fought.
The full brunt of the US response has yet to be felt. The media outlets that worked with WikiLeaks have a new scoop of unprecedented depth and dimension. Yet the different ways media outlets reported the disclosures reveals continuing media biases against allegations of torture.
The New York Times played up the revelations in a page-one spread but downplayed their meaning writing: "…the Iraq documents provide no earthshaking revelations, but they offer insight, texture and context from the people actually fighting the war".
Not surprisingly, reports of widespread torture that American forces knew about,and in some cases reported with nothing done, is not "earthshaking". Unreported civilian deaths numbering 15,000 are also minimized. The Times devoted more ink to evidence of abuses by Iraqi forces without mentioning most were trained by Americans who were the occupying power. It fleshes out US military allegations of Iranian intervention more than reports of killings by American soldiers, an emphasis that conveniently contributes to the demonization of Iran by American politicians.
Contrast this with the Guardian coverage which called its package "Iraq: The War Logs," and goes high with revelations of "serial detainee abuse" and "15,000 [previously] unknown civilian deaths".
The Times approach infuriated writer Rob Beschizza, who came up with what he called "The New York Times Torture Euphemism Generator".
"Reading the NYT's stories about the Iraq War logs, I was struck by how it could get through such gruesome descriptions - fingers chopped off, chemicals splashed on prisoners - without using the word 'torture.' For some reason the word is unavailable when it is literally meaningful, yet is readily tossed around for laughs in contexts where it means nothing at all."
Oddly, the New York Times-owned Boston Globe had no reservations in using torture in its headline.
The New York -ased Columbia Journalism Review surveyed global coverage and, weirdly, criticized Al Jazeera for a video it produced: "All in all, Al Jazeera's coverage of the secret files is straightforward, except perhaps for a six-and-a-half minute documentary video posted prominently throughout the site, a video that is awkwardly edited and features weird, cable-TV-style reenactments and dramatic readings of some of the reports." This condescending comment betrays a lack of insight into the differences between TV coverage and newspaper formulas.
While all of the press seems to be reporting the story, few media outlets are going back to their own coverage and acknowledging how they had failed at the time, to report many of the atrocities we now know the US military knew about, and covered up. One glaring example: the killings that took place in Fallujah, where Al Jazeera correspondents were banned.
Much of the media, as we now see, especially leading American media outlets, were complicit in a multi-year cover-up of truths and crimes that continue to this day, not just in Iraq or Afghanistan, but in our living rooms at home.
Danny Schechter, made the film Plunder The Crime of Our Time about the financial crisis as a crime story (Plunderthecrimeofourtime.com) and blogs for Mediachannel.org.
Danny Schechter Last Modified: 25 Oct 2010 16:07 GMT
The Pentagon is engaged in a different kind of conflictp; an information war with Julian Assange's WikiLeaks website has significantly eroded the credibility of US military planning, protocol and enactment [EPA]
It happened on a Friday, the anniversary of the first US casualties of the Vietnam War way back in 1957. It was also the anniversary, in 1964, of French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre’s announcement that he was turning down the Nobel Prize.
It was the day this year that the often shadowy WikiLeaks, chief nemesis of the Pentagon, maybe their worst nightmare - considered perhaps even more dangerous than the Taliban - surfaced again with the largest public drop of secret military documents in history. WikiLeaks is a public web site run by the Sunshine Press, a non-profit group.
WikiLeaks introduced the significance of their immense treasure trove of secrets on their website this way: “The 391,832 reports ('The Iraq War Logs'), document the war and occupation in Iraq, from 1st January 2004 to 31st December 2009 (except for the months of May 2004 and March 2009) as told by soldiers in the United States Army. Each is a 'SIGACT' or Significant Action in the war. They detail events as seen and heard by the US military troops on the ground in Iraq and are the first real glimpse into the secret history of the war that the United States government has been privy to throughout.”
This time around, and unlike the earlier dissemination of what they called Afghan "war logs," they sanitized these documents to remove names that might become targets for retribution. The gesture did not satisfy the Pentagon, which said they would provide aid and comfort to the enemy. Forcibly retired General Stanley McCrystal called the release "sad."
The Los Angeles Times reported, "In addition to the Times, the documents were made available to the Guardian newspaper in London, the French newspaper Le Monde, Al Jazeera and the German magazine Der Spiegel, on an embargoed basis."
The New York Times said it had edited or withheld any documents that would "put lives in danger or jeopardize continuing military operations." It said it redacted the names of informants, a particular concern of the defence department.
The Pentagon had been bracing for the release for months. Fearing more compromises of national security and more embarrassment for practices they wanted hidden, they had set up a WikiLeaks war room staffed with 120 operatives in anticipation.
A special intelligence unit called the Red Cell was involved. The task has been to prod the American spy networks to operate in a cleverer and more intelligent manner. (Ironically, WikiLeaks had leaked some of their internal reports earlier.)
One report dealt with perceptions abroad that the US supported terrorists. Another was oriented toward how to sell support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in Western Europe, counseling that “counting on apathy is not enough."
I can testify to their savvy. I met members of the unit at a University of Westminister conference on war and terrorism in London in September. There were three of them. Two stood out because of their crew cuts and military demeanor. A third was a Muslim woman. They were clearly on a reconnaissance mission probably linked to WikiLeaks detection since it had been reported that English students were helping the covert citizen agency target covert government activities.
I spoke at some length with their leader, an active-duty army major, who told me that his unit in Iraq handled high-value prisoners, including Saddam Hussein. (They escorted him to the hangman, he revealed.) He was very friendly and made no secret of his affiliation but clearly was not at a leftist academic conference to collect footnotes.
As we know now, the Pentagon was unable to stop the release, but may have pressured WikiLeaks not to name names. We may never know what happened until WikiLeaks finds some document about their anti-WikiLeaks operations.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange accused the Pentagon of more than document editing. CNN reported, "The founder of WikiLeaks was denied a Swedish residency permit on Monday and said his whistleblowing website had been cut off by a company that handled many of its donations. Julian Assange blamed the financial cutoff on the US government, which denied any involvement.”
He had earlier intimated the United States might have been behind the other incidents in Sweden that led to his being accused of sexual harassment: so-called "honey pot traps" used in seduction scenarios have always been part of espionage operations.
A week earlier, an American veteran of the Iraq "surge" published an open letter urging the administration to heed the revelations and change its policies.
Josh Stieber wrote:
Dear members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and other willing parties, this is an anticipatory letter aimed to advise you on your response and responsibility for the coming WikiLeaks release, expected on October 23rd. Based on the White House’s response to the last leak about Afghanistan, the temptation seems strong to once again divert attention away from accountability. I write as a young veteran who once fully embraced the concept of a preemptive war to keep my fellow citizens safe and, as President Bush declared, because 'America is a friend to the people of Iraq.' I now hope to preempt your response to the information regarding that war in which I fought.
The full brunt of the US response has yet to be felt. The media outlets that worked with WikiLeaks have a new scoop of unprecedented depth and dimension. Yet the different ways media outlets reported the disclosures reveals continuing media biases against allegations of torture.
The New York Times played up the revelations in a page-one spread but downplayed their meaning writing: "…the Iraq documents provide no earthshaking revelations, but they offer insight, texture and context from the people actually fighting the war".
Not surprisingly, reports of widespread torture that American forces knew about,and in some cases reported with nothing done, is not "earthshaking". Unreported civilian deaths numbering 15,000 are also minimized. The Times devoted more ink to evidence of abuses by Iraqi forces without mentioning most were trained by Americans who were the occupying power. It fleshes out US military allegations of Iranian intervention more than reports of killings by American soldiers, an emphasis that conveniently contributes to the demonization of Iran by American politicians.
Contrast this with the Guardian coverage which called its package "Iraq: The War Logs," and goes high with revelations of "serial detainee abuse" and "15,000 [previously] unknown civilian deaths".
The Times approach infuriated writer Rob Beschizza, who came up with what he called "The New York Times Torture Euphemism Generator".
"Reading the NYT's stories about the Iraq War logs, I was struck by how it could get through such gruesome descriptions - fingers chopped off, chemicals splashed on prisoners - without using the word 'torture.' For some reason the word is unavailable when it is literally meaningful, yet is readily tossed around for laughs in contexts where it means nothing at all."
Oddly, the New York Times-owned Boston Globe had no reservations in using torture in its headline.
The New York -ased Columbia Journalism Review surveyed global coverage and, weirdly, criticized Al Jazeera for a video it produced: "All in all, Al Jazeera's coverage of the secret files is straightforward, except perhaps for a six-and-a-half minute documentary video posted prominently throughout the site, a video that is awkwardly edited and features weird, cable-TV-style reenactments and dramatic readings of some of the reports." This condescending comment betrays a lack of insight into the differences between TV coverage and newspaper formulas.
While all of the press seems to be reporting the story, few media outlets are going back to their own coverage and acknowledging how they had failed at the time, to report many of the atrocities we now know the US military knew about, and covered up. One glaring example: the killings that took place in Fallujah, where Al Jazeera correspondents were banned.
Much of the media, as we now see, especially leading American media outlets, were complicit in a multi-year cover-up of truths and crimes that continue to this day, not just in Iraq or Afghanistan, but in our living rooms at home.
Danny Schechter, made the film Plunder The Crime of Our Time about the financial crisis as a crime story (Plunderthecrimeofourtime.com) and blogs for Mediachannel.org.
And the real enemy is ...
The US will continue to fail to convince Arabs that Iran, not Israel, poses the greatest threat to regional stability.
Lamis Andoni Last Modified: 25 Oct 2010 16:10 GMT
Ahmadinejad received a rapturous welcome on his first visit to Lebanon since taking office in 2005 [EPA]
No sooner had Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, left Beirut last week, than Jeffrey Feltman, the US secretary of state for Near East affairs, arrived in the Lebanese capital.
Washington wasted no time in seeking to counter what it views as Iran's growing influence across the Arab world and Ahmadinejad's message of resistance to Israel.
But it is precisely that message that has so far foiled the US' relentless efforts to form a regional security pact to isolate and confront Tehran. Washington has failed - and will continue to fail - to convince Arabs that Iran, not Israel, is the real enemy.
A sectarian formula
This does not mean that Iran's agenda in the region has been entirely palatable to Arab states. It has been complicit in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, where its position remains opportunistic and deeply sectarian.
But Washington has no issue with that aspect of Iranian foreign policy. It was, after all, the US invasion that fed sectarian divisions within Iraq. And Washington has been happy to champion Shia political parties within the country in order to suppress its rich pan-Arab identity - all while being opposed to the Lebanese Shia group, Hezbollah.
That Washington does not have a favourite sect is not evidence of its commitment to secularism. It supports different sectarian formulas in Iraq and Lebanon to guarantee that neither country poses a threat to Israel.
In Lebanon, sectarianism has been employed to prevent national unity. And when that has not been sufficient Israeli wars have been used to quell resistance - whether by a Palestinian coalition with Lebanese leftists and pan-Arabists in 1982 or by Hezbollah in 2006.
But these wars backfired: The 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon created Hezbollah, while the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000 and the 2006 war anointed the movement as the only Arab force to defeat Israel in a major battle.
Marginalising Palestine
Through Hezbollah's triumphs, Iran has consolidated its influence in Lebanon and enhanced its image as the region's counter power to Israel. For in Iran, just as in the Arab world, confronting Israel helps to legitimise a regime.
The Iranian regime stepped into this role almost immediately after the 1978 revolution that transformed the country from a gendarme for US interests and an Israeli ally into a champion of the Palestinian cause.
Even the Iran-Iraq war failed to unanimously rally Arabs against Tehran, as evidenced when a 1981 US-backed summit intended to form an axis against Iran was boycotted by most Arab parties, including the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). The majority of Arabs simply refused to see Iran as posing a greater threat than Israel.
In fact, the eruption of the first intifada in 1987 came about partly as a reaction to another US-backed summit, which sought to establish Iran as the main enemy of the Arab world - and in so doing to marginalise the Palestinian cause.
Yasser Arafat, the then PLO leader, was snubbed by the Jordanian hosts of the summit and by other Arab regimes, prompting him to boycott the official dinner and to declare that Palestine remained the core issue for the region. This attempt to humiliate the PLO provoked visible anger in the West Bank and Gaza Strip - a sentiment that was openly expressed during the intifada when it erupted less than a month later.
Fake peace process
But the US did not learn its lesson. More than two decades later it is still trying to create an Arab axis against Iran, while expecting Arabs to ignore Israeli occupation and aggression. And while a US-backed so-called 'moderate' axis comprising Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and Kuwait does exist - brought together by legitimate and fictional fears of Iranian meddling in their affairs - none see a bigger threat to regional stability than Israeli expansionism.
These countries have often urged the US to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace in order to enable them to effectively help in countering Iran. But consecutive US administrations have instead pushed a fake peace process focused more on solidifying Israeli supremacy than addressing the root causes of the conflict. The current administration's 'enthusiasm' for a resumption of the stalled Israeli-Palestinian talks is no different and is motivated more by a desire to provide a cover for its drive against Iran than achieving a suitable and just settlement to the conflict.
Israel is now openly lobbying the West to either declare war on Iran or to support an Israeli strike against the country - or at least its nuclear facilities. It uses the Iranian president's rhetorical threats to justify this, but for all Ahmadinejad's words it is Israel that is engaged in the real and systematic destruction of lands and lives.
But the US and Israel do not fear that Iran poses a real, existential threat. It is the deterrence Iranian power represents that they seek to eliminate, thus allowing Israel to freely pursue its aggressive expansionist policies.
For its part, the US is opposed to the existence of a regional power that it does not consider an ally. So when Ahmadinejad was warmly welcomed in Beirut, Feltman made an unscheduled visit to protest against "Iran meddling in Lebanon's affairs".
The former US ambassador to Lebanon, known for his constant meddling in Lebanese affairs, was declaring Lebanon - and with it the Arab world - to be within the US' sphere of influence.
Vying for influence
This is not to say that Iran is not also vying for regional influence - something stressed by an Iranian parliamentarian who declared that Ahmadinejad's visit asserted "Iran's supremacy". And there is no doubt that Iran's agenda is not always compatible with Lebanese or, more broadly, Arab interests. But its support for Hezbollah in its battles against Israel has elevated its status among the Arab public in a way that no anti-Iranian Arab axis can deny or top.
The real problem is that US meddling and support for Israel obstructs any critical discussion of Iran's role in the region. The US has no interest in such a discourse because it simply expects Arabs to endorse its own agenda, including normalising ties with Israel even as it continues to suppress Palestinian rights.
But none of the US' Arab allies would dare - or could afford - to follow the American line completely, particularly if this includes a strike against Iran. For Arab governments would then be pressed to explain their support for a war against Iran, when they have so clearly failed to confront Israel.
The US-led war against Iraq shattered any illusions that the US could bring stability or democracy to the region - a fact that even its staunchest Arab allies are aware of. And there is a growing awareness that both Iran and the US - and in a different way, Turkey - have been vying to fill a political gap resulting from Arab weakness.
But Washington is truly delusional if it thinks it can defeat Iran by convincing Arabs that its pro-Israeli agenda could bring peace and stability, let alone justice to the region.
Lamis Andoni is an analyst and commentator on Middle Eastern and Palestinian affairs.
Lamis Andoni Last Modified: 25 Oct 2010 16:10 GMT
Ahmadinejad received a rapturous welcome on his first visit to Lebanon since taking office in 2005 [EPA]
No sooner had Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, left Beirut last week, than Jeffrey Feltman, the US secretary of state for Near East affairs, arrived in the Lebanese capital.
Washington wasted no time in seeking to counter what it views as Iran's growing influence across the Arab world and Ahmadinejad's message of resistance to Israel.
But it is precisely that message that has so far foiled the US' relentless efforts to form a regional security pact to isolate and confront Tehran. Washington has failed - and will continue to fail - to convince Arabs that Iran, not Israel, is the real enemy.
A sectarian formula
This does not mean that Iran's agenda in the region has been entirely palatable to Arab states. It has been complicit in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, where its position remains opportunistic and deeply sectarian.
But Washington has no issue with that aspect of Iranian foreign policy. It was, after all, the US invasion that fed sectarian divisions within Iraq. And Washington has been happy to champion Shia political parties within the country in order to suppress its rich pan-Arab identity - all while being opposed to the Lebanese Shia group, Hezbollah.
That Washington does not have a favourite sect is not evidence of its commitment to secularism. It supports different sectarian formulas in Iraq and Lebanon to guarantee that neither country poses a threat to Israel.
In Lebanon, sectarianism has been employed to prevent national unity. And when that has not been sufficient Israeli wars have been used to quell resistance - whether by a Palestinian coalition with Lebanese leftists and pan-Arabists in 1982 or by Hezbollah in 2006.
But these wars backfired: The 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon created Hezbollah, while the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000 and the 2006 war anointed the movement as the only Arab force to defeat Israel in a major battle.
Marginalising Palestine
Through Hezbollah's triumphs, Iran has consolidated its influence in Lebanon and enhanced its image as the region's counter power to Israel. For in Iran, just as in the Arab world, confronting Israel helps to legitimise a regime.
The Iranian regime stepped into this role almost immediately after the 1978 revolution that transformed the country from a gendarme for US interests and an Israeli ally into a champion of the Palestinian cause.
Even the Iran-Iraq war failed to unanimously rally Arabs against Tehran, as evidenced when a 1981 US-backed summit intended to form an axis against Iran was boycotted by most Arab parties, including the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). The majority of Arabs simply refused to see Iran as posing a greater threat than Israel.
In fact, the eruption of the first intifada in 1987 came about partly as a reaction to another US-backed summit, which sought to establish Iran as the main enemy of the Arab world - and in so doing to marginalise the Palestinian cause.
Yasser Arafat, the then PLO leader, was snubbed by the Jordanian hosts of the summit and by other Arab regimes, prompting him to boycott the official dinner and to declare that Palestine remained the core issue for the region. This attempt to humiliate the PLO provoked visible anger in the West Bank and Gaza Strip - a sentiment that was openly expressed during the intifada when it erupted less than a month later.
Fake peace process
But the US did not learn its lesson. More than two decades later it is still trying to create an Arab axis against Iran, while expecting Arabs to ignore Israeli occupation and aggression. And while a US-backed so-called 'moderate' axis comprising Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and Kuwait does exist - brought together by legitimate and fictional fears of Iranian meddling in their affairs - none see a bigger threat to regional stability than Israeli expansionism.
These countries have often urged the US to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace in order to enable them to effectively help in countering Iran. But consecutive US administrations have instead pushed a fake peace process focused more on solidifying Israeli supremacy than addressing the root causes of the conflict. The current administration's 'enthusiasm' for a resumption of the stalled Israeli-Palestinian talks is no different and is motivated more by a desire to provide a cover for its drive against Iran than achieving a suitable and just settlement to the conflict.
Israel is now openly lobbying the West to either declare war on Iran or to support an Israeli strike against the country - or at least its nuclear facilities. It uses the Iranian president's rhetorical threats to justify this, but for all Ahmadinejad's words it is Israel that is engaged in the real and systematic destruction of lands and lives.
But the US and Israel do not fear that Iran poses a real, existential threat. It is the deterrence Iranian power represents that they seek to eliminate, thus allowing Israel to freely pursue its aggressive expansionist policies.
For its part, the US is opposed to the existence of a regional power that it does not consider an ally. So when Ahmadinejad was warmly welcomed in Beirut, Feltman made an unscheduled visit to protest against "Iran meddling in Lebanon's affairs".
The former US ambassador to Lebanon, known for his constant meddling in Lebanese affairs, was declaring Lebanon - and with it the Arab world - to be within the US' sphere of influence.
Vying for influence
This is not to say that Iran is not also vying for regional influence - something stressed by an Iranian parliamentarian who declared that Ahmadinejad's visit asserted "Iran's supremacy". And there is no doubt that Iran's agenda is not always compatible with Lebanese or, more broadly, Arab interests. But its support for Hezbollah in its battles against Israel has elevated its status among the Arab public in a way that no anti-Iranian Arab axis can deny or top.
The real problem is that US meddling and support for Israel obstructs any critical discussion of Iran's role in the region. The US has no interest in such a discourse because it simply expects Arabs to endorse its own agenda, including normalising ties with Israel even as it continues to suppress Palestinian rights.
But none of the US' Arab allies would dare - or could afford - to follow the American line completely, particularly if this includes a strike against Iran. For Arab governments would then be pressed to explain their support for a war against Iran, when they have so clearly failed to confront Israel.
The US-led war against Iraq shattered any illusions that the US could bring stability or democracy to the region - a fact that even its staunchest Arab allies are aware of. And there is a growing awareness that both Iran and the US - and in a different way, Turkey - have been vying to fill a political gap resulting from Arab weakness.
But Washington is truly delusional if it thinks it can defeat Iran by convincing Arabs that its pro-Israeli agenda could bring peace and stability, let alone justice to the region.
Lamis Andoni is an analyst and commentator on Middle Eastern and Palestinian affairs.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Haiti cholera death toll nears 200
Outbreak threatens capital Port-au-Prince amid suspicion that actual number of deaths could surpass official figure.
Last Modified: 23 Oct 2010 20:07 GMT
The United Nations says that 194 Haitians have died in an outbreak of cholera that is threatening to spread to the capital, Port-au-Prince, endangering hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors sheltered in camps there.
The announcement on Saturday came as the disease began to spread outside the worst-affected rural Artibonite region, triggering fears that the toll could be significantly higher.
Officials in Haiti have admitted that they have not been able to visit all the areas, suggesting that many cases may not have been reported.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that 2,364 people have been sickened in the outbreak.
An Al Jazeera producer who visited the the National Hospital in the capital on Saturday saw two patients being treated for suspected cholera. They were treated alongside other patients before being isolated.
The first two cholera cases outside the Artibonite region were confirmed in Arcahaie, a town closer to the capital. Experts were also investigating possible cases in Croix-des-Bouquet, a suburb of the capital, and radio reports said there were two dozen cases of diarrhoea, which can be a symptom of cholera, on Gonave Island across the Gulf of Gonave from the capital.
Medical facilities in the port city of Saint-Marc were overcrowded with patients suffering from dehydration and diarrhoea - symptoms of cholera. The two suspected patients spotted at the National Hospital had come from Saint-Marc.
"There were bodies piling up in the morgue"
Sebastian Walker, Al Jazeera correspondent
Al Jazeera's Sebastian Walker, who visited the area on Saturday, said he saw first-hand the "extreme nature" of cholera during a visit to Saint-Marc.
"There were in that hospital people dying everytime we visited ... there were bodies piling up in the morgue," he said. "So certainly in that area...the situation is incredibly serious".
According to the UN, the Saint-Marc river has tested positive for cholera, Walker said, yet people are still drinking from it and using the river water to wash their dishes.
Aid groups and the government were rushing medical teams, medicine, clean water and water purification to the affected areas. The health ministry also declared a state of emergency in Artibonite.
'Very dangerous'
If the disease spreads into camps where those left homeless by the January 12 earthquake are sheltering, a public health crisis could be imminent. Sanitation in the camps is poor and the displaced have little access to clean water.
"It will be very, very dangerous,'' Claude Surena, president of the Haitian Medical Association, said. "Port-au-Prince already has more than 2.4 million people, and the way they are living is dangerous enough already. Clearly a lot more needs to be done.''
This is the first time cholera has struck Haiti since 1960, according to the UN.
More than 250,000 people were killed in the earthquake and another 1.2 million left homeless.
Jille Sanatus, a 55-year-old, was brought in by his son, Jordany. A doctor was struggling to stick a needle into his arm to place a drip.
"He's completely dehydrated, so it's difficult. It's hard to find the vein,'' Doctor Roasana Casimir said.
Casimir finally penetrated the vein and fluid began to trickle in, but half an hour later Sanatus was dead.
Cholera can kill within hours if not treated in time [AFP]
Two hospital employees carried the body to the morgue behind the hospital and placed it on the ground for the family to reclaim for a funeral.
Sanatus' son said the family had been drinking water from a river that the health minister has said tested positive for cholera.
Officials urged residents to take preventative action.
"One of the simplest things they can do is frequent handwashing. Personal hygiene. That does wonders," Jon Andrus, the deputy director of the Pan American Health Organisation, said.
"Chlorine is being provided so to take advantage of those measures that will ensure that anything ingested whether it be water or food is properly prepared and that the source of the water is safe and adequately treated."
Andrus said the number of cases will continue to grow because Haitians do not have any built-up immunity to cholera.
"As we know from our experience, with situations of cholera where there is no infrastructure to deal with the crisis, it just gets much worse. We have to expect that and react to it."
Unclean water
Cholera is transmitted by water but also by food that has been in contact with unclean water contaminated by cholera bacteria. The disease is easily treatable by rehydration and antibiotics but can kill within hours if not treated.
With a health system already in crisis, the outbreak is posing a serious threat to Haiti.
Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Only about $95 per person is spent on health care each year, and the country is heavily dependent on international relief organisations to provide medical aid.
The earthquake, which destroyed much of the country's infrastructure, dealt another blow to an already battered system.
The disaster destroyed 60 per cent of the existing health facilities in the worst affected areas and 10 per cent of medical staff were either killed or left the country, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres.
About one million Haitians, or about 10 per cent of the population, are living with little or no sanitation.
Last Modified: 23 Oct 2010 20:07 GMT
The United Nations says that 194 Haitians have died in an outbreak of cholera that is threatening to spread to the capital, Port-au-Prince, endangering hundreds of thousands of earthquake survivors sheltered in camps there.
The announcement on Saturday came as the disease began to spread outside the worst-affected rural Artibonite region, triggering fears that the toll could be significantly higher.
Officials in Haiti have admitted that they have not been able to visit all the areas, suggesting that many cases may not have been reported.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that 2,364 people have been sickened in the outbreak.
An Al Jazeera producer who visited the the National Hospital in the capital on Saturday saw two patients being treated for suspected cholera. They were treated alongside other patients before being isolated.
The first two cholera cases outside the Artibonite region were confirmed in Arcahaie, a town closer to the capital. Experts were also investigating possible cases in Croix-des-Bouquet, a suburb of the capital, and radio reports said there were two dozen cases of diarrhoea, which can be a symptom of cholera, on Gonave Island across the Gulf of Gonave from the capital.
Medical facilities in the port city of Saint-Marc were overcrowded with patients suffering from dehydration and diarrhoea - symptoms of cholera. The two suspected patients spotted at the National Hospital had come from Saint-Marc.
"There were bodies piling up in the morgue"
Sebastian Walker, Al Jazeera correspondent
Al Jazeera's Sebastian Walker, who visited the area on Saturday, said he saw first-hand the "extreme nature" of cholera during a visit to Saint-Marc.
"There were in that hospital people dying everytime we visited ... there were bodies piling up in the morgue," he said. "So certainly in that area...the situation is incredibly serious".
According to the UN, the Saint-Marc river has tested positive for cholera, Walker said, yet people are still drinking from it and using the river water to wash their dishes.
Aid groups and the government were rushing medical teams, medicine, clean water and water purification to the affected areas. The health ministry also declared a state of emergency in Artibonite.
'Very dangerous'
If the disease spreads into camps where those left homeless by the January 12 earthquake are sheltering, a public health crisis could be imminent. Sanitation in the camps is poor and the displaced have little access to clean water.
"It will be very, very dangerous,'' Claude Surena, president of the Haitian Medical Association, said. "Port-au-Prince already has more than 2.4 million people, and the way they are living is dangerous enough already. Clearly a lot more needs to be done.''
This is the first time cholera has struck Haiti since 1960, according to the UN.
More than 250,000 people were killed in the earthquake and another 1.2 million left homeless.
Jille Sanatus, a 55-year-old, was brought in by his son, Jordany. A doctor was struggling to stick a needle into his arm to place a drip.
"He's completely dehydrated, so it's difficult. It's hard to find the vein,'' Doctor Roasana Casimir said.
Casimir finally penetrated the vein and fluid began to trickle in, but half an hour later Sanatus was dead.
Cholera can kill within hours if not treated in time [AFP]
Two hospital employees carried the body to the morgue behind the hospital and placed it on the ground for the family to reclaim for a funeral.
Sanatus' son said the family had been drinking water from a river that the health minister has said tested positive for cholera.
Officials urged residents to take preventative action.
"One of the simplest things they can do is frequent handwashing. Personal hygiene. That does wonders," Jon Andrus, the deputy director of the Pan American Health Organisation, said.
"Chlorine is being provided so to take advantage of those measures that will ensure that anything ingested whether it be water or food is properly prepared and that the source of the water is safe and adequately treated."
Andrus said the number of cases will continue to grow because Haitians do not have any built-up immunity to cholera.
"As we know from our experience, with situations of cholera where there is no infrastructure to deal with the crisis, it just gets much worse. We have to expect that and react to it."
Unclean water
Cholera is transmitted by water but also by food that has been in contact with unclean water contaminated by cholera bacteria. The disease is easily treatable by rehydration and antibiotics but can kill within hours if not treated.
With a health system already in crisis, the outbreak is posing a serious threat to Haiti.
Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. Only about $95 per person is spent on health care each year, and the country is heavily dependent on international relief organisations to provide medical aid.
The earthquake, which destroyed much of the country's infrastructure, dealt another blow to an already battered system.
The disaster destroyed 60 per cent of the existing health facilities in the worst affected areas and 10 per cent of medical staff were either killed or left the country, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres.
About one million Haitians, or about 10 per cent of the population, are living with little or no sanitation.
The Secret Iraq Files: The War
Iraq files reveal checkpoint deaths
Almost 700 civilians, including pregnant women and the mentally ill, killed for coming too close to checkpoints.
Gregg Carlstrom Last Modified: 23 Oct 2010 18:28 GMT
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In September 2007, an Iraqi in a car ventured too close to a US patrol in Baghdad. The soldiers honked their horns; when that didn't cause the car to turn away, one of the gunners fired a warning shot. The bullet - intended to harmlessly hit the pavement - instead hit a bystander.
Gunner fires one warning shot from his M4. The bullet ricochets and hits one local national (9 year old girl). Patrol stops traffic at the intersection.
Andrew Bacevich, a military historian and retired US army colonel, wrote in 2006 that "such mistakes have occurred routinely, with moral and political consequences that have been too long ignored." That assessment is borne out by the leaked reports, which describe almost 14,000 "escalation of force" incidents – the army's euphemism for often-violent altercations that occurred at checkpoints and near patrols.
About 680 civilians were killed in these incidents between 2004 and 2010, with more than 2,000 wounded.
"Mistakes were made"
The "escalation of force" concept is supposed to reduce violence, since it requires US troops to use an escalating series of non-lethal measures before applying deadly force.
In many cases, though, these "escalations" had unintended consequences. According to the reports, more than 300 civilians were injured by warning shots that ricocheted off the pavement or other surfaces. (It's impossible to know, of course, whether these incidents are reported honestly, or whether soldiers sometimes report a poorly-aimed warning shot as a "ricochet.")
In several incidents – none of them fatal – soldiers fired warning shots at deaf and nearly-blind men who could not see or hear their verbal warnings. Several mentally ill men were killed: In February 2005, for example, US soldiers shot a man in Mahmoudiya when he ran too close to an approaching convoy. They only later learned that he was mentally ill and often begged for food in the area near the convoy's route.
Other incidents ended with what the military itself called a disproportionate use of force. In September 2005, after going through an appropriate escalation, two soldiers from the 1-155th infantry opened fire on an approaching vehicle with M249 machine guns. Both poured 100 bullets into the car – five or six seconds of sustained fire from a gun capable of shooting 1,000 rounds per minute.
Relatives of those killed were later awarded $10,000 compensation from the US military, which found the soldiers violated their rules of engagement.
"Escalation of force"
The rules of engagement in Iraq require soldiers and marines to cycle through a range of escalating warnings for vehicles that behave erratically at checkpoints or venture too close to patrols.
1. Verbal commands and hand signals to stop, plus other cues, like flashing lights and horns;
2. Warning shots, generally fired in front of the vehicle;
3. "Disabling shots," aimed first at the vehicle's engine block, and then at the driver.
At least a half-dozen incidents involved Iraqi men transporting their pregnant wives or family members to hospitals. A report narrates the incident in Ramadi in May 2005 that left two people wounded.
The engagement resulted in (1) male CWIA (urgent surgical, driver) and (1) female CWIA (front seat passenger). There was (1) pregnant female and her sister in the back seat of the vehicle with no injuries. The pregnant woman expressed that she was going into labour. At 0440D, the woman gave birth at the 1-503 in BAS at combat outpost. [[086:663]]
In another incident, in May 2006, a pregnant woman - Nahiba Jassim - was killed in a checkpoint shooting. She was being rushed to the maternity hospital in Samarra when the car was fired upon at a checkpoint; also killed was a cousin, Saliha Hassan.
One of the most striking things about the reports is the lack of followup: Only in rare cases do the units involved in the shootings update their reports with additional information about their targets.
Soldiers from the 2/12 Cavalry opened fire on a black BMW in Baghdad in July 2007 after the vehicle "failed to respond to hand and arm signals, green laser, paint ball gun, and warning shots".
The vehicle burst into flames after being shot with a .50 caliber machine gun. The report says that "ammunition [was] seen cooking off inside [the] vehicle," which would suggest that the car was carrying weapons (ordnance "cooks off" quickly when exposed to the heat of a fire).
But the passengers in the car were apparently a family – a man, a woman, and two children. No attempt is made to determine who the passengers were, or why their vehicle was seemingly loaded with ammunition: their remains are transported to a nearby hospital, and the file is closed.
Seven incidents per week
The number of reported incidents dropped sharply after 2007, from more than 3,500 to less than 1,600 in 2008. That was due, in part, to new rules intended to protect civilians – but also because Iraqi security forces, instead of Americans, had taken over an increasing number of checkpoints. "Escalation of force" incidents by Iraqi troops are not often reported by the US military.
Reading the Documents
* Glossary: Military jargon
* Editor's note: About the documents
Checkpoints were often the scene of deadly gun battles. One report, from August 2004, describes a shootout between Iraqi police and the Iraqi national guard at a checkpoint in Babil province.
At 1750D, an ING convoy coming from the Ad-Diwaniyah did not stop at an IPs CP at grid MA 455 958. The ING opened fire on the IPs. 3X IPs were WIA, though not seriously. The commander of the Al Hillah PS and 1BG commander went to the spot immediately. After a short negotiation the ING convoy left. Then the IPs fired a few bursts at the last vehicle of the convoy.
Dozens of other so-called "green-green" incidents – Iraqi forces attacking one another – are scattered throughout the reports. The altercations typically involve soldiers from different branches of Iraq's fragmented security services.
The reasons for the violence are often unclear. In February 2006, the Iraqi army stopped a vehicle carrying soldiers from the "public order brigades" (POB), a paramilitary force under the interior ministry. One of the POB soldiers was shot and killed; US forces investigating the shooting never did find out why.
Dozens of other reports document violent "escalations of force" between Iraqi security forces and the civilians they are supposed to protect. In July 2005, the Iraqi special police shot and killed an Iraqi pedestrian who did not stop at a checkpoint in Baghdad. They insisted that he was an attempted suicide bomber – until his family arrived and explained otherwise.
The LN family arrived and stated he is not AIF but mentally retarded. ISP [sic] still believed the IND was a suicide bomber. The family members moved forward to the LN and rolled him over exposing his abdomen. The LN had no suicide vest.
The US military started taking these incidents seriously in 2006, when General Peter Chiarelli - the then number-two military officer in Iraq - promised to investigate every one that resulted in casualties.
The reports also suggest that the US military understated the number of civilian casualties in "escalation of force" incidents. The US-based McClatchy newspaper group reported in July 2007 that the army said 429 Iraqi civilians were killed or wounded in the previous year. But the reports released by WikiLeaks place that figure higher, at 567, a 32 per cent difference.
Similarly, in June 2006, Chiarelli claimed that checkpoint killings had been reduced to roughly one per week, down from seven per week a year prior.
The leaked reports, though, show that 73 civilians were killed in "escalation of force" incidents in the five months before Chiarelli made that claim. That means an average of 3.5 civilians were killed each week in those incidents - better than 2005's average, but more than three times worse than Chiarelli's claim.
And the incidents have continued, at a pace of at least one per week, through the end of 2009, when the documents released by Wikileaks terminate.
Almost 700 civilians, including pregnant women and the mentally ill, killed for coming too close to checkpoints.
Gregg Carlstrom Last Modified: 23 Oct 2010 18:28 GMT
Email Article
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Print Article
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Send Feedback
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In September 2007, an Iraqi in a car ventured too close to a US patrol in Baghdad. The soldiers honked their horns; when that didn't cause the car to turn away, one of the gunners fired a warning shot. The bullet - intended to harmlessly hit the pavement - instead hit a bystander.
Gunner fires one warning shot from his M4. The bullet ricochets and hits one local national (9 year old girl). Patrol stops traffic at the intersection.
Andrew Bacevich, a military historian and retired US army colonel, wrote in 2006 that "such mistakes have occurred routinely, with moral and political consequences that have been too long ignored." That assessment is borne out by the leaked reports, which describe almost 14,000 "escalation of force" incidents – the army's euphemism for often-violent altercations that occurred at checkpoints and near patrols.
About 680 civilians were killed in these incidents between 2004 and 2010, with more than 2,000 wounded.
"Mistakes were made"
The "escalation of force" concept is supposed to reduce violence, since it requires US troops to use an escalating series of non-lethal measures before applying deadly force.
In many cases, though, these "escalations" had unintended consequences. According to the reports, more than 300 civilians were injured by warning shots that ricocheted off the pavement or other surfaces. (It's impossible to know, of course, whether these incidents are reported honestly, or whether soldiers sometimes report a poorly-aimed warning shot as a "ricochet.")
In several incidents – none of them fatal – soldiers fired warning shots at deaf and nearly-blind men who could not see or hear their verbal warnings. Several mentally ill men were killed: In February 2005, for example, US soldiers shot a man in Mahmoudiya when he ran too close to an approaching convoy. They only later learned that he was mentally ill and often begged for food in the area near the convoy's route.
Other incidents ended with what the military itself called a disproportionate use of force. In September 2005, after going through an appropriate escalation, two soldiers from the 1-155th infantry opened fire on an approaching vehicle with M249 machine guns. Both poured 100 bullets into the car – five or six seconds of sustained fire from a gun capable of shooting 1,000 rounds per minute.
Relatives of those killed were later awarded $10,000 compensation from the US military, which found the soldiers violated their rules of engagement.
"Escalation of force"
The rules of engagement in Iraq require soldiers and marines to cycle through a range of escalating warnings for vehicles that behave erratically at checkpoints or venture too close to patrols.
1. Verbal commands and hand signals to stop, plus other cues, like flashing lights and horns;
2. Warning shots, generally fired in front of the vehicle;
3. "Disabling shots," aimed first at the vehicle's engine block, and then at the driver.
At least a half-dozen incidents involved Iraqi men transporting their pregnant wives or family members to hospitals. A report narrates the incident in Ramadi in May 2005 that left two people wounded.
The engagement resulted in (1) male CWIA (urgent surgical, driver) and (1) female CWIA (front seat passenger). There was (1) pregnant female and her sister in the back seat of the vehicle with no injuries. The pregnant woman expressed that she was going into labour. At 0440D, the woman gave birth at the 1-503 in BAS at combat outpost. [[086:663]]
In another incident, in May 2006, a pregnant woman - Nahiba Jassim - was killed in a checkpoint shooting. She was being rushed to the maternity hospital in Samarra when the car was fired upon at a checkpoint; also killed was a cousin, Saliha Hassan.
One of the most striking things about the reports is the lack of followup: Only in rare cases do the units involved in the shootings update their reports with additional information about their targets.
Soldiers from the 2/12 Cavalry opened fire on a black BMW in Baghdad in July 2007 after the vehicle "failed to respond to hand and arm signals, green laser, paint ball gun, and warning shots".
The vehicle burst into flames after being shot with a .50 caliber machine gun. The report says that "ammunition [was] seen cooking off inside [the] vehicle," which would suggest that the car was carrying weapons (ordnance "cooks off" quickly when exposed to the heat of a fire).
But the passengers in the car were apparently a family – a man, a woman, and two children. No attempt is made to determine who the passengers were, or why their vehicle was seemingly loaded with ammunition: their remains are transported to a nearby hospital, and the file is closed.
Seven incidents per week
The number of reported incidents dropped sharply after 2007, from more than 3,500 to less than 1,600 in 2008. That was due, in part, to new rules intended to protect civilians – but also because Iraqi security forces, instead of Americans, had taken over an increasing number of checkpoints. "Escalation of force" incidents by Iraqi troops are not often reported by the US military.
Reading the Documents
* Glossary: Military jargon
* Editor's note: About the documents
Checkpoints were often the scene of deadly gun battles. One report, from August 2004, describes a shootout between Iraqi police and the Iraqi national guard at a checkpoint in Babil province.
At 1750D, an ING convoy coming from the Ad-Diwaniyah did not stop at an IPs CP at grid MA 455 958. The ING opened fire on the IPs. 3X IPs were WIA, though not seriously. The commander of the Al Hillah PS and 1BG commander went to the spot immediately. After a short negotiation the ING convoy left. Then the IPs fired a few bursts at the last vehicle of the convoy.
Dozens of other so-called "green-green" incidents – Iraqi forces attacking one another – are scattered throughout the reports. The altercations typically involve soldiers from different branches of Iraq's fragmented security services.
The reasons for the violence are often unclear. In February 2006, the Iraqi army stopped a vehicle carrying soldiers from the "public order brigades" (POB), a paramilitary force under the interior ministry. One of the POB soldiers was shot and killed; US forces investigating the shooting never did find out why.
Dozens of other reports document violent "escalations of force" between Iraqi security forces and the civilians they are supposed to protect. In July 2005, the Iraqi special police shot and killed an Iraqi pedestrian who did not stop at a checkpoint in Baghdad. They insisted that he was an attempted suicide bomber – until his family arrived and explained otherwise.
The LN family arrived and stated he is not AIF but mentally retarded. ISP [sic] still believed the IND was a suicide bomber. The family members moved forward to the LN and rolled him over exposing his abdomen. The LN had no suicide vest.
The US military started taking these incidents seriously in 2006, when General Peter Chiarelli - the then number-two military officer in Iraq - promised to investigate every one that resulted in casualties.
The reports also suggest that the US military understated the number of civilian casualties in "escalation of force" incidents. The US-based McClatchy newspaper group reported in July 2007 that the army said 429 Iraqi civilians were killed or wounded in the previous year. But the reports released by WikiLeaks place that figure higher, at 567, a 32 per cent difference.
Similarly, in June 2006, Chiarelli claimed that checkpoint killings had been reduced to roughly one per week, down from seven per week a year prior.
The leaked reports, though, show that 73 civilians were killed in "escalation of force" incidents in the five months before Chiarelli made that claim. That means an average of 3.5 civilians were killed each week in those incidents - better than 2005's average, but more than three times worse than Chiarelli's claim.
And the incidents have continued, at a pace of at least one per week, through the end of 2009, when the documents released by Wikileaks terminate.
Venezuela's multi-polar disorder
Hugo Chavez's latest diplomatic venture has left many supporters confused and querying his motives.
Chris Arsenault Last Modified: 23 Oct 2010 09:42 GMT
Hugo Chavez had kind words for Belrus's president who has threatened to 'ring the necks' of his opponents [AFP]
In his quest for a world free of "American hegemony" Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s president, has been touring eastern Europe and the Middle East, signing energy deals with Russia (including an agreement for Venezuela's first nuclear power plant), visiting Iran’s capital for the ninth time and offering to supply Belarus with oil for the "next 200 years".
From dinning room tables in politically polarised Venezuela, to the halls of power in Washington, Beijing and Moscow, average people and global elites alike, are now discussing the antics of a man who sees himself as the harbinger of "21st century socialism".
"Previous Venezuelan governments almost exclusively travelled to Washington, and Washington alone, for their foreign policy,” says Miguel Tinker Salas, author of The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture and Society in Venezuela and a professor at Pomona College.
"These visits are about creating the conditions where a multi-polar world can exist, they are also about signing oil contracts," says Salas, who splits his time between Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, and Southern California where he teaches.
With the world’s sixth largest oil reserves, according to the US Central Intelligence Agency, petroleum accounts for about 80 per cent of Venezuela’s total export revenues and contributes around half of the central government’s income. So it isn’t surprising that Chavez is visiting other petroleum potentiates like Iran, Libya and Russia.
Foreign policy contradictions
However, trips to Belarus and to a lesser degree the Ukraine and Syria leave analysts scratching their heads.
"I don’t think he [Chavez] gets much economically out of a central Asian junket,” says Nikolas Kozloff, author of several books on South America including Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics and the Challenges to the United States. "In his efforts to create a multi-polar world he has created a foreign policy contradiction."
Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian president who Chavez calls a "comrade" has ruled the country with an iron grip for more than 15 years. Unlike other former Soviet republics who tried to break from Cold War history, the Belarusian secret police is still called the KGB, after the infamous Soviet security forces.
Lukashenko has threatened anyone joining opposition protests, stating: "We will ring their necks - as one might a duck".
Still, Chavez found it appropriate to say that Lukashenko is helping to build "an alternative to imperialism".
Some who support Chavez’s attempts to stand against US hegemony, an entrenched Venezuelan elite and pervasive inequality, find those statements hard to stomach. "He is coming out in favour of a repressive government that doesn’t have much in common with the leftist changes happening in Latin America,” Kozloff says. "The Chavez faithful, in not raising their voice on these foreign policy issues, is ceding ground to the Venezuelan opposition."
"I am not a big fan of the Venezuelan opposition," he says. "They are too pro-business and work with the US [to undermine Venezuela’s democratically elected government]. But on the issue of foreign policy [the Venezuelan] opposition is correct [to criticise cozy relationships with repressive governments] and Chavez is wrong."
After agreeing to sell Belarus about 30 million tones of heavy oil over three years and signing up to buy advanced tanks from Russia, adding to about $4bn spent on Russian military hardware since 2005, Chavez travelled to Iran.
When meeting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, Chavez said the two countries were "united to establish a new world order based on humanity and justice".
At first glance, the warm relationship between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Venezuela, led by Chavez who calls himself a "Christian socialist", may seem strange.
The Saudi connection
However, Kozloff says "geopolitics trumps religion" because the current "political winds in Iran and Venezuela coincide" and both oil producers have similar interests in OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
"When Chavez was first elected in 1998, Venezuelan oil was selling between eight and nine dollars a barrel," Salas says. "Both Venezuela and Iran want oil trading between $70- $90 per barrel."
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia – a US ally with the world’s largest oil reserves- is thought to favour somewhat lower prices to keep consuming countries content and the market stable. Moreover, with its frosty diplomatic relations with Iran, Saudi Arabia being - a swing producer - can use oil as an economic weapon.
"For the Saudis, who fear Iran’s religious, geopolitical and nuclear aspirations, the decision to lower the price of oil has a number of benefits, the biggest being to deprive Iran of hard currency," stated an NBC report.
As smaller exporters who are more dependent on oil revenue, Venezuela and Iran favour higher prices, and thus their interests converge in OPEC and global energy markets.
In forming bonds with countries which have shaky relations with the West, Chavez is attempting to position himself as a leader of a new non-aligned movement, promoting unity in Latin America and the global south in general, some have argued.
"In many respects, in my view, Chavez is modeling himself on [Gamal Abdel] Nasser [the Egyptian president from 1956-1970 who attempted to advance pan-Arab nationalism]. Chavez has a pan national goal of uniting Latin America,” says Mark Katz, a professor at George Mason University who has published on Latin America and the Middle East.
"This message of uniting Latin America under a Chavez vision has not really worked. There is only one potential great power in Latin America and that is Brazil. Big countries do not follow the lead of small countries," Katz says.
Venezuela's upward curve
Despite what some Chavez supporters see as problematic foreign policy, there is still optimism about the changes happening in Venezuela.
"By indicators from the United Nations and other international organizations the conditions for average Venezuelans have improved under Chavez," Salas said, adding that the country still faces persistent problems like high inflation and crime.
Venezuelan elections in September saw the opposition gain some ground, eliminating Chavez’s complete congressional majority. But the majority of Venezuelans have repeatedly opted for of 21st century socialism in democratic elections.
And while visits to Belarus, the Ukraine and Syria may seem strange, the project of Latin American integration is widely supported.
"Growing up as a child in Venezuela, one never saw Brazilian or Argentinean products available in stores, only American products. Now there is a great array of products available in the country” especially from other Latin American countries, says Salas.
“There is a sense of empowerment [for the poor] that wasn’t there ten years ago. That empowerment serves as a zero sum gain because the elites think benefits to the poor are coming at their expense," he said.
Like any democratically elected leader, Chavez’s primary responsibilities are to the people he represents. And, after his current international tour, he will return home to a bitterly divided country. Salas experiences this first hand, as his family is "very polarized", since unlike him, "the majority are on the opposition".
The pro-US opposition attacks virtually every move Chavez makes. And, after an attempted coup supported by Washington, it is hard to blame the president for seeking new allies. However, the quest for multi-polarity itself has been polarised and Chavez seems to be acting on the impression that my "enemies enemy is my friend".
Multi-polarity can not be built on such weak foundations, garnered by relations with autocrats with little credibility; opposition to the US alone should not be the measuring stick for progressive leaders to pick their allies.
Internationally and domestically, Salas says that: “The way this issue has been framed, there is no middle ground.” And maybe that is the problem.
Chris Arsenault Last Modified: 23 Oct 2010 09:42 GMT
Hugo Chavez had kind words for Belrus's president who has threatened to 'ring the necks' of his opponents [AFP]
In his quest for a world free of "American hegemony" Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s president, has been touring eastern Europe and the Middle East, signing energy deals with Russia (including an agreement for Venezuela's first nuclear power plant), visiting Iran’s capital for the ninth time and offering to supply Belarus with oil for the "next 200 years".
From dinning room tables in politically polarised Venezuela, to the halls of power in Washington, Beijing and Moscow, average people and global elites alike, are now discussing the antics of a man who sees himself as the harbinger of "21st century socialism".
"Previous Venezuelan governments almost exclusively travelled to Washington, and Washington alone, for their foreign policy,” says Miguel Tinker Salas, author of The Enduring Legacy: Oil, Culture and Society in Venezuela and a professor at Pomona College.
"These visits are about creating the conditions where a multi-polar world can exist, they are also about signing oil contracts," says Salas, who splits his time between Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, and Southern California where he teaches.
With the world’s sixth largest oil reserves, according to the US Central Intelligence Agency, petroleum accounts for about 80 per cent of Venezuela’s total export revenues and contributes around half of the central government’s income. So it isn’t surprising that Chavez is visiting other petroleum potentiates like Iran, Libya and Russia.
Foreign policy contradictions
However, trips to Belarus and to a lesser degree the Ukraine and Syria leave analysts scratching their heads.
"I don’t think he [Chavez] gets much economically out of a central Asian junket,” says Nikolas Kozloff, author of several books on South America including Hugo Chavez: Oil, Politics and the Challenges to the United States. "In his efforts to create a multi-polar world he has created a foreign policy contradiction."
Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian president who Chavez calls a "comrade" has ruled the country with an iron grip for more than 15 years. Unlike other former Soviet republics who tried to break from Cold War history, the Belarusian secret police is still called the KGB, after the infamous Soviet security forces.
Lukashenko has threatened anyone joining opposition protests, stating: "We will ring their necks - as one might a duck".
Still, Chavez found it appropriate to say that Lukashenko is helping to build "an alternative to imperialism".
Some who support Chavez’s attempts to stand against US hegemony, an entrenched Venezuelan elite and pervasive inequality, find those statements hard to stomach. "He is coming out in favour of a repressive government that doesn’t have much in common with the leftist changes happening in Latin America,” Kozloff says. "The Chavez faithful, in not raising their voice on these foreign policy issues, is ceding ground to the Venezuelan opposition."
"I am not a big fan of the Venezuelan opposition," he says. "They are too pro-business and work with the US [to undermine Venezuela’s democratically elected government]. But on the issue of foreign policy [the Venezuelan] opposition is correct [to criticise cozy relationships with repressive governments] and Chavez is wrong."
After agreeing to sell Belarus about 30 million tones of heavy oil over three years and signing up to buy advanced tanks from Russia, adding to about $4bn spent on Russian military hardware since 2005, Chavez travelled to Iran.
When meeting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, Chavez said the two countries were "united to establish a new world order based on humanity and justice".
At first glance, the warm relationship between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Venezuela, led by Chavez who calls himself a "Christian socialist", may seem strange.
The Saudi connection
However, Kozloff says "geopolitics trumps religion" because the current "political winds in Iran and Venezuela coincide" and both oil producers have similar interests in OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
"When Chavez was first elected in 1998, Venezuelan oil was selling between eight and nine dollars a barrel," Salas says. "Both Venezuela and Iran want oil trading between $70- $90 per barrel."
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia – a US ally with the world’s largest oil reserves- is thought to favour somewhat lower prices to keep consuming countries content and the market stable. Moreover, with its frosty diplomatic relations with Iran, Saudi Arabia being - a swing producer - can use oil as an economic weapon.
"For the Saudis, who fear Iran’s religious, geopolitical and nuclear aspirations, the decision to lower the price of oil has a number of benefits, the biggest being to deprive Iran of hard currency," stated an NBC report.
As smaller exporters who are more dependent on oil revenue, Venezuela and Iran favour higher prices, and thus their interests converge in OPEC and global energy markets.
In forming bonds with countries which have shaky relations with the West, Chavez is attempting to position himself as a leader of a new non-aligned movement, promoting unity in Latin America and the global south in general, some have argued.
"In many respects, in my view, Chavez is modeling himself on [Gamal Abdel] Nasser [the Egyptian president from 1956-1970 who attempted to advance pan-Arab nationalism]. Chavez has a pan national goal of uniting Latin America,” says Mark Katz, a professor at George Mason University who has published on Latin America and the Middle East.
"This message of uniting Latin America under a Chavez vision has not really worked. There is only one potential great power in Latin America and that is Brazil. Big countries do not follow the lead of small countries," Katz says.
Venezuela's upward curve
Despite what some Chavez supporters see as problematic foreign policy, there is still optimism about the changes happening in Venezuela.
"By indicators from the United Nations and other international organizations the conditions for average Venezuelans have improved under Chavez," Salas said, adding that the country still faces persistent problems like high inflation and crime.
Venezuelan elections in September saw the opposition gain some ground, eliminating Chavez’s complete congressional majority. But the majority of Venezuelans have repeatedly opted for of 21st century socialism in democratic elections.
And while visits to Belarus, the Ukraine and Syria may seem strange, the project of Latin American integration is widely supported.
"Growing up as a child in Venezuela, one never saw Brazilian or Argentinean products available in stores, only American products. Now there is a great array of products available in the country” especially from other Latin American countries, says Salas.
“There is a sense of empowerment [for the poor] that wasn’t there ten years ago. That empowerment serves as a zero sum gain because the elites think benefits to the poor are coming at their expense," he said.
Like any democratically elected leader, Chavez’s primary responsibilities are to the people he represents. And, after his current international tour, he will return home to a bitterly divided country. Salas experiences this first hand, as his family is "very polarized", since unlike him, "the majority are on the opposition".
The pro-US opposition attacks virtually every move Chavez makes. And, after an attempted coup supported by Washington, it is hard to blame the president for seeking new allies. However, the quest for multi-polarity itself has been polarised and Chavez seems to be acting on the impression that my "enemies enemy is my friend".
Multi-polarity can not be built on such weak foundations, garnered by relations with autocrats with little credibility; opposition to the US alone should not be the measuring stick for progressive leaders to pick their allies.
Internationally and domestically, Salas says that: “The way this issue has been framed, there is no middle ground.” And maybe that is the problem.
WikiLeaks: An inside perspective
The latest release from WikiLeaks reveals few surprises, contrary to the views of some who suggest otherwise.
Robert Grenier Last Modified: 23 Oct 2010 13:15 GMT
The greatest potential harm in the release of these documents is not in the documents themselves, but in the tendentious interpretations being provided by some [EPA]
At the bottom of most classified documents produced by the US government, tens of thousands every day, there appears in small print an indication, to those who understand the nomenclature, as to when that document is to be automatically declassified. Even where such markings are missing, there is an expectation that the document’s contents will eventually be revealed. Depending upon the classification level and type of document, it could be released in as few as 10 years, or remain sequestered for as many as 50.
Documents specifically requested by outside parties under the Freedom of Information Act, of course, are eventually reviewed and often selectively declassified in even less time. But virtually every properly-classified document in US government hands carries within it the reminder that no secret can or should last forever, there is no justification for it to remain in darkness.
We would do well to remember that as we focus on the much-anticipated and much-ballyhooed release of the second installment of what we might call the WikiLeaks Trove. This time the release involves nearly 400,000 classified military documents detailing US military activities and events in Iraq over a five-year period from 2004 to 2009, hailed as the largest single leak of classified military documents in history.
For public-spirited observers, there are at least two things to consider: The significance of the documents themselves, and the significance of their release.
In any such assessment, it should be noted that at this point, we are largely forced to rely on the initial, partial analyses provided by a few news organizations, including Al Jazeera, which were granted pre-release access to these documents. For a deeper understanding we will have to await a more exhaustive review – if any have the energy to perform it.
As with the previous WikiLeaks release of over 90,000 documents concerning Afghanistan, the sheer overwhelming volume of detailed information contained in this latest windfall has its own fascination. Stalin is alleged to have said that: “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” For those with no direct experience of the bloody mayhem which has characterized much of Iraq for long periods since the US invasion, daily accounts of mass-casualty incidents overwhelm the capacity to grasp or to feel. A single report, however, of a seemingly needless death at a Coalition checkpoint, even in the antiseptic prose of a hurriedly-prepared military report, has the capacity to focus the mind on the horror, the tragedy, and the brutal capriciousness that have characterized this struggle, and indeed all wars.
That said, and again much like the Afghan release, the overall outlines of the story these documents reveal include few surprises – the efforts of some to suggest otherwise notwithstanding. Indeed, the greatest potential harm in the release of these documents is not in the documents themselves, but in the tendentious interpretations being provided by some.
Much, for example, is made of the fact that the US military did indeed compile counts of civilian deaths in Iraq, despite former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s claimed refusal to do so in 2003, and the military’s demurrals over the reliability of its numbers since. In fact, however, this is no great revelation: The fact that the military has been providing rough estimates of civilian deaths to Congress, at the latter’s insistence, since 2005 is well-known. The military has never considered its methodology to be comprehensive, though, and has cautioned Congress that their estimates are mere “signposts,“ and not definitive.
The latest release from WikiLeaks, above all else, concentrates the mind on the horrors and chaotic disorder of military conflict [EPA]
Part of the reason for both the incompleteness of their counts and their reluctance to discuss them is another fact being overlooked by some, and that is that the vast majority of the 66,000 Iraqi civilian deaths estimated in the leaked documents to have occurred were the result of Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence, and did not involve US or Coalition forces. While many may lay ultimate responsibility for the vicious Sunni-Shi’a “sectarian-cleansing” that occurred in greater Baghdad, and the mass-casualty terrorist bombings of Al Qa’ida in Iraq, for example, at the feet of the Americans for having overthrown Saddam and thus having released these pent-up forces in the first place, that is a very different argument, and one often left misleadingly vague.
Similarly, the fact that significant numbers of Iraqi civilians were killed through “escalation of force” incidents at US/Coalition checkpoints and as a result of contact with US convoys is hardly new. The figure of 681 civilians killed in such incidents is both striking and disturbing, but simply underscores the fact that manning checkpoints with conventional troops ill-equipped by training and doctrine to perform what are essentially police duties, in the midst of a population they ill-understand and with which they generally cannot communicate effectively, and in an environment characterized by constant suicide bombings and vehicle-borne explosive attacks in which every civilian is viewed as a potentially deadly enemy, taken together, is a prescription for a slow-rolling disaster.
Given that some 14,000 escalation-of-force incidents occurred across Iraq during this period, the wonder is that there were not more mistaken killings. The fact is, however, that circumstances have been as much a culprit as the claimed “brutality” of the US “occupiers.” While that may not absolve the US military of its responsibility for these deaths, the initial accounts I have seen are largely devoid of thoughtful analysis as to how and why they have occurred.
Perhaps most disturbingly, there are the claims that while newly-empowered Iraqi security forces of all stripes routinely engaged in torture and mistreatment of detainees, US forces “were not allowed to intervene” to stop them, thus making them accessories to abuse. These, too, are highly misleading assertions, and deserve a much more rigorous analysis. In fact, the documents in question seem to substantiate that in those rare instances where US military personnel encountered Iraqi counterparts actively engaged in prisoner abuse, they did indeed intervene to stop it. The question, then, would be what to do next.
In the vast majority of the roughly 1,300 incidents catalogued in the documents, US personnel saw not torture, but evidence of torture: Detainees with obvious marks of abuse, the presence of torture instruments, or credible complaints of abuse by the detainees themselves, for example. In such instances, the protocol was for US forces to report such indications in their own chain of command, and to leave it to their superiors to raise such issues with Iraqi officials whose formal responsibility it was to investigate such reports.
It seems disingenuous to me to suggest that the fact that few such investigations were ever conducted is the fault of the Americans. There is more than a little irony in the fact that it is precisely those who are most likely to characterize the US military presence in Iraq as an unwanted military occupation, trampling on the sovereign rights of Iraqis, who in this instance suggest that US military personnel should have behaved like colonialists. In dealing with an Iraqi system in which abuses by security forces were rampant at all levels, what were US forces to do, practically speaking? Should they have taken over every suspect police station? Should they have indicted and tried those suspected of prisoner abuse? In whose courts?
Finally, there is the question of the impact of the release of the documents per se, quite apart from what any of them reveal. That is very difficult to assess, without having much greater familiarity with the documents than I can command. In any case, it surely is not conducive to morale or good order for those charged with writing clear and truthful reports to live with the nagging fear that what they write is liable to be revealed publicly in a manner designed to provide ammunition to ones detractors, or in a way which could expose friendly elements to risk.
I have written in the recent past about the harm caused by leaks of properly-classified information. By and large, the harm to legitimate interests lies in the sensitive details such leaks reveal. In this case, I think it is generally fair to say that the harm, such as it is, lies not in the details, but in the aggregate picture these documents provide. That suggests to me a generally low degree of potential harm. I strongly suspect that there would be a point in the relatively near future when such documents, doubtless with some exceptions, could be properly turned over to historians and others to provide a dispassionate look at the reality of the US engagement in Iraq.
Whoever was responsible for turning these documents over to WikiLeaks has clearly advanced that process, and done so illegitimately. In the context of the rapidly changing US role and mission in Iraq, however, it is likely that these revelations will do little lasting harm, beyond that caused by the events which they describe.
Robert Grenier is a retired, 27-year veteran of the CIA's Clandestine Service. He was the director of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Centre from 2004 to 2006.
Robert Grenier Last Modified: 23 Oct 2010 13:15 GMT
The greatest potential harm in the release of these documents is not in the documents themselves, but in the tendentious interpretations being provided by some [EPA]
At the bottom of most classified documents produced by the US government, tens of thousands every day, there appears in small print an indication, to those who understand the nomenclature, as to when that document is to be automatically declassified. Even where such markings are missing, there is an expectation that the document’s contents will eventually be revealed. Depending upon the classification level and type of document, it could be released in as few as 10 years, or remain sequestered for as many as 50.
Documents specifically requested by outside parties under the Freedom of Information Act, of course, are eventually reviewed and often selectively declassified in even less time. But virtually every properly-classified document in US government hands carries within it the reminder that no secret can or should last forever, there is no justification for it to remain in darkness.
We would do well to remember that as we focus on the much-anticipated and much-ballyhooed release of the second installment of what we might call the WikiLeaks Trove. This time the release involves nearly 400,000 classified military documents detailing US military activities and events in Iraq over a five-year period from 2004 to 2009, hailed as the largest single leak of classified military documents in history.
For public-spirited observers, there are at least two things to consider: The significance of the documents themselves, and the significance of their release.
In any such assessment, it should be noted that at this point, we are largely forced to rely on the initial, partial analyses provided by a few news organizations, including Al Jazeera, which were granted pre-release access to these documents. For a deeper understanding we will have to await a more exhaustive review – if any have the energy to perform it.
As with the previous WikiLeaks release of over 90,000 documents concerning Afghanistan, the sheer overwhelming volume of detailed information contained in this latest windfall has its own fascination. Stalin is alleged to have said that: “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” For those with no direct experience of the bloody mayhem which has characterized much of Iraq for long periods since the US invasion, daily accounts of mass-casualty incidents overwhelm the capacity to grasp or to feel. A single report, however, of a seemingly needless death at a Coalition checkpoint, even in the antiseptic prose of a hurriedly-prepared military report, has the capacity to focus the mind on the horror, the tragedy, and the brutal capriciousness that have characterized this struggle, and indeed all wars.
That said, and again much like the Afghan release, the overall outlines of the story these documents reveal include few surprises – the efforts of some to suggest otherwise notwithstanding. Indeed, the greatest potential harm in the release of these documents is not in the documents themselves, but in the tendentious interpretations being provided by some.
Much, for example, is made of the fact that the US military did indeed compile counts of civilian deaths in Iraq, despite former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s claimed refusal to do so in 2003, and the military’s demurrals over the reliability of its numbers since. In fact, however, this is no great revelation: The fact that the military has been providing rough estimates of civilian deaths to Congress, at the latter’s insistence, since 2005 is well-known. The military has never considered its methodology to be comprehensive, though, and has cautioned Congress that their estimates are mere “signposts,“ and not definitive.
The latest release from WikiLeaks, above all else, concentrates the mind on the horrors and chaotic disorder of military conflict [EPA]
Part of the reason for both the incompleteness of their counts and their reluctance to discuss them is another fact being overlooked by some, and that is that the vast majority of the 66,000 Iraqi civilian deaths estimated in the leaked documents to have occurred were the result of Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence, and did not involve US or Coalition forces. While many may lay ultimate responsibility for the vicious Sunni-Shi’a “sectarian-cleansing” that occurred in greater Baghdad, and the mass-casualty terrorist bombings of Al Qa’ida in Iraq, for example, at the feet of the Americans for having overthrown Saddam and thus having released these pent-up forces in the first place, that is a very different argument, and one often left misleadingly vague.
Similarly, the fact that significant numbers of Iraqi civilians were killed through “escalation of force” incidents at US/Coalition checkpoints and as a result of contact with US convoys is hardly new. The figure of 681 civilians killed in such incidents is both striking and disturbing, but simply underscores the fact that manning checkpoints with conventional troops ill-equipped by training and doctrine to perform what are essentially police duties, in the midst of a population they ill-understand and with which they generally cannot communicate effectively, and in an environment characterized by constant suicide bombings and vehicle-borne explosive attacks in which every civilian is viewed as a potentially deadly enemy, taken together, is a prescription for a slow-rolling disaster.
Given that some 14,000 escalation-of-force incidents occurred across Iraq during this period, the wonder is that there were not more mistaken killings. The fact is, however, that circumstances have been as much a culprit as the claimed “brutality” of the US “occupiers.” While that may not absolve the US military of its responsibility for these deaths, the initial accounts I have seen are largely devoid of thoughtful analysis as to how and why they have occurred.
Perhaps most disturbingly, there are the claims that while newly-empowered Iraqi security forces of all stripes routinely engaged in torture and mistreatment of detainees, US forces “were not allowed to intervene” to stop them, thus making them accessories to abuse. These, too, are highly misleading assertions, and deserve a much more rigorous analysis. In fact, the documents in question seem to substantiate that in those rare instances where US military personnel encountered Iraqi counterparts actively engaged in prisoner abuse, they did indeed intervene to stop it. The question, then, would be what to do next.
In the vast majority of the roughly 1,300 incidents catalogued in the documents, US personnel saw not torture, but evidence of torture: Detainees with obvious marks of abuse, the presence of torture instruments, or credible complaints of abuse by the detainees themselves, for example. In such instances, the protocol was for US forces to report such indications in their own chain of command, and to leave it to their superiors to raise such issues with Iraqi officials whose formal responsibility it was to investigate such reports.
It seems disingenuous to me to suggest that the fact that few such investigations were ever conducted is the fault of the Americans. There is more than a little irony in the fact that it is precisely those who are most likely to characterize the US military presence in Iraq as an unwanted military occupation, trampling on the sovereign rights of Iraqis, who in this instance suggest that US military personnel should have behaved like colonialists. In dealing with an Iraqi system in which abuses by security forces were rampant at all levels, what were US forces to do, practically speaking? Should they have taken over every suspect police station? Should they have indicted and tried those suspected of prisoner abuse? In whose courts?
Finally, there is the question of the impact of the release of the documents per se, quite apart from what any of them reveal. That is very difficult to assess, without having much greater familiarity with the documents than I can command. In any case, it surely is not conducive to morale or good order for those charged with writing clear and truthful reports to live with the nagging fear that what they write is liable to be revealed publicly in a manner designed to provide ammunition to ones detractors, or in a way which could expose friendly elements to risk.
I have written in the recent past about the harm caused by leaks of properly-classified information. By and large, the harm to legitimate interests lies in the sensitive details such leaks reveal. In this case, I think it is generally fair to say that the harm, such as it is, lies not in the details, but in the aggregate picture these documents provide. That suggests to me a generally low degree of potential harm. I strongly suspect that there would be a point in the relatively near future when such documents, doubtless with some exceptions, could be properly turned over to historians and others to provide a dispassionate look at the reality of the US engagement in Iraq.
Whoever was responsible for turning these documents over to WikiLeaks has clearly advanced that process, and done so illegitimately. In the context of the rapidly changing US role and mission in Iraq, however, it is likely that these revelations will do little lasting harm, beyond that caused by the events which they describe.
Robert Grenier is a retired, 27-year veteran of the CIA's Clandestine Service. He was the director of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Centre from 2004 to 2006.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Injustice in the age of Obama
Barack Obama, a former law professor, should have a healthy respect for civil liberties, but his actions suggest not.
Cindy Sheehan
The treatment of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is symbolic in the minds of many Muslims. Her treatment has caused more damage to US-Muslim relations (particularly in Pakistan) than any 'soft power' state department program could undo [EPA]
Since being the defendant in about six trials after I was arrested for protesting the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations, it’s my experience that the police lie. Period.
However the lies don’t stop at street law enforcement level. From lies about WMD and connections to "al Qaeda," almost every institution of so-called authority - the Pentagon, State Department, CIA, FBI, all the way up to the Oval Office and back down - lie. Not white lies, but big, Mother of all BS (MOAB) lies that lead to the destruction of innocent lives. I.F Stone was most definitely on the ball when he proclaimed, "Governments lie".
Having clarified that, I would now like to examine a case that should be enshrined in the travesty of the US Justice Hall of Shame.
In February of this year, Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani mother of three, was convicted in US Federal (kangaroo) Court of seven counts, including two counts of "attempted murder of an American." On September 23, Judge Berman, who displayed an open bias against Dr. Siddiqui, sentenced her to 86 years in prison.
The tapestry of lies about Dr. Siddiqui - a cognitive neuroscientist, schooled at MIT and Brandeis - was woven during the Bush regime but fully maintained during her trial and sentencing this year by the Obama (in)Justice Department.
Before 9/11/2001, Aafia lived in Massachusetts with her husband, also a Pakistani citizen, and their two children. According to all reports, she was a quietly pious Muslim (which is still not a crime here in the States), who hosted play dates for her children. She was a good student who studied hard and maintained an exemplary record, causing little harm to anything, let alone anyone.
After 9/11, when she was pregnant with her third child, she encouraged her husband to move back to Pakistan to avoid the backlash against her Muslim children - which was a very prescient thing to do considering the Islamophobia that has only increased in this country since then.
Tortured 'truth'
Following the move to Pakistan, Dr. Siddiqui and her husband divorced. Her life took a horrendous turn justly after. While Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) - supposed mastermind of the 9/11 plot - was being water-boarded by the CIA 183 times in one month, he gave Dr. Siddiqui up as a member of al-Qaeda. Was this a case of stolen identity, or was Mohammed just saying random words like you or I would to stop the torture?
There is some disputed "intelligence" that Aafia had married KSM’s nephew, a tenuous allegation at best, and even so, guilt by association has no place in the hallowed US legal system.
Following KSM’s torture-induced 'insights', Dr. Siddiqui was listed by Bush’s Justice Department as one of the seven most dangerous al-Qaeda operatives in the world. A mother of three equipped with a lethal ability to 'thin-slice' your cognitive personality in seconds. If alleged association and a healthy interest in neuro-psychology are the definitive hallmarks of a 'terrorist operative,' then Malcolm Gladwell better start making some phone calls to Crane, Poole and Schmidt.
A culture of falsehoods
Face it, we all know that since 9/11, there have been numerous false "terror" alerts and lies leading to the capture and torture of hundreds of innocent individuals - and the heinous treatment we have all witnessed to from Abu Ghraib. Additionally, we are supposed to believe that multi-war criminal, Colin Powell, was "fooled" by faulty intelligence so much so that he paved the way for the invasion of Iraq by his false testimony at the UN but we are also supposed to unquestioningly believe the US intelligence apparatus when they lie about others such as Dr. Siddiqui.
In any case, in a bizarre scenario - to make a very long story short - Dr. Siddiqui and her three children disappeared for five years from 2003 to 2008, resurfacing in Ghazni, Afghanistan with her oldest child, a son who was then 11. She claimed that for the years she was missing, she was being held in various Pakistani and US prisons being tortured and repeatedly raped. Many prisoners, including Yvonne Ridley, maintain she was incarcerated in Bagram AFB and tortured for at least part of the five missing years.
After Dr. Siddiqui resurfaced, she was arrested and taken to an Afghan police station where four Americans - two military and two FBI agents - rushed to "question" her through interpreters. The FBI and military, claim that they were taken to a room that had a curtain at one end and that they did not know that Dr. Siddiqui was lying asleep on a bed at the other side of the curtain. As you read below it will become blatantly obvious that personnel involved from both institutions totally fabricated their stories.
This is the Americans' version: They entered the room and one of the military dudes said he laid his weapon down (remember, they were there to interrogate one of the top most dangerous people in the world), and Siddiqui got up, grabbed the weapon, yelling obscenities and that she wanted to "kill Americans." All 5'3" of her raised the weapon to fire and she fired the rifle twice, missing everyone in the small room - in fact she even missed the walls, floor and ceiling since no bullets from the rifle were ever recovered.
Then one of the Americans shot her twice in the stomach "in self-defence." It was shown at the trial that her fingerprints were not even on the weapon. The only bullets that were found that day were in Dr. Aafia's body. How many stories of military cover-ups have we heard about since 9/11? I can think of two right away without even trying hard: Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch.
Hopeless injustice
Dr. Aafia's side is this: After she was arrested, she was again beaten and she fell asleep on a bed when she heard talking in the room she was in so she got out of the bed and someone shouted: "Oh no, she’s loose!" Then she was shot - when she was wavering in and out of consciousness, she heard someone else say: "We could lose our jobs over this."
Even with no evidence that she fired any weapon, she was convicted (the jury found no pre-meditation) by a jury and sentenced to the aforementioned 86 years. It's interesting that the Feds did not pursue "terrorist" charges against Dr. Siddiqui because they were aware that the only evidence that existed was tortured out of KSM - so they literally ganged up on her to press the assault and attempted murder charges.
Even if Dr. Siddiqui did shoot at the Americans, reflect on this. Say this case was being tried in Pakistan under similar circumstances for an American woman named Dr. Betty Brown who was captured and repeatedly tortured and raped by the ISI - here in the states that woman would be a hero if she shot at her captors - not demonized and taken away from her life and her children.
I believe Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is a political prisoner and now the political bogey-woman for two US regimes.
In Pakistan, the response to her verdict and sentencing brought the predictable mass protests, burning of American flags and effigies of Obama and calls for Pakistan to repatriate Dr. Siddiqui. They know who the real criminals are and who should be in prison for life! At present, Hilary's state department harps on about 'soft power' and diplomacy, but what better way to quell US distrust in the Muslim world than to try such cases with due diligence and integrity.
In the US, not many people know about this case. Obviously many people were Hope-notized by the millions of dollars poured into the Obama PR machine - and believed when he said that his administration would be more transparent and lawful than the outlaws of the Bush era.
I guess they were mistaken.
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Specialist Casey A. Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004. Since then, she has been an activist for peace and human rights. She has published five books, has her own Internet radio show, Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox, and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Cindy lives in Oakland, CA, and loves to spend time with her three grand-babies. You can learn more about Cindy at Peace of the Action.
Cindy Sheehan
The treatment of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is symbolic in the minds of many Muslims. Her treatment has caused more damage to US-Muslim relations (particularly in Pakistan) than any 'soft power' state department program could undo [EPA]
Since being the defendant in about six trials after I was arrested for protesting the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations, it’s my experience that the police lie. Period.
However the lies don’t stop at street law enforcement level. From lies about WMD and connections to "al Qaeda," almost every institution of so-called authority - the Pentagon, State Department, CIA, FBI, all the way up to the Oval Office and back down - lie. Not white lies, but big, Mother of all BS (MOAB) lies that lead to the destruction of innocent lives. I.F Stone was most definitely on the ball when he proclaimed, "Governments lie".
Having clarified that, I would now like to examine a case that should be enshrined in the travesty of the US Justice Hall of Shame.
In February of this year, Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani mother of three, was convicted in US Federal (kangaroo) Court of seven counts, including two counts of "attempted murder of an American." On September 23, Judge Berman, who displayed an open bias against Dr. Siddiqui, sentenced her to 86 years in prison.
The tapestry of lies about Dr. Siddiqui - a cognitive neuroscientist, schooled at MIT and Brandeis - was woven during the Bush regime but fully maintained during her trial and sentencing this year by the Obama (in)Justice Department.
Before 9/11/2001, Aafia lived in Massachusetts with her husband, also a Pakistani citizen, and their two children. According to all reports, she was a quietly pious Muslim (which is still not a crime here in the States), who hosted play dates for her children. She was a good student who studied hard and maintained an exemplary record, causing little harm to anything, let alone anyone.
After 9/11, when she was pregnant with her third child, she encouraged her husband to move back to Pakistan to avoid the backlash against her Muslim children - which was a very prescient thing to do considering the Islamophobia that has only increased in this country since then.
Tortured 'truth'
Following the move to Pakistan, Dr. Siddiqui and her husband divorced. Her life took a horrendous turn justly after. While Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) - supposed mastermind of the 9/11 plot - was being water-boarded by the CIA 183 times in one month, he gave Dr. Siddiqui up as a member of al-Qaeda. Was this a case of stolen identity, or was Mohammed just saying random words like you or I would to stop the torture?
There is some disputed "intelligence" that Aafia had married KSM’s nephew, a tenuous allegation at best, and even so, guilt by association has no place in the hallowed US legal system.
Following KSM’s torture-induced 'insights', Dr. Siddiqui was listed by Bush’s Justice Department as one of the seven most dangerous al-Qaeda operatives in the world. A mother of three equipped with a lethal ability to 'thin-slice' your cognitive personality in seconds. If alleged association and a healthy interest in neuro-psychology are the definitive hallmarks of a 'terrorist operative,' then Malcolm Gladwell better start making some phone calls to Crane, Poole and Schmidt.
A culture of falsehoods
Face it, we all know that since 9/11, there have been numerous false "terror" alerts and lies leading to the capture and torture of hundreds of innocent individuals - and the heinous treatment we have all witnessed to from Abu Ghraib. Additionally, we are supposed to believe that multi-war criminal, Colin Powell, was "fooled" by faulty intelligence so much so that he paved the way for the invasion of Iraq by his false testimony at the UN but we are also supposed to unquestioningly believe the US intelligence apparatus when they lie about others such as Dr. Siddiqui.
In any case, in a bizarre scenario - to make a very long story short - Dr. Siddiqui and her three children disappeared for five years from 2003 to 2008, resurfacing in Ghazni, Afghanistan with her oldest child, a son who was then 11. She claimed that for the years she was missing, she was being held in various Pakistani and US prisons being tortured and repeatedly raped. Many prisoners, including Yvonne Ridley, maintain she was incarcerated in Bagram AFB and tortured for at least part of the five missing years.
After Dr. Siddiqui resurfaced, she was arrested and taken to an Afghan police station where four Americans - two military and two FBI agents - rushed to "question" her through interpreters. The FBI and military, claim that they were taken to a room that had a curtain at one end and that they did not know that Dr. Siddiqui was lying asleep on a bed at the other side of the curtain. As you read below it will become blatantly obvious that personnel involved from both institutions totally fabricated their stories.
This is the Americans' version: They entered the room and one of the military dudes said he laid his weapon down (remember, they were there to interrogate one of the top most dangerous people in the world), and Siddiqui got up, grabbed the weapon, yelling obscenities and that she wanted to "kill Americans." All 5'3" of her raised the weapon to fire and she fired the rifle twice, missing everyone in the small room - in fact she even missed the walls, floor and ceiling since no bullets from the rifle were ever recovered.
Then one of the Americans shot her twice in the stomach "in self-defence." It was shown at the trial that her fingerprints were not even on the weapon. The only bullets that were found that day were in Dr. Aafia's body. How many stories of military cover-ups have we heard about since 9/11? I can think of two right away without even trying hard: Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch.
Hopeless injustice
Dr. Aafia's side is this: After she was arrested, she was again beaten and she fell asleep on a bed when she heard talking in the room she was in so she got out of the bed and someone shouted: "Oh no, she’s loose!" Then she was shot - when she was wavering in and out of consciousness, she heard someone else say: "We could lose our jobs over this."
Even with no evidence that she fired any weapon, she was convicted (the jury found no pre-meditation) by a jury and sentenced to the aforementioned 86 years. It's interesting that the Feds did not pursue "terrorist" charges against Dr. Siddiqui because they were aware that the only evidence that existed was tortured out of KSM - so they literally ganged up on her to press the assault and attempted murder charges.
Even if Dr. Siddiqui did shoot at the Americans, reflect on this. Say this case was being tried in Pakistan under similar circumstances for an American woman named Dr. Betty Brown who was captured and repeatedly tortured and raped by the ISI - here in the states that woman would be a hero if she shot at her captors - not demonized and taken away from her life and her children.
I believe Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is a political prisoner and now the political bogey-woman for two US regimes.
In Pakistan, the response to her verdict and sentencing brought the predictable mass protests, burning of American flags and effigies of Obama and calls for Pakistan to repatriate Dr. Siddiqui. They know who the real criminals are and who should be in prison for life! At present, Hilary's state department harps on about 'soft power' and diplomacy, but what better way to quell US distrust in the Muslim world than to try such cases with due diligence and integrity.
In the US, not many people know about this case. Obviously many people were Hope-notized by the millions of dollars poured into the Obama PR machine - and believed when he said that his administration would be more transparent and lawful than the outlaws of the Bush era.
I guess they were mistaken.
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Specialist Casey A. Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004. Since then, she has been an activist for peace and human rights. She has published five books, has her own Internet radio show, Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox, and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Cindy lives in Oakland, CA, and loves to spend time with her three grand-babies. You can learn more about Cindy at Peace of the Action.
The Iranian dilemma
f Israel were to attack Iran it would be disastrous for the US; negotiations must be the first resort.
Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at Brookings, wrote in the Nixon Centre's "National Interest" last month that an Israeli attack on Iran would be catastrophic. Riedel, no reflexive dove - he is a former CIA officer and adviser on terrorism to three Presidents - explains why the United States has to respond with a "clear red light" to any proposed Israeli attack.
An Israeli attack on Iran is a disaster in the making. And it will directly impact key strategic American interests. Iran will see an attack as American supported if not American orchestrated. The aircraft in any strike will be American-produced, supplied and funded F-15s and F-16s, and most of the ordnance will be from American stocks. Washington's $3 billion in assistance annually makes possible the IDF's conventional superiority in the region.
Iran will almost certainly retaliate against both U.S. and Israeli targets.... Even if Iran chooses to retaliate in less risky ways, it could respond indirectly by encouraging Hezbollah attacks against Israel and Shia militia attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq, as well as terrorist attacks against American and Israeli targets in the Middle East and beyond.
America's greatest vulnerability would be in Afghanistan. Iran could easily increase its assistance to the Taliban and make the already-difficult Afghan mission much more complicated. Western Afghanistan is especially vulnerable to Iranian mischief, and NATO has few troops there to cover a vast area. President Obama would have to send more, not fewer, troops to fight that war.
Making matters worse, considering the likely violent ramifications, even a successful Israeli raid would only delay Iran's nuclear program.... Support for the existing sanctions on Iran after a strike would likely evaporate.
It is hard to imagine that anyone could argue with any of that. How could an Israeli attack on Iran not be disastrous for the United States, the region, and Israel itself?
At the same time, it is not hard understanding why some Israelis believe their country has no alternative but to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. After all, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is pretty emphatic about wanting Israel to disappear. Sure, he is not fully in charge of Iran (although he seems to have had his way in dealing with the stolen election and its aftermath). And, sure, the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khameini said in April that the use of nuclear weapons is strictly prohibited by Islamic law.
But it should be no surprise that Israelis are less than comforted by any of this. If the guy next door talks like a maniac and owns lots of guns, you have no choice but to worry — and consider doing something about it. At the very least, you need an absolute assurance that he won't do anything crazy.
Reidel makes two proposals designed to reduce Israeli fears.
The first is that the United States "should take another look at extending America's nuclear umbrella" - either unilaterally or by making Israel a member of NATO. As a NATO member, Israel would have the security of knowing that an Iranian attack on it would be considered an attack on the whole alliance.
His other idea is to strengthen Israel's second strike capacity by both enhancing its anti-missile defence system and providing it with F-22 stealth aircraft or "advanced cruise-missile technology or even nuclear powered submarines with missile capabilities to enhance its capacity to launch from platforms at sea." (With second strike capacity, Israel, even if devastated by an Iranian attack, would still be able to destroy Iran. Logically, then, a second strike capability deters a first strike.)
Riedel believes that the sure knowledge that a strike on Israel would be suicidal would deter any attack — and any Israeli need to strike at Iran's installations first.
That makes sense, except for one thing. Israeli hawks (including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu) believe, or pretend to believe, that the Iranian leadership is self-destructive. They say that they need to hit Iran because, unlike any other country in the history of mankind, Iran would happily commit suicide in exchange for the sheer joy of taking out its enemy.
It's nonsense and, in my opinion, the Israelis don't even believe it (their real fear of Iran is based on Israel's determination to preserve regional hegemony, not fear of nuclear destruction).
Accordingly, the Riedel proposals would accomplish nothing, except the proliferation of more weapons in a volatile region.
The only way to address the issues raised by an Iranian nuclear arsenal is through negotiations. I'm not talking about the kind of baby step talks both sides are inclined to propose, but real negotiations that put everything on the table: Iran's nuclear development, Israel's refusal to sign the NPT and allow inspection, Iran's threats against Israel and its unremitting hostility, Iranian support for terrorists like Hezbollah and Hamas, US attempts to overthrow the Iranian regime from the outside, and Iran's roles in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Only comprehensive negotiations will end the Iran crisis without plunging the region into war. Only successful comprehensive negotiations can provide both Israel and Iran with the confidence to get off a course that could lead to mutual destruction. Nothing else will work and everything else has been tried. Why, in God's name, should comprehensive negotiations be a last resort rather than a first step?
MJ Rosenberg is a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network. The above article first appeared in Foreign Policy Matters, a part of the Media Matters Action Network.
Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at Brookings, wrote in the Nixon Centre's "National Interest" last month that an Israeli attack on Iran would be catastrophic. Riedel, no reflexive dove - he is a former CIA officer and adviser on terrorism to three Presidents - explains why the United States has to respond with a "clear red light" to any proposed Israeli attack.
An Israeli attack on Iran is a disaster in the making. And it will directly impact key strategic American interests. Iran will see an attack as American supported if not American orchestrated. The aircraft in any strike will be American-produced, supplied and funded F-15s and F-16s, and most of the ordnance will be from American stocks. Washington's $3 billion in assistance annually makes possible the IDF's conventional superiority in the region.
Iran will almost certainly retaliate against both U.S. and Israeli targets.... Even if Iran chooses to retaliate in less risky ways, it could respond indirectly by encouraging Hezbollah attacks against Israel and Shia militia attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq, as well as terrorist attacks against American and Israeli targets in the Middle East and beyond.
America's greatest vulnerability would be in Afghanistan. Iran could easily increase its assistance to the Taliban and make the already-difficult Afghan mission much more complicated. Western Afghanistan is especially vulnerable to Iranian mischief, and NATO has few troops there to cover a vast area. President Obama would have to send more, not fewer, troops to fight that war.
Making matters worse, considering the likely violent ramifications, even a successful Israeli raid would only delay Iran's nuclear program.... Support for the existing sanctions on Iran after a strike would likely evaporate.
It is hard to imagine that anyone could argue with any of that. How could an Israeli attack on Iran not be disastrous for the United States, the region, and Israel itself?
At the same time, it is not hard understanding why some Israelis believe their country has no alternative but to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. After all, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is pretty emphatic about wanting Israel to disappear. Sure, he is not fully in charge of Iran (although he seems to have had his way in dealing with the stolen election and its aftermath). And, sure, the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khameini said in April that the use of nuclear weapons is strictly prohibited by Islamic law.
But it should be no surprise that Israelis are less than comforted by any of this. If the guy next door talks like a maniac and owns lots of guns, you have no choice but to worry — and consider doing something about it. At the very least, you need an absolute assurance that he won't do anything crazy.
Reidel makes two proposals designed to reduce Israeli fears.
The first is that the United States "should take another look at extending America's nuclear umbrella" - either unilaterally or by making Israel a member of NATO. As a NATO member, Israel would have the security of knowing that an Iranian attack on it would be considered an attack on the whole alliance.
His other idea is to strengthen Israel's second strike capacity by both enhancing its anti-missile defence system and providing it with F-22 stealth aircraft or "advanced cruise-missile technology or even nuclear powered submarines with missile capabilities to enhance its capacity to launch from platforms at sea." (With second strike capacity, Israel, even if devastated by an Iranian attack, would still be able to destroy Iran. Logically, then, a second strike capability deters a first strike.)
Riedel believes that the sure knowledge that a strike on Israel would be suicidal would deter any attack — and any Israeli need to strike at Iran's installations first.
That makes sense, except for one thing. Israeli hawks (including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu) believe, or pretend to believe, that the Iranian leadership is self-destructive. They say that they need to hit Iran because, unlike any other country in the history of mankind, Iran would happily commit suicide in exchange for the sheer joy of taking out its enemy.
It's nonsense and, in my opinion, the Israelis don't even believe it (their real fear of Iran is based on Israel's determination to preserve regional hegemony, not fear of nuclear destruction).
Accordingly, the Riedel proposals would accomplish nothing, except the proliferation of more weapons in a volatile region.
The only way to address the issues raised by an Iranian nuclear arsenal is through negotiations. I'm not talking about the kind of baby step talks both sides are inclined to propose, but real negotiations that put everything on the table: Iran's nuclear development, Israel's refusal to sign the NPT and allow inspection, Iran's threats against Israel and its unremitting hostility, Iranian support for terrorists like Hezbollah and Hamas, US attempts to overthrow the Iranian regime from the outside, and Iran's roles in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Only comprehensive negotiations will end the Iran crisis without plunging the region into war. Only successful comprehensive negotiations can provide both Israel and Iran with the confidence to get off a course that could lead to mutual destruction. Nothing else will work and everything else has been tried. Why, in God's name, should comprehensive negotiations be a last resort rather than a first step?
MJ Rosenberg is a Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at Media Matters Action Network. The above article first appeared in Foreign Policy Matters, a part of the Media Matters Action Network.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Nasa chief on visit to China
Speculation that Charles Bolden may hold talks on possible co-operation in space with Beijing during six-day visit.
Analysts believe Bolden may hold talks on possible co-operation in space with China during his six-day visit [AP]
Charles Bolden, the head of Nasa, has arrived in China for a six-day official visit during which analysts believe he may holds talks on possible co-operation with the emerging space power.
Bolden's trip comes just two weeks after the successful launch of a second Chinese lunar probe, Chang'e-2, part of a programme that seeks to send men to the Moon by 2020.
Faced with serious budgetary constraints, the US earlier this year abandoned its Constellation programme to return Americans to the Moon as a prelude to the conquest of Mars.
In contrast, China, whose economy is booming, has invested heavily in its space programme.
India and Russia are already developing a joint robotic space probe to be launched in 2013 - the same year that China hopes to conduct its third lunar landing.
Bolden's tour was first announced in November 2009 during a visit to China by Barack Obama, the US president.
During a visit to Japan at the end of 2009, Bolden said Washington was ready to discuss partnerships in space projects with China.
Space race
Beijing has sent six astronauts to space, which, among other factors, means that China now has the world's third most advanced space programme, after the US and Russia.
China has co-operated previously with the European Space Agency to explore the earth's magnetic field.
"In a sense, [space exloration] already is a global initiative ... from launching communications satellites to sending probes - and in some cases people into space," Robert Massey, of Britain's Royal Astronomical Society, told Al Jazeera.
"Bolden is there basically just to shake a few hands. It's the first step in very long process to get co-operation between the US and China in space flight."
Morris Jones, space analyst
Massey said it is still dangerous and inconvenient to explore space, but societies have become increasingly dependent on weather satellites and navigation systems.
Beyond establishing a human presence on the moon, extracting mineral resources is another, if less glamorous, goal of lunar exploration.
While humankind has already sent probes to all the planets - and to asteroids and comets - Massey said the scientific yield from space exploration is still quite high.
"If you're a responsible head of Nasa, and you want to find out what other people are doing, see if there are ways you can co-operate," Massey said.
Space programmes require a lot of technology, industry, and money but remain an international status symbol, Morris Jones, a space analyst, told Al Jazeera.
But Morris said he did not think Bolden would be given much in the way of useful technical data during his visit.
"Bolden is there basically just to shake a few hands. It's the first step in a very long process to get co-operation between the US and China in space flight," Morris said.
"Relations between the US and China are very bad at the moment for all sorts of political and economic reasons.
"Relations on earth have a direct bearing on what they will do in outer space."
Political controversy
Bolden's trip has been criticised by some US politicians, who see Beijing as a competitor rather than a potential partner in the space race.
Representative John Culberson, a Republican from Texas, recently raised objections to the trip in a letter to Obama, saying the US Congress should have been consulted first.
"I have grave concerns about the nature and goals of China's space programme and strongly oppose any co-operation between Nasa and CNSA's (China National Space Administration's) human space flight programmes without congressional authorisation," he wrote.
"Considering that Congress has raised concerns about and set limitations on cooperation with China, I do not believe it is appropriate for the administrator to meet with any Chinese officials until Congress is fully briefed on the nature and scope of Mr. Bolden's trip and planned discussions on co-operation," the letter said.
Analysts believe Bolden may hold talks on possible co-operation in space with China during his six-day visit [AP]
Charles Bolden, the head of Nasa, has arrived in China for a six-day official visit during which analysts believe he may holds talks on possible co-operation with the emerging space power.
Bolden's trip comes just two weeks after the successful launch of a second Chinese lunar probe, Chang'e-2, part of a programme that seeks to send men to the Moon by 2020.
Faced with serious budgetary constraints, the US earlier this year abandoned its Constellation programme to return Americans to the Moon as a prelude to the conquest of Mars.
In contrast, China, whose economy is booming, has invested heavily in its space programme.
India and Russia are already developing a joint robotic space probe to be launched in 2013 - the same year that China hopes to conduct its third lunar landing.
Bolden's tour was first announced in November 2009 during a visit to China by Barack Obama, the US president.
During a visit to Japan at the end of 2009, Bolden said Washington was ready to discuss partnerships in space projects with China.
Space race
Beijing has sent six astronauts to space, which, among other factors, means that China now has the world's third most advanced space programme, after the US and Russia.
China has co-operated previously with the European Space Agency to explore the earth's magnetic field.
"In a sense, [space exloration] already is a global initiative ... from launching communications satellites to sending probes - and in some cases people into space," Robert Massey, of Britain's Royal Astronomical Society, told Al Jazeera.
"Bolden is there basically just to shake a few hands. It's the first step in very long process to get co-operation between the US and China in space flight."
Morris Jones, space analyst
Massey said it is still dangerous and inconvenient to explore space, but societies have become increasingly dependent on weather satellites and navigation systems.
Beyond establishing a human presence on the moon, extracting mineral resources is another, if less glamorous, goal of lunar exploration.
While humankind has already sent probes to all the planets - and to asteroids and comets - Massey said the scientific yield from space exploration is still quite high.
"If you're a responsible head of Nasa, and you want to find out what other people are doing, see if there are ways you can co-operate," Massey said.
Space programmes require a lot of technology, industry, and money but remain an international status symbol, Morris Jones, a space analyst, told Al Jazeera.
But Morris said he did not think Bolden would be given much in the way of useful technical data during his visit.
"Bolden is there basically just to shake a few hands. It's the first step in a very long process to get co-operation between the US and China in space flight," Morris said.
"Relations between the US and China are very bad at the moment for all sorts of political and economic reasons.
"Relations on earth have a direct bearing on what they will do in outer space."
Political controversy
Bolden's trip has been criticised by some US politicians, who see Beijing as a competitor rather than a potential partner in the space race.
Representative John Culberson, a Republican from Texas, recently raised objections to the trip in a letter to Obama, saying the US Congress should have been consulted first.
"I have grave concerns about the nature and goals of China's space programme and strongly oppose any co-operation between Nasa and CNSA's (China National Space Administration's) human space flight programmes without congressional authorisation," he wrote.
"Considering that Congress has raised concerns about and set limitations on cooperation with China, I do not believe it is appropriate for the administrator to meet with any Chinese officials until Congress is fully briefed on the nature and scope of Mr. Bolden's trip and planned discussions on co-operation," the letter said.
Taliban talks: folly or fortune?
Reconciliatory negotiations may be ongoing between the Afghan government, the Taliban and, perhaps, the US.
Robert Grenier Last Modified: 15 Oct 2010 15:02 GMT
Vague stories concerning contacts between the government of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and various insurgent factions are hardly new, but those which began to proliferate again this week contained a new twist: That US and Nato forces are actively facilitating them.
To say that these stories should be taken with a large grain of salt is to vastly understate the case. First, no one claims that these are anything more than preliminary discussions, and no one has suggested that they even remotely approach the level of serious negotiations. Second, no one appears willing, or perhaps even able, to say who is involved, from either side.
The members of Afghan President Karzai’s 70-member "peace council" appear to know less about what is going on than most. "Senior Taliban officials" are engaged in the talks, say some; "people who report to Mullah Omar and the Quetta Shura," say others.
Given the high degree of decentralized organization of the Taliban infrastructure, however, and its degree of penetration in large parts of the country, those descriptions could encompass a very large number of people, and include players far removed from the topmost level.
Plan for success?
Whatever the reality, and however far removed we might appear to be from a negotiated solution to the Afghan conflict, US officials would be well advised to follow an old operational admonition: Plan for success.
That may seem obvious, but in fact it is not; for it is all too common for those engaged in a long-term endeavor with initially remote prospects of success to fail to make timely, systematic provisions for the ultimate vindication of their efforts, often until it is far too late. It is easy to find oneself in the position of the proverbial dog who chases the automobile, with little thought of the serious trouble in store if he should catch it.
Among all the stories circulating, there are few indications that US or Nato officials have much substantive involvement in the current discussions, direct or indirect, beyond simply allowing them to occur. Robert Gates, the US defense secretary, has stressed close consultations with the Afghan government as this nascent process goes forward, and asserts that it is being conducted in full transparency between Afghanistan and its allies.
Given the endemic distrust between the Karzai regime and the US government, however, and the apparent disparity between the two sides’ calculations regarding US intentions moving forward, it seems likely that Gates’ words are part desideratum and part admonition, rather than a description of reality. And in any case, all agree that any negotiating process, if it is to be authentic, must be Afghan-led.
Agreements and US interests
Perhaps US officials feel their interests are covered in virtue of having come to agreement with the Karzai government on the minimum acceptable provisions of any ultimate Afghan peace accord: That insurgents reject al-Qaeda, lay down their arms, and accept the Afghan Constitution.
Genuine adherence to those provisions, however, will be hard to verify in advance, and easy to reverse in any case. The temptation for Afghan government negotiators to fudge adherence to these dictates will be considerable, particularly under the leadership of the current Afghan president, whose penchant for wishful thinking is well-documented. And while the recently-selected “peace council” may be heavily weighted with traditional enemies of the Taliban, council head and former President Burnahuddin Rabbani perhaps chief among them, the council’s role in any future talks has yet to be defined.
In such discussions as US officials may be having with the Karzai government over the potential political role of senior insurgents who may eventually opt to enter the political process, it would be well to seek agreement on what form the Taliban’s political involvement might take, and how it would be implemented.
It seems most unlikely that insurgents, should they come over in any strength, will settle for a few ministries and the chance to run for the National Assembly. They are far more likely to want a share of power on the ground in the provinces, particularly those in which they currently hold a large degree of military sway.
On the one hand, it would seem that the centralization of formal power in Kabul, the capital, would facilitate this process. Since Karzai has the power to name district and provisional governors, as well as all manner of local officials, he would be able to appoint former insurgents to positions of genuine authority as an outcome of negotiations.
Taliban unaccountable?
But this, in fact, is a measure of the problem with the current system. To simply replace one set of locally-unaccountable officials for another, particularly when the new officials are affiliated with an organization which has never accepted any brakes on its power other than those imposed by its own obscurantist version of Islamic orthodoxy, is a prescription for disaster.
Unless integrated into a system which demands and reinforces local approval, how are former insurgent leaders to be held to account if they violate their covenants? It will surely not be the Afghan National Army, which cannot impose itself now in the areas of the Taliban’s greatest potential strength, even with the support of the US and NATO.
And even if the Afghan Army should continue to grow in strength and ability to project force into the Pashtun-dominated areas of the East and South, unless there are locally-organized centers of power which can be marshaled and supported to oppose potential future Taliban-inspired misrule, to include tolerance of internationally-oriented violent extremists, the chances of effectively opposing the Taliban in these areas will be greatly reduced.
There are many reasons to press for sweeping changes to the Afghan Constitution, and to break Kabul’s centralized monopoly of power in the provinces. Decentralizing power in Afghanistan in a manner which conforms to the country’s past history and cultural norms is a key to taking effective action against corruption and to garnering local support for an effective counter-insurgency against the Taliban.
To these we should now add the necessity of building up legitimate local centers of power which will be capable of holding such insurgent leaders as may be induced to enter the political process to abide by the rules of the political game, to appeal for genuine local support, and to accommodate themselves to the popular will in ways they have not been willing to do previously.
President Karzai is sure to strongly oppose such reforms, as they would serve to greatly limit his power. There is nothing to suggest that achieving constitution change will be easy. But if the foreign supporters of the current Afghan government do not take the necessary steps to ensure that the negotiated peace which they profess to encourage -- and which even US military leaders on the ground agree will be the only way to end the current hostilities -- in fact sustains the goals which led them into Afghanistan in the first place, all their efforts are likely to come to naught.
In short, as the US and Nato set about trying to support a responsible negotiating process between the Afghan government and at least some elements of the insurgency, they had better begin now to plan and prepare for success.
Robert Grenier was the CIA's chief of station in Islamabad, Pakistan, from 1999 to 2002. He was also the director of the CIA's counter-terrorism centre.
Robert Grenier Last Modified: 15 Oct 2010 15:02 GMT
Vague stories concerning contacts between the government of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and various insurgent factions are hardly new, but those which began to proliferate again this week contained a new twist: That US and Nato forces are actively facilitating them.
To say that these stories should be taken with a large grain of salt is to vastly understate the case. First, no one claims that these are anything more than preliminary discussions, and no one has suggested that they even remotely approach the level of serious negotiations. Second, no one appears willing, or perhaps even able, to say who is involved, from either side.
The members of Afghan President Karzai’s 70-member "peace council" appear to know less about what is going on than most. "Senior Taliban officials" are engaged in the talks, say some; "people who report to Mullah Omar and the Quetta Shura," say others.
Given the high degree of decentralized organization of the Taliban infrastructure, however, and its degree of penetration in large parts of the country, those descriptions could encompass a very large number of people, and include players far removed from the topmost level.
Plan for success?
Whatever the reality, and however far removed we might appear to be from a negotiated solution to the Afghan conflict, US officials would be well advised to follow an old operational admonition: Plan for success.
That may seem obvious, but in fact it is not; for it is all too common for those engaged in a long-term endeavor with initially remote prospects of success to fail to make timely, systematic provisions for the ultimate vindication of their efforts, often until it is far too late. It is easy to find oneself in the position of the proverbial dog who chases the automobile, with little thought of the serious trouble in store if he should catch it.
Among all the stories circulating, there are few indications that US or Nato officials have much substantive involvement in the current discussions, direct or indirect, beyond simply allowing them to occur. Robert Gates, the US defense secretary, has stressed close consultations with the Afghan government as this nascent process goes forward, and asserts that it is being conducted in full transparency between Afghanistan and its allies.
Given the endemic distrust between the Karzai regime and the US government, however, and the apparent disparity between the two sides’ calculations regarding US intentions moving forward, it seems likely that Gates’ words are part desideratum and part admonition, rather than a description of reality. And in any case, all agree that any negotiating process, if it is to be authentic, must be Afghan-led.
Agreements and US interests
Perhaps US officials feel their interests are covered in virtue of having come to agreement with the Karzai government on the minimum acceptable provisions of any ultimate Afghan peace accord: That insurgents reject al-Qaeda, lay down their arms, and accept the Afghan Constitution.
Genuine adherence to those provisions, however, will be hard to verify in advance, and easy to reverse in any case. The temptation for Afghan government negotiators to fudge adherence to these dictates will be considerable, particularly under the leadership of the current Afghan president, whose penchant for wishful thinking is well-documented. And while the recently-selected “peace council” may be heavily weighted with traditional enemies of the Taliban, council head and former President Burnahuddin Rabbani perhaps chief among them, the council’s role in any future talks has yet to be defined.
In such discussions as US officials may be having with the Karzai government over the potential political role of senior insurgents who may eventually opt to enter the political process, it would be well to seek agreement on what form the Taliban’s political involvement might take, and how it would be implemented.
It seems most unlikely that insurgents, should they come over in any strength, will settle for a few ministries and the chance to run for the National Assembly. They are far more likely to want a share of power on the ground in the provinces, particularly those in which they currently hold a large degree of military sway.
On the one hand, it would seem that the centralization of formal power in Kabul, the capital, would facilitate this process. Since Karzai has the power to name district and provisional governors, as well as all manner of local officials, he would be able to appoint former insurgents to positions of genuine authority as an outcome of negotiations.
Taliban unaccountable?
But this, in fact, is a measure of the problem with the current system. To simply replace one set of locally-unaccountable officials for another, particularly when the new officials are affiliated with an organization which has never accepted any brakes on its power other than those imposed by its own obscurantist version of Islamic orthodoxy, is a prescription for disaster.
Unless integrated into a system which demands and reinforces local approval, how are former insurgent leaders to be held to account if they violate their covenants? It will surely not be the Afghan National Army, which cannot impose itself now in the areas of the Taliban’s greatest potential strength, even with the support of the US and NATO.
And even if the Afghan Army should continue to grow in strength and ability to project force into the Pashtun-dominated areas of the East and South, unless there are locally-organized centers of power which can be marshaled and supported to oppose potential future Taliban-inspired misrule, to include tolerance of internationally-oriented violent extremists, the chances of effectively opposing the Taliban in these areas will be greatly reduced.
There are many reasons to press for sweeping changes to the Afghan Constitution, and to break Kabul’s centralized monopoly of power in the provinces. Decentralizing power in Afghanistan in a manner which conforms to the country’s past history and cultural norms is a key to taking effective action against corruption and to garnering local support for an effective counter-insurgency against the Taliban.
To these we should now add the necessity of building up legitimate local centers of power which will be capable of holding such insurgent leaders as may be induced to enter the political process to abide by the rules of the political game, to appeal for genuine local support, and to accommodate themselves to the popular will in ways they have not been willing to do previously.
President Karzai is sure to strongly oppose such reforms, as they would serve to greatly limit his power. There is nothing to suggest that achieving constitution change will be easy. But if the foreign supporters of the current Afghan government do not take the necessary steps to ensure that the negotiated peace which they profess to encourage -- and which even US military leaders on the ground agree will be the only way to end the current hostilities -- in fact sustains the goals which led them into Afghanistan in the first place, all their efforts are likely to come to naught.
In short, as the US and Nato set about trying to support a responsible negotiating process between the Afghan government and at least some elements of the insurgency, they had better begin now to plan and prepare for success.
Robert Grenier was the CIA's chief of station in Islamabad, Pakistan, from 1999 to 2002. He was also the director of the CIA's counter-terrorism centre.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Last of Chile's miners rescued
Country celebrates as all 33 men emerge after more than two months of being trapped in a collapsed mine.
The last of Chile's 33 trapped miners has been pulled to safety in a rescue operation that ended a more than two-month ordeal at a collapsed copper mine deep in the Atacama desert.
Rescue teams raised the last miner, 54-year-old Luis Urzua, to the surface on Thursday morning, just 22 hours after launching the complex mission using a narrow, missile-like capsule to lift each man through the mine shaft one by one.
"We have done what the entire world was waiting for," Urzua, who was credited with holding the group together during their bleakest times, said after his rescue.
"We had strength, we had spirit, we wanted to fight, we wanted to fight for our families, and that was the greatest thing."
Greeted by family members and Sebastian Pinera, the Chilean president, upon emerging from the capsule, the 32 Chileans and one Bolivian miner were later seen by waiting doctors and flown to a triage centre for at least two days of medical evaluations.
Evo Morales, the Bolivian president, later visited Carlos Mamani, his rescued compatriot, at the triage centre.
"They were experiencing a kind of rebirth," Pinera said in a televised address to the nation from the San Jose mine after all the miners were freed.
The rescue operation, he said, was "inspiring ... for the whole world".
Captivated audience
From the mine to the Chilean capital, Santiago, and across the world, the unprecedented successful rescue operation prompted intense international media attention as well as relief and joy from a watchful audience.
The crowd in an area nicknamed Camp Hope, down the hill from the rescue shaft, set off confetti, released balloons and sprayed champagne as the capsules surfaced, while thousands of people cheered the rescue effort in the capital.
Followed minute by minute by international media and Chilean citizens, more than 800 journalists had gathered at the site to record the scene.
In depth
Live blog: Latest events
Your views: Mine rescue
Q&A: Chile mine rescue
In pictures: Rescue drama
However, the only media allowed to record the men coming out of the shaft were a government photographer and Chile's state TV channel, whose live broadcast was delayed by 30 seconds or more to prevent the release of anything unexpected.
But the ordeal finally wrapped up at around 12:35am local time (3:35 GMT) on Thursday, when the last of six highly trained rescue specialists involved in the extraction was lifted to safety.
Initially believed to have perished following the August 5 mine collapse, the miners found refuge in an emergency shelter and survived by strictly rationing their food and water.
Officials decided the order in which they would be pulled up based on their health and capacities.
Florencio Avalos, a 31-year-old driver, was the first miner to be pulled up - chosen because he was considered among the most physically and mentally fit of the group.
He smiled broadly as he emerged and hugged his weeping seven-year-old son and wife. He then embraced president Pinera, who was overseeing the rescue operation.
Mario Sepulveda, a 39-year-old electrical specialist, was the second to reach the surface. After hugging his wife, he jubilantly handed souvenir rocks to laughing rescuers.
Final ascents
The miners were pulled up through a 600m-deep shaft in a rescue capsule wide as the shoulders of an average built miner, designed specifically for the operation. They communicated with rescue teams using an intercom in the capsule.
Though the journey up the shaft was originally estimated to take half an hour, it took only 16 minutes for miners to be pulled up the shaft, with the final ascents lasting only around nine.
Each of the trapped miners has been promised six months of psychological support by the Chilean government.
Rescuers reinforced part of the 600 metre long escape shaft with steel piping
Al Jazeera's Monica Villamizar, reporting from the rescue scene, said: "Authorities have told us that after all the necessary medical tests have been made, and the check-ups complete, they are free to go with their families and they are free to talk with whoever they want."
The miners are reported to have moved to stop any individual from profiting at the expense of the group, drawing up a legal contract to share any profits from the story of their experience.
Regardless, Eugen Gaal, from the UK Society of Occupational Medicine, said the ordeal will be a "life-changing experience" for the miners.
"Some of them will actually use it to change their lives and others will crumble," he told Al Jazeera.
"There's a range of emotions I would expect them to go through. Feelings of panic, nightmares, anxiety, even physical symptoms are well known after traumatic events.
"Some individuals will be more prone to this than others and it's the long-term support, the psychological support that has been assured to these miners, that will help them to possibly overcome these problems if they do occur."
Medics say some of the men are psychologically fragile and may struggle with stress for a long time after their
The last of Chile's 33 trapped miners has been pulled to safety in a rescue operation that ended a more than two-month ordeal at a collapsed copper mine deep in the Atacama desert.
Rescue teams raised the last miner, 54-year-old Luis Urzua, to the surface on Thursday morning, just 22 hours after launching the complex mission using a narrow, missile-like capsule to lift each man through the mine shaft one by one.
"We have done what the entire world was waiting for," Urzua, who was credited with holding the group together during their bleakest times, said after his rescue.
"We had strength, we had spirit, we wanted to fight, we wanted to fight for our families, and that was the greatest thing."
Greeted by family members and Sebastian Pinera, the Chilean president, upon emerging from the capsule, the 32 Chileans and one Bolivian miner were later seen by waiting doctors and flown to a triage centre for at least two days of medical evaluations.
Evo Morales, the Bolivian president, later visited Carlos Mamani, his rescued compatriot, at the triage centre.
"They were experiencing a kind of rebirth," Pinera said in a televised address to the nation from the San Jose mine after all the miners were freed.
The rescue operation, he said, was "inspiring ... for the whole world".
Captivated audience
From the mine to the Chilean capital, Santiago, and across the world, the unprecedented successful rescue operation prompted intense international media attention as well as relief and joy from a watchful audience.
The crowd in an area nicknamed Camp Hope, down the hill from the rescue shaft, set off confetti, released balloons and sprayed champagne as the capsules surfaced, while thousands of people cheered the rescue effort in the capital.
Followed minute by minute by international media and Chilean citizens, more than 800 journalists had gathered at the site to record the scene.
In depth
Live blog: Latest events
Your views: Mine rescue
Q&A: Chile mine rescue
In pictures: Rescue drama
However, the only media allowed to record the men coming out of the shaft were a government photographer and Chile's state TV channel, whose live broadcast was delayed by 30 seconds or more to prevent the release of anything unexpected.
But the ordeal finally wrapped up at around 12:35am local time (3:35 GMT) on Thursday, when the last of six highly trained rescue specialists involved in the extraction was lifted to safety.
Initially believed to have perished following the August 5 mine collapse, the miners found refuge in an emergency shelter and survived by strictly rationing their food and water.
Officials decided the order in which they would be pulled up based on their health and capacities.
Florencio Avalos, a 31-year-old driver, was the first miner to be pulled up - chosen because he was considered among the most physically and mentally fit of the group.
He smiled broadly as he emerged and hugged his weeping seven-year-old son and wife. He then embraced president Pinera, who was overseeing the rescue operation.
Mario Sepulveda, a 39-year-old electrical specialist, was the second to reach the surface. After hugging his wife, he jubilantly handed souvenir rocks to laughing rescuers.
Final ascents
The miners were pulled up through a 600m-deep shaft in a rescue capsule wide as the shoulders of an average built miner, designed specifically for the operation. They communicated with rescue teams using an intercom in the capsule.
Though the journey up the shaft was originally estimated to take half an hour, it took only 16 minutes for miners to be pulled up the shaft, with the final ascents lasting only around nine.
Each of the trapped miners has been promised six months of psychological support by the Chilean government.
Rescuers reinforced part of the 600 metre long escape shaft with steel piping
Al Jazeera's Monica Villamizar, reporting from the rescue scene, said: "Authorities have told us that after all the necessary medical tests have been made, and the check-ups complete, they are free to go with their families and they are free to talk with whoever they want."
The miners are reported to have moved to stop any individual from profiting at the expense of the group, drawing up a legal contract to share any profits from the story of their experience.
Regardless, Eugen Gaal, from the UK Society of Occupational Medicine, said the ordeal will be a "life-changing experience" for the miners.
"Some of them will actually use it to change their lives and others will crumble," he told Al Jazeera.
"There's a range of emotions I would expect them to go through. Feelings of panic, nightmares, anxiety, even physical symptoms are well known after traumatic events.
"Some individuals will be more prone to this than others and it's the long-term support, the psychological support that has been assured to these miners, that will help them to possibly overcome these problems if they do occur."
Medics say some of the men are psychologically fragile and may struggle with stress for a long time after their
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Calculating risk: terror warnings
Terror alerts may cause unease and at times panic, however they serve as a vital insurance policy on many levels.
Robert Grenier Last Modified: 08 Oct 2010 13:54 GMT
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| Though many threats do not unfold, Government terror alerts are based on assessing large scale risk in order to prevent a major catastrophe. [EPA] |
“Terrorists,” the missive went on, “may elect to use a variety of means and weapons and target both official and private interests.” That would pretty well cover all contingencies; hard to argue with that.
Lacking any information about what the terrorists might intend to attack in the future, the alert went on to recount familiar categories of targets struck in the past.
And finally, lacking any usefully practical guidance about what people should do to protect themselves, the department deftly placed the onus on the potential victim: Travelers, it said, “…should take every precaution to be aware of their surroundings and to adopt appropriate safety measures…” - whatever those might be.
In truth, there was really nothing exceptional about this latest bit of bureaucratic boilerplate. I have seen its equivalent countless times over the years, and have even done my part in the past to help create it. And yet, for some reason, this particular governmental “alert” seemed to strike a chord and to generate a reaction.
Anne Applebaum, the Washington Post Op-ed columnist, appeared to speak for many in decrying the uselessness of this exercise. “In truth,” she said, “the only people who can profit from such a warning are the officials who issue it.” Well, of course. And that would explain why we see so many of them.
Many years ago, as I began to emerge from the depths of the US federal bureaucracy and became exposed to the dangers of dealing with Congress and with senior policymakers, a grizzled old warrior would pull me aside from time to time to provide useful advice, much of which has stayed with me ever since. “Always remember:” he said on one such occasion, “Fear drives the system.”
He was talking about bureaucratic fear: The fear that if something goes seriously wrong, and if one’s agency - or, worse yet, oneself - can be blamed, rightly or wrongly, fairly or unfairly, they most likely will be.
Individuals and organizations which have imprudently failed to “fireproof” themselves, in the bureaucratic vernacular, suddenly find themselves vulnerable in such circumstances. Rivals can pounce; careers can be wrecked; bureaucratic responsibilities and power can be shifted; and budgets can be slashed.
As these rules of bureaucratic life translate in the world of national security, it means that if threats are not foreseen, if dots are not connected, if warnings are not issued and, God forbid, something bad happens, there will be hell to pay. And while the costs of a false warning will be negligible, a failure to warn could be catastrophic.
Given this reality, it is no wonder that government bureaucracies behave as they do. I cannot recount the number of times when I have been forced to share information on a potential threat which I knew – knew as well as mortal man can know anything in this vale of tears – to be invalid. And I knew as well that for the recipient of the information, my warning would be less than useless.
Of course, these realities have a corrosive and vitiating effect over time. As Anne Applebaum says, “such warnings put the US government in the position of the boy who cried wolf. The more often general warnings are issued, the less likely we are to heed them.”
I do not mean by all this to disparage the US government, or indeed governments in general. It should be noted that shortly following the latest US announcement concerning the threat in Europe, other governments have issued similar warnings. And given the latest news from Pakistan’s tribal areas concerning the training of German militants, and the obvious consternation of several Western governments over the intelligence leaks leading to these revelations, it appears that some significant activity may be afoot.
Again, there are good reasons why governments behave as they do, and the more earnestly responsible governments are, the more likely they are to exhibit this sort of risk aversion. The point is for individuals and companies to become more adept at understanding the dynamics behind such government announcements, and to make reasonable decisions as to when – and when not – to ignore them.
Lurking beneath these considerations is a fundamental difference between the ways governments and individuals assess risks. For governments, if anything untoward happens to anyone for whom they are responsible, anywhere and at any time, there are liable to be severely negative repercussions for them. For a given individual, however, the risk calculus is quite different. While it is always good policy to take common-sense precautions against any number of risks – with the risk of terrorism for most people being far down the list – chances generally are that calamity, when it comes, will befall someone else.
Even if one knew for a certainty that some terrorist action were destined to occur in Europe during a given period, absent any other information, the chances of a given individual’s being in the wrong place at the wrong time are infinitesimally small. The chances of being randomly struck by a motorcar are far greater.
This fundamental imbalance in risk calculus is why, unless warnings are quite concrete and specific, it is so often foolish for individuals to take their risk-related cues from governments. Governments will inevitably judge risks as they appear from their perspective and in light of their own calculus, and not as a given individual would rationally judge them.
This week provided considerable evidence that this fundamental imbalance is becoming more obvious to more people. That is a good thing, let us hope this sort of rational healthy-mindedness survives the next major terrorist attack, wherever it occurs. If it does, the change in public perceptions will do more than any government policy to rob terrorists of what they seek: The ability to terrorize.
Robert Grenier is a retired, 27-year veteran of the CIA's Clandestine Service. He was the director of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Centre from 2004 to 2006.
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