Just Foreign Policy News
September 7, 2010
"A New Way Forward: Rethinking U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan"
Report of the "Afghanistan Study Group" initiated by Steve Clemons and directed by Matthew Hoh.
http://www.afghanistanstudygroup.org/
AP editor: ‘Combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is’
AP standards editor Tom Kent cautions reporters not to parrot "combat is over."
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=190064
Reuters Video: Afghans protest Koran burning
Protesters stage an anti-U.S. rally in Kabul after an American church says it will burn the Holy Koran on the September 11 anniversary.
http://www.reuters.com/news/video/story?videoId=152558173&videoChannel=1
Beverly Bell: For Partners in Health, Good Health Means Justice and Rights
Beverly Bell interviews Loune Viaud of Partners in Health’s Haiti program.
http://www.truth-out.org/for-partners-health-good-health-means-justice-and-rights62702
Bacevich: Washington Rules
Andrew Bacevich’s book, "Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War," is a call for Americans to reject the Washington consensus for permanent war.
Get the book
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/buywashingtonrules
September 24th: JFP "Virtual Brown Bag" with Andrew Bacevich
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/bacevichtalk
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Gen. Petraeus denounced plans by a Florida church to burn copies of the Koran this weekend, saying the demonstration could "endanger troops," the Washington Post reports. "I am very concerned by the potential repercussions of the possible Koran burning," Petraeus said. "Even the rumor that it might take place has sparked demonstrations such as the one that took place in Kabul yesterday. Were the actual burning to take place, the safety of our soldiers and civilians would be put in jeopardy." But the pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center, an evangelical Christian church in Gainesville, said his church plans to go through with its "International Burn a Koran Day."
2) The chairman of the Central Bank of Afghanistan promised Monday to lend the embattled Kabul Bank "as much as it wants" to stave off a collapse, the New York Times reports. Economists said an Afghan government bailout of the bank would probably increase tensions with its Western partners, who would be indirectly financing the intervention. The US has denied that it would provide any financial support in the crisis, but economists in Kabul say almost all money belonging to Afghanistan is donor money.
3) President Karzai said Saturday he will soon name the members of a "High Peace Council" tasked with pursuing peace talks with rebels, AP reports. Karzai’s statement said members will include former Taliban, jihadi leaders, leading figures in Afghan society and women. The British Foreign Office welcomed the announcement. Calls for talks have increasingly echoed among policy analysts and Afghan politicians, growing louder since the February campaign to take Marjah ended without a clear victory, AP says.
4) A $250 million program to lure low-level Taliban fighters away from the insurgency has stalled, the New York Times reports. The flow of Taliban fighters seeking to reintegrate has slowed to a trickle. At a peace assembly in June, delegates agreed to form a High Peace Council, which would be responsible for trying to engage Taliban leaders in talks; subsequently, international delegates agreed that the High Peace Council would run the program financed by the reintegration trust fund.
5) The US will withhold $26 million for Mexico’s drug war because of concerns the country has not done enough to protect its people from police and military abuse, the New York Times reports. It is the first time that the US, citing human rights concerns, has held back a portion of the financing for Mexico under the Merida Initiative. Under the program, 15 percent of the money for Mexico is allotted on the condition that the country improve the accountability of the federal and local police; ensure civilian investigations and, if warranted, prosecutions of allegations of abuse by the police and the military; and ban testimony obtained through torture or other mistreatment. The State Department called on the Mexican Congress to pass legislation strengthening the authority of the country’s national human rights commission and subjecting military service members accused of human rights abuses to civilian prosecution. The State Department said it would withhold 15 percent of the $175 million allocated in the most recent budget.
Iraq
6) The UN estimates that two million Iraqis fled to Syria and Jordan following the US invasion, the National (UAE) reports. According to the UN, 40 per cent of Iraq’s professional families fled the country. About 1.5 million still live abroad, the UN says. the UN’s high commissioner for refugees recently said it was too unsafe for Iraqis to be told to return. Between March and June the UN in Syria added more than 8,000 new cases to its list of registered Iraqi refugees.
Israel/Palestine
7) Governments around the world are increasingly taking action to boycott the Israeli occupation, boosting non-governmental efforts, Ha’aretz reports. The Chilean parliament has decided to adopt the boycott of Israeli products made in the settlements, at the behest of the Palestinian Authority. Last month a Norwegian government pension fund announced it was selling its holdings in Africa Israel and in its subsidiary Danya Cebus because of their involvement in constructing settlements in the occupied territories.
8) Israel hinted Sunday it will ease restrictions on building in West Bank settlements, while the Palestinian president warned he’ll quit the talks if Israel resumes construction, AP reports. Israeli officials said one proposal being considered is to keep most restrictions in place, and only allow construction on a limited scale, with personal approval by Defense Minister Barak or Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Afghanistan
9) A report prepared at the behest of the Defense Department concluded that pedophilia is widespread in southern Afghanistan, raising questions about why US troops are fighting to defend proud pedophiles, San Francisco Chronicle reports.
10) At least 600,000 street children in Afghanistan have no safety net to catch them, Reuters reports. Experts say the problem is getting worse because of the deepening war. A study by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission in 2008 found around 60,000 minors involved in child labor in Kabul alone. Nader Nadery, a senior commissioner at the AIHRC, says it’s a consequence of Afghanistan’s decades of conflict.
Bahrain
11) U.S.-allied Sunni rulers in Bahrain have opened a full-blown political offensive against members of the Shiite majority, AP reports. Rights groups say more than 250 Shiites have been detained ahead of Oct. 23 elections for parliament. On Saturday, officials portrayed 23 detained Shiite activists as part of a plot to overthrow the ruling system. Bahrain is the home port for the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
Mexico
12) The State Department says cannabis cultivation in Mexico soared 35 percent last year and is now higher than at any time in nearly two decades, McClatchy reports. According to State Department estimates, the areas of harvestable marijuana fields in Mexico grew from 10,130 acres in 2001 to 29,652 acres in 2009. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reported in May that nearly 26 million Americans had used marijuana in the past year. The biggest competition for Mexican cartels comes from domestic marijuana growers in the US. A US law enforcement report says California’s 2009 marijuana harvest alone surpassed the annual estimated harvest of nearly 32,000 tons in Mexico. But Mexican pot is cheaper.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Petraeus condemns Fla. church’s plan to burn Korans
David Nakamura and Javed Hamdard, Washington Post, September 7, 2010; 2:46 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/07/AR2010090701595.html
Kabul – Gen. David H. Petraeus on Tuesday denounced plans by a Florida church to burn copies of the Koran this weekend, saying the demonstration could "endanger troops" and damage the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. "It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems," Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, said in a statement. "Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Islamic community."
[…] Habibullah, a religious leader who organized a protest Monday morning in eastern Kabul to decry the Florida church’s plan, said throngs of angry men chanted, "Death to America!" and "Death to Obama!"
He said some of the protesters pelted a passing U.S. military convoy with stones. "I stopped them," said Habibullah, who uses one name. "Otherwise they would have burned the convoy."
The Dove World Outreach Center, a 50-member evangelical Christian church in Gainesville, Fla., announced plans to burn the Islamic holy books on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. At the Kabul protest, residents burned an effigy of Dove World pastor Terry Jones.
"I am very concerned by the potential repercussions of the possible Koran burning," Petraeus said. "Even the rumor that it might take place has sparked demonstrations such as the one that took place in Kabul yesterday. Were the actual burning to take place, the safety of our soldiers and civilians would be put in jeopardy and accomplishment of the mission would be made more difficult."
[…] In Florida, Jones rejected the warnings and said his church plans to go through with its "International Burn a Koran Day."
[…] "Images of the burning of a Koran would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Afghanistan – and around the world – to inflame public opinion and incite violence," Petraeus said. "Such images could, in fact, be used as were the photos from [Abu Ghraib]. And this would, again, put our troopers and civilians in jeopardy and undermine our efforts to accomplish the critical mission here in Afghanistan." Petraeus referred to the prison in Iraq that gained notoriety when the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. guards was revealed in 2004.
[…]
2) Afghanistan Pledges Support For Troubled Bank
Adam B. Ellick and Sangar Rahimi, New York Times, September 6, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/world/asia/07afghan.html
Kabul, Afghanistan – The chairman of the Central Bank of Afghanistan promised Monday to lend the embattled Kabul Bank "as much as it wants" to stave off a collapse, even as he continued to insist that the bank was solvent.
The chairman, Abdul Qadir Fitrat, said Kabul Bank was meeting the demands of customers "with its own resources," though he said he did not know how much money had been withdrawn from the private bank over the past few days. The frenzied rush of customers trying to empty their savings accounts at its largest branch tapered off slightly on Monday, though security remained tight.
Economic and political analysts say the government is buying time while it decides how to handle the politically treacherous predicament that erupted with the discovery last week that Kabul Bank had suffered huge losses after lending money to allies of President Hamid Karzai and pouring millions of dollars into risky real estate investments in Dubai.
The president, who has recently been more vocal in vowing to fight corruption, will be reluctant to arrest the bank’s top shareholders, who include one of his brothers and other close allies, or to seize their overseas properties that were bought with borrowed money that belonged to "some of the poorest people in the world," as one economist described the roughly $300 million in losses from the bank.
He would more likely use reserve funds to bail out Kabul Bank, the analysts said. On Monday, the Central Bank pledged its full support to Kabul Bank, saying "if necessary, it is ready to loan Kabul Bank as much as it wants."
For Mr. Karzai, a bailout presents a different but equally vexing problem. While a bailout could be hailed in Afghanistan as the government’s attempt to guarantee the people’s money, it would do little to deter the kinds of abuses that led to the crisis in the first place and would probably increase tensions with its Western partners, who would be indirectly financing the intervention, economists said.
If such a move takes place, the money will most likely come from Afghanistan’s reserve funds in the United States, which are earmarked for a currency crisis and not meant to bail out private banks.
Any intervention by the United States could be seen as politically dangerous for the Obama administration, which has distanced itself from Mr. Karzai. The United States has denied that it would provide any financial support in the crisis, but economists in Kabul say that even reserve funds have roots in donor money. Almost all money belonging to Afghanistan, they say, is donor money.
"Karzai doesn’t know what to do," said an economist, who asked not to be identified for fear of inserting himself into the conflict. "Will he have courage to put them in jail and pay the people? And if not, shareholders will continue living in luxury villas in Dubai, and that’s suicide for him."
[…]
3) Possible talks with Afghan insurgents draw closer
Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press, Sat Sep 4, 5:15 pm ET http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100904/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan
Kabul, Afghanistan – In a further step toward reconciling with insurgents, President Hamid Karzai said Saturday he will soon name the members of a council tasked with pursuing peace talks with rebels willing to break with al-Qaida and recognize the government in Kabul.
Karzai’s announcement was given added poignancy by comments from the outgoing deputy commander of NATO forces in the country that commanders promised too much when they predicted quick success taking the key Taliban-held town of Marjah last winter.
While British Lt. Gen. Nick Parker now sees signs of a turnaround in the turbulent area, he said the military will be more restrained in forecasting success in the future.
The formation of the High Peace Council was approved in June at a national peace conference in Kabul and Karzai’s statement that its membership would be announced next week marks a "significant step toward peace talks," according to a statement issued by Karzai’s office.
It said members will include former Taliban, jihadi leaders, leading figures in Afghan society and women, but gave no other details. They will be prepared to negotiate with insurgents who renounce violence, honor the Afghan constitution, and sever ties with terrorist networks.
[…] Though some observers have expressed concern about cutting any sort of deal with insurgents, foreign governments working to stabilize the Afghan government and economy have welcomed the move, especially given U.S. plans to begin withdrawing some of its forces next July.
"We warmly welcome today’s announcement," the British Foreign Office said of Karzai’s move. "We will not bring about a more secure Afghanistan by military means alone … We have always said that a political process is needed to bring the conflict in Afghanistan to an end."
With the nearly 9-year war showing no sign of winding down, calls for talks have increasingly echoed among policy analysts and Afghan politicians, growing louder since the February campaign to take Marjah, in Helmand province, ended without a clear victory.
U.S. Marines and Afghan troops overran the area and announced plans to put in place an effective Afghan administration in hopes of inspiring local populations to rise up against the Taliban.
Instead, the Taliban have fought back with hidden bombs, ambushes, assassinations and intimidation, undercutting NATO’s efforts to win public support. That has fueled doubts on Capitol Hill and among the American public that the Afghan war can be won.
[…]
4) Lacking Money And Leadership, Push For Taliban Defectors Stalls
Rod Nordland, New York Times, September 6, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/world/asia/07taliban.html
Kabul, Afghanistan – A $250 million program to lure low-level Taliban fighters away from the insurgency has stalled, with Afghans bickering over who should run it, and international donors slow to put up the money they had promised.
Six months after Afghanistan’s foreign backers agreed to generous funding for a reintegration effort, only $200,000 has been spent so far by the United States and little or nothing by other donors.
During the same period, the flow of Taliban fighters seeking to reintegrate has slowed to a trickle – by the most optimistic estimates, a few hundred in the last six months. It is not clear whether that is because of the lack of a program that would provide them with jobs, security guarantees and other incentives, or because most Taliban no longer see the insurgency as a losing proposition.
In the past five years, a poorly funded Afghan reintegration effort, the Peace and Reconciliation Commission, recorded 9,000 Taliban who sought to join the government side – compared with 100 since April, officials said. "It’s almost dead," said Muhammad Akram Khapalwak, a top official at the nearly moribund commission in Kabul. He said employees there had not been paid in three months. "The Taliban know the government doesn’t have a single policy for peace and reconciliation."
[…] There is little pressure on the donors to meet their pledges more quickly, however, since the Afghans have yet to form an agency to spend the money. As one American official said, "There isn’t any there there yet."
At a peace assembly, or jirga, in June, delegates agreed to form a High Peace Council, which would be responsible for trying to engage Taliban leaders in talks.
[…] Subsequently, at a Kabul conference in July, more international money was pledged for the reintegration trust fund, and delegates agreed that the High Peace Council would run the program financed by that fund.
[…]
5) U.S. Withholds Millions In Mexico Antidrug Aid
Elisabeth Malkin and Randal C. Archibold, New York Times, September 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/04/world/americas/04mexico.html
Mexico City – The United States will withhold about $26 million promised for Mexico’s drug war because of concerns that the country has not done enough to protect its people from police and military abuse.
It is the first time that the United States, citing human rights concerns, has held back a portion of the financing for Mexico under the Merida Initiative, a three-year-old, $1.4 billion effort to help Mexico and Central American nations fight drug trafficking organizations.
Under the program, 15 percent of the money for Mexico is allotted on the condition that the country improve the accountability of the federal and local police; ensure civilian investigations and, if warranted, prosecutions of allegations of abuse by the police and the military; and ban testimony obtained through torture or other mistreatment.
The State Department, in a report delivered to Congress on Friday, said it would release $36 million from earlier budgets. But it said it would withhold 15 percent of the $175 million allocated in the most recent budget.
"No society can enjoy domestic peace and security without a functioning justice system supported by appropriately trained and equipped law enforcement and justice personnel who are respectful of human rights and rule of law," said a State Department spokesman, Harry Edwards.
The State Department called on the Mexican Congress to pass legislation strengthening the authority of the country’s national human rights commission and subjecting military service members accused of human rights abuses to civilian prosecution.
[…] Nik Steinberg, Mexico researcher for Human Rights Watch, said, "Any withholding of funds would be a step in the right direction, but given the total impunity for military abuses and widespread cases of torture, none of the funds tied to human rights should be released."
Iraq
6) Baghdad to Damascus, a road with no way back
Phil Sands, The National (UAE), September 01. 2010
http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100902/FOREIGN/709019903/1042/rss
[…] Following the 2003 invasion, a tidal wave of Iraqis left their country, the numbers rising as the violence steadily worsened. The figures have long been disputed, but the United Nations estimates that some two million escaped to neighbouring Syria and Jordan alone, making it the largest Middle East migration in 50 years.
[…] According to the UN, 40 per cent of Iraq’s professional families fled the country, forced out by kidnappings and intercommunal warfare. Sunni Arabs from Baghdad made up a significant proportion of those arriving in Syria, but there were Shiites, too, along with Christians and a plethora of other minorities.
Although tens of thousands of Iraqis have voluntarily returned home since the worst of the violence in 2006 and 2007, about 1.5 million still live abroad, the UN says.
In June, the number of resettlement applications for Iraqis filed by the UN refugee agency surpassed 100,000. Antonio Guterres, the UN’s high commissioner for refugees, came to Damascus to mark the occasion and to remind the world that, while the Americans might be winding down their war, the refugee crisis is far from over. He appealed to the international community for help and said it was too early and too unsafe for Iraqis to be told to return.
In fact, the flow of Iraqis into Syria continues, a testament to the scope of the continuing troubles. Up to 6,000 cross the border each day, some on business, some on holiday and some – usually from Baghdad, Mosul or Diyala – running away from violence, UN officials say.
The vast majority do not register as refugees, but many do. Between March and June the UN in Syria added more than 8,000 new cases to its list of almost 166,000. Many of the new arrivals had tried to cling on at home but now said they had little option but to leave.
"I waited until after the elections because I thought things would get better but they’re getting worse again," said Umm Omar, 30, an English literature student and mother of two who arrived in Syria in July.
She has registered as a UN refugee, hoping, in what is effectively a lottery, to win resettlement in Europe. Determined not to abandon her home, Umm Omar had weathered the storm of violence in Baghdad when it peaked in 2006 but said the time had come to give up on Iraq entirely.
"It was a combination of things that made me finally decide," she explained. "The security is worse than they say it is. There are no public services, no jobs. You can’t drink the water. There’s no electricity and the politicians are only interested in themselves. There is only so much you can tolerate.
"In Iraq, we live like animals, not human beings. You eat and work and try to stay alive. I want more than that for my son and my daughter. If I were alone, I’d stay – I don’t want to be weak or run away from things – but for their sakes, we have left and we are not going back."
[…]
Israel/Palestine
7) Anti-Israel economic boycotts are gaining speed
The sums involved are not large, but their international significance is huge. Boycotts by governments gives a boost to boycotts by non-government bodies around the world.
Nehemia Shtrasler, Ha’aretz, 05.09.10
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/business/anti-israel-economic-boycotts-are-gaining-speed-1.312210
The entire week was marked by boycotts. It began with a few dozen theater people boycotting the new culture center in Ariel, and continued with a group of authors and artists publishing a statement of support on behalf of those theater people. Then a group of 150 lecturers from various universities announced they would not teach at Ariel College or take part in any cultural events in the territories. Naturally, all that spurred a flurry of responses, including threats of counter-sanctions.
That was all at the local level. There’s another boycott, an international one, that’s gaining momentum – an economic boycott. Last week the Chilean parliament decided to adopt the boycott of Israeli products made in the settlements, at the behest of the Palestinian Authority, which imposed a boycott on such products several months ago.
In September 2009, Norway’s finance minister announced that a major government pension fund was selling its shares in Elbit Systems because of that company’s role in building the separation fence. In March, a major Swedish investment fund said it would eschew Elbit Systems shares on the same grounds. Last month the Norwegian pension fund announced that it was selling its holdings in Africa Israel and in its subsidiary Danya Cebus because of their involvement in constructing settlements in the occupied territories.
The sums involved are not large, but their international significance is huge. Boycotts by governments gives a boost to boycotts by non-government bodies around the world.
Human-rights organizations in Europe are essentially running campaigns to boycott Israeli products. They are demonstrating at supermarkets, brandishing signs against Israeli goods. Worker organizations, with millions of members, send circulars to their people calling on them to forgo Israeli products.
I talked with farmers who say there are retail chains in Europe no longer prepared to buy Israeli products. The same is true for a chain in Washington.
The world is changing before our eyes. Five years ago the anti-Israel movement may have been marginal. Now it is growing into an economic problem.
Until now boycott organizers had been on the far left. They have a new ally: Islamic organizations that have strengthened greatly throughout Europe in the past two decades. The upshot is a red and green alliance with a significant power base. The red side has a name for championing human rights, while the green side has money. Their union is what led to the success of the Turkish flotilla.
[…]
8) Mideast crisis looms over Israeli settlements
Karin Laub and Mohammed Daraghmeh, Associated Press, September 5, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/05/AR2010090500829.html
Ramallah, West Bank – Just days after Mideast peace talks began in Washington, the first major crisis is already looming: Israel hinted Sunday it will ease restrictions on building in West Bank settlements, while the Palestinian president warned he’ll quit the talks if Israel resumes construction.
Israel’s 10-month-old slowdown on new building in settlements expires Sept. 26, leaving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a tough choice.
If he extends the freeze, he risks breaking up his hardline coalition. If he lifts the restrictions, he risks getting blamed for derailing negotiations and disrupting President Barack Obama’s Mideast peace efforts soon after they began.
[…] Under intense U.S. pressure, Israel imposed restrictions on most West Bank settlement construction last November in a bid to bring the Palestinians back to the negotiating table. He has not yet said what he will do when the slowdown expires.
The Palestinians view a continued curb on settlement construction – even if it falls short of a complete freeze – as the true test of Netanyahu’s intentions.
Abbas told a group of PLO activists in Libya late Saturday that anything but an extension of the current slowdown is unacceptable. "If the (Israeli) government extends the Israeli decision to stop the settlements, we will continue the negotiations, and if it doesn’t extend, we will leave these negotiations," Abbas said.
[…] Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak signaled Sunday it’s unlikely the freeze will be extended in its current form. "I don’t think it will remain, and we’re looking for a way to ensure that this will not harm the continuation of the talks," Barak told Israel Army Radio.
[…] One proposal being considered is to keep most restrictions in place, and only allow construction on a limited scale, with personal approval by Barak or Netanyahu, said Israeli officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the idea has not yet been presented.
Aides to Abbas and Netanyahu are to discuss the plan before the leaders meet for a second time, the officials said.
[…] Meanwhile, Israeli aircraft bombed three Gaza smuggling tunnels late Saturday in retaliation for two Hamas shooting attacks that killed four Israelis in the West Bank last week. The airstrikes killed two Palestinians and wounded a third. Two more Palestinians were missing.
[…]
Afghanistan
9) Afghanistan’s dirty little secret
Joel Brinkley, San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, August 29, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/28/INF21F2Q9H.DTL
Western forces fighting in southern Afghanistan had a problem. Too often, soldiers on patrol passed an older man walking hand-in-hand with a pretty young boy. Their behavior suggested he was not the boy’s father. Then, British soldiers found that young Afghan men were actually trying to "touch and fondle them," military investigator AnnaMaria Cardinalli told me. "The soldiers didn’t understand."
All of this was so disconcerting that the Defense Department hired Cardinalli, a social scientist, to examine this mystery. Her report, "Pashtun Sexuality," startled not even one Afghan. But Western forces were shocked – and repulsed.
For centuries, Afghan men have taken boys, roughly 9 to 15 years old, as lovers. Some research suggests that half the Pashtun tribal members in Kandahar and other southern towns are bacha baz, the term for an older man with a boy lover. Literally it means "boy player." The men like to boast about it. "Having a boy has become a custom for us," Enayatullah, a 42-year-old in Baghlan province, told a Reuters reporter. "Whoever wants to show off should have a boy."
Baghlan province is in the northeast, but Afghans say pedophilia is most prevalent among Pashtun men in the south. The Pashtun are Afghanistan’s most important tribe. For centuries, the nation’s leaders have been Pashtun.
[…] In Kandahar, population about 500,000, and other towns, dance parties are a popular, often weekly, pastime. Young boys dress up as girls, wearing makeup and bells on their feet, and dance for a dozen or more leering middle-aged men who throw money at them and then take them home. A recent State Department report called "dancing boys" a "widespread, culturally sanctioned form of male rape."
So, why are American and NATO forces fighting and dying to defend tens of thousands of proud pedophiles, certainly more per capita than any other place on Earth? And how did Afghanistan become the pedophilia capital of Asia?
Sociologists and anthropologists say the problem results from perverse interpretation of Islamic law. Women are simply unapproachable. Afghan men cannot talk to an unrelated woman until after proposing marriage. Before then, they can’t even look at a woman, except perhaps her feet. Otherwise she is covered, head to ankle. "How can you fall in love if you can’t see her face," 29-year-old Mohammed Daud told reporters. "We can see the boys, so we can tell which are beautiful."
Even after marriage, many men keep their boys, suggesting a loveless life at home. A favored Afghan expression goes: "Women are for children, boys are for pleasure." Fundamentalist imams, exaggerating a biblical passage on menstruation, teach that women are "unclean" and therefore distasteful. One married man even asked Cardinalli’s team "how his wife could become pregnant," her report said. When that was explained, he "reacted with disgust" and asked, "How could one feel desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean?"
That helps explain why women are hidden away – and stoned to death if they are perceived to have misbehaved. Islamic law also forbids homosexuality. But the pedophiles explain that away. It’s not homosexuality, they aver, because they aren’t in love with their boys.
[…]
10) War, corruption swell number of Afghan street kids
Andrew Hammond, Reuters, Sun Sep 5, 9:03 pm ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100906/wl_nm/us_afghanistan_streetkids_feature
Kabul – At a center for disadvantaged children in Kabul, shy young girls step up to recite their duties as fasting Muslims for the visiting U.S. ambassador.
Teachers look on with pride at young Afghans who were once left at the mercy of the street.
Yet the disturbing reality in this war-torn nation – where Western powers battle Islamist forces to maintain a friendly government in power – is that at least 600,000 street children have no safety net to catch them.
The problem, experts say, is getting worse because of the deepening war and the scourge of corruption, despite the inflow of more than $35 billion from foreign donors since the Taliban were removed from power in 2001.
The dangers for children are many, they say: from drugs to the insurgency, from criminal gangs to sexual abuse. "Poverty is getting worse in Afghanistan and children are forced to find work," said Shafiqa Zaher, a social worker with Aschiana, the group receiving U.S. aid for its work.
[…] A study by the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in 2008 found around 60,000 minors involved in child labor in Kabul alone.
Nader Nadery, a senior commissioner at the AIHRC, says it’s a consequence of Afghanistan’s decades of conflict. "In the last three to four years an increasing number of displaced from the war affected areas – Helmand, Kandahar, Ghazni – have poured into Kabul city to seek refuge," he said.
[…]
Bahrain
11) Bahrain steps up pressure on Shiite ‘plotters’
Brian Murphy, Associated Press, Sunday, September 5, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/05/AR2010090501771.html
Dubai, United Arab Emirates – What began last month with the arrest of an opposition leader in Bahrain has mushroomed into a full-blown political offensive in the tiny Gulf nation with big fault lines: U.S.-allied Sunni rulers against members of a Shiite majority being cast as coup plotters who could open the door to Iranian influence.
On Sunday, Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa gave a national address to decry "strife, aggression and terrorism" and announce plans for greater government monitoring of "religious forums" – an apparent reference to Shiite clerics and others who seek to challenge the Sunni-led system.
[…] A day earlier, state media released the photographs of 23 Shiites – ranging from opposition figures to professors and taxi drivers – accused of conspiring to overthrow the government. They include opposition leader Abdul-Jalil al-Singace, whose arrest on Aug. 13 marked the first salvo by officials.
Since then, Bahrain’s leaders have steadily ramped up the pressure and rhetoric.
Rights groups say more than 250 Shiites have been detained. The backlash spilled onto the streets with Shiite gangs and police clashing on opposite sides of barricades of burning tires.
Then on Saturday, officials took their strongest swipe yet – portraying the 23 detained Shiite activists as part of a plot to overthrow the ruling system in a stalwart Western ally and home port for the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
[…] No details of the alleged coup plot have been made public. But the tough line raises questions about whether officials could clamp down even harder during the approach to Oct. 23 elections for parliament, where Shiites currently have 17 of the 40 seats and could make a bid for a majority in the upcoming balloting.
Shiites have long complained of discrimination in state jobs and housing and claim they are barred from influential posts in the security forces.
[…] Rights groups have demanded investigations into claims of abuses among those detained since mid-August. Media advocates, meanwhile, have denounced the closure of some independent Bahraini websites and a gag order for local media on reporting about the arrests.
The blocked sites include podcasts of the independent Al-Wasat newspaper and the web page of the Wefaq society, the largest Shiite bloc in Bahrain’s parliament. Last month, the Wefaq leader, Sheik Ali Salman, said the crackdown has "destroyed 10 years of progress" in Sunni-Shiite relations in Bahrain after the last sectarian unrest in the 1990s.
Bahrain’s Shiites say they have nothing to do with Iran and are only seeking equality in a country where they are the majority. But their demands are seen by many Sunnis as a stalking horse for Tehran’s regional ambitions. "The government in Bahrain likes to play the Iran card," said J.E. Peterson, a Gulf affairs scholar affiliated with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona.
But he believes Bahrain’s rulers are more interested in preserving their own political survival and privileges as Shiite activists gain more confidence. "I think they are trying to send a message to the Shiites on the streets," he said, "And that message is: Be careful."
Mexico
12) Mexico’s drug war leaves marijuana growers to thrive
Tim Johnson, McClatchy Newspapers, September 03, 2010
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/09/02/100069/for-mexican-cartels-marijuana.html
Corre Coyote, Mexico – Times are good for the dope growers of the western Sierra Madre mountains. The army eradication squads that once hacked at the illicit marijuana fields have been diverted by the drug war that’s raging elsewhere in Mexico.
The military’s retreat has delighted farmers who are sowing and reaping marijuana. Cannabis cultivation in Mexico soared 35 percent last year and is now higher than at any time in nearly two decades, the State Department says.
It’s also been a boon for Mexico’s powerful organized-crime groups.
Marijuana is perishable, bulky and less profitable than their other exports – heroin, cocaine and crystal meth – but drug trafficking experts say that every major trafficking organization in Mexico reaps significant income from marijuana, drawing on cross-border criminal networks that carry cannabis to scores of U.S. cities.
"They tend to be a cash cow for the drug trafficking organizations," David T. Johnson, the assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, said during a visit to Mexico this week.
An aerial tour deep into the Sierra Madres at the side of a Mexican army general and a small army eradication unit – one of a handful that are still actively working – shows marijuana crops flourishing in valley after valley of the rugged, pine-covered region.
The mountain slopes and valleys in the part of southern Chihuahua state that’s hugged by Sinaloa and Durango states are sometimes called Mexico’s Golden Triangle – after the opium-producing Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia – because of their productivity. Illicit crops include not only marijuana but also poppy, the flowering plant that provides the white gummy latex that’s later processed into opium and heroin.
It’s a dangerous area. Even the poorest farmers tote weapons. A third of the region’s population is thought to earn its living from the illicit drug industry.
Peasant farms need little to grow small fields of marijuana: bags of seeds, some fertilizer, lengths of hose for primitive irrigation systems and a few months for the crop to mature into 10-foot tall plants.
According to State Department estimates, the areas of harvestable marijuana fields in Mexico grew from 10,130 acres in 2001 to 29,652 acres in 2009. During the same period, the area of eradication dropped by half.
[…] Surveys show that some 3 million Mexicans use marijuana with some regularity. That pales next to the United States, however, where the National Institute on Drug Abuse reported in May that nearly 26 million Americans had used marijuana in the past year.
The biggest competition for Mexican cartels comes from domestic marijuana growers in the United States. A document produced by local, state and federal law enforcement officials in California’s Central Valley, a major hub for marijuana cultivation, says that California’s 2009 marijuana harvest alone surpassed the annual estimated harvest of nearly 32,000 tons in Mexico. It put overall U.S. marijuana production at 76,380 tons.
"Mexicans sometimes tell me that they think we are self-sufficient in marijuana," Johnson said.
In reality, though, Mexican pot may remain popular because it’s far cheaper than domestically grown cannabis in the United States is. The low price of the less-potent Mexican marijuana buoys demand, inducing cartels to stick with it as a revenue-producer.
[…]
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Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
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