Just Foreign Policy News
July 11, 2011
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I) Actions and Featured Articles
Reading Ethan Bronner in Athens
Ethan Bronner, the New York Times’ Jerusalem bureau chief, at first seems to get that the Gaza Freedom Flotilla is about freedom, then relapses into claiming that it is about aid.
http://www.truth-out.org/new-york-times-jerusalem-bureau-chiefs-coy-analysis-gaza-flotilla/1310151721
Video – Nabi Saleh: Palestinian "flotilla" met with tear gas
Apparently, this "flotilla" is also a security threat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFYVmPsKhqA
Medea Benjamin: By Torpedoing the Gaza Flotilla, Israel Sunk its Own Ship
The Israeli government’s hysterical reaction to the travel plans of a few hundred middle-aged peace activists gave these activists a greater media platform to talk about Gaza.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/07/11
"Boycott Bill" Background
Israel’s Knesset is set to vote today on a bill that would outlaw calling for any boycott of Israeli settlements. "The bill will turn the Knesset into the thought police for Israeli society, and will mortally hurt the principle of the freedom of speech," said Peace Now Secretary General Yariv Oppenheimer.
http://peacenow.org/entries/boycott_bill_background
U.S. Death Toll in Afghanistan Under Obama Now Tops 1000
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/obamavsbush
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II) Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) The House voted to prohibit weapons and training to Libyan rebels but stopped short of cutting off money for US participation in the war, AP reports. The House voted 225-201 for an amendment sponsored by Rep. Cole to bar the Pentagon from providing "military equipment, training or advice or other support for military activities" to an outside group, such as rebel forces, for military action in or against Libya. The House rejected 229-199 a Kucinich-Amash amendment that would have prohibited funds for the U.S. military to continue its role.
2) Israel prevented a gathering of foreigners on Friday by blocking, deterring or deporting hundreds of air travelers who had been invited by Palestinian activists to fly into Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport and then travel to the West Bank for a week of "fellowship and actions," the New York Times reports. Fadi Kattan, a Palestinian organizer, said at a news conference in Bethlehem that he was "pleased – sadly pleased" that the episode had exposed what he described as Israel’s draconian anti-Palestinian policies. Israeli commentators and some politicians have described the Israeli government reaction to the "flightilla" as excessive and bordering on hysterical, the Times notes.
3) US Special Operations forces have carried out an extraordinary number of night raids over the past year, stirring accusations of abuse, resentment among Afghans and divisions with the government, reports Carlotta Gall in the New York Times. The night raids now average 300 a month.
In one example, family members and an Afghan investigator said that two clerics were among eight civilians killed in a raid last November by American Special Operations forces in Mian. Muhammad Younus, 60, said in an interview that he was so badly beaten by American soldiers that he could not walk for 20 days. Villagers carried him out in a wheelbarrow and took him the next morning to see the bodies of his two brothers, the clerics: Maulavi Abdul Kabir, 72, and Maulavi Abdul Rauf, 65. They had been burned so badly, they were barely recognizable, and they bore bullet wounds, he said.
"Before they asked me a question, they started kicking and beating me," Younus said, adding that Americans did the beating and interrogation. Younus, a diabetic who walks with a cane, said he was beaten on and off through the night and fainted four times. "Don’t tell us about your sickness, we are going to kill you and your brothers and destroy your houses," he recalls being told through a translator.
4) Iraq’s government failed again Saturday to reach agreement on whether to ask some U.S. forces to remain beyond December, the Washington Post reports. The Obama Administration has suggested leaving 10,000 U.S. troops. The longer the decision takes, the less time Obama has to explain to the American public the importance of preserving a presence, and the more he risks clouding an election-year message that he has overseen the end of the Iraq war, the Post says.
5) A Brown University study estimates the total cost of the current wars – mostly in taxpayer dollars – will be between $3.7 trillion and $4.4 trillion, CBS News reports.
6) Bahrain has brutally punished those protesting peacefully for greater freedom and accountability while the US and other allies looked the other way, says Human Rights Watch, releasing a report on the crackdown against democracy protesters in Bahrain.
7) China’s top general said the US is spending too much on its military in light of its recent economic troubles, AP reports. "If the U.S. could reduce its military spending a bit and spend more on improving the livelihood of the American people … wouldn’t that be a better scenario?" he said. China’s military budget of $95 billion this year is the world’s second-highest after Washington’s planned $650 billion in defense spending.
Afghanistan
8) NATO forces said Thursday that they had killed several women and children a day earlier in an air attack, the New York Times reports. Afghan officials say the airstrike killed eight children and two women. Villagers angry over the deaths flooded into the streets, demanding punishment for those responsible.
9) Dozens of American contractors being investigated by Afghan officials after accusations of unpaid debts owed to Afghan subcontractors, Farah Stockman reports for the Boston Globe. Contractors accused of failure to pay subcontractors continue to get US contracts.
Israel/Palestine
10) A UN report strongly criticizes Israel for using live fire against unarmed demonstrators who tried in May to breach its border fence from Lebanon, the New York Times reports. The report states that Israel first issued verbal warnings and fired into the air before directing live fire at the mostly Palestinian protesters, killing seven civilians and injuring 111. But other than firing in the air, it says, Israel did not employ "conventional crowd control methods or any other method than lethal weapons against the demonstrators."
Yemen
11) President Obama sent his counterterrorism chief to meet with Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, with the envoy telling him that the only way to get US aid flowing again was to sign an accord that would effectively remove Saleh from power, the New York Times reports. The US had long been a supporter of Saleh’s authoritarian rule, viewing it as the best way to combat Qaeda affiliates in Yemen, the Times says. But the Obama administration withdrew its support four months ago, after concluding Saleh’s government could not survive the uprisings sweeping the country, and that US interests were better served in getting a new government in place that might allow continued American attacks on Al Qaeda.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) House pushes to finish $649B defense bill, sends mixed message on Libya
Associated Press, July 8
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress/house-pushes-to-finish-649b-defense-bill-sends-mixed-message-on-libya/2011/07/08/gIQACNlP3H_story.html
Washington – The House is sending mixed signals on President Barack Obama’s military action against Libya, voting to prohibit weapons and training to rebels looking to oust Moammar Gadhafi but stopping short of trying to cut off money for American participation in the NATO-led mission.
In a series of votes Thursday, Republicans and Democrats expressed their dissatisfaction with the Libya operation, now in its fourth month with no end in sight and waning support from some nations in the international coalition. The House voted to bar military aid to the rebels but moments later rejected efforts to prevent funding for the limited U.S. mission.
The votes mirrored the contradictory actions of the House last month, when lawmakers refused to approve the operation but declined to cut off the money.
The latest House votes came on amendments to a $649 billion defense spending bill that lawmakers hoped to finish on Friday. The overall measure covering weapons and warships, jet fighters and bombers, personnel and military pay is $9 billion less than Obama requested but $17 billion more than current levels.
It covers the Pentagon budget beginning Oct. 1 but must be reconciled with a still-to-be-completed Senate version.
The congressional unrest over Libya stems from a stalemated civil war and Obama’s contention that he didn’t need congressional authorization to engage in another war on top of Afghanistan and Iraq because Libya fighting isn’t full-blown hostilities. Among war-weary NATO allies, Italy announced that it was reducing its participation in the campaign by removing an aircraft carrier from the region and pulling thousands of troops home.
"Libya did not attack us. Libya did not attack NATO," Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said. "However much we detest Mr. Gadhafi and his regime, we have no reason to be at war."
The House voted 225-201 for an amendment sponsored by Cole to bar the Pentagon from providing "military equipment, training or advice or other support for military activities" to an outside group, such as rebel forces, for military action in or against Libya.
Forty-eight Democrats backed the Republican-sponsored measure.
The intent of the measure was to prohibit aid to the rebels such as weapons and assistance to their Transitional National Council, including operational planning. The broad effort also would target contractors in Libya.
Obama already has authorized $25 million in nonlethal assistance to the rebels, including thousands of meals ready to eat rations from Pentagon stocks. The U.S. also has supplied some $53 million in humanitarian aid. Neither would be affected by the bill.
Moments after that vote Thursday, the House rejected a measure that would have prohibited funds for the U.S. military to continue its limited role. The vote was 229-199, with 67 Democrats breaking with the administration to support the amendment.
"This is our moment to reclaim the Constitution of the United States," said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who co-sponsored the amendment with freshman Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich. "We have the power to determine when to go to war, not some rebel power in Benghazi."
Lawmakers argue that Obama violated the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which requires a president to seek congressional approval within 60 days of the first military strikes, a move the commander in chief did not make.
In a reflection of congressional anger toward the administration, the House voted overwhelmingly for an amendment that prohibits spending that violates the War Powers Resolution and focuses on future military operations.
[…] The Senate has delayed consideration of a resolution authorizing the U.S. mission in Libya.
Amid negotiations to slash spending and raise the nation’s borrowing limit, the House rejected several amendments to cut the Pentagon budget, including a measure by Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., to half the bill’s increase in defense spending over this year’s level.
2) Israel Blocks Air Travelers to Palestinian Conference
Isabel Kershner, New York Times, July 8, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/09/world/middleeast/09mideast.html
Bethlehem, West Bank – Israel prevented a gathering of foreigners here on Friday by blocking, deterring or deporting hundreds of air travelers who had been invited by Palestinian activists to fly into Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport and then travel to the West Bank for a week of "fellowship and actions."
Israel has traditionally been welcoming of foreign tourists, including more than a million Christian pilgrims who visited this Palestinian city of the Nativity last year. But the Israeli authorities prepared for days to head off Friday’s planned fly-in. The Israeli news media added to the hype by calling it a "flightilla" – a reference to the flotilla of boats that was supposed to challenge Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza last month but has been stymied by Israeli pressure and by the cooperation of the Greek port authorities.
As a result, most of the foreigners who planned to fly to Tel Aviv and join the "Welcome to Palestine" initiative were either deterred from trying to come or were prevented from boarding flights to Israel by foreign airlines, on instructions from the Israelis.
The Palestinian hosts decried the Israeli measures, but also chalked up a small victory.
Fadi Kattan, a Palestinian organizer, said at a news conference in Bethlehem that he was "pleased – sadly pleased" that the episode had exposed what he described as Israel’s draconian anti-Palestinian policies.
Over the past few days, hundreds of police officers were deployed in and around the airport near Tel Aviv. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured the base of operations at Ben-Gurion with his internal security minister, the police chief, security branch representatives and immigration officials.
There were persistent reports that the foreign visitors would try to create chaos and paralyze the airport, despite strenuous denials from the organizers of the campaign, who advocate nonviolence. They insisted that the foreigners wanted only to transit the airport and "go to Palestine." (The West Bank has no airport of its own.)
[…] At Ben-Gurion Airport, two American women were deported from Israel early Friday after flying in from Athens [Kathy Kelly and Missy Lane, passengers on The Audacity of Hope – JFP]. In the afternoon, six Israeli left-wing demonstrators were detained for questioning after shouting pro-Palestinian slogans in the arrivals hall.
By early Saturday, 124 foreigners had been refused entry and were awaiting deportation, a spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry, Sabine Haddad, said. They had come in on six different flights and included Spanish, French, American, Belgian, Bulgarian and Dutch nationals, she said.
Israel’s Internal Security minister, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, had branded the potential visitors as "hooligans." Mr. Netanyahu said that every country has the right to block the entry of "provocateurs."
Still, Israeli commentators and some politicians have described the Israeli preparations as excessive and bordering on hysterical.
"The state of Israel has taken leave of its senses," wrote columnist Eitan Haber on the front page of the popular Yediot Aharonot newspaper on Thursday. "Instead of welcoming these loony visitors, permitting them to sing, whistle and even raise signs, the world is liable to see the ‘Zionist storm troopers’ in action once again."
Brigitte Von Winterfeld, 71, from Germany, was one of a few foreigners who got to Bethlehem to join the campaign. She said she flew in on Tuesday, chose a "smiley" immigration officer at the passport control booths, and told him she was coming to visit friends. Ms. Von Winterfeld said she spent a while here last year with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel, a World Council of Churches organization that says it brings people from other countries to the West Bank to experience life under occupation.
The Palestinian organizers of the week’s program include well-known advocates of nonviolent protest like Sami Awad of the Bethlehem-based Holy Land Trust, and Mazin Qumsiyeh, a science professor at Bethlehem University. They said they were going ahead with the schedule as planned.
The itinerary includes visits to families in Palestinian refugee camps as well as demonstrations at various traditional Israeli-Palestinian flashpoints.
3) Night Raids Curbing Taliban, but Afghans Cite Civilian Toll
Carlotta Gall, New York Times, July 8, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/09/world/asia/09nightraids.html
Kabul, Afghanistan – United States Special Operations forces have carried out an extraordinary number of night raids over the past year, turning them into one of their most effective tools against the insurgents even as they stir accusations of abuse, resentment among Afghans and divisions with the government.
Last year’s influx of coalition forces brought with it the kind of intelligence and surveillance that have enhanced the military’s ability to conduct the night raids, which now average 300 a month, NATO and Afghan officials said. Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands detained in the raids over the past 18 months, they said.
[…] Yet complaints from Afghans persist about the raids, which are almost invariably carried out under a veil of secrecy by Special Operations forces, often accompanied by Afghan commandos. The raids remain one of the greatest sources of contention with President Hamid Karzai, who has shown growing signs of distress over their use and has repeatedly called for them to end.
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, has defended the raids in sometimes heated exchanges with Mr. Karzai. In May, apparently in recognition of the anger the raids had provoked, General Petraeus ordered reviews of all tactical guidance for coalition troops and the causes of civilian casualties, and later of the conduct of night operations.
But neither General Petraeus, who has overseen a steep increase in the use of the raids since taking command about a year ago, nor his successor is unlikely to slow the pace of the raids. If anything, the military’s dependence on the night raids, which use relatively small teams of Special Forces, may only increase as the United States reduces its troops over the next three years.
Accounts of the raids from the military and Afghan civilians often differ widely. In one example, family members and an Afghan investigator said that two clerics were among eight civilians killed in a raid last November by American Special Operations forces in Mian, a village in a remote district of the southern province of Kandahar.
Muhammad Younus, 60, said in an interview that he was so badly beaten by American soldiers that he could not walk for 20 days. Villagers carried him out in a wheelbarrow and took him the next morning to see the bodies of his two brothers, the clerics: Maulavi Abdul Kabir, 72, and Maulavi Abdul Rauf, 65.
They had been burned so badly, they were barely recognizable, and they bore bullet wounds, he said.
Lt. Cmdr. Ron Flesvig, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, confirmed the raid and that eight people had been killed. He forwarded comments from the Special Operations public affairs office, dismissing the allegations as "unfounded and without merit."
An investigation "was unable to locate anyone who could or would provide a name of any civilian alleged to have been wounded or killed during the operation," the public affairs office statement said.
The American forces’ actions in Mian over a 24-hour period nonetheless incensed the wider community and raised questions about the veracity of the military’s reporting.
Military officials say that they get their target 80 percent of the time, and that less than 1 percent of the raids lead to civilian casualties. Yet there is no way to independently verify those figures, since the raids are conducted in great secrecy and are underreported. Any investigations by the military into the raids are not made public.
The United Nations examined a number of night raids from 2010 in four districts in Kandahar, where the insurgency was intense. Elders and local Afghans said the raids were generally precise and caused fewer civilian casualties than before, according to Georgette Gagnon, director of the human rights unit of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan.
But the mission also noted in its 2010 annual report that "excessive use of force, ill treatment, death and injury to civilians and damage to property has occurred in some cases involving Special Forces."
The method of the raids, especially the forced entry of houses and invasion of women’s quarters, let alone killing of women, is deeply offensive culturally to Afghans. Although coalition forces say most raids are conducted using a "soft knock" – calling by loudspeaker for people to come out – there are still numerous accounts of forced entry and cases of men being shot in their beds next to their wives.
The raids and attendant sweeping arrests have become the primary complaint of rural communities, human rights officials say. When Lt. Col. Aziz Ahmad took up a new job as police chief of Shah Joy District in the southeastern province of Zabul, townspeople asked immediately what he could do to stop the night raids.
Just two weeks earlier American forces had raided the house of a Taliban member at night and killed him and his wife, leaving four small children alone. "We are trying to find relatives to take care of them," the police chief said. "It turns people against the government and the foreign forces," he said.
Erica Gaston of the Open Society Institute, who is compiling a new report on night raids, said that while in general night raids had become more accurate, and that the conduct of forces had improved, she still encountered cases of unarmed people being shot in the head, or being shot when doing things like picking up a cellphone, running away or rushing to help a wounded relative.
"People in the villages are more scared of the Americans than of the Taliban because of these raids," said Gul Badshah Majidi, a legislator from the eastern province of Paktia.
[…] The task of reviewing the raids and civilian casualties was given to Maj. Gen. John W. Nicholson, deputy chief of staff for operations in Afghanistan, who said that coalition forces were already revising procedures and retraining troops. On night operations they are now using Afghan soldiers to call people out of their homes, and female soldiers to safeguard women and children, he said.
There was no sign of such practices during the raid by Special Operations forces and Afghan forces in late November in Mian.
The American and Afghan forces arrived by helicopters at 11 p.m. and stayed for 24 hours, detaining all the men in one house and interrogating and beating a number of them, people in the village said.
"Before they asked me a question, they started kicking and beating me," Mr. Younus, the 60-year-old, said, adding that Americans did the beating and interrogation.
Mr. Younus, a diabetic who walks with a cane, said he was beaten on and off through the night and fainted four times. "Don’t tell us about your sickness, we are going to kill you and your brothers and destroy your houses," he recalls being told through a translator.
An adviser minister to President Karzai on tribal affairs, Muhammad Siddique Aziz, who headed the Afghan investigation into the episode, said that none of those killed had been Taliban and that he had had bitter discussions with an American Special Forces general over his findings.
"We told him that the activities you are doing are not in the interest of you nor of the Karzai government," he said. "Whoever did this raid, why do they have to kill people? Why did they not just arrest them?"
4) Iraqis fail to agree on whether to ask for some U.S. troops to stay beyond deadline
Karen DeYoung and Scott Wilson, Washington Post, July 9
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/iraqis-fail-to-agree-on-whether-to-ask-for-some-us-troops-to-stay-beyond-deadline/2011/07/09/gIQAuAN25H_story.html
Iraq’s fragile coalition government failed again Saturday to reach agreement on the formation of a cabinet or on whether to ask some U.S. forces to remain beyond December – leaving the Obama administration with an ever-shorter timetable to complete the withdrawal or manage the political fallout from staying.
President Jalal Talabani, who had called political blocs together for the second time in recent weeks, said he gave all parties another two weeks to discuss the issues before reconvening.
Although the administration has informally suggested some numbers, indicating that leaving 10,000 U.S. troops behind – out of the 46,000 still there – might be reasonable, such estimates remain "guesswork," a senior U.S. military official said.
[…] Some U.S. officials have come to the conclusion that the Iraqis may never reach agreement on the subject before the last troops are scheduled to leave by the end of the year.
[…] In the meantime, the indecision complicates an already vexing problem for Obama.
Despite his pledge of complete withdrawal, the administration has made clear its willingness to continue tasks such as training, air defense, intelligence and reconnaissance, as well as joint counterterrorism missions with Iraqi forces at a time of Iranian inroads, increased violence and ongoing political instability. The 15 U.S. troops killed in Iraq last month marked the highest level in two years; two more were killed by a roadside bomb Thursday.
Current U.S. missions could be carried out with a smaller force and some could be carried out from bases in a third country, officials said.
But the longer the decision takes, the less time Obama has to explain to the American public the importance of preserving a presence, and the more he risks clouding an election-year message that he has overseen the end of the Iraq war.
[…] Over the years, Democrats have provided the strongest opposition to the Iraq war. Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) told the Associated Press, "There is no question that the United States must continue to provide support for the Iraqis as they progress, but now is the time for our military mission to come to a close."
[…]
5) Study: Post-9/11 wars cost U.S. at least $3.7T
Alex Sundby, CBS News, June 29, 2011 9:57 AM
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20075350-503544.html
The final bill American taxpayers will end up paying for the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq will be much more than the total amount put forward by the Congress and the federal government, the Reuters news agency reported Wednesday.
The Reuters article focused on a Brown University research project released Wednesday titled "Costs of War." In the end, between at least $3.7 trillion and $4.4 trillion — mostly in taxpayer dollars — will have been spent on wartime expenses, mostly on the U.S. military’s missions in the respective countries that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein once called home.
[…] Reuters noted that Mr. Obama told viewers of his prime-time speech in which he announced the drawdown that "over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war." The Congressional Research Service reported in March that the estimated cost of war funding since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks are $1.4 trillion through 2012, Reuters reports.
"I don’t know what the president knows, but I wish it were a trillion," Boston University professor Neta Crawford, a co-director of the report, told Reuters. "It would be better if it were a trillion."
Reuters reports the Brown University research project includes in its total price tag the costs of:
Projected benefits for veterans through 2050: Between $589 billion and $934 billion
Additional Pentagon appropriations: Between $326 billion and $652 billion
Projected war-related spending between 2012 and 2020: $453 billion
Homeland security spending: $401 billion
"Social costs" paid by service members and their families: Between $295 billion and $400 billion
Interest payments for debt incurred from borrowing for war spending: $185 billion
War-related foreign aid: $74 billion
[…]
6) Bahrain’s Human Rights Crisis
Detentions, Torture, Killings, Military Trials Since Protests Began
Human Rights Watch, July 5, 2011
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/07/05/bahrain-s-human-rights-crisis-0
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/related_material/Dowload%20the%20Report.pdf
Washington, DC – The Bahrain government, since March 2011, has been carrying out a punitive and vindictive campaign of violent repression against its own citizens, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper released today.
"Bahrain’s Human Rights Crisis" summarizes Human Rights Watch’s research on the ground since pro-democracy protests began in February. Human Rights Watch found widespread arbitrary arrests and incommunicado detention, torture, and unfair military court trials, as well as summary dismissals of workers accused of sympathizing with the protests. The government has failed to investigate the abuses or hold anyone accountable for these actions. On June 29, the king announced an independent commission of international rights experts to investigate and publicly report on alleged human rights violations.
"Bahrain has brutally punished those protesting peacefully for greater freedom and accountability while the US and other allies looked the other way," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The announcement of an independent investigative commission is a very promising first step for holding perpetrators of abuses accountable."
Human Rights Watch called on the Bahrain government to end unlawful and incommunicado detention, to free protesters unless legitimate criminal charges can be brought against them, and to allow monitoring by independent human rights organizations. The government has prevented Human Rights Watch from working in Bahrain since April 20.
7) China says US is spending too much on its military amid its financial woes
Associated Press, Monday, July 11, 6:51 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/top-us-military-official-meets-chinese-counterpart-in-beijing/2011/07/10/gIQAb8z57H_story.html
Beijing – The United States is spending too much on its military in light of its recent economic troubles, China’s top general said Monday while playing down his country’s own military capabilities.
The chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army, Chen Bingde, told reporters he thought the U.S. should cut back on defense spending for the sake of its taxpayers. He was speaking during a joint news conference in which he traded barbs with visiting U.S. counterpart Adm. Mike Mullen.
"I know the U.S. is still recovering from the financial crisis," Chen said. "Under such circumstances, it is still spending a lot of money on its military and isn’t that placing too much pressure on the taxpayers?
"If the U.S. could reduce its military spending a bit and spend more on improving the livelihood of the American people … wouldn’t that be a better scenario?" he said.
[…] China’s military budget of $95 billion this year is the world’s second-highest after Washington’s planned $650 billion in defense spending.
[…]
Afghanistan
8) NATO Says Airstrike in Afghan Province Killed Women and Children
Jack Healy, New York Times, July 7, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/world/asia/08afghanistan.html
Kabul, Afghanistan – NATO forces said Thursday that they had unwittingly killed several women and children a day earlier during an early morning air attack against militants in a remote corner of eastern Afghanistan. The American-led coalition also said it was investigating separate reports of civilian deaths in a nearby province.
The fatal airstrike on Wednesday in Khost Province, which Afghan officials say killed eight children and two women, ignited outrage in neighboring villages, and it could deepen tensions between the Afghan government and Western authorities here.
In late May, President Hamid Karzai gave a stern speech offering what he called his "last" warning about civilian casualties, long a source of acrimony between Afghan officials and NATO forces. Mr. Karzai told NATO to stop bombing Afghan homes, or else it would face "unilateral action" from the Afghan government, and that it risked being viewed as a trespasser and occupying force.
[…] But in Khost, villagers angry over the deaths flooded into the streets. Hundreds of them blocked the main road to the capital and urged the Afghan government to investigate and punish those responsible. One of the villagers, Haji Mir Baz Khan, of the Dowamanda district, said that if the government could not prevent such attacks in the future, "this nation and tribe will announce jihad against them."
[…]
9) Afghans say US firms cheat them
System stacks deck for American contractors
Farah Stockman, Boston Globe, July 10, 2011
http://www.boston.com/news/world/asia/articles/2011/07/10/afghans_say_us_firms_cheat_them
Kandahar, Afghanistan – Bryan Rhodes’s newly minted business scored a US-funded contract last year to help build a power plant in Kandahar, perhaps the most dangerous and crucial city in the American war effort.
Rhodes hired Afghans to do the work, and his company, IBS, was paid about a half-million dollars when they were done, according to the prime contractor on the project.
Then Rhodes left the country. Now his Afghan workers and vendors say that he owes them hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid bills and that he has stopped all communication with them.
For Afghans, the problem is all too common. While much US criticism has been leveled at Afghan officials for the country’s seemingly systemic corruption, officials from both countries acknowledge that fraud and mismanagement by American companies also threatens the US mission here. And Afghans who risk their lives by braving Taliban threats to help in the US effort seethe as they walk away from the experience empty-handed.
Rhodes is one of dozens of American contractors being investigated by Afghans after accusations of unpaid debts. "There are so many different cases," said Abdul Safi, an Afghan official with the country’s Investment Support Agency, which is responsible for investigating such complaints. Safi contends some $40 million owed to Afghans has been taken out of the country. He said he has received several complaints about Rhodes.
So far, that investigation has been of little consequence to Rhodes: The Globe found him working in Tunisia, on another US-funded project, this one aimed at boosting the capacity of businesses in North Africa.
[…] His attorney, Keith Hall Barkley, issued a statement late last week acknowledging that Rhodes owes his vendors but denying any financial wrongdoing. He said IBS is itself owed about $3 million from other contractors in Afghanistan and the company "remains committed to using any and all funds collected from these contractors to pay vendors or suppliers in full."
The case raises troubling questions about how to stop contractors accused of failure to pay subcontractors from continuing to get US contracts overseas.
Rhodes passed a criminal background check and reported on his resume that his company in Afghanistan closed due to security concerns, said C. Lynn Robson, chief executive of the Institute for Social and Economic Development. That organization runs the State Department-funded Results Oriented Commercial-Organization Capacity Development, which hired Rhodes for his current job. Robson, who knew Rhodes from her own past work in Afghanistan, said she had not been aware of the complaints.
It can take months or even years for the US military to remove a defense contractor from the list of companies eligible for government contracts. US officials said that recommending that a company be disbarred is the only action they can take when they hear complaints, and they acknowledge that gives little comfort to Afghans that have been swindled. "The US government has no legal recourse against a … contractor for failure to pay its subcontractor," said Lieutenant Bashon Mann, a military spokesman.
A spokesman for the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, set up to investigate problems in US reconstruction contracts, said his office cannot take action unless the US government itself has been defrauded.
And Safi, the Afghan official, said he can do little about suspects who have already fled the country, since the United States has no bilateral extradition treaty with Afghanistan.
The US military has been advising Afghans who feel cheated by American firms to file suit for breach of contract in a US court. But few have the money or the connections to hire an American lawyer.
Instead, these Afghans are left with debts they can’t pay. "This is a common problem," said Azmat Fazly of Arian Mutahed Construction Co. He said an American firm paid only $21,000 on a $90,000 contract to supply carpets and furniture for housing trailers on Kandahar Air Base, a hub for the US military.
When he was working on the base, his family had to endure threats from the Taliban. Now, they are facing threats from carpet and furniture-sellers seeking the rest of their money.
At least one such case has made it to US courts. In May, an Afghan contractor hired the prestigious law firm Patton Boggs to sue Bennett & Fouch, a tiny defense contractor that he says owes him $2 million. The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Texas, alleges that the company’s president, Sarah Lee, also known as Sarah Mitcham, tried to trick him into believing that she had committed suicide in the United States to stop his efforts to collect.
"It’s pretty disappointing that the best that [US Central Command] can do is: go try the US justice system," said Chris Hellmich, lawyer for Jalal-uddin Saeed, the Afghan contractor. "Then they wonder why the counterinsurgency strategy isn’t working as well as it should."
[…]
Israel/Palestine
10) U.N. Report Criticizes Israel for Actions at Border
Isabel Kershner, New York Times, July 7, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/world/middleeast/08mideast.html
Jerusalem – A new United Nations report that has been distributed to members of the Security Council strongly criticizes Israel for using live fire against unarmed demonstrators who tried in May to breach its border fence from Lebanon. Israel is planning to respond in detail shortly in a letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, officials here said Thursday.
The United Nations has been a frequent battleground for Israel, whose diplomats are currently working to oppose a bid by the Palestinians for international recognition of statehood at the Security Council and the General Assembly this fall.
The report states that Israel first issued verbal warnings and fired into the air before directing live fire at the mostly Palestinian protesters, killing seven civilians and injuring 111. But other than firing in the air, it says, Israel did not employ "conventional crowd control methods or any other method than lethal weapons against the demonstrators."
More broadly, the report deals with violations of Security Council Resolution 1701, which underpinned the cease-fire in the summer of 2006 that ended a monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant organization.
Israel violated the resolution during the events on the border on May 15, the report says, noting the lethal force used by Israel was not commensurate to the imminent threat to Israeli soldiers and civilians.
The protesters also violated the resolution, it says, because of their provocative actions, including when about 1,000 of them broke off from the main demonstration and "threw stones and two petrol bombs across the fence and attempted to climb it and bring it down."
Up to 10,000 demonstrators arrived at the border area on May 15, which Palestinians have come to refer to as Nakba Day, marking the founding of Israel in 1948. Nakba means catastrophe. The protests were organized by Palestinian and Lebanese organizations, including Hezbollah.
Israeli officials have hinted anonymously that some of the casualties were caused by Lebanese Army soldiers who also opened fire. The United Nations report does not attribute any of the deaths to the Lebanese forces in the border area, saying the Lebanese Army attempted to control the crowd "using batons, tear gas and heavy firing in the air."
Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, a spokeswoman for the Israeli military, said Thursday that the Lebanese forces used live fire, but that it was impossible for Israel to determine the number or source of the casualties since the bodies were all on the Lebanese side of the fence.
A senior Israeli military official said Wednesday that since the May 15 border confrontation, and a subsequent deadly confrontation on June 5 along the frontier between Syria and the disputed, Israeli-held Golan Heights, Israeli forces had been provided with more nonlethal equipment in order to reduce fatalities in any future episodes of this kind.
The official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity in line with army rules, added that Israel was sorry for the loss of life.
[…]
Yemen
11) Envoy Meets With Leader Of Yemen On Accord
David E. Sanger, New York Times, July 10, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/world/middleeast/11yemen.html
Washington – President Obama sent his counterterrorism chief to Saudi Arabia over the weekend to meet with Yemen’s badly injured president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, with the envoy telling him that the only way to get American aid flowing again was to sign an accord that would effectively remove Mr. Saleh from power.
The envoy, John O. Brennan, a former C.I.A. station chief in Saudi Arabia who has been the administration’s middleman to the embattled Yemeni leader, is presumed to have urged Mr. Saleh not to return to Sana, the Yemeni capital, following weeks of statements from administration officials that they believe his return would incite more violence. Mr. Saleh was rushed to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, after he was severely burned in a bombing of his presidential compound on June 3. He appeared on television last week for the first time since the attack, and much of his skin was covered during the appearance.
In a written statement on Sunday, the White House said Mr. Brennan "called on President Saleh to fulfill expeditiously his pledge to sign" an agreement brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council, which would lead to a transition ending his 33 years in office and grant the president immunity. The statement said that "much needed assistance will flow to Yemen as soon as the G.C.C. proposal is signed and implemented."
The Yemeni economy is on the brink of collapse, in part because of the months of unrest.
The United States had long been a supporter of Mr. Saleh’s authoritarian rule, viewing it as the best way to combat Qaeda affiliates in Yemen. But the Obama administration withdrew its support four months ago, after concluding that Mr. Saleh’s government could not survive the uprisings sweeping the country, and that American interests were better served in getting a new government in place that might allow continued American attacks on Al Qaeda.
[…]
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