Just Foreign Policy News
January 3, 2011
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A House that Votes for Peace: Is There a Path to 218?
On July 1, the representatives of 44 House districts that lean Democratic voted against establishing a timeline for military withdrawal from Afghanistan, even as Speaker Pelosi and other Democratic leaders were voting in favor.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/a-house-that-votes-for-pe_b_802292.html
The Christmas Truce of 1914: "Threat to National Security"?
Is WikiLeaks a "threat to our national security," as TV talking heads and government officials claim without evidence? Recall that news media initially chose to suppress reports of the Christmas truce of 1914. Was that information a threat to "national security?"
http://www.truth-out.org/the-christmas-truce-1914-threat-national-security66325
Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Sen. Lindsay Graham told "Meet the Press" he wants US officials to consider establishing permanent military bases in Afghanistan, AP reports. President Obama has talked about an enduring presence in Afghanistan but not exactly what that would entail, AP notes.
2) The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, which has the WikiLeaks cables, has summarized an Israeli military briefing by Israeli Chief of Staff Ashkenazi of a US congressional delegation a little over a year ago and concludes that "The memo … as well as numerous other documents from the same period of time … leave a clear message: The Israeli military is forging ahead at full speed with preparations for a new war in the Middle East," Juan Cole reports. "In the next war Israel cannot accept any restrictions on warfare in urban areas," Ashkenazi is reported to have said. Ashkenazi admitted to then Rep. Gillibrand that Hamas is not in control of more radical groups in Gaza. Israeli officials routinely demonize Hamas for every rocket fired from Gaza, but in private Ashkenazi was admitting the opposite, Cole notes. The memos reveal that none of the goals of Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon and its 2008-9 war on Gaza were achieved, Cole writes.
3) Joshua Norman, writing for CBS News, summarizes some of the most "impactful" WikiLeaks revelations. His list includes: Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and his top commanders repeatedly, knowingly lied to the US public about rising sectarian violence in Iraq beginning in 2006; The Secretary of State’s office encouraged U.S. diplomats at the UN to spy on their counterparts; The Obama administration worked during his first few months in office to protect Bush administration officials facing a criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in torture; U.S. authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers; U.S.military Special Operations Forces have been conducting offensive operations inside Pakistan; the U.S. was shipping arms to Saudi Arabia for use in northern Yemen even as it denied any role in the conflict.
4) Foreign military and civilian casualties in Afghanistan are at record levels, Reuters reports. The UN has said 2,412 civilians were killed and 3,803 wounded between January and October last year – up 20 percent from 2009.
5) The US Air Force has more than doubled the number of airmen in Afghanistan who call in airstrikes, as the use of bombs, missiles and strafing runs has spiked to its highest level since the war began, USA Today reports. "This is a main irritant between the Afghan population and NATO," said Arturo Munoz, a political scientist at the RAND Corp. and a former top counterterrorism official at the CIA. "If you had to single out one main complaint, without a doubt airstrikes and civilian casualties caused by airstrikes would be it," Munoz said.
Israel/Palestine
6) The death of a Palestinian woman Saturday as a result of tear gas shot by IDF soldiers during demonstrations against the separation fence is raising questions about Israel’s use of tear-gas grenades, Haaretz reports. Jawaher Abu Rahmah was the sister of Bassem Abu Rahmah, who was killed in April 2009 when Israeli soldiers fired a tear-gas grenade at his chest at a demonstration at the fence in Bil’in. "There are other types of tear gas that are not as dangerous as CS; why the defense establishment insists on continuing its use is not clear," said Daniel Argo, an Israeli doctor.
Afghanistan
7) Roads, canals and schools built in Afghanistan as part of a special U.S. military program are crumbling under Afghan stewardship, according to government reports and interviews with military and civilian personnel, the Washington Post reports. The Afghans had problems maintaining about half of the 69 projects reviewed in eastern Afghanistan’s Laghman province, according to an audit by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Multiple reports by the GAO have noted the lack of monitoring by the Pentagon. And because formal U.S. oversight stops after a project is turned over to Afghans, it is hard to gauge how projects are maintained countrywide.
Iraq
8) Two U.S. service members were killed in central Iraq on Sunday night, the Washington Post reports. Twelve U.S. soldiers have died across Iraq from violence, accidents or other causes since August
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Sen. Graham wants permanent U.S. bases in Afghanistan
Associated Press, Mon Jan 03, 2011
http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/2011/01/03/1060016
Washington – A leading GOP lawmaker on U.S. military policy says he wants American officials to consider establishing permanent military bases in Afghanistan.
Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina says that having a few U.S. air bases in Afghanistan would be a benefit to the region and would give Afghan security forces an edge against the Taliban.
Graham tells NBC’s "Meet the Press" that he wants to see the U.S. have "an enduring relationship" with Afghanistan to ensure that it never falls back into the hands of terrorists.
President Obama plans to begin drawing down American forces in Afghanistan next year and hand over security to Afghan forces in 2014.
Obama has talked about an enduring presence in Afghanistan but not exactly what that would entail.
2) Wikileaks: Israel Plans Total War on Lebanon, Gaza
Juan Cole, Informed Comment, 01/02/2011
http://www.juancole.com/2011/01/wikileaks-israel-plans-total-war-on-lebanon-gaza.html
The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has summarized an Israeli military briefing by Israeli Chief of Staff Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi of a US congressional delegation a little over a year ago and concludes that
"The memo on the talks between Ashkenazi and [Congressman Ike] Skelton, as well as numerous other documents from the same period of time, to which Aftenposten has gained access, leave a clear message: The Israeli military is forging ahead at full speed with preparations for a new war in the Middle East."
Note: This war preparation is serious and specific, according to the paper, and clearly is not just a matter of vague contingency planning.
The paper says that US cables quote Ashkenazi telling the US congressmen, "I’m preparing the Israeli army for a major war, since it is easier to scale down to a smaller operation than to do the opposite."
The general’s plans are driven by fear of growing stockpiles of rockets in Hamas-controlled Gaza and in Hizbullah-controlled Southern Lebanon, the likely theaters of the planned major new war. Ashkenazi does not seem capable of considering that, given a number of Israeli invasions and occupations of those regions, the rockets may be primarily defensive.
Ashkenazi told the visiting delegation that Israeli unmanned drones had had great success in identifying rocket emplacements in southern Lebanon, and that it had been aided in this endeavor by the US National Security Agency,which spies on communications.
The new, major war will be a total war on civilians, Ashkenazi boasted: "In the next war Israel cannot accept any restrictions on warfare in urban areas." (I den neste krigen kan Israel ikke godta noen restriksjoner på krigføring i byområder in Norwegian, or let us just translate it into the original German: "Im nächsten Krieg kann Israel keine Beschränkungen der Kriegsführung in städtischen Gebieten akzeptieren.".) Mind you, the civilian deaths deriving from this massive and unrestricted bombing campaign on targets in the midst of civilian urban populations will be "unintentional." Planning to bomb civilian areas with foreknowledge that you will thereby kill large numbers of civilians is a war crime.
Ashkenazi also admitted to then Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) that Hamas is not in control of even more radical groups, which had infiltrated cells into Hamas itself, and which had rocket-making capabilities. In public, Israeli officials routinely demonize Hamas for every rocket fired from the lawless, besieged territory of Gaza, but here in private Ashkenazi was admitting the opposite. He even admitted that Israeli intelligence had no means to distinguish the even-more-radical from the merely Hamas.
Other State Department documents on the same theme say that last year this time Hizbullah had about 20,000 rockets, some of which can now reach Tel Aviv, and that the Shiite militia will attempt to stretch out its supplies for a two-month-long war, and would try to lob about 100 rockets at Tel Aviv per day.
In the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon, one fourth of the Israeli population was be forced to move house. It will be more this time, and for longer.
The memos reveal that none of the goals of Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon and its 2008-9 war on little Gaza were achieved, and that both Hamas and Hizbullah have effectively re-armed. What makes Ashkenazi think things would be different this time? Israel hawks have doomed themselves to the particular hell of Sisyphus, forced to roll the same stone up the hill over and over again with no hope of ever balancing it on the summit.
You know, Israel could have a peace treaty with Syria and Lebanon tomorrow by giving back the Golan Heights and the Shebaa Farms, and by accepting a two-state solution. Instead, its Dr. Strangeloves are planning out massive bombings of areas thick with innocent civilians and willing to subject Tel Aviv to two months worth of rocket fire.
Nor will the United States be held harmless from the blowback in the region caused by another Israeli war of aggression.
[…]
3) How WikiLeaks Enlightened Us in 2010
Joshua Norman, CBS News, December 31, 2010
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20026591-503543.html
[…] The following is a list of the more impactful WikiLeaks revelations from 2010, grouped by region.
[…] – Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his top commanders repeatedly, knowingly lied to the American public about rising sectarian violence in Iraq beginning in 2006, according to the cross-referencing of WikiLeaks’ leaked Iraq war documents and former Washington Post Baghdad Bureau Chief Ellen Knickmeyer’s recollections.
– The Secretary of State’s office encouraged U.S. diplomats at the United Nations to spy on their counterparts, including collecting data about the U.N. secretary general, his team and foreign diplomats, including credit card account numbers, according to documents from WikiLeaks U.S. diplomatic cable release. Later cables reveal the CIA draws up an annual "wish-list" for the State Department, which one year included the instructions to spy on the U.N.
– The Obama administration worked with Republicans during his first few months in office to protect Bush administration officials facing a criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies that some considered torture. A "confidential" April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid obtained by WikiLeaks details how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.
[…] – U.S. authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished, according to the WikiLeaks Iraq documents dump.
– U.S. special-operations forces have targeted militants without trial in secret assassination missions, and many more Afghan civilians have been killed by accident than previously reported, according to the WikiLeaks Afghanistan war document dump.
[…] – Despite sustained denials by US officials spanning more than a year, U.S.military Special Operations Forces have been conducting offensive operations inside Pakistan, helping direct U.S. drone strikes and conducting joint operations with Pakistani forces against Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in north and south Waziristan and elsewhere in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, according to secret cables released as part of the Wikileaks document dump.
[…] – Contrary to public statements, the Obama administration actually helped fuel conflict in Yemen. The U.S. was shipping arms to Saudi Arabia for use in northern Yemen even as it denied any role in the conflict.
– Saudi Arabia is one of the largest origin points for funds supporting international terrorism, according to a leaked diplomatic cable. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged U.S. diplomats to do more to stop the flow of money to Islamist militant groups from donors in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government, Clinton wrote, was reluctant to cut off money being sent to the Taliban in Afghanistan and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in Pakistan.
[…]
4) Afghan violence in 2010 kills thousands: government
Reuters, Mon Jan 3, 8:03 am ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_afghanistan_violence
Kabul – The number of Afghan police killed during 2010 fell about seven percent to 1,292, the government said on Monday, despite violence spreading across the country as the war entered its tenth year.
Foreign military and civilian casualties are at record levels despite the presence of about 150,000 NATO-led troops, with 2010 the bloodiest year on record since the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001.
Ministry of the Interior spokesman Zemari Bashary said 2,447 Afghan police were wounded, while 5,225 insurgents were killed and 949 wounded. He said the government did not have a toll of insurgent casualties for 2009.
There was a total of 6,716 security incidents in 2010, such as ambushes, roadside bombings, suicide bombings and rocket attacks, Bashary said.
The Taliban are at their strongest since they were ousted after they refused to hand over al Qaeda militants, including Osama bin Laden, after the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on the United States.
The insurgency has spread out of its traditional strongholds in the south and east over the past two years into once peaceful areas of the north and west. The north in particular has become a deadly new front in the war.
The Interior Ministry said 2,043 civilians were killed and 3,570 wounded but it again did not have a toll for 2009. The United Nations has said 2,412 civilians were killed and 3,803 wounded between January and October last year – up 20 percent from 2009.
The Defense Ministry said 821 Afghan soldiers were killed last year. It also did not have a toll available for 2009.
[…]
5) Air Force Boosts Manpower For Afghan Attacks
Tom Vanden Brook, USA Today, January 3, 2011
http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2011-01-03-airstrike03_ST_N.htm
Washington – The Air Force has more than doubled the number of airmen in Afghanistan who call in airstrikes, as the use of bombs, missiles and strafing runs has spiked to its highest level since the war began.
The Air Force has increased the number of joint terminal attack controllers – the airmen who work with soldiers to coordinate airstrikes – to 134 last year in Afghanistan, up from 53 in 2009, said Maj. Ike Williams, an operations officer at Air Combat Command in Langley, Va.
The increasing reliance on airstrikes and the troops who direct them comes as the U.S. military has raised its troop level in Afghanistan to 100,000, including 30,000 deployed last year.
[…] The more aggressive approach, military analysts say, may provide better protection for U.S. and NATO troops and help kill insurgents, but it also can infuriate Afghan officials and civilians.
"This is a main irritant between the Afghan population and NATO," said Arturo Munoz, a political scientist at the RAND Corp. and a former top counterterrorism official at the CIA.
"If you had to single out one main complaint, without a doubt airstrikes and civilian casualties caused by airstrikes would be it," Munoz said.
[…]
Israel/Palestine
6) Protester death shows IDF may be using most dangerous type of tear gas
Avi Issacharoff and Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz, 03.01.11
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/protester-death-shows-idf-may-be-using-most-dangerous-type-of-tear-gas-1.334858
Jawaher Abu Rahmah died Saturday as a result of tear gas shot by IDF soldiers during demonstrations against the separation fence on Friday.
Questions are surfacing about Israel’s use of tear-gas grenades, as security officials investigate the recent death of a protester at the weekly demonstration near the separation fence at the West Bank village of Bil’in. A 36-year-old woman, Jawaher Abu Rahmah, died on Saturday morning.
The medical report filed in the Ramallah hospital where Abu Rahmah was taken shows that her death was caused by respiratory failure resulting from the inhalation of tear gas.
Haaretz obtained the medical report on Sunday from Jawaher’s brother, Ahmed Abu Rahmah.
Jawaher Abu Rahmah was the sister of Bassem Abu Rahmah, who was killed in April 2009 when Israeli soldiers fired a tear-gas grenade at his chest at a demonstration at the fence in Bil’in. Ahmed Abu Rahmah has three surviving brothers; their father died five years ago.
"My entire family is ruined," he said on Sunday. "The whole house feels a sense of catastrophe." He said he bears no hatred toward Israelis. "They are people just like myself. We don’t seek vengeance against Israel. We want the return of our lands, and the struggle won’t end until our property is restored."
The Israel Defense Forces uses crowd-dispersal tear gas known as CS, which was developed half a century ago in Britain and the United States. It is used by armies and police forces around the world. In recent years, a number of studies have cast doubts about this type of gas; there have been reports of several deaths caused by the inhalation CS tear gas.
"One of the main factors influencing the extent of damage caused by CS gas is the amount of particles in the air," said Daniel Argo, an Israeli doctor who regularly takes part in the demonstrations against the separation fence. He also trains activists to tend to injuries caused by police and soldiers using crowd-dispersal techniques.
Argo says recent eye and lung injuries, as well as skin diseases, can be associated with the use of CS tear gas.
"There are other types of tear gas that are not as dangerous as CS; why the defense establishment insists on continuing its use is not clear," Argo said. "In addition, since no studies have been conducted to identify the long-term effects of the gas, security personnel who use it frequently should be worrying about their own health."
[…]
Afghanistan
7) U.S.-funded infrastructure deteriorates once under Afghan control, report says
Josh Boak, Washington Post, Monday, January 3, 2011; 11:25 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/03/AR2011010302175.html
Roads, canals and schools built in Afghanistan as part of a special U.S. military program are crumbling under Afghan stewardship, despite new steps imposed over the past year to ensure reconstruction money is not being wasted, according to government reports and interviews with military and civilian personnel.
U.S. troops in Afghanistan have spent $2 billion in the past six years on 16,000 humanitarian projects through the Commander’s Emergency Response Program, which gives a battalion-level commander the power to treat aid dollars as ammunition.
A report slated for release this month reveals how quickly CERP projects can slide into neglect after being transferred to Afghan control. The Afghans had problems maintaining about half of the 69 projects reviewed in eastern Afghanistan’s Laghman province, according to an audit by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.
Dilapidated projects could present a challenge to the U.S. strategy of shifting more responsibility to Afghans. Investing in infrastructure, notes President Obama’s December review of the war, "will give the Afghan government and people the tools to build and sustain a future of stability."
"Sustainment is one of the biggest issues with our whole strategy," said a civilian official who shared details from a draft of the report. "The Afghans don’t have the money or capacity to sustain much."
Photos in the report show washed-out roads, with gashes and potholes where improvised explosive devices can be hidden. Among the projects profiled is a re-dredged canal that filled with silt a month after opening. The official requested anonymity because the Defense Department is preparing a response to the audit.
Multiple reports by the Government Accountability Office have noted the lack of monitoring by the Pentagon. And because formal U.S. oversight stops after a project is turned over to Afghans, it is hard to gauge how projects are maintained countrywide.
When asked whether the Afghans have trouble sustaining projects, the U.S. military responded with a statement saying it does not have the information to provide an immediate answer.
[…] The U.S. military tracks CERP projects with poorly maintained computer databases. Before October 2009, the database did not consistently record the villages or districts where projects were built, according to military and civilian personnel who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the master database is classified.
A civilian official who examined the contents of the database for a government assessment said the military cannot hold spending accountable without knowing the villages and districts that received projects.
"Let’s say the project is not working," the official said. "Why would we want to fund that project again the next year? Very little evaluation was done to decide what we fund next."
The organizational problems have also frustrated attempts to study whether the $2 billion spent on CERP has been effective. A paper co-written by Princeton University professor Jacob Shapiro found that CERP reduced violence in Iraq. Shapiro and his colleagues have struggled over the past nine months to conduct a similar study for Afghanistan because of the database.
"There’s not a sense of how the program may or may not be working in Afghanistan," Shapiro said.
[…]
Iraq
8) 2 U.S. troops killed in Iraq; rare loss of American lives amid targeted killings
Aaron C. Davis, Washington Post, Monday, January 3, 2011; 10:24 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/03/AR2011010300325.html
Baghdad – Two U.S. service members were killed in central Iraq on Sunday night in a rare loss of life for the American military here since the last U.S. combat troops left the country in August.
The two died in a single incident, according to a statement released by the U.S. military command in Baghdad, but details of the event and the names of the deceased were not immediately clear.
Twelve U.S. soldiers have died across Iraq from violence, accidents or other causes since August. But the American deaths come amid a surge of targeted killings of Iraqis in the past week.
Since Saturday, nine police officers and government officials have been killed and 11 wounded in assassinations or targeted bombings. Four of them, who died Sunday in Baghdad, were police officers killed while on patrol or walking in public by gunmen using silencers, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Interior.
On Thursday, two Christians were killed and more than a dozen wounded in a coordinated series of bombings of Christian homes across the Iraqi capital.
Also last week, 19 died when two suicide bombers attacked a government building in Ramadi, and three more wearing explosive vests killed the top police commander and two others and leveled a police headquarters in Iraq’s northern city of Mosul.
[…]
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