Just Foreign Policy News
November 16, 2010
Video: Flashmob: Cape Town Opera say NO
Israeli peace activists stage their own show: "As the opera did not heed Desmond Tutu’s call to cancel the show, a group of Israeli BDS supporters decided to emancipate the songs on opening night."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wElyrFOnKPk
Will "Free Trade" Save Obama in 2012?
Voters don’t think "free trade agreements" are good for the country or for them personally, and Republican and independent voters are no exception to this, according to recent poll data released by the Pew Research Center.
http://www.truth-out.org/will-free-trade-save-obama-201265170
KPFK Uprising: Reported Shift on Afghan Withdrawal
Just Foreign Policy talks with KPFK’s Sonali Kolhatkar about reports the Administration plans to downplay its promise to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in 2011.
http://uprisingradio.org/home/?p=17161
South of the Border on DVD
Oliver Stone’s documentary South of the Border is now available on DVD. The DVD includes an interview with Brazil’s outgoing President Lula, in which he calls out the U.S. push for "free trade." You can get the DVD here.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/southoftheborder
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Night raids have become a cornerstone of General Petraeus’ strategy, the New York Times reports. As recently as early July, Special Operations forces were carrying out an average of five raids a night. But in a 90-day period that ended Nov. 11, Special Operations forces were averaging 17 missions a night. Many Afghans see the raids as a flagrant, even humiliating symbol of US power, especially when women and children are rousted in the middle of the night, the Times says. Protests have increased this year as the tempo has increased.
2) Taliban prisoners would be freed from Guantánamo to join peace negotiations under a proposal from the Afghan High Peace Council appointed by President Karzai, the Daily Telegraph reports. Mullah Arsala Rahmani, a senior member of the council, said talks needed representatives of the Taliban’s Pakistan-based Quetta Shura, many of whom were unable to travel because of sanctions or the threat of capture. Mullah Rahmani, an education minister in the Taliban regime, heads a group of former Taliban on the council. He said he believed Karzai’s Nato backers were now serious about a negotiated peace. But the proposal is likely to meet resistance in Washington, the Telegraph says.
3) The Obama administration has developed a plan to begin transferring security duties in select areas of Afghanistan to that country’s forces over the next 18 to 24 months, with an eye toward ending the US combat mission there by 2014, the New York Times reports. The plan will be presented to the NATO summit, the Times said.
4) A senior Iraqi intelligence official says a special envoy from President Obama raised the possibility in a secret meeting with senior Iraqi officials that the US would leave more than 15,000 combat troops in Iraq after the 2011 deadline for U.S. withdrawal, Gareth Porter reports for Inter Press Service. The White House official, Puneet Talwar, suggested the combat troops could be placed under the cover of the State Department’s security force, the Iraqi intelligence official said.
5) Incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor tried to walk back his boast to have promised Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to block President Obama from pressuring Netanyahu, writes M.J. Rosenberg for Media Matters. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s bureau chief in Washington, Ron Kampeas, had declared that Cantor’s statement was "extraordinary," Rosenberg notes. Kampeas wrote that he could not "remember an opposition leader telling a foreign leader, in a personal meeting, that he would side, as a policy, with that leader against the President." Cantor’s mistake was not telling Prime Minister Netanyahu what everyone knows is true anyway, but telling the world what he said, Rosenberg writes. This is the classic Washington definition of a gaffe (i.e., inadvertently speaking an inconvenient truth). AIPAC officials never, ever, say that when push comes to shove their loyalty is with Israel not the US, Rosenberg notes. [Rosenberg is himself a former AIPAC staffer – JFP.]
6) Anti-U.N. riots spread to several Haitian cities and towns, as protesters blaming a contingent of Nepalese peacekeepers for an outbreak of cholera that has killed more than 1,000 people exchanged gunfire with U.N. soldiers, AP reports. The protests left at least two people dead. The cholera backlash plays upon some Haitians’ long-standing resentment of the 12,000-member U.N. military mission, which has been the dominant security force in Haiti since 2004, AP says.
Yemen
7) The U.S. is preparing for an expanded campaign against al Qaeda in Yemen, drawing up a proposal to establish Yemeni bases in remote areas, the Wall Street Journal reports. Yemeni officials said the government would be reluctant to allow the U.S. to station trainers in such bases. U.S. officials don’t know how many of the Yemeni commandos trained by U.S. forces have been involved in fighting al Qaeda, or might be fighting the Yemeni government’s other opponents, the Journal says.
Pakistan
8) A US missile strike in Pakistan killed at least 20 people, Al Jazeera reports. 16 people were killed in one house, including women and children, Al Jazeera’s correspondent said.
9) Residents of the Swat Valley say the reconstruction that was supposed to follow the US-sponsored offensive has not happened and they blame the U.S., the New York Times reports. Pakistani officials said foreign governments failed to follow through on pledges made when several million people were displaced from Swat by the military’s campaign. Foreign officials say they are reluctant to give money for fear it will be siphoned off.
Lebanon
10) U.S. lawmakers lifted a congressional hold on $100 million in military assistance for Lebanon’s armed forces, the Wall Street Journal reports. The White House and State Department have pressed senior Democrats, particularly Howard Berman, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to lift its hold on military assistance. Berman said he had been given confidence that US assistance "has not fallen into the hands of Hezbollah" and that "every possible measure is being taken" to prevent that from happening.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Despite Gains, Night Raids Split U.S. And Karzai
Thom Shanker, Elizabeth Bumiller and Rod Norland, New York Times, November 15, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/world/asia/16night.html
Washington – For the United States, a recent tripling in the number of night raids by Special Operations forces to capture or kill Afghan insurgents has begun to put heavy pressure on the Taliban and change the momentum in the war in Afghanistan. For President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, the raids cause civilian casualties and are a rising political liability, so much so that he is now loudly insisting that the Americans stop the practice.
The difference – and a flare-up over the raids between Mr. Karzai and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Afghanistan – is likely to be a central focus at a NATO summit this week in Lisbon, where the United States and NATO are to present a plan that seeks to end the combat mission in Afghanistan by 2014.
[…] At the center of the public debate – the latest chapter in the tense relationship between the United States and Mr. Karzai – is an American military tactic that, while used for years, has become a cornerstone of General Petraeus’s strategy to reassert NATO and Afghan control over contested parts of Afghanistan since the American troop buildup reached its peak at the end of the summer.
More than a dozen times each night, teams of American and allied Special Operations forces and Afghan troops surround houses or compounds across the country. In some cases helicopters hover overhead. Using bullhorns, the Afghans demand occupants come out or be met with violence. In the majority of cases – about 80 percent, according to NATO statistics – the occupants are captured rather than killed.
As recently as early July, Special Operations forces were carrying out an average of five raids a night, mostly in southern Afghanistan. But in a 90-day period that ended Nov. 11, Special Operations forces were averaging 17 missions a night, conducting 1,572 operations over three months that resulted in 368 insurgent leaders killed or captured, and 968 lower-level insurgents killed and 2,477 captured, according to NATO statistics.
Many Afghans see the raids as a flagrant, even humiliating symbol of American power, especially when women and children are rousted in the middle of the night. And protests have increased this year as the tempo has increased.
In one high-profile encounter in February, 23 Afghan male civilians were killed and 12 Afghan women and children were wounded in a helicopter attack when Army Special Forces were operating in a village in Oruzgan Province. An Air Force investigation concluded that a Predator drone operator had dismissed two warnings about the presence of youths in the area before military commanders ordered the helicopter to attack.
Mr. Karzai told The Washington Post on Sunday, in the interview that created the latest outbreak of controversy, that the raids were undermining support for the American-led war effort. "The Afghan people don’t like these raids. If there is any raid, it has to be done by the Afghan government, within the Afghan laws," he told The Post.
Secretary Clinton and other American officials insist that Afghan troops have participated as full partners.
NATO officials in Kabul say that representatives from the Afghan ministries of defense and interior, and from Mr. Karzai’s own national directorate of security, work inside the operations center and approve each mission.
They also say that new rules have significantly decreased the chances of civilian casualties, and are intended to make the American-led raids seem less like an affront to Afghan sovereignty.
For one thing, Afghans are the first ones in to search any homes or compounds, and female Afghan police officers accompany the missions in case female detainees must be searched.
[…] Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said he was baffled by Mr. Karzai’s comments. He said the topic of the night raids never came up during a dinner he attended last week with Mr. Karzai and other senators in Kabul. The raids, he said, were crucial to the military strategy. "If you took the night raids off the table," Mr. Graham said in an interview on Monday, "it would be a disaster for the Petraeus strategy."
2) Taliban prisoners ‘would be freed from Guantánamo to join Afghan peace negotiations’
Ben Farmer, Daily Telegraph, 14 Nov 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8132345/Taliban-prisoners-would-be-freed-from-Guantanamo-to-join-Afghan-peace-negotiations.html
Kabul – Taliban prisoners would be freed from Guantánamo Bay to potentially join peace negotiations under a proposal from the Afghan council appointed to find a settlement to the insurgency. The High Peace Council will also seek safe passage for militant commanders to travel abroad and negotiate, a senior member of the body told The Daily Telegraph.
Mullah Arsala Rahmani said talks needed representatives of the Taliban’s Pakistan-based Quetta Shura, or ruling council, many of whom were unable to travel because of sanctions or the threat of capture. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Turkmenistan were all candidates to host fugitive militants he said, while Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan had been ruled out.
The 68-strong High Peace Council was inaugurated by Hamid Karzai last month to pursue a twin-track strategy of reaching out to Taliban leaders while coaxing foot soldiers from the fight.
Mullah Rahmani, an education minister in the Taliban regime, heads a group of former Taliban on the council and chairs a subcommittee on political prisoners. While warning any deal would "take some time", he believed Mr Karzai’s Nato backers were now serious about a negotiated peace.
Mullah Rahmani said he wanted influential prisoners freed from American and Pakistani custody as a confidence-building gesture and potentially to join talks. His committee had yet to submit a formal proposal, but it was already broadly in agreement and would meet after this week’s Eid-al-Adha holiday.
He said: "We could use these people in negotiation. They have good contacts and are trusted by the Taliban." Khairullah Khairkhwa, Taliban governor of Herat province until 2001, and Mullah Mohammad Fazl, deputy chief of staff in the Taliban army, were among those who should be freed from Guantánamo he said.
[…] The proposal is likely to meet resistance in Washington and Islamabad even though both publicly support the peace council. Pakistan has sought to control any peace deal by arresting Taliban figures such as deputy leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar that it suspected of dealing with Kabul, Afghan and western diplomats said.
The United States considers the release of Guantánamo prisoners as unrelated to a reconciliation process.
[…]
3) U.S. Plan Envisions Path to Ending Afghan Combat
Peter Baker and Rod Nordland, New York Times, November 14, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/world/asia/15prexy.html
Washington – The Obama administration has developed a plan to begin transferring security duties in select areas of Afghanistan to that country’s forces over the next 18 to 24 months, with an eye toward ending the American combat mission there by 2014, officials said Sunday.
The phased four-year plan to wind down American and allied fighting in Afghanistan will be presented at a NATO summit meeting in Lisbon later this week, the officials said. It will reflect the most concrete vision for transition in Afghanistan assembled by civilian and military officials since President Obama took office last year.
[…] The new transition planning comes as prospects for last year’s troop increase in Afghanistan and reformulated strategy there remain uncertain. American forces in Afghanistan have tripled under Mr. Obama, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander, has expressed confidence that they are making progress. But the last of the reinforcements arrived only recently, and officials in Washington have said it is too early to say whether the strategy will work.
[…] The American government is already assessing which areas could be safely handed over to Afghan security forces and will be ready to identify them late this year or early next year, officials said. Every few months, more areas will begin the transition, with the last at the end of 2012. Those will almost certainly include the toughest areas, like Khost in the east and Kandahar in the south.
Even after Afghan forces have assumed the lead in a province, some American or NATO forces may remain or be positioned "over the horizon" elsewhere in Afghanistan ready to respond quickly if necessary. By the end of 2014, American and NATO combat forces could be withdrawn if conditions warrant, although tens of thousands very likely will remain for training, mentoring and other assistance, just as 50,000 American troops are still in Iraq.
[…]
4) U.S. Envoy Secretly Offered Troops in Iraq after 2011
Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service, Nov 16
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53566
Washington – A special envoy from President Barack Obama raised the possibility in a secret meeting with senior Iraqi military and civilian officials in Baghdad Sep. 23 that his administration would leave more than 15,000 combat troops in Iraq after the 2011 deadline for U.S. withdrawal, according to a senior Iraqi intelligence official familiar with the details of the meeting.
But the White House official, Puneet Talwar, special assistant to the president and senior director for the Gulf States, Iran and Iraq on the National Security Council (NSC) staff, said the deployment would have to be handled in a way that was consistent the president’s pledge to withdraw U.S. troops completely from Iraq under the 2008 agreement, the official said.
Talwar suggested that the combat troops could be placed under the cover of the State Department’s security force, the Iraqi intelligence official told IPS.
The Obama envoy was referring to a force that the State Department had announced in August to provide security for U.S. civilian officials working in Baghdad and four regional consulates in Kirkuk, Erbil, Mosul and Basra. The administration’s official position is that the security force is to be manned by private security personnel, as explained in a briefing given by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Michael Corbin Aug. 17.
Talwar’s remarks suggest the Obama administration was planning to adopt a ruse to keep combat troops in Iraq after the expiration of the U.S.-Iraq troop withdrawal agreement on Dec. 31, 2011, while assuring the U.S. public that all U.S. troops had been pulled out by the deadline.
Last year, Obama accepted a proposal by U.S. military leaders to re-label all combat brigades in Iraq "advise and assist brigades" so he could claim that he was withdrawing all combat troops by Aug. 31, 2010. Six U.S. fully equipped combat brigades remain in Iraq today, contrary to the administration’s official position that only non-combat troops remain there.
Asked by the Iraqis whether there would be U.S. troops in Iraq in spring 2012, Talwar responded that it would "depend on the definition of a troop", according to the account of the meeting provided to IPS by the Iraqi intelligence official.
When the Iraqi participants in the Sep. 23 meeting asked how many troops might be left in Iraq, Talwar said preferably one brigade but that it could be two brigades. When asked how many soldiers that would mean per brigade, however, the NSC official said the number could be open-ended.
An Iraqi military official told Talwar the military understood the minimum number of troops needed for a self- contained U.S. combat force was 15,000 to 28,000. They asked Talwar whether the U.S. could keep at least 15,000 in the country, and Talwar answered that it was possible.
[…] The Iraqis also asked whether the 15,000 regular combat troops could be augmented with Special Operations Forces, according to the Iraqi official’s account. Talwar said the additional deployment of SOF troops after the withdrawal deadline would be possible, because the United States had never publicly acknowledged the presence of SOF units in Iraq.
[…]
5) Cantor Recants
M.J. Rosenberg, Political Correction/Media Matters, November 15, 2010 http://politicalcorrection.org/fpmatters/201011150008
Soon-to-be House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is desperately trying to explain away the promise he made to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu last Wednesday.
Cantor huddled with Netanyahu just prior to the prime minister’s meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton was expected to reaffirm the American commitment to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and opposition to Israeli settlement expansion. Cantor wanted Netanyahu to know that he had his back.
Cantor’s office itself put out a statement bragging about his pledge to Netanyahu: ‘Eric stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration and what has been, up until this point, one party rule in Washington," the readout continued. "He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other."’
For now, forget Cantor’s ridiculous assertion that the security of Israel and the United States are "reliant upon the other." No, the United States provides Israel with the security assistance to survive – it is not the other way around.
But lay that aside. It is Cantor’s statement of loyalty to Netanyahu that is the shocker. Specifically, it is his promise that he would ensure that Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives "will serve as a check" on U.S. Middle East policy.
Almost immediately, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s bureau chief in Washington, Ron Kampeas, declared that Cantor’s statement was "extraordinary." He wrote that he could not "remember an opposition leader telling a foreign leader, in a personal meeting, that he would side, as a policy, with that leader against the President."
Kampeas was clearly shocked, but he was understating the enormity of Cantor’s offense. Cantor’s pledge of allegiance to a foreign leader would be remarkable, and deeply offensive, even if the foreign country in question were Canada or the United Kingdom, our two closest allies with whom we have few policy differences.
The United States has major policy differences with Israel, and has had them for decades, most notably over settlements, the occupied West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, etc. Israel is also the largest recipient of US foreign aid in the world, which means that the President of the United States has every right to express those differences firmly and clearly.
On the other hand, no American official – by any stretch of the imagination – has the right to tell the government of Israel, or any foreign government, that he stands with the foreign leader against his own president. It is one thing to oppose particular US policies; it is quite another to tell a foreign leader, "I’m with you, not my president."
Of course, Cantor was just being honest. Although he does oppose virtually all of President Obama’s policies (he’s a Republican and that is what Republicans do), he supports 100% of Israeli policies. And although an extreme partisan domestically, when it comes to Israel, he supports whichever government is in power. He believes in the right to criticize this government, just not that one.
Cantor’s mistake was not telling Prime Minister Netanyahu what everyone knows is true anyway, but telling the world what he said. This is the classic Washington definition of a gaffe (i.e., inadvertently speaking an inconvenient truth).
In this case, the gaffe produced a firestorm. And this is where I consider the possibility that Cantor simply doesn’t understand what he’s doing.
After all, he has been an AIPAC cutout since he first was elected to office. He’s been to more AIPAC meetings than he can probably count. And he should have figured out by now that the lobby is extremely careful, obsessively careful, to always emphasize loyalty to the United States while simultaneously endorsing Israeli policies that undermine our foreign policy objectives.
AIPAC officials never, ever, say that when push comes to shove their loyalty is with Israel not the United States. In fact, the accusation that this is the case is the charge AIPAC hates most.
But the soon-to-be Majority Leader came right out and said it: Israel, right or wrong.
It took a few days for Cantor to understand how utterly offensive his statement was. (He might have heard from a few Tea Party types who, say what you will about them, tend to take their patriotism seriously.)
So today Cantor explained he was misunderstood. His inconvenient truth, his gaffe, was replaced by a laughable untruth.
This is how the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank reports it: ‘Brad Dayspring, Cantor’s press guy, tells me Cantor’s promise that the Republican majority would "serve as a check on the administration" was "not in relation to U.S./Israel relations."’
Mmmm. So Cantor’s pledge to stand with Netanyahu against Obama was "not in relation to US/Israel relations" despite the context of Cantor’s statement – just before Netanyahu’s meeting with Clinton – and the fact that the person he was talking to was the Prime Minister of Israel.
So, what was Cantor’s pledge "in relation to"? Was it in relation to either repealing "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" or the Bush tax cuts for millionaires? Maybe it was about farm subsidies. Come on, Eric. Don’t make us laugh.
It is eminently clear what you said and what you meant. And this time we will take you at your word.
6) Cholera backlash fuels anti-UN protests in Haiti
Jonathan M. Katz, Associated Press, Tuesday, November 16, 2010; 12:04 PM
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/101116/world/cb_haiti_disease_outbreak_1
Port-au-Prince, Haiti – Anti-U.N. riots spread to several Haitian cities and towns, as protesters blaming a contingent of Nepalese peacekeepers for an outbreak of cholera that has killed more than 1,000 people exchanged gunfire with U.N. soldiers. Protesters continued to barricade some roads on Tuesday.
The protests left at least two people dead. A demonstrator was shot dead by a U.N. peacekeeper during an exchange of gunfire in Quartier Morin, near Haiti’s second-largest city of Cap-Haitien, the United Nations mission said. It said it was investigating the shooting but asserted the soldier acted in self-defense.
Haiti Senate President Kelly Bastien told Radio Vision 2000 that a second demonstrator was shot and killed in Cap-Haitien itself. He did not know who shot him.
The 12,000-member force reported that at least six U.N. personnel were wounded in protests at Hinche in the central plateau, while local Radio Metropole reported that at least 12 Haitians were injured in Cap-Haitien.
The protests apparently began in Cap-Haitien early Monday and within hours had paralyzed much of the northern port city. An APTN television cameraman trying to reach the area was repelled by protesters throwing rocks and bottles from a barricade.
As the day went on, other protests broke out in surrounding towns and the central plateau. Local reporters said a police station was burned in Cap-Haitien and rocks thrown at peacekeeping bases. A small protest was also reported in the northwestern city of Gonaives, but U.N. police said it ended peacefully.
[…] The cholera backlash plays upon some Haitians’ long-standing resentment of the 12,000-member U.N. military mission, which has been the dominant security force in Haiti since 2004. It is also rooted both in fear of a disease previously unknown to Haiti and internationally shared suspicion that the U.N. base could have been a source of the infection.
The country’s healh ministry said Tuesday that the official death toll had passed 1,000, hitting 1,034 as of Sunday. Figures are released following two days of review.
Aid workers say official figures may understate the epidemic. While the ministry of health says more than 16,700 people have been hospitalized nationwide, Doctors Without Borders reports that its clinics alone have treated more than 12,000.
Cholera had never been documented in Haiti before it broke out about three weeks ago.
Suspicions quickly surrounded a Nepalese base located on the Artibonite River system, where the outbreak started. The soldiers arrived there in October following outbreaks in their home country and about a week before Haiti’s epidemic was discovered.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the cholera strain now ravaging the country matched a strain specific to South Asia, but said they had not pinpointed its origin or how it arrived in Haiti.
Following an Associated Press investigation, the U.N. acknowledged that there were sanitation problems at the base, but said its soldiers were not responsible for the outbreak.
[…]
Yemen
7) U.S. Pursues Wider Role In Yemen
Americans Move to Bring In Equipment and Operatives and Propose New Bases for Fight Against al Qaeda Affiliate
Adam Entous, Julian E. Barnes and Margaret Coker, Wall Street Journal, November 16, 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704658204575610623765564574.html
The U.S. is preparing for an expanded campaign against al Qaeda in Yemen, mobilizing military and intelligence resources to enable Yemeni and American strikes and drawing up a longer-term proposal to establish Yemeni bases in remote areas where militants operate.
[…] There is a debate within the Obama administration and Pentagon about how best to ramp up the fight against AQAP, the Yemen-based terrorist group. Supporters of establishing forward operating bases for Yemeni forces say they would help the weak Yemeni government expand its control and create an opportunity to get a small number of American Special Operations trainers and advisers out of the capital region and into the field.
The proposed bases would vary in size, but could each accommodate scores of troops, including specialized Yemeni commando units, which are trained by the U.S. and would work most closely with the Americans to hunt al Qaeda leaders. The proposal hasn’t been presented formally to the full range of policy makers in Washington who would need to sign off on it, officials said, and it is unclear whether the U.S. or another donor, such as Saudi Arabia, would provide funding.
Yemeni officials said the proposal was under discussion. While San’a would support the establishment of bases in some areas, Yemeni officials said the government would be reluctant to allow the U.S. to station trainers in them. "Why create unnecessary problems? Situating foreigners in security posts would be misconstrued as an unwelcome foreign presence," a Yemeni official said.
[…] In addition, people familiar with the situation said, U.S. officials don’t know how many of the commandos trained by U.S. forces have been involved in fighting al Qaeda, because the Yemeni government hasn’t confirmed where the elite personnel are deployed. That has raised concerns that those personnel are being diverted to fight some of the other security threats that Yemen faces, such as separatists in the south and rebels in the north.
Another military proposal to boost the fight against AQAP, reported in The Wall Street Journal on Nov. 1, would shift elite Special Operations hunter-killer teams in Yemen to the control of the CIA. That idea has been met with strong objections from the government of Yemen.
[…] The need to improve on-the-ground intelligence was underscored by a botched U.S. military strike in May that killed a provincial deputy governor and set off tribal unrest. The final authorization to strike was based on technical surveillance from aircraft, rather than intelligence from sources on the ground, according to officials. The incident infuriated the Yemen government, and there have been no reported U.S. airstrikes in the country since May. Officials said strikes could resume as intelligence is developed.
[…] U.S. officials credit the Saudis with being particularly adept at tracking detainees who have been released from the U.S. military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. According to three Arab security officials familiar with the situation, a former Guantánamo detainee, Jaber al-Fayfi, was part of a large network of Saudi assets in Yemen that uncovered and provided details about the cargo-bombing plot.
Pakistan
8) Deaths in Pakistan drone attack
At least 20 people killed by US missile strike on suspected Taliban training centre in tribal area near Afghan border.
Al Jazeera, 16 Nov 2010 08:34 GMT http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/11/20101116667386262.html
A US missile strike has destroyed a suspected Taliban training centre in Pakistan’s tribal area near the Afghan border, killing at least 20 people. The missiles, launched from drones, struck a fortress-like compound and a vehicle in Ghulam Khan village in North Waziristan early on Tuesday. According to a Pakistani intelligence official in the region, the site was manned by Taliban fighters who had just returned from Afghanistan.
Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from the capital, Islamabad, said that one of the missiles destroyed a house in which 16 people were killed, including women and children. "The other target was a vehicle in which four people are said to have been killed," he said.
[…]
9) Pakistan Slow To Rebuild Swat Valley A Year After Offensive
Adam B. Ellick, New York Times, November 12, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/13/world/asia/13swat.html
Drushkhela, Pakistan – People here felt a surge of optimism last year when the military declared the Swat Valley cleared of Taliban insurgents, who had bullied their way to power by publicly whipping and beheading opponents. But more than a year after millions of residents returned home, the absence of virtually any government follow-through has turned that hope into despair.
Throughout the valley, tens of thousands of students are sheltered by broken-down walls and flimsy tents supplied mostly by international aid groups. The government has yet to rebuild even one of the more than 150 schools leveled by the Taliban in their methodical campaign to prevent girls’ education.
Running water, electricity and school supplies are widely absent. The floods that ravaged the country this summer, and hit Swat especially hard, have only compounded the hardships and diverted money and attention away from reconstructing war-torn areas.
The lack of any visible progress has fed the frustrations of local people and international donors over the government’s incompetence and corruption, raising fears that it has squandered a chance to win over a pivotal population in its war against militancy, which has been urged on by the United States.
"In the minds of these little kids, the frustration against our own government is developing, and against the West is developing," said Esanullah Khan, a landlord here who advises the army and aid organizations on rebuilding schools. "They’ll go into Talibanization or miscreants because that is their only option left. What do they have to lose?"
"And who is the one to blame?" he said, parroting the students’ reasoning. "It’s the United States of America."
[…] Pakistani officials defended their performance, saying that hiring engineers and architects to ensure that schools would be safe from earthquakes was a time-consuming process that was delayed two months by the floods.
They also blamed foreign governments who, they said, failed to follow through on pledges made when several million people were displaced from Swat by the military’s campaign to oust the Taliban in 2009.
"The focus has shifted," said Shakeel Qadir, the director general of the Provincial Relief, Rehabilitation and Settlement Authority, a government agency set up last year to "speed and ease" the rehabilitation of areas swept by fighting.
"The issue of postmilitancy reconstruction – not only schools, but enterprise, infrastructure – somehow the whole international community has forgotten the issue, which we feel is perhaps, if not more important, than as important as floods," he said.
Foreign government officials say they are reluctant to give money for fear it will be siphoned off by politicians. The provincial government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, where Swat is located, was listed as the most corrupt provincial administration in the country by the global advocacy group Transparency International. "Donors need clarity," said one foreign official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue. "It’s unfortunate, but that’s where we are."
So far the United States is the only foreign government to contribute to the school cause. It gave $5 million in April and planned to release an additional $15 million if it was satisfied with the transparency of how its initial donation was used, and with the progress made.
Officials said that the pledges would build 108 schools over roughly two years, but added that they were still $1 billion short of what was needed to restore the region’s infrastructure.
[…]
Lebanon
10) U.S. Lawmakers Drop Hold On Aid To Lebanese Military
Jay Solomon and Adam Entous, Wall Street Journal, November 13, 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704865704575610993378651882.html
Washington – U.S. lawmakers lifted a congressional hold on $100 million in military assistance for Lebanon’s armed forces, as the Obama administration moved to bolster Beirut’s pro-Western government.
In recent weeks, the militant Lebanese organization, Hezbollah, has issued increasing threats against Prime Minister Saad Hariri amid reports that a United Nations-backed court is preparing to indict Hezbollah members for the 2005 murder of Mr. Hariri’s father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Washington has provided Lebanon’s military with an estimated $720 million in aid since 2006 in an effort to develop the institution as a counterweight to Hezbollah, which receives its arms and funding from Iran and Syria, and has grown as a political force with seats in the Lebanese government.
[…] The White House and State Department have pressed senior Democrats in Congress in recent weeks, particularly Howard Berman (D., Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to lift its hold on military assistance, in a bid to strengthen Mr. Hariri’s government against Hezbollah’s growing power, according to U.S. officials.
Mr. Berman has voiced concerns about the Lebanese military’s independence from Hezbollah and the possibility that some U.S. military aid could be used against Israel. In August, Lebanon’s military engaged in a border skirmish with Israeli troops that killed a senior Israeli military commander.
The U.S. and Lebanon have, subsequently, conducted a review of their military-assistance program and assuaged the Democratic lawmakers’ concerns, according to congressional officials. "I have…been given reason for confidence that assistance to the LAF has not fallen into the hands of Hezbollah and that every possible measure is being taken by Lebanese and American authorities to prevent that from happening," Mr. Berman said in a statement Friday.
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Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
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