Just Foreign Policy News
November 3, 2010
A Progressive Primary to Push for Jobs and End the Wars
Historical trends suggest that the main story of the election was the failure to restore economic growth, accounting for the loss of 40 Democratic seats alone. Current economic trends suggest 2012 is unlikely to be different, in the absence of decisive federal action. A dramatic political intervention is needed to change the national debate. A 2012 progressive presidential primary could be such an intervention, keeping the need for federal action to boost employment at the center of debate. If organized correctly, a primary would build progressive power rather than be divisive, would register and educate voters, would encourage and boost progressive candidates for Congress, and would strengthen the base of organizations that do progressive electoral work. It would also be a powerful counterweight to Washington voices who want to extend the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and to cut Social Security benefits.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/a-progressive-primary-to_b_778447.html
The Best Government Money Can Buy
A recent film by Francis Megahy sounds the alarm about corporate control of Washington through the current system of campaign finance and lobbying by the suppliers of campaign finance, as well as the bind that reform of the system ultimately has to be enacted by incumbents that have been produced by the current system, and the need for outside agitation.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/bestgovernment
South of the Border on DVD
Oliver Stone’s documentary South of the Border was released on DVD last week. Why did the center-left cruise to victory in Brazil? You can get the DVD here.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/southoftheborder
Help Support Our Work
Your donation helps us educate Americans and create opportunities to advocate for a just foreign policy.
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Senator McCain said in the wake of big Republican victories in Congress he would like to see a change in President Obama’s decision to begin withdrawing some U.S. troops from Afghanistan next August, Reuters reports.
2) Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the next head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is poised to thwart Obama’s efforts to move toward repealing sanctions on Cuba and resist any White House attempts to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Josh Rogin reports for Foreign Policy.
3) California voters rejected a ballot initiative that would have legalized marijuana for recreational use, the New York Times reports. The initiative would have allowed licensed retailers to sell up to one ounce at a time, with no doctor’s note required, to those over the age of 21. Legalizing marijuana, advocates had argued, would have helped reduce the violence caused by Mexican organizations that traffic in illegal drugs. "When was the last time Coors Lite did a drive-by shooting on Budweiser because they didn’t like their marketing?" asked Nate Bradley, a former police officer who supported the measure.
4) California voters overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would have put the state’s plans for more renewable energy and a market to curb greenhouse gases on ice, Reuters reports. The defeat of Proposition 23 marked a big victory for Silicon Valley investors, who poured millions of dollars into defending California’s AB 32 law and protecting their massive investments in green technologies ranging from solar power to electric cars. With 48 of precincts reporting, the "no" vote on Proposition 23 stood at 59%, with 41% in the "yes" column. The "Yes on 23" camp raised more than $10m, much of which came from oil companies Valero Energy and Tesoro.
5) The revelation by Wikileaks of a U.S. military order directing U.S. forces not to investigate cases of torture of detainees by Iraqis has been treated in news reports as evidence of lack of concern by the U.S. military about detainee abuse, writes Gareth Porter for Inter Press Service. This misses the context that the order was part of a U.S. strategy of exploiting Shi’a sectarian hatred against Sunnis to help suppress the Sunni insurgency.
Iran
6) The State Department designated the Iranian opposition group Jundallah a foreign terrorist organization, note former Bush Administration officials Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett on their blog Race for Iran, calling the move long overdue. The perception that the US continues to have ties to Jundallah and other groups considered terrorists by most Iranians has had a deeply corrosive effect on Iranian assessments of the Obama Administration’s seriousness about strategic engagement with Iran and its ultimate intentions towards Iran, the Leveretts note.
Afghanistan
7) Internal U.S. military statistics show U.S. and allied forces have failed to reduce the number of civilian fatalities caused by them in Afghanistan despite a two-year effort by US commanders, the Los Angeles Times reports. Civilian deaths have risen 11% from 144 at this time last year to 160 in 2010. The increase has coincided with the rising number of incidents in which U.S. and NATO attack helicopters mistakenly fired on Afghans who turned out to be civilians. Civilian casualties attributed to NATO forces by other groups, including the UN and Afghan provincial officials, are often higher than those reported by ISAF, the LAT notes.
8) The Afghan government has failed to fill dozens of key positions in Kandahar, the Washington Post reports. Poorly developed local governance throughout Afghanistan is partly an outgrowth of the decision after the Taliban’s overthrow in 2001 to vest most of the power in the central government, the Post notes. Collateral damage of NATO military operations often seems to make a more indelible impression on civilians than Western development efforts, the Post also notes.
9) The Taliban appear to have "reintegration" plans of their own, the New York Times reports. On Monday, the entire police force on duty appears in Khogeyani to have defected to the Taliban side.
Iraq
10) A State Department audit says the Administration could be overstating what U.S. diplomats can do to contain Iraq’s tensions without U.S. military forces, raising concerns about the planned pullout of US troops next year, AP reports. The audit’s findings echo worries expressed by some U.S. defense analysts and former diplomats. The State Department’s office of inspector general said stability in Iraq may be years away.
Peru
11) A declassified 2008 CIA report says CIA officers involved with a secret counternarcotics mission in Peru routinely violated agency procedures, tried to cover up their mistakes, and misled Congress after a US missionary plane was shot down on CIA orders in 2001, the New York Times reports. The report details a pattern of CIA stonewalling that included keeping results of a CIA review of the downing of the plane from the White House and the Senate Intelligence Committee. The report said the CIA had concealed internal findings from victims of the downing of the plane and their relatives, who had sued the government.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) McCain hopes for fresh look at Afghan policy
Steve Holland, Reuters, Wed Nov 3, 2010 1:43am EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A21K320101103
Washington – Republican Senator John McCain said on Tuesday in the wake of big Republican victories in Congress that he hopes President Barack Obama will take a fresh look at U.S. war policy in Afghanistan. McCain won re-election to his Arizona Senate seat by a large margin, ensuring he will retain have a strong voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee as its ranking Republican member.
In an interview, McCain told Reuters he was looking forward to a December review the Obama administration is preparing to give an update on the U.S. troop increase Obama ordered a year ago to try to repulse a strengthened Taliban.
McCain, who is expected to visit Afghanistan soon, said he would like to see a change in Obama’s decision to begin withdrawing some U.S. troops from Afghanistan next August.
"I can only speak for myself, but this date for withdrawal that the president announced without any military advice or counsel has caused us enormous problems in our operations in Afghanistan, because our enemies are encouraged and our friends are confused over there," he said.
[…]
2) Meet your new House Foreign Affairs chairwoman: Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
Josh Rogin, Foreign Policy, November 2, 2010
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/11/02/meet_your_new_house_foreign_affairs_chairwoman_ileana_ros_lehtinen
Now that the Republicans are projected to take control of the House, we here at The Cable would like to introduce you to the next head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Florida Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
Ros-Lehtinen has been a force on the committee for years as the vocal, passionate, sometimes combative ranking Republican. A Cuban-American lawmaker from a heavily Jewish district, Ros-Lehtinen has staked out firm positions on several issues that stand in contrast to now outgoing chairman Howard Berman (D-CA). Her ascendancy as chairwoman will change the tone and agenda of the committee and will pose new challenges for the Obama administration’s efforts to advance its foreign-policy agenda.
Over the mid to long term, Ros-Lehtinen is poised to thwart Obama’s efforts to move toward repealing sanctions on Fidel Castro and resist any White House attempts to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She isn’t likely to move Berman’s foreign-aid reform bill through the committee and she is likely to seek cuts in the foreign-aid budget in her authorization bill.
[…] For example, although Berman and Ros-Lehtinen agreed on the need to push tough sanctions on Iran, Berman delayed action on the bill to allow Obama’s engagement effort to play out. Ros-Lehtinen might not be so accommodating. "The Berman people were ahead of the Obama team on a number of things, but they deferred to the administration on timing. You are going to see more aggressiveness, to push an agenda and not to defer to the administration," said a Republican congressional aide.
[…] In the near term, Ros-Lehtinen could cause complications for the administration’s foreign policy in a number of ways. She is a Russia skeptic, and wants more investigation into the civilian nuclear agreement with Russia that is currently before the Congress. Congress probably won’t move to block this deal, but Ros-Lehtinen is sure to schedule hearings to pick apart future deals planned with Jordan, South Korea, and Vietnam.
Ros-Lehtinen will be pushing the administration to strictly enforce new sanctions law against Iran. If the mere threat of penalties under the law doesn’t entice large international companies to leave Iran, she will call for the administration to start punishing those companies, even if they are from China or Russia.
[…]
3) California Rejects Marijuana Legalization
Marc Lacey, New York Times, November 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/03/us/politics/03ballot.html
Oakland – California voters rejected a ballot initiative on Tuesday that would have legalized marijuana for recreational use, but disappointed supporters of the measure lighted up anyway outside their campaign headquarters here and vowed to continue pushing for a day when cannabis is treated like tobacco and alcohol, not heroin and cocaine.
[…] The marijuana initiative would have allowed licensed retailers to sell up to one ounce at a time, with no doctor’s note required, to those over the age of 21. Advocates of legalization argued that it was already easier for young people to get a marijuana cigarette than a cigarette or beer. "They can get it more easily than alcohol, more easily than tobacco," said Hanna Dershowitz, a lawyer and mother of two from Southern California who backed the cannabis initiative. "Drug dealers don’t ask for ID."
Legalizing marijuana, advocates had argued, would have had the added benefit of generating tax revenue and helping reduce the violence caused by Mexican organizations that traffic in illegal drugs. "When was the last time Coors Lite did a drive-by shooting on Budweiser because they didn’t like their marketing?" asked Nate Bradley, a former police officer who supported the measure. But opponents carried the day with their argument that lifting the ban on marijuana would translate into increased usage of the drug. Already, a recent change in the law categorizes possession of small amounts as an infraction, the lowest level of offense.
[…] The vote on legalizing marijuana in California was closely watched, especially in Mexico, where the government is engaged in a violent battle with drug traffickers who grow marijuana and sneak the profitable herb in bales across the border.
[…]
4) Climate Law Survives Prop 23 Challenge at California Polls
Voters overwhelmingly reject a measure that would have put renewable energy plans and a market to cut emissions on hold
Reuters, Wednesday 3 November 2010 11.26 GMT http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/nov/03/prop-23-climate-california
One of the world’s most ambitious laws to combat global warming survived a challenge on Tuesday as California voters overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would have put the state’s plans for more renewable energy and a market to curb greenhouse gases on ice.
The defeat of Proposition 23 marked a big victory for Silicon Valley investors, who poured millions of dollars into defending California’s AB 32 law and protecting their massive investments in green technologies ranging from solar power to electric cars.
After the failure of federal climate legislation in Congress this year, the fate of California’s law was viewed as a US turning point – either away from addressing global warming or toward stronger action to curb greenhouse gases.
"This is reaffirmation that we are a country of some enlightenment," said Michael Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, a trade group. "A majority of Californians, even in great stress of unemployment and economic demise, will still accept this responsibility. Rejecting an attempt to destroy the environment is a good thing."
Opponents of Prop 23 also cheered Tuesday’s election of Jerry Brown as California governor. Brown has said he supports a target of deriving 33% of California’s electricity from renewable sources like solar and wind. "With Jerry as governor, the transformation of our electricity sector will have a captain for the ship," said V John White, executive director of the Centre for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technology, an advocacy group.
[…] With 48 of precincts reporting, the "no" vote on Proposition 23 stood at 59%, with 41% in the "yes" column.
Prop 23, largely funded by oil companies, would have put AB 32 on ice until double-digit unemployment falls to 5.5% or less for four straight quarters. That scenario has happened rarely in California in the past 20 years, the measure’s opponents argued.
The "No on 23" campaign also claimed the measure would have taken critical support away from a green business community that has generated billions of dollars in investment and created millions of jobs in the state. "AB 32 is a stimulus for economic growth and innovation," said Tom Werner, chief executive of California-based solar panel maker SunPower Corp.
With Prop 23 defeated, SunPower will proceed with a plan to open a San Francisco-area manufacturing facility that will employ 100 people. It would have considered putting the factory in another state if Prop 23 had passed, Werner said.
Silicon Valley investors, who have heavily funded solar and wind energy, biofuels and electric cars, poured money into defeating Prop 23 in recent weeks. In total, the campaign raised more than $25m.
[…] The "Yes on 23" camp, in contrast, raised more than $10m, much of which came from oil companies Valero Energy and Tesoro.
5) Torture Orders Were Part of U.S. Sectarian War Strategy
Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service, Nov 1
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53426
Washington – The revelation by Wikileaks of a U.S. military order directing U.S. forces not to investigate cases of torture of detainees by Iraqis has been treated in news reports as yet another case of lack of concern by the U.S. military about detainee abuse.
But the deeper significance of the order, which has been missed by the news media, is that it was part of a larger U.S. strategy of exploiting Shi’a sectarian hatred against Sunnis to help suppress the Sunni insurgency when Sunnis had rejected the U.S. war.
And Gen. David Petraeus was a key figure in developing the strategy of using Shi’a and Kurdish forces to suppress Sunnis in 2004-2005.
The strategy involved the deliberate deployment of Shi’a and Kurdish police commandoes in areas of Sunni insurgency in the full knowledge that they were torturing Sunni detainees, as the reports released by Wikileaks show.
That strategy inflamed Sunni fears of Shi’a rule and was a major contributing factor to the rise of al Qaeda’s influence in the Sunni areas. The escalating Sunni-Shi’a violence it produced led to the massive sectarian warfare of 2006 in Baghdad in which tens of thousands of civilians – mainly Sunnis – were killed.
The strategy of using primarily Shi’a and Kurdish military and police commando units to suppress Sunni insurgents was adopted after a key turning point in the war in April 2004, when Civil Defence Corps units throughout the Sunni region essentially disappeared overnight during an insurgent offensive.
Two months later, the U.S. military command issued "FRAGO [fragmentary order] 242", which provided that no investigation of detainee abuse by Iraqis was to be conducted unless directed by the headquarters of the command, according to references to the order in the Wikileaks documents.
The order came immediately after Gen. Petraeus took command of the new Multi-National Security Transition Command in Iraq (MNSTC-I). It was a clear signal that the U.S. command expected torture of prisoners to be a central feature of Iraqi military and police operations against Sunni insurgents.
Petraeus knew that it would take more than two years to build a competent Iraqi military officer corps, as he told Bing West, author of the "The Strongest Tribe", in August 2004. Meanwhile, he would have to use Shi’a and Kurdish militias.
In September 2004, Petraeus adopted a plan to establish paramilitary units within the national police.
The initial units were from non-sectarian former Iraqi special forces teams. In October, however, Petraeus embraced the first clearly sectarian Shi’a militia unit – the 2,000- man Shi’a "Wolf Brigade", as a key element of his police commando strategy, giving it two months of training with U.S. forces.
In November 2004, after 80 percent of the Sunni police defected to the insurgents in Mosul, the U.S. command dispatched 2,000 Kurdish peshmurga militiamen to Mosul, and five battalions of predominantly Shi’a troops, with a smattering of Kurds, were to police Ramadi. But a few weeks later, after the completion of its training, the Wolf Brigade was also sent to Mosul.
Hundreds of Shi’a troops from Baghdad and southern areas of the country were also sent into Samara and Fallujah.
It did not take long for the Wolf Brigade to acquire its reputation for torture of Sunni detainees. The Associated Press reported the case of a female detainee in Wolf Brigade custody in Mosul who was whipped with electric cables in order to get her to sign a false confession that she was a high-ranking local leader of the insurgency.
But an official of the U.S. command later told Richard Engel of NBC that the Wolf Brigade had been a very effective unit and had driven the insurgents out of Mosul.
The Wolf Brigade was then sent to Sunni neighbourhoods in Baghdad, where the Association of Muslim Scholars publicly accused it of having "arrested imams and the guardians of some mosques, tortured and killed them, and then got rid of their bodies in a garbage dump…"
The Wolf Brigade was also deployed to other Sunni cities, including Ramadi and Samarra, always in close cooperation with U.S. military units.
[…]
Iran
6) U.S. Reverses Course And Designates Anti-Iranian Jundallah As A Foreign Terrorist Organzation
Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, Race for Iran, November 3rd, 2010
http://www.raceforiran.com/u-s-reverses-course-and-designates-anti-iranian-jundallah-as-a-foreign-terrorist-organzation
In a notable turn-around, the U.S. Department of State today designated Jundallah as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). In early 2009, shortly after President Obama came into office, the United States considered designating Jundallah as a FTO, as a conciliatory message to the Islamic Republic of Iran. In March 2009, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicly warned the Obama Administration that Iran had intercepted communications between U.S. officials and Jundallah militants. "Bandits, terrorists, and murders are in touch with American officers in a neighboring country," he said. "[The Americans] say, ‘Let’s negotiate. Let’s start relations.’ They have the slogan of change. But where is the change? …Change has to be real. You change, and we shall change as well."
Nevertheless, we were told that the Obama Administration decided against such a "conciliatory" move in the wake of the Islamic Republic’s contested June 2009 presidential election-even though nothing had changed about Jundallah’s track record or its plans to carry out future lethal attacks inside Iran. Since then, the perception that the United States continues to have ties to Jundallah and other groups considered terrorists by most Iranians has had a deeply corrosive effect on Iranian assessments of the Obama Administration’s seriousness about strategic engagement with Iran and its ultimate intentions towards the Islamic Republic.
As we wrote in March 2010, following a visit to Tehran:
"Iranian officials are not the only sources claiming that U.S. intelligence is linked to groups carrying out terrorist operations inside the Islamic Republic. Some Western media reports-citing former CIA case officers-say that there are links between Jundallah and U.S. intelligence.
"…Some of these reports say that Jundallah is one of a number of ethnic separatist groups (including Arab, Azeri, Baluch, and Kurdish groups) receiving covert support from the United States, as part of a covert campaign authorized during the George W. Bush Administration to press Tehran over the nuclear issue and destabilize the Islamic Republic.
"…As we have written, there is considerable evidence that President Obama inherited from his predecessor a number of overt programs for "democracy promotion" in Iran, as well as covert initiatives directed against Iranian interests…[but] Obama has done nothing to scale back or stop these programs-a posture that has not gone unnoticed in Tehran. We understand that, last year, the Obama Administration reviewed whether Jundallah should be designated a foreign terrorist organization, but decided not to do so. Why was that? And, even though the Muhahedin-e Khalq (MEK) retains its designation as a foreign terrorist organization, the Obama Administration continues to push the Iraqi government not to consider a longstanding Iranian request that MEK cadres in Iraq-which were granted special protective status by the George W. Bush Administration-be deported to Iran. Why is the Obama Administration trying to protect members of a U.S. government-designated terrorist group?
"Could it be that at least some elements of the Obama Administration believe that U.S. connections to groups like Jundallah and the MEK are potentially useful policy instruments vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic?
"…Our discussions and observations in Tehran have deepened our awareness of the profound damage that can be done to the prospects for putting U.S.-Iranian relations on a more positive and productive trajectory by Washington’s ongoing attachments to elements of what is, simply put, a "regime change" strategy vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic-whether or not the Obama Administration wants to acknowledge it as such.
"It is worth recalling that, when Richard Nixon was inaugurated as President of the United States in January 1969, one of the first things he did to demonstrate his seriousness about realigning U.S.-China relations to the Chinese leadership in Beijing was to order the CIA to stand down from covert operations in Tibet. Chinese leaders noticed this, and it helped prepare the way for a diplomatic opening between Washington and Beijing. When will the Obama Administration show a similar measure of strategic seriousness toward the Islamic Republic of Iran?"
Against this backdrop, today’s designation of Jundallah as a FTO is certainly long overdue. Only time will tell whether today’s action is, from an Iranian perspective, too little, too late.
Afghanistan
7) Afghan civilian deaths caused by allied forces rise
Internal U.S. military statistics show 160 fatalities in 2010, up from 144 by this time last year. The greater use of attack helicopters has led to more accidental deaths.
David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times, November 1, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-civilians-20101102,0,4783095.story
Washington – U.S. and allied forces have failed to reduce the number of civilian fatalities caused by them in Afghanistan despite a two-year effort by American commanders, internal U.S. military statistics show.
Civilian deaths have risen 11% from 144 at this time last year to 160 in 2010. The increase has coincided with the rising number of incidents in which U.S. and NATO attack helicopters mistakenly fired on Afghans who turned out to be civilians, the previously unreleased statistics show.
As U.S. units have pushed into insurgent-dominated areas of southern Afghanistan, they have employed attack helicopters in greater numbers to provide support to troops on the ground, creating more situations in which civilians are inadvertently caught in a clash or mistaken for insurgents, said a senior U.S. official familiar with the statistics.
Only three civilians were mistakenly killed in helicopter attacks in the first 10 months of 2009, but the total through late October of this year is 37, the figures show. The senior U.S. official attributed the increase to using the helicopters in "some very tough fights recently."
[…] The statistics were compiled by NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Kabul, the military command headed by U.S. Gen. David H. Petraeus, and are based on casualty reports generated by ISAF units throughout Afghanistan.
Civilian casualties attributed to NATO forces by other groups, including the United Nations Assistance Mission Afghanistan and Afghan provincial officials, are often higher than those reported by ISAF. For example, the U.N. reported in August that Western forces and their Afghan allies were responsible for one-quarter of the 1,300 civilian deaths, or about 325, in the first six months of this year, with the vast majority of deaths blamed on insurgents.
[…]
8) Afghan Government Falters In Kandahar
Joshua Partlow and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, November 2, 2010; 7:53 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/02/AR2010110206269.html
Kandahar, Afghanistan – Despite months of American prodding, the Afghan government has failed to fill dozens of key positions in Kandahar, leaving an ineffectual local administration that U.S. officials fear will cripple the battlefield progress the military says it is making in the Taliban stronghold.
Just a month before President Obama will review the state of the Afghan war, top U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus and other military officers are making their case that the influx of American troops has pushed the Taliban out of key parts of Kandahar. But the Afghan government that U.S. officials hoped could step in to provide basic services remains a skeleton staff of unskilled bureaucrats that is incapable of functioning on its own, according to U.S. officials.
For the past year, the United States and its NATO allies have tried to build a Kandahar administration that can address residents’ grievances and sway them from the Taliban. The U.S. has also embarked on a massive spending spree in order to prop up Kandahar authorities and provide basic services. But with power monopolized by the central government in Kabul, the provincial and municipal offices in southern Afghanistan’s largest city are hamstrung and undermanned.
[…].
Hundreds of millions more are being pumped through United States Agency for International Development contracts to supply electricity, water, and new office buildings for Afghan officials who, in many cases, do not exist. "Right now, the government capacity is so anemic we have to do it," said the U.S. official who, like others, was not authorized to speak for the record. "We are acting as donor and government. That’s not sustainable."
[…] In Kabul, little attention is paid to Kandahar, Afghan and U.S. officials said, despite its key position in the war against the Taliban. Cabinet ministers rarely visit.
[…] Poorly developed local governance throughout Afghanistan is partly an outgrowth of the decision after the Taliban’s overthrow in 2001 to vest most of the power in the central government. For key positions in all of Afghanistan’s districts, the president’s office makes the decisions. "Everything’s centralized, everything happens in Kabul," said Kandahar’s mayor, Ghulam Haider Hamidi.
[…] It is difficult to judge whether such massive investment wins the Afghan government much allegiance. With 12,000 U.S. and NATO troops in Kandahar, the collateral damage of military operations often seems to make a more indelible impression. "The Americans brought us more security, but what have they done? They destroyed our houses, they destroyed our gardens and orchards," said Juma Khan, 70, who evacuated his family from its home in the Zhari district of Kandahar to avoid the fighting.
When the Taliban ruled his village, he said, members would search residents’ pockets for signs of government affiliation, ready to lynch or behead. But farmers who abstained from such government support could tend their vineyards in peace. The U.S. soldiers, he said, have uprooted crops to eliminate insurgent cover and drive armored trucks through the fields, which the Taliban then seed with bombs. "How could I be happy with them?" he said.
9) Afghan Police Unit Defects to Taliban, Leaving Burning Station Behind
Dexter Filkins and Sharifullah Sahak, New York Times, November 1, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/world/asia/02afghan.html
Kabul, Afghanistan – For months, American and Afghan officials have been promoting a plan to persuade masses of rank-and-file Taliban fighters to change sides and join the government. The tactic, known as "reintegration," is one of the big hopes for turning the tide in the war.
But the Taliban, it appears, have reintegration plans of their own. On Monday morning, they claimed to have put them into effect.
In Khogeyani, a volatile area southwest of the capital, the entire police force on duty Monday morning appears to have defected to the Taliban side. A spokesman for the Taliban said the movement’s fighters made contact with the Khogeyani’s police force, cut a deal, and then sacked and burned the station. As many as 19 officers vanished, as did their guns, trucks, uniforms and food.
Even the local police chief, who missed the attack, said he suspected a defection en masse. "This was not an attack, but a plot," said Mohammed Yasin, the chief of the Khogeyani police force. "The Taliban and the police made a deal."
[…]
Iraq
10) Auditors: Is US overselling diplomacy in Iraq?
Robert Burns, Associated Press, Tuesday, November 2, 2010; 6:59 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/02/AR2010110204250.html
Washington – The Obama administration could be overstating what U.S. diplomats can do to contain Iraq’s ethnic and sectarian tensions without U.S. military forces, a State Department audit concluded Tuesday, raising fresh concerns about the planned pullout of American troops next year.
The auditors also questioned whether American diplomats who remain behind will be adequately protected against insurgent violence, and their report faulted Washington for its planning of the transition from a U.S. military-led mission in Iraq to one run by American civilians in 2011.
The audit’s findings echo worries expressed by some U.S. defense analysts and former diplomats. They say hard-won security gains in Iraq could crumble if U.S. forces leave on schedule.
[…] In its report, the State Department’s office of inspector general said stability in Iraq may be years away. It warned that the failure of Iraqi political leaders to form a unity government has interfered with the "urgent task" of planning for Washington’s post-2011 diplomatic role.
Stephen Biddle, an Iraq watcher at the Council on Foreign Relations, said it will be difficult for U.S. diplomats to keep a lid on Sunni-Shiite and Arab-Kurd rivalries in the absence of a sizable American military presence. "Normally, stabilizing a situation like this requires peacekeepers," he said. "Peacekeepers are soldiers. That doesn’t say there aren’t important and valuable things that government civilians can do. But … security protection is important in this environment, and that’s not something State Department civilians do."
The report said the first six months of 2012 are likely to be "especially dangerous as extremists test U.S. resolve and Iraqi security forces’ capabilities." It questioned whether the U.S. can meet President Barack Obama’s goal of ensuring a safe work environment for remaining U.S. personnel in Iraq in 2012. "Security risks are expected to increase," the report said.
The auditors said the State Department should "stringently evaluate" whether it has the means to ensure its workers’ safety in Iraq.
[…] The State Department is planning to establish temporary embassy outposts in Kirkuk and the northern city of Mosul with a primary mission of "mitigating and mediating" the Arab-Kurd conflict, which the audit notes has defied resolution for centuries.
"The mission intends to conduct their work in an environment in which 95 percent of the Iraqi population holds unfavorable or ambivalent views of the United States," the report said, adding that current plans call for the outposts to close as early as 2014. "Does the United States risk overselling what it can and will accomplish?" the report asks. It does not explicitly answer that question but implies that the U.S. is promising more than it can deliver.
[…]
Peru
11) C.I.A. Role Is Faulted In Air Crash Over Peru
Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, November 1, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/world/americas/02peru.html
Washington – Central Intelligence Agency officers involved with a secret counternarcotics mission in the Peruvian jungle routinely violated agency procedures, tried to cover up their mistakes, and misled Congress immediately after a missionary plane was accidentally shot down in 2001, according to a blistering C.I.A. internal report released on Monday.
The declassified 2008 report by John L. Helgerson, then the C.I.A.’s inspector general, documents a culture of negligence and deceit inside the C.I.A. program in Peru. The report also details a pattern of C.I.A. stonewalling that included keeping results of a C.I.A. review of the 2001 downing of the plane from the White House and the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The 2001 episode, which resulted in the killing of an American missionary and her infant daughter, occurred when C.I.A. officers misidentified the missionary plane as a drug-smuggling aircraft and ordered the Peruvian military to shoot it down. The missionary’s husband, their son and the pilot survived. Parts of Mr. Helgerson’s report were released in 2008, so the broad conclusions of the Peru investigation were already known.
But the full 300-page report paints a detailed portrait of the troubled covert program. The report concluded that top C.I.A. officers misled members of Congress when they portrayed the April 2001 episode as an anomaly in an otherwise well-run program, and that C.I.A. lawyers repeatedly intervened with Justice Department officials to prevent prosecutions in the case.
The report also said that the spy agency had concealed internal findings from victims of the downing of the plane and their relatives, who had sued the government. "The U.S. government paid $8 million to the victims based on C.I.A.’s assertion that the missionary shootdown had been an aberration in a program that otherwise had complied with presidentially mandated procedures," the report said.
The C.I.A.’s counternarcotics program based deep in the Amazon forest of Peru was begun by President Bill Clinton in 1994 to assist the Peruvian Air Force, which had the authority to intercept or shoot down planes that did not comply with orders to land.
Mr. Helgerson’s investigation found that C.I.A. officers had violated established procedures in most of the 14 downings of planes in Peru before the April 2001 episode. "CIA officers knew of and condoned most of these violations," the report read, "fostering an environment of negligence and disregard for procedures."
The Justice Department in 2005 declined to prosecute any of the C.I.A. officers involved in the missionary case. But the 2008 inspector general’s report found evidence that some C.I.A. officials had deliberately withheld information about the case from federal investigators. Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to comment on whether the department had reopened an inquiry into the matter.
The report concluded that the C.I.A. officers’ "failure to provide adequate oversight and report violations precluded a policy review and a possible change of course that could have prevented the shootdown of April 2001."
A C.I.A. press release on Monday said that Leon E. Panetta, the spy agency’s director, meted out administrative penalties to 16 current and retired officers in December.
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Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming US foreign policy so it reflects the values and interests of the majority of Americans.