Just Foreign Policy News
March 17, 2011
Petraeus: Kucinich-Jones-Paul Resolution Today Would Give Osama the Victory
Testifying before Congress about the resolution before Congress today to withdraw troops by the end of the year, General Petraeus invoked the Osama Defense: "The Taliban and al-Qaida obviously would trumpet this as a victory, as a success," Petraeus said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/petraeus-kucinichjonespau_b_837056.html
Roll Call 193: Directing the President, pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution, to remove the United States Armed Forces from Afghanistan
The vote was 93-321. Among Democrats, 85 -99. Among Republicans, 8-222. A similar measure last year got 65 votes.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll193.xml
Washington Smackdown: Petraeus vs. "Substantial Drawdown"
A substantial drawdown of U.S. forces from Afghanistan would save many American and Afghan lives and tens of billions of dollars. It would open political space in Afghanistan for a negotiated political resolution that ends the civil war.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/washington-smackdown-petr_b_836207.html
AP: the plane is in the air
The plane taking former President Aristide back to Haiti has left South Africa.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110317/ap_on_re_af/af_south_africa_aristide_19
The Center for Economic and Policy Research is live-blogging Aristide’s return:
Live Blog: Aristide Returns to Haiti
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/relief-and-reconstruction-watch/live-blog-aristide-returns-to-haiti
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) The Obama administration pressed Thursday for greater UN authority to confront Libyan leader Gaddafi’s forces by land, air and sea, suggesting greater military intervention than even a no-fly zone, the Washington Post reports. But in a Thursday morning hearing, Sen. Richard Lugar, senior Republican on Foreign Relations, said the administration "should first seek a congressional debate on a declaration of war" against Libya before agreeing to any military intervention.
Lugar questioned what he described as Obama’s lack of consultation and clarity of intent, recalling the Bush administration’s decision to go to war with Iraq without direct congressional authorization and raising the possibility of U.S. involvement in "a stream of civil wars" across the Middle East.
Lugar asked whether it was the administration’s view that it could commit U.S. forces to Libya without a declaration of war, "simply citing humanitarian considerations that people will be shot by oppressive rulers?" William Burns, undersecretary of state for policy, did not reply directly, saying that he understood the "seriousness of your concerns" and would convey them to the White House and to Secretary Clinton.
Burns agreed that the establishment of a no-fly zone would have little impact on conditions on the ground. He said the administration was "talking about a whole range of measures, including steps beyond a no-fly zone."
2) Washington has gone to great lengths to prevent Aristide’s return to Haiti over the last seven years, writes Mark Weisbrot in the Guardian. This week the State Department once again warned that Aristide should not return until "after the [20 March] electoral process is concluded." But Weisbrot notes that in Haiti as in the U.S., politicians are more amenable to public opinion before an election, and there is electoral pressure right now to allow Aristide back in the country. Both of the contenders in the Sunday election have now said they welcome Aristide’s return, a reversal from previous statements.
3) Bahrain arrested six opposition leaders on Thursday, kept the main hospital surrounded by troops and tanks and imposed a nighttime curfew on the center of its capital, the New York Times reports. A group of Bahraini human rights groups appealed to the UN for help. The Obama administration continued to express distress at the crackdown, but the widespread feeling in Bahrain was that Washington’s objections were too soft, and that if the US had wanted to prevent the events of recent days it could have.
4) A February speech by Secretary of State Clinton is being seen internationally as a green light for political negotiations to end the war in Afghanistan, the New York Times reports. Clinton appeared to recast longstanding US preconditions for talks as "necessary outcomes." "The seismic shift here was Hillary Clinton’s speech," said a diplomat in Kabul. "This is liberating for other countries who want to try to facilitate a negotiation." That the Americans are signaling that they are open to talks "is a paradigm shift," said Rangin Dadfar Spanta, President Karzai’s national security adviser.
5) The number of civilians killed in U.S. Special Operations Forces raids last year was probably several times higher than the figure of 80 people cited in the U.N. report on civilian casualties published last week, Gareth Porter writes for Inter Press Service. Porter’s analysis suggests that the oft-cited claim that insurgents are killing more civilians than US-led forces may well be spurious.
6) Gen. Petraeus told Congress Wednesday some US combat troops might be included in an initial withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in July, the New York Times reports. Petraeus is under pressure from the White House’s to offer something more than cosmetic withdrawals in July, the Times says.
7) The ACLU says the conditions of Bradley Manning’s pretrial detention violate the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, AP reports.
Iran/Bahrain
8) Thousands of Iraqis protested the crackdown in Bahrain, AP reports. Parliament discussed sending $5 million in aid to Shiites in Bahrain and demanded that the Arab League and the UN immediately intervene. Former Prime Minister Ibrahim criticized the U.S. response to the situation as timid.
9) The response of the Bahraini regime to protests has implications far beyond Bahrain’s borders, Marc Lynch writes for Foreign Policy. It is unleashing a regionwide resurgence of sectarian Sunni-Shi’a animosity. The sectarian framing in Bahrain is a deliberate regime strategy, not an obvious "reality." The Bahraini protest movement explicitly rejected sectarianism and sought to emphasize instead calls for democratic reform and national unity. There is virtually no evidence to support the oft-repeated claim that their efforts were inspired or led by Iran, he writes. The Bahraini regime responded not only with violent force, but also by encouraging a nasty sectarianism in order to divide the popular movement and to build domestic and regional support for a crackdown.
The regime’s positions and sectarian framing have been backed across the Gulf media – including al-Jazeera Arabic, which has barely covered Bahrain even as it has focused heavily on Libya, Egypt, and Yemen.
Pakistan
10) Several missiles fired from US drone aircraft on Thursday struck a meeting of local people in northwest Pakistan who had gathered with Taliban mediators to settle a dispute, the New York Times reports. The attack killed nearly everyone present – 26 of 32 people, according to a Pakistani official – some of them Taliban fighters, but the majority elders and local people not attached to the militants. The attack was likely to rekindle local anger against the drone attacks, the NYT says.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Obama administration seeks more U.N. authority to intervene in Libya
Scott Wilson, Colum Lynch and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, Thursday, March 17, 1:16 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-gaddafi-gains-wests-window-closes/2011/03/16/ABlGYNh_story.html
The Obama administration pressed Thursday for greater United Nations authority to confront Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi’s forces by land, air and sea, while insisting that Arab governments play a central role in any possible military action.
After a day of negotiations Wednesday in the U.N. Security Council, it remained unclear whether the United States or allied governments were making concrete plans to intervene militarily against Gaddafi’s forces, which have made significant gains on the ground against rebel strongholds.
But U.S. diplomats sent the clearest signal yet that the Obama administration is willing to contemplate military operations even beyond a no-fly zone to resolve the crisis in the oil-rich nation.
In Congress, lawmakers were split on whether the United States should support a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing military intervention in Libya. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called on the council Thursday to pass such a resolution immediately. But in a Thursday morning hearing on the issue, Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), the senior Republican on the committee, said the administration "should first seek a congressional debate on a declaration of war" against Libya before agreeing to any military intervention.
In the administration’s most direct endorsement of a new resolution, William J. Burns, undersecretary of state for policy, told the committee that "we are pressing for a new U.N. Security Council resolution to authorize a range of further actions against the Gaddafi regime."
[…] Lugar questioned what he described as Obama’s lack of consultation and clarity of intent, recalling the Bush administration’s decision to go to war with Iraq without direct congressional authorization and raising the possibility of U.S. involvement in "a stream of civil wars" across the Middle East.
Lugar asked whether it was the administration’s view that it could commit U.S. forces to Libya without a declaration of war, "simply citing humanitarian considerations that people will be shot by oppressive rulers?" Burns did not reply directly, saying that he understood the "seriousness of your concerns" and would convey them to the White House and to Clinton.
Under further questioning, Burns agreed that the establishment of a no-fly zone would have little impact on conditions on the ground. He said the administration was "talking about a whole range of measures, including steps beyond a no-fly zone."
[…]
2) The International Community Should Recognize Reality in Haiti
It is outrageous that, at the 11th hour, the US is still pressing South Africa to stop the return of ousted President Aristide Mark Weisbrot, Guardian, Thursday 17 March 2011 13.39 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/17/haiti-usforeignpolicy
Haiti’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is scheduled to return to his homeland this week after seven years in exile in South Africa. He was overthrown – for the second time – in a 2004 coup organised by the United States and its allies. Washington has gone to great lengths to prevent his return over the last seven years, and this week the state department once again warned that Aristide should not return until "after the [20 March] electoral process is concluded."
The state department is pretending that Aristide can simply come home after the election, and that he must have some sinister political motive for returning before the vote. This is completely dishonest. It is obvious that the next elected president will likely defer to the US and keep Aristide out. Furthermore, there is electoral pressure right now to allow Aristide back in the country. The Miami Herald reports that both of the contenders in the Sunday election have now said they welcome Aristide’s return, after previously opposing it. This about-face is obviously an attempt to court Fanmi Lavalas (Aristide’s party) voters. But we Americans know what happens to candidates’ political stances after the election is over.
Clearly, Aristide is taking advantage of his first, and possibly only, opportunity to return home. Meanwhile, the Miami Herald reports that phone calls from President Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon failed to convince South African president Jacob Zuma to keep Aristide from leaving South Africa.
How disgraceful that President Obama, a former law professor himself, would conspire to violate international law by attempting to deprive President Aristide of his human rights. And that the secretary general of the United Nations would bend to Obama’s will and collaborate with him. As noted in a letter to the state department by prominent lawyers and law professors, this is a violation of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a treaty which the United States has ratified. It states that "[n]o one shall be arbitrarily deprived of the right to enter his own country."
Washington and its allies would do better to take advantage of this opportunity to change course in Haiti, and accept the concept of self-determination for the Haitian people. They have denied this for decades, and especially since Aristide first was elected president in 1990. Within seven months, he was overthrown by the military and others who were later found to be paid by the US Central Intelligence Agency.
The United States has denied self-government to Haiti ever since. After Aristide was democratically elected for the second time in 2000, with more than 90% of the vote, the United States "sought … to block bilateral and multilateral aid to Haiti, having an objection to the policies and views of the administration of Jean-Bertrand Aristide … Choking off assistance for development and for the provision of basic services also choked off oxygen to the government, which was the intention all along: to dislodge the Aristide administration." That was Paul Farmer of Harvard’s medical school, Bill Clinton’s deputy special envoy from the UN to Haiti, testifying to US Congress last summer.
While many complain about the non-functional Haitian state as the country struggles to rebuild, they forget how large a role the "international community" has had in destroying the Haitian government even before the earthquake demolished most of what was left of it. The reconstruction of Haiti will need a legitimate, functioning state. This will require a process of consensus-building among the country’s most important political constituencies. This process will, therefore, have to include Aristide and his political party, Fanmi Lavalas, which remains the most popular party in the country.
Washington and its allies – including Brazil, which heads up the UN occupation force – must now accept this reality. Haiti cannot be ruled through violence, as it has been for most of the past century. Aristide, as the country’s first legitimate president, was able to eliminate 98% of Haiti’s political violence – mostly by abolishing Haiti’s murderous army. By contrast, after each coup (1991 and 2004) that overthrew his government, thousands of Haitians were murdered.
That is the choice going forward: a legitimate government or a violent government.
So far, the international community does not appear to be much concerned about establishing a legitimate government. Fanmi Lavalas was arbitrarily excluded from the first round (28 November) of Haiti’s presidential election, in which a record three quarters of the electorate did not vote. Then, Washington and its allies forced the government to change the results of the first round of the election, eliminating the government candidate and leaving only two rightwing candidates in the race.
Haiti today is an occupied country, with almost no legitimate authority. United Nations troops police the country, and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) provide most basic services, which are severely inadequate. More than a year after the earthquake, there has been little progress in removing rubble, or providing adequate shelter or sanitation for more than one million people displaced. And Haiti faces another rainy season beginning next month. Humanitarian needs are dire.
The situation in Haiti is potentially explosive, and it is not because, as the US state department argues, Aristide might return before the election. Rather, it is because they have denied Haitians their right to self-government, and continue to do so. Aristide has been Haiti’s only national political leader for the past two decades, and his party the country’s largest political party. It is long past time that the international community recognised that reality, rather than trying to exclude them from the political process through intimidation and violence.
3) Opposition Leaders Arrested in Bahrain as Crackdown Grows
Ethan Bronner, New York Times, March 17, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/middleeast/18bahrain.html
Manama, Bahrain – Bahrain arrested six opposition leaders on Thursday, kept the main hospital surrounded by troops and tanks and imposed a nighttime curfew on the center of its capital as it moved to the next stage of its crackdown on reform-seeking protesters, sending the political opposition into crisis.
A day after troops drove demonstrators from the main square and destroyed a month-old tent city there, popular unrest had been reduced to a few minor skirmishes in villages known as opposition strongholds. There was much defiant talk of keeping the struggle going, but also deep distress.
"We feel cornered and are trying to find our way out," said Jalal Fairooz, a leader of the Wefaq opposition party in an interview at party headquarters. A group of Bahraini human rights groups appealed to the United Nations for help.
The two most important opposition leaders arrested were Hassan Mushaima, who had returned from exile in London last month and promised to lead a Shiite Islamist party, and Ebrahim Sharif, a Sunni and leader of a secular party seeking a liberal democracy. Four other leaders were also detained.
[…] The Obama administration continued to express distress at the Bahraini crackdown, but the widespread feeling here was that Washington’s objections were too soft, and that if the United States had wanted to prevent the events of recent days it could have. "The American language should have been much tougher," Said Yousif Almuhafda, a spokesman for the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, said.
Bahrain is an American ally. The Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based here and the Khalifa royal family has warm relations with Washington. Rather than backing the protesters outright, as it did ultimately in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, the Obama administration has urged the government here to negotiate with the opposition and pursue change.
Undersecretary of State William J. Burns told a Senate committee on Thursday that force was not the answer to Bahrain’s difficulties, adding, "We’ve urged both the government and the opposition parties to engage in dialogue." But the administration remains committed to the royal family here.
Bahrain is 70 percent Shiite Muslim and is ruled by a Sunni Muslim elite, meaning that both Iran, the center of Shiism, and Saudi Arabia, the center of Sunni Islam, take a strong interest in its internal struggle. While supporting democratic reform, the United States is also worried that change could lead to increased Iranian activity here at a time of rising Iranian influence across the region.
Matar Ebrahim Ali Matar, a former Bahraini parliamentarian and a leader of Wefaq, the Shiite opposition party, said he fears his country could become a place of regional conflict. He said the arrival of Saudi troops here this past Monday is inflaming sectarianism, "and we don’t know how the Iranians will react. We don’t want a Saudi or an Iranian regime. Only the United States can stop this."
A number of Shiites in government resigned in the wake of Wednesday’s violent removal of protesters from Pearl Square, including the health minister, six members of the Shura advisory council and about a dozen judges. The housing minister said he would boycott government meetings but stopped short of resignation.
[…]
4) Pressure Mounts On All Parties In Afghan War To Begin Talks
Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times, March 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/world/asia/17taliban.html
Kabul, Afghanistan – As American troops press the Taliban in their desert and mountain redoubts, Western diplomats, Taliban leaders and the Afghan government have begun to take a hard look at what it would take to start a negotiation to end the fighting.
Efforts to start peace talks have yielded little in the past. Nonetheless, interest in a political track is growing as pressure mounts to find a palatable way to reduce the military commitment here and as public support for the war ebbs in the United States and Europe.
"The environment is shifting," said a Western diplomat here, who echoed a number of others interviewed. "If the Taliban make a decision they are interested, things could move quite quickly."
Publicly, at least, the Taliban have always stated that they will not negotiate before foreign troops leave the country. Now, however, some Taliban leaders have signaled that they will be open to talks sooner if their security can be guaranteed, and rank-and-file fighters appear increasingly eager to see an end to the war.
For their part, United States officials have also been adamant that they will not talk to top Taliban or other insurgent leaders they consider to be "irreconcilable." But recently they have quietly begun reducing the obstacles to talks.
In February, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a speech at the Asia Society in New York, appeared to recast longstanding preconditions for talks: that the insurgents lay down their arms, accept the Afghan Constitution and separate from Al Qaeda. Instead, she described them as "necessary outcomes."
Officially, the State Department played down the change in language, but a senior Western diplomat in Washington, who was familiar with the strategy behind Mrs. Clinton’s speech, said: "It was not intentional to explicitly make preconditions into outcomes. But the text now leaves room for interpretation, which opens doors."
Intentional or not, the speech was read in Kabul as giving a green light to other Western countries to start laying the groundwork for talks. "The seismic shift here was Hillary Clinton’s speech," said a diplomat here. "This is liberating for other countries who want to try to facilitate a negotiation."
It is the American nod that many have been waiting for. Several countries, among them Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have tried to serve as peace brokers, but without the imprimatur of the United States. That the Americans are signaling that they are open to talks "is a paradigm shift," said Rangin Dadfar Spanta, President Hamid Karzai’s national security adviser.
[…]
5) U.N. Reported Only a Fraction of Civilian Deaths from U.S. Raids
Gareth Porter and Shah Noori, Inter Press Service, Mar 17, 2011
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54883
Washington/Kabul, Mar 17 – The number of civilians killed in U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) raids last year was probably several times higher than the figure of 80 people cited in the U.N. report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan published last week, an IPS investigation has revealed.
The report also failed to apply the same humanitarian law standard for defining a civilian to its reporting on SOF raids that it applied to its accounting for Taliban assassinations.
The Mar. 9 report, produced by the Human Rights unit of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) jointly with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), said a total of 80 civilians were killed in "search and seizure operations" by "Pro-Government Forces" in 2010.
But AIHRC Commissioner Nader Nadery told IPS the figure represented only the number of civilian deaths in night raids in the 13 incidents involving SOF units that the Commission had been able to investigate thoroughly.
Nadery said the AIHRC had received complaints from local people alleging civilian casualties in 60 additional incidents involving raids and other activities by Special Forces. "We did not include them in the report, because we were unable to collect the exact figures for casualties, which takes time," Nadery said.
The AIHRC is continuing to investigate those 60 events, according to Nadery, and will report on the results in the future.
The Mar. 9 report refers to "60 incidents of night raids that caused civilian casualties", but does not inform the reader that only a fraction of the total casualties alleged in those incidents were counted in the total.
At least one of the 13 incidents investigated by the AIHRC was an air strike called by an SOF unit. The 80 deaths from at most 12 incidents or less would suggest an average of at least seven civilians killed per incident.
If the sample of night raids investigated is representative of the total of 60 incidents of SOF night raids about which civilian casualty complaints were generated, the total number of civilians killed would be around 420.
The UNAMA-AIHRC report shows a total 406 killings of civilians by "Anti-Government Elements" reported for 2010.
But the UNAMA-AIHRC report uses a strict humanitarian law definition of "civilian" in regard to victims of assassination by "Anti-Government Elements" which was not applied to victims of U.S. night raids.
"If Afghan soldiers travelling from one place to another, on holiday, with no weapon and no uniform, are killed, we count them as civilians, and the same with policemen," Nadery told IPS.
Mayors and district chiefs, who participate in military planning with NATO military commanders, were also considered civilian victims of assassination, according to Nadery.
A large proportion of those killed as "Taliban" in SOF night raids, however, would also qualify as civilians under this definition.
Matthew Hoh, formerly the senior U.S. foreign service officer in Zabul province before his 2009 resignation, was familiar with the target list for SOF kill or capture raids. He told IPS the list included Afghans holding every kind of non-combat function in the Taliban network, including propagandists and workers who make Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs).
UNAMA team leader Denise Lifton conceded that the report had made no effort to ascertain what positions had been occupied by those who had been killed in U.S. raids. "We have not looked at the functions, per se, of those [who are] accused of being Taliban and are killed," she said in an e-mail to IPS.
Night raids generally kill Taliban personnel in their own homes, and thus outside the context of a military operation.
If the same humanitarian law criterion used in counting victims of Taliban assassinations were applied to the alleged Taliban targeted in SOF night raids, the victims of killings during those raids would have to be considered civilian casualties.
[…]
6) Petraeus Tells Panel July Drawdown In Afghanistan May Include Some Combat Troops
Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times, March 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/world/asia/17petraeus.html
Washington – Gen. David H. Petraeus told Congress on Wednesday that some American combat troops might be included in an initial withdrawal of United States forces from Afghanistan in July, but he said that he was still preparing options for President Obama and that no final decision had been made.
General Petraeus, the top American commander in Afghanistan, did not say how many combat troops might be withdrawn, or from which parts of the country they would come.
"I am still formulating the options that I will provide to the president and the recommendations that I will make," he told the House Armed Services Committee. "But I do believe there will be some combat forces included in those options and in that recommendation."
A range of administration, Pentagon and military officials have said that the first American troops to come home in July are expected to be engineers and support troops, rather than combat soldiers, particularly because fighting is expected to be intense this summer and American commanders do not want to lose the territory they have gained.
But General Petraeus is seeking to balance demands from the military with the White House’s insistence on something more than cosmetic withdrawals in July.
[…]
7) ACLU tells Gates that military’s treatment of WikiLeaks suspect is cruel and unusual
Associated Press, Thursday, March 17, 8:16 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/aclu-tells-gates-that-militarys-treatment-of-wikileaks-suspect-is-cruel-and-unusual/2011/03/17/ABxYTmj_story.html
Washington – The American Civil Liberties Union is condemning the military’s treatment of the Army private suspected of giving classified material to WikiLeaks.
ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero wrote in a letter Wednesday to Defense Secretary Robert Gates that the conditions of Pfc. Bradley Manning’s pretrial detention at a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va., violate the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. The military has said repeatedly that Manning’s treatment conforms to U.S. law and military regulations.
The former intelligence analyst is confined alone in his cell 23 hours a day and must surrender all his clothing at night in favor of a military-issued, suicide-prevention smock.
The ACLU calls this treatment punitive, a view shared by Manning’s civilian attorney.
Iran/Bahrain
8) Thousands rally in Iraqi holy city to support Bahrain Shiites; lawmakers demand aid
Associated Press, Thursday, March 17, 12:42 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/thousands-rally-in-iraqi-holy-city-to-support-bahrain-shiites-lawmakers-demand-aid/2011/03/17/ABSmjDj_story.html
Baghdad – Concerns over clashes in Bahrain between Shiite protesters and security forces from Sunni Arab states spilled over into Iraq on Thursday, as thousands of Shiite protesters converged on holy shrines to show support for their brethren in Bahrain.
The Shiite-led uprising in Bahrain has galvanized Iraq’s Shiite population. The decision by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states to send forces into Bahrain also threatens to worsen relations between Baghdad and Riyadh, which already views Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government as a pawn of Iran.
About 3,000 people in Karbala, 55 miles (90 kilometers) south of Baghdad, gathered between the city’s two main Shiite mosques in a demonstration that local councilman Hussein Shadhan al-Aboudi predicted will be dwarfed by much larger crowds after prayers on Friday. About 200 people took to the streets in downtown Baghdad, many of them spontaneously joining the demonstration in a busy shopping area.
"I saw the demo and decided to … march with the demonstrators in solidarity with our brothers in Bahrain, with whom we are linked in religion and Arab ethnicity," said Amir al-Asaadi, 35, a businessman from Basra.
Parliament discussed sending $5 million in aid to Shiites in Bahrain and demanded that the Arab League and the United Nations immediately intervene.
Former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, criticized the U.S. response to the unrest against the tiny island’s Sunni monarchy.
"The American stance on what is going on in Bahrain is indecisive and hesitant," al-Jaafari told a press conference in Baghdad. "Their response was timid, and that was not enough."
He also called on Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurd, to denounce Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates in letters to the Baghdad-based ambassadors of both nations. He suggested that Iraq recall its ambassador from Bahrain.
[…]
9) Bahrain Brings Back the Sectarianism,
Marc Lynch, Foreign Policy, Wednesday, March 16, 2011 – 8:12 PM
http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/16/bahrain_brings_back_the_sectarianism
While the American and international debate over Libya continues, the situation in Bahrain has just taken a sharp turn for the worse. A brutal crackdown on the protestors followed the controversial entry of security forces from Saudi Arabia and three other GCC states. Media access has been curtailed, with journalists finding it difficult to gain entry to the Kingdom (I was supposed to be in Bahrain right now myself, but elected not to try after several journalists let me know that they were being denied entry and several Embassies in Doha warned me off). The road to political compromise and meaningful reform – which appeared to have been within reach only a few days ago – now appears to be blocked, which places the long-term viability of the Bahraini regime in serious question.
The response of the Bahraini regime has implications far beyond the borders of the tiny island Kingdom – not only because along with Libya it has turned the hopeful Arab uprisings into something uglier, but because it is unleashing a regionwide resurgence of sectarian Sunni-Shi’a animosity. Regional actors have enthusiastically bought in to the sectarian framing, with Saudi Arabia fanning the flames of sectarian hostility in defense of the Bahraini regime and leading Shia figures rising to the defense of the protestors. The tenor of Sunni-Shi’a relations across the region is suddenly worse than at any time since the frightening days following the spread of the viral video of Sadrists celebrating the execution of Saddam Hussein.
The sectarian framing in Bahrain is a deliberate regime strategy, not an obvious "reality." The Bahraini protest movement, which emerged out of years of online and offline activism and campaigns, explicitly rejected sectarianism and sought to emphasize instead calls for democratic reform and national unity. While a majority of the protestors were Shi’a, like the population of the Kingdom itself, they insisted firmly that they represented the discontent of both Sunnis and Shi’ites, and framed the events as part of the Arab uprisings seen from Tunisia to Libya. Their slogans were about democracy and human rights, not Shi’a particularism, and there is virtually no evidence to support the oft-repeated claim that their efforts were inspired or led by Iran.
The Bahraini regime responded not only with violent force, but also by encouraging a nasty sectarianism in order to divide the popular movement and to build domestic and regional support for a crackdown. Anti-Shi’a vituperation spread through the Bahraini public arena, including both broadcast media and increasingly divided social media networks. This sectarian framing also spread through the Arab media, particularly Saudi outlets. The sectarian frame resonated with the narratives laid in the dark days of the mid-2000s, when scenes of Iraqi civil war and Hezbollah’s rise in Lebanon filled Arab television screens, pro-U.S. Arab leaders spread fears of a "Shi’a Crescent", and the Saudis encouraged anti-Shi’ism in order to build support for confronting Iranian influence.
Now, the struggle for democracy and human rights in Bahrain seems to have been fully consumed by this cynical sectarian framing, and the regional Saudi-Iranian cold war which had been largely left behind by the Arab uprisings has suddenly returned to center stage. The sending of Saudi and GCC security forces to Bahrain follows on similar political campaigns, while the regime’s positions and sectarian framing have been backed across the Gulf media – including al-Jazeera Arabic, which has barely covered Bahrain even as it has focused heavily on Libya, Egypt, and Yemen. Meanwhile, leading Shi’a political figures across the region, from Hassan Nasrallah to Ali Sistani, are rushing to the defense of the protestors. Both have the effect of reinforcing the sectarian frame and distracting from the calls for democratic change.
The United States may see the preservation of the Bahraini regime as essential to its strategic position, given its concerns about the Fifth Fleet and about losing a key part of its decades-long strategy of containing Iranian power. But what the Bahraini regime is doing to maintain power may badly hurt America’s position as well. The harsh repression, immediately and publicly following the visit of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, suggests either American complicity or impotence. The refusal of serious reform probably makes the survival of the regime less rather than more likely. And finally, the sectarian framing of Bahrain has the potential to rebound upon other Arab states with significant Shi’a populations, including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. It may also drive Iraq’s leaders into a more assertively Shi’a and pro-Iranian stance, as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his rivals seek to win popularity with Iraqi Shi’a who identify with their Bahraini counterparts. If the Obama administration hopes to define a new vision for the region, it needs to leave behind such outdated concepts and lines of division. Bahrain, sadly, with the help of its regional allies, has brought them back into fashion.
Pakistan
10) Drone Attack Kills Civilians in Pakistan
Salman Masood and Pir Zubair Shah, New York Times, March 17, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/asia/18pakistan.html
Islamabad, Pakistan – Several missiles fired from American drone aircraft on Thursday struck a meeting of local people in northwest Pakistan who had gathered with Taliban mediators to settle a dispute over a chromite mine. The attack killed nearly everyone present – 26 of 32 people, according to a Pakistani intelligence official – some of them Taliban fighters, but the majority elders and local people not attached to the militants.
The civilian death toll appeared to be among the worst in the scores of strikes carried out recently in Pakistan’s tribal areas by the C.I.A, which runs the drones. Local residents and media reports said as many as 40 people had been killed in all, though the intelligence official disputed that.
The Pakistani military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, issued an unusual and unusually strong condemnation of the attack, according to a statement released by his office. "It is highly regrettable that a jirga of peaceful citizens including elders of the area was carelessly and callously targeted with complete disregard to human life," it said.
About four missiles fired from one or more drones hit the meeting, known as a jirga, of two local tribes and Taliban mediators who had gathered on an open ground at a market in Datta Khel, in North Waziristan, according to two residents who live nearby in Miranshah, the largest city in the region.
The intelligence official said 32 people had attended the meeting in all. Thirteen of them were Taliban fighters, 11 of whom were killed. The rest of the dead were elders and tribesmen.
"The Taliban will never gather in such a large number in broad day light to be targeted by the drones," according to a resident who did not want to be indentified for fear of running afoul of the militants. "It has been a big mistake to target the jirga as it will have severe consequences," he added.
Recently discovered chromite mines are common in the area. To keep the mines running profitably, the Taliban – as the reigning authorities in the area – often settle disputes between tribes with competing claims and levy taxes on exports and the mine operators.
The drone strikes on Thursday were the second such barrage in two days in Datta Khel, and the sixth in the tribal areas in the past week, according to The Long War Journal, a Web site that monitors the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
[…] Attacks by the American drones are immensely unpopular in Pakistan and have been a rallying point for anti-American sentiment, though in recent years they have provoked less outrage in the tribal areas, as the strikes have focused increasingly on foreign fighters loyal to Al Qaeda who have infiltrated the area, and as fewer civilians have been killed by them.
The attack on Thursday, however, threatened to turn opinion in the region against the attacks once again. One resident said that given the large Taliban presence, ordinary people and the militants were difficult to distinguish in the area, but that to target a jirga would lead to a backlash. "It will create resentment among the locals," he said, "and everyone might turn in to suicide bombers."
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