Just Foreign Policy News
March 18, 2010
JFP video: Highlights of the Afghanistan Debate
In 6 minutes of video, we summarize the case made by Members of Congress for a timetable for military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/endthewar
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AP video: French "Reality TV" Documentary Replicates Milgram "Torture" Experiment
Four out of five "contestants" were willing to "torture" if instructed to do so by a "reality TV show."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n78z5d4jfc8
Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) An Irish opponent of the use of Shannon Airport for CIA rendition flights has had his US visa revoked without explanation, Firedoglake reports. Edward Horgan is scheduled to attend an April conference at Duke University to speak about his opposition to "extraordinary rendition."
2) President Lula said Brazil is prepared to talk with Hamas, AFP reports. Speaking at a press conference in Ramallah with Palestinian president Abbas, Lula said nobody, Hamas included, should be ignored in efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Brazil is prepared to talk to everybody," he said. "All the parties involved must be listened to."
3) The US has said it needs to maintain a base on Okinawa, AFP reports. But some of the parties in the Japanese government coalition want the base moved out of Japan altogether. Some Congressional Democrtats have voiced sympathy for Okinawans’ grievances: Congressman Eni Faleomavaega, who heads the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia, pointed out that Okinawa accounts for one percent of Japan’s land but two-thirds of US bases deployed there. "The Okinawans feel like they’re always being the whipping boy for the last 50 years," Faleomavaega said. [Yahoo News attached a nice photo to this AFP article: the rooftop of the Ginowan City Hall, which says: "Don’t Fly Over Our City!/US Helos Out Now!" – JFP]
4) Taliban fighters more than doubled the number of homemade bombs they used against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan last year, the Washington Post reports. The embrace of a low-tech approach by the Taliban to building IEDs has stymied a $17 billion U.S. counteroffensive against the devices, the Post says. Electronic scanners or jammers can detect only bombs with metal parts or circuitry. Last month, 721 IEDs blew up or were defused in Afghanistan, slowing a major Marine-led offensive in Helmand province and killing 28 U.S. and allied troops. These bombs are the leading cause of U.S. casualties by a large margin.
5) Tribal elders say the Taliban rule the night in Marjah, the New York Times reports. "After dark the city is like the kingdom of the Taliban," said a tribal elder living in Marja. "The government and international forces cannot defend anyone even one kilometer from their bases." Journalists have still not been allowed to visit Marja independently, the NYT says; they must be embedded with the US military.
6) CIA Director Panetta says attacks against al-Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal region have driven Osama bin Laden and his top deputies deeper into hiding and disrupted their ability to plan sophisticated operations, the Washington Post reports.
Pakistan
7) Since September 11, 2001, Pakistan has been hit with a terrorist attack on average every 10 days, with 332 incidents inflicting 5,704 deaths, Dawn reports from Pakistan. 2009 was by far the worst, with 130 incidents claiming around 1,800 lives.
Afghanistan
8) The US has reached an agreement with other countries to cancel $1.6 billion in foreign debt owed by Afghanistan to creditor nations and international lending organizations, AP reports. The agreement covers not only debt owed by Afghanistan to the US and other countries but also the IMF and the World Bank.
9) U.S. investigators have recently been given more regular direct access to Pakistani-led interrogations of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Reuters reports. A U.S. counterterrorism official insisted that Baradar’s capture was not "dumb luck": "There were strong indications in advance that the capture would involve, if not him, at least some of his associates," the official said. There have been conflicting reports that Baradar might have been talking to Kabul, and that may have led to his arrest, Reuters notes.
Israel/Palestine
10) Brazil is Israel’s largest trading partner in Latin America, but also has close ties to Iran, AP notes, suggesting that this indicates that Brazil could play a "bridging role." Lula criticized Israel’s West Bank separation barrier, called on Israel to lift its punishing blockade of the Gaza Strip and described Jewish settlements in the West Bank as extinguishing "the candle of hope."
Peru
11) Poor women in Peru get paid by the government to make sure their kids go to school and get medical check-ups, EFE reports. The program is backed by the UN. Mexico, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador have similar programs. The article notes the case of a woman who receives $70 every two months, an amount equal to 20 times her daily wage of $3.50.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) U.S. Revokes Visa of Irish Anti-Renditions Activist
Jeff Kaye, Firedoglake, Tuesday March 16, 2010 5:09 pm http://firedoglake.com/2010/03/16/u-s-revokes-visa-of-irish-anti-renditions-activist/
The North Carolina News Observer reports in a March 15 article that the co-founder of ShannonWatch, Edward Horgan, a well-known Irish activist and former Irish Defense Force officer, has had his 10-year, multiple-entry U.S. visa revoked without explanation. Horgan and others believe it is because of his principled stand against the U.S. use of renditions, and in particular, the use of Shannon Airport in western Ireland as a stopover for U.S. rendition flights. ShannonWatch has documented the use of the airport as a stopover for CIA rendition flights (see their page documenting such flights).
As the NO article by Christina Cowger and Robin Kirk notes, Horgan is no long-haired radical, or bomb-making terrorist. He has been a UN peace keeper, and monitored "elections in places like Ghana, Armenia, Zimbabwe, East Timor and Ukraine." According to his online resume, he has worked with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the European Union. He is getting his Ph.D. in international relations at the University of Limerick. He is also now persona non grata in Barack Obama’s supposedly more open and transparent United States.
According to Cowger and Kirk: "Last year, Horgan visited the United States to see family and attend the presidential inauguration. But this year, while observing elections in frigid Kiev, he learned that his 10-year, multiple-entry U.S. visa had been revoked. The reason? No official will say, though Horgan is scheduled to attend an April conference at Duke University to speak about his opposition to extraordinary rendition."
[…]
2) Brazilian president says ready to talk to Hamas
AFP, Wed Mar 17, 2:23 PM http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/100317/world/mideast_brazil_palestinian_diplomacy_1
Ramallah, West Bank – Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Wednesday his country is prepared to talk with the Islamic Hamas movement, listed by the European Union and the United States as a terror organisation.
Speaking at a press conference with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas after talks at his Ramallah headquarters, Lula responded to a question by saying he believed nobody, Hamas included, should be ignored in efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Brazil is prepared to talk to everybody," he said. "All the parties involved must be listened to."
Lula, on the first visit to the region by a Brazilian head of state, was due to travel to Jordan after his West Bank visit. On Tuesday he met Israeli leaders.
Laying a wreath Wednesday at the Ramallah tomb of iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Lula welcomed the Palestinian authorities’ decision to name the road leading past the site, "Brazil Street."
"This shows the affection which the Palestinian people have for the Brazilian people," he said
3) US says base needed to defend Japan
Shaun Tandon, AFP, Thu Mar 18, 2:46 am ET http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100318/wl_afp/usjapanmilitary_20100318064648
Washington – The United States has said that it needs to maintain a base on the Japanese island of Okinawa to defend the region, as the new government in Tokyo considers scrapping a previous plan. Senior US officials told Congress that while they respected the decisions of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s six-month-old government, they hoped to go ahead with a plan to move the Futenma air base within Okinawa.
[…] But some of Hatoyama’s left-leaning allies want the base moved entirely out of Japan, blaming the troops for noise and crime.
Despite President Barack Obama’s support for the 2006 deal, several lawmakers from his Democratic Party have voiced sympathy for Okinawans’ grievances.
Congressman Eni Faleomavaega, a Democrat who heads the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Asia, pointed out that Okinawa accounts for one percent of Japan’s land but two-thirds of US bases deployed there. "The Okinawans feel like they’re always being the whipping boy for the last 50 years. We just put our military people there and don’t have to worry about it," Faleomavaega said.
[…] Hatoyama has called for a more equal relationship between Tokyo and Washington and suggested creating an East Asian regional network without the United States, which stations 47,000 troops in Japan under a security treaty.
Ichiro Ozawa, the backroom powerbroker of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, in December took hundreds of lawmakers to visit Beijing, sending the United States scrambling to invite more Japanese MPs to Washington. But most US analysts are doubtful about a wider shift toward Beijing, noting that Japan has deep-rooted historical tensions with China and longstanding concerns about the giant neighbor’s soaring military budget.
US expectations of Japan may be colored by the 2001-2006 premiership of Junichiro Koizumi who broke taboos by sending troops to Iraq and defying China, said Michael Auslin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute think tank. "If anything, current trends in Japanese policymaking, including Japan’s recent outreach to China, reflect a return to a more traditional Japanese position that attempts to maintain some level of balance in Japanese foreign policy," Auslin said.
4) IED Attacks Soaring In Afghanistan
Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, Thursday, March 18, 2010; A10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/17/AR2010031703649.html
Taliban fighters more than doubled the number of homemade bombs they used against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan last year, relying on explosives that are often far more primitive than the ones used in Iraq.
The embrace of a low-tech approach by Taliban-trained bombmakers – they are building improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, out of fertilizer and diesel fuel – has stymied a $17 billion U.S. counteroffensive against the devices in Iraq and Afghanistan, military officials say. Electronic scanners or jammers, which were commonly deployed in Iraq, can detect only bombs with metal parts or circuitry.
"Technology is not going to solve this problem," said Army Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, director of the military’s Joint IED Defeat Organization, or JIEDDO. "I don’t think you can defeat the IED as a weapon system. It is too easy to use."
U.S. military officials said they expected the number of IED attacks to climb further this year as 40,000 U.S. and NATO reinforcements pour into Afghanistan.
Oates said technological advances have enabled the military to save lives by providing better armor and other forms of protection for troops. But he said the high-tech approach – despite billions of dollars in research – has failed to produce an effective way to detect IEDs in the field. About four-fifths of the devices that are found before they explode are detected the old-fashioned way: by troops who notice telltale signs, such as a recently disturbed patch of dirt that might be covering up a bomb.
Despite the insurgents’ crude approach, the explosive power of their IEDs is growing. Each bombing in Afghanistan, on average, causes 50 percent more casualties than it did three years ago, Oates said Wednesday at a House committee hearing. U.S. officials say even armored troop-transport vehicles that were designed to protect against roadside bombs are now vulnerable.
All told, the U.S. military recorded 8,159 IED incidents in Afghanistan in 2009, compared with 3,867 in 2008 and 2,677 the year before.
Last month, 721 IEDs blew up or were defused in Afghanistan, slowing a major Marine-led offensive in Helmand province and killing 28 U.S. and allied troops. These bombs are the leading cause of U.S. casualties by a large margin.
The number of IED attacks in Iraq, meanwhile, has plummeted, mirroring the overall decrease in violence in that country. At their peak, in 2007, Iraqi insurgents employed 23,000 IEDs. Last year, that number fell to about 3,000, according to U.S. military figures.
Oates credited U.S. countermeasures – such as interrupting the flow of military-grade explosives and detonators from Iran – for some of the decrease. Other military officials said a bigger factor was the overall reduction in the intensity of the insurgency; as sectarian fighting faded, people simply stopped planting bombs.
[…] Congress has spent nearly $17 billion on IED research and training programs, not including money allocated for armored vehicles and other equipment to protect troops.
[…]
5) Taliban Hit Back In Marja With A Campaign Of Intimidation
Rod Nordland, New York Times, March 17, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/world/asia/18afghan.html
Kabul, Afghanistan – The Taliban have begun waging a campaign of intimidation in Marja that some local Afghan leaders worry has jeopardized the success of an American-led offensive there meant as an early test of a revised military approach in Afghanistan.
The Taliban tactics have included at least one beheading in a broader effort to terrorize residents and undermine what military officials have said is the most important aim of the offensive: the attempt to establish a strong local government that can restore services. The offensive ousted the Taliban from control of their last population center in southern Helmand Province, but maintaining control over such territory has proved elusive in the past.
Though Marja has an occupation force numbering more than one coalition soldier or police officer for every eight residents, Taliban agitators have been able to wage an underground campaign of subversion, which residents say has intensified in the past two weeks.
"After dark the city is like the kingdom of the Taliban," said a tribal elder living in Marja, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of the Taliban. "The government and international forces cannot defend anyone even one kilometer from their bases."
The new governor of Marja, Haji Abdul Zahir, said the militants were now holding meetings in randomly selected homes roughly every other night, gathering residents together and demanding that they turn over the names of anyone cooperating with the authorities.
[…] Journalists have still not been allowed to visit Marja independently, however; they must be embedded with the American military.
[…] Mr. Zahir said it was difficult for the authorities to counter the Taliban’s campaign because the militants were mostly moving around without guns, relying on fear rather than threats. "If they are detained, they claim they are just ordinary citizens," he said. "At the same time, they still have a lot of sympathy among the people."
He said it was impossible to estimate how many Taliban fighters remained in the city. "It’s like an ant hole," he said. "When you look into an ant hole, who knows how many ants there are?"
The tribal elder declared that in his area, called Block 5, the Taliban had complete freedom of movement after dark. He said he believed that was true in many other parts of the city as well.
6) CIA Director Says Attacks Have Hobbled Al-Qaeda
Joby Warrick and Peter Finn, Washington Post, Thursday, March 18, 2010; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/17/AR2010031702558.html
Aggressive attacks against al-Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal region have driven Osama bin Laden and his top deputies deeper into hiding and disrupted their ability to plan sophisticated operations, CIA Director Leon Panetta said Wednesday.
So profound is al-Qaeda’s disarray that one of its lieutenants, in a recently intercepted message, pleaded with bin Laden to come to the group’s rescue and provide some leadership, Panetta said. He credited improved coordination with Pakistan’s government and what he called "the most aggressive operation that CIA has been involved in in our history," offering a near-acknowledgment of what is officially a secret war.
"Those operations are seriously disrupting al-Qaeda," Panetta said. "It’s pretty clear from all the intelligence we are getting that they are having a very difficult time putting together any kind of command and control, that they are scrambling. And that we really do have them on the run."
[…]
Pakistan
7) 332 terror hits claimed 5,704 lives since 9/11
Sabir Shah, Dawn (Pakistan), Thursday, March 18, 2010
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=229652
Lahore: The extent to which Pakistan has borne the brunt of the US-led War against Terror can be gauged from the fact that during the last 102 months since the 9/11 episode, the country has averagely been rocked by terrorists every 10th day during this period, which has witnessed 332 terrorism-related incidents inflicting 5,704 deaths to date.
While 58 terrorism-related incidents have jolted Peshawar (Charsadda and Darra Adamkhel included) since September 11, 2001, the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad have been hit 46 times by terrorists in these last eight and a half years.
A research conducted by The News, using statistics and chronology recorded by the US Department of State, archives of Pakistani newspapers and websites carrying information about global terrorism, has revealed that while the port city of Karachi has been struck 37 times by terrorists during this period under review, Lahore has confronted such happenings on 21 occasions, the same number as the Swat valley.
[…] Claiming that it has lost around $35 billion since joining the still-continuing War on Terror, Pakistan witnessed only two terror-related incidents in 2001, 14 in 2002, just 8 in 2003, 18 in 2004, 11 in 2005, 16 in 2006, 56 in 2007, 72 in 2008, 130 in 2009 and 29 in the first two-and-a-half months of 2010 till the fling of this report.
The year 2009 of course remained the bloodiest of all with 130 incidents claiming around 1,800 lives, followed by 2008 which saw 1,565 people falling prey to 72 such attacks.
[…]
Afghanistan
8) Administration announces Afghanistan debt deal
Martin Crutsinger, Associated Press, Wednesday, March 17, 2010; 12:57 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/17/AR2010031701603.html
Washington – The United States has reached an agreement with other countries to cancel $1.6 billion in foreign debt owed by Afghanistan to creditor nations and international lending organizations.
[…] [U.S.] Treasury said that since 2002 technical advisors from the department have worked closely with the Afghan Ministry of Finance to streamline the country’s budget process, improve the payment system for government employees and help restructure Afghanistan’s debt.
The debt cancellation agreement was negotiated by the Paris Club, an informal group of creditor countries. The agreement covers not only debt owed by Afghanistan to the United States and other individual countries but also loans extended to the country by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Treasury officials said that approximately $108 million of the debt total was owed to the United States.
9) Americans Have Direct Access To Taliban No. 2
Adam Entous, Reuters, Wednesday, March 17, 2010; 5:13 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/17/AR2010031702940.html
Washington – U.S. investigators have recently been given more regular direct access to Pakistani-led interrogations of the Afghan Taliban’s No. 2 leader, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, one month after his arrest was announced.
Pakistani limitations on U.S. access to Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar have been a source of tension since he was captured in the port city of Karachi. The joint operation that nabbed the Taliban’s top military commander has been so shrouded in secrecy that U.S. and Pakistani officials could not even say with certainty what day it took place.
[…] Previously undisclosed details about the joint U.S.-Pakistani raid, believed to have taken place in late January, shed new light on what has been described in Washington as a major intelligence and propaganda coup that could open divisions within Taliban ranks and weaken a deadly insurgency after eight years of war.
But many questions remain unanswered, such as whether Pakistan’s powerful intelligence service was turning against its long-time Taliban allies, or took action against Baradar to ensure its interests would be represented in any future reconciliation process.
[…] New information from U.S. officials about the Karachi operation cast doubt on what some observers termed the "dumb luck theory" of how Baradar was captured – that he was swept up in a raid targeting others.
"This wasn’t a case of simple happenstance," said a U.S. counterterrorism official familiar with the operation. "There was intelligence that came together and made this a Baradar-related operation. There were strong indications in advance that the capture would involve, if not him, at least some of his associates," the official added.
[…] U.S. officials and analysts are still debating Pakistan’s motives. The arrest followed Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s announcement of a high profile effort aimed at reconciling with Taliban leaders. There have been conflicting reports that Baradar, the former top Taliban military commander, might have been talking to Kabul, and that may have led to his arrest.
Israel/Palestine
10) Brazilian President Places Wreath on Arafat’s Tomb
Associated Press, March 17, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/17/world/AP-ML-Palestinians-Brazil.html
Ramallah, West Bank – Brazil’s president placed a wreath on the tomb of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on Wednesday and sharply criticized Israeli policies, leading Israeli officials to suggest he was not being evenhanded.
Making the first visit by any sitting Brazilian president to Israel and the Palestinian territories, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has termed the trip amission of peace." The visit appears aimed at helping Brazil emerge as a bigger player in foreign affairs.
Brazil could play a bridging role: the country is Israel’s largest trading partner in Latin America, but also has close ties to Iran, Israel’s archenemy. Silva has been a defender of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which Israel sees as a potentially grave threat. Silva laid a yellow and green wreath on Arafat’s mausoleum on Wednesday, following protocol for visiting leaders.
[…] The mayor of the West Bank city of Ramallah draped an iconic Palestinian black-and-white checkered scarf on the shoulders of the Brazilian president, who told a crowd of Palestinian officials and several dozen people waving Brazil’s flag that he had participated in pro-Palestinian protests in the past.
Speaking at a press conference, Silva criticized Israel’s West Bank separation barrier, called on Israel to lift its punishing blockade of the Gaza Strip and described Jewish settlements in the West Bank as extinguishing "the candle of hope."
[…]
Peru
11) Poor Kids Get Paid to Go to School in Peru
Belen Delgado, EFE, March 16, 2010.
http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=353834&CategoryId=14095
Huanuco, Peru – To earn 100 sols ($35) a month, Peru’s poorest women make their kids go to school and get their medical check-ups, and do not hesitate to trudge four hours to collect the payoff.
In the central mountain region of Huanuco, they dodge landslides and mudslides to collect the aid money, Carmen Condezo, who has received aid from the Juntos (Together) social program for two years, said.
To stay in the program, the children of Condezo and of other women like her must get health check-ups every month and not miss school.
Created in 2005 by then-President Alejandro Toledo, Juntos sets out to reduce extreme poverty by providing pregnant women and mothers of children under 14 with the meals and schooling their families need.
Wearing a typical Andean skirt and a hat of gladioli, flowers that she grows herself, Condezo speaks proudly about what it means to have a national identity card and to struggle against the discrimination that poor people of the highlands are subjected to.
She leads one of the 32 communities in the region and is happy about the fact that beginning this year she will only have to go once every two months to collect her 200 sols ($70) in aid, a tidy sum for a woman used to working for 10 sols ($3.50) a day.
Until last January, 450,110 households and more than 1.03 million Peruvian kids had benefited from the project, most of them from the poor regions of Huanuco, Huancavelica and Apurimac.
[…] Juntos, which has the support of the United Nations and an accumulated investment of $510 million, is not the only project benefiting Latin America’s poorest: Mexico launched its Oportunidades (Opportunities) program in 1997, while other countries like Colombia, the Dominican Republic and El Salvador have similar social programs.
[…]
–
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
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