Just Foreign Policy News
August 19, 2010
Is David Petraeus a ‘Lying Liar’ About the Drawdown?
By pushing for more time for the "surge" to "work," Petraeus is doing exactly what he promised not to do in November: ask for more time if the surge didn’t work in 18 months.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/is-david-petraeus-a-lying_b_687652.html
Spread the News About the US Death Toll in Afghanistan
This week, the number of US deaths in the war since Obama took office exceeded the death toll under Bush. Spread the news to build pressure for ending the war.
Send a letter to your local newspaper:
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/obamavsbush
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Bacevich: Washington Rules
Andrew Bacevich’s new book, "Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War," is a call for Americans to reject the Washington consensus for permanent war, and to demand instead that America "come home."
Get the book
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/buywashingtonrules
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September 24th: JFP "Virtual Brown Bag" with Andrew Bacevich
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/bacevichtalk
Oliver Stone’s "South of the Border," scheduled screenings:
http://southoftheborderdoc.com/in-theatres/
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) The struggle over the promised July 2011 drawdown from Afghanistan is also a struggle for civilian control of the military, writes Andrew Bacevich in the New Republic. In adopting the McChrystal Plan, Obama added this caveat: U. S. troops will begin withdrawing from Afghanistan by July 2011. Now Petraeus has placed down a marker captured by the headline in the Times: "Petraeus Opposes a Rapid Pullout in Afghanistan." Dexter Filkins of the Times interpreted Petraeus’s comments as "a preview of what promise[s] to be an intense political battle" over the future of the war.
2) Writing in the Huffington Post, Dan Froomkin reports on the conclusions of a coming report from the "Afghanistan Study Group" convened by Steve Clemons. The report will recommend that the US "fast-track" a peace process designed to decentralize power and " encourage a power-sharing balance among the principal parties," downsize and eventually end US military operations in southern Afghanistan and draw down US troops; and engage in regional diplomacy with India, Pakistan, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia to guarantee Afghan neutrality and foster stability.
3) The last U.S. "combat brigade" left Iraq this week, the Washington Post reports. By the end of this month, the US will have six brigades in Iraq. Those that remain are conventional combat brigades reconfigured slightly and rebranded "advise and assist brigades," whose primary mission will be training. US troops helped secure elections that bore a government system more akin to an oligarchy than a parliamentary democracy, the Post says. And it is clear that the departing soldiers are not leaving behind a peaceful country.
4) Local officials in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province insisted two men killed in a NATO night raid early Wednesday were civilians, while NATO insisted they were Taliban insurgents, the New York Times reports. Hundreds of residents blocked Jalalabad’s main east-west highway to protest the killings. It was at least the third raid in the district in four months; in each, the military’s account and that of local people have been sharply at odds, with local residents insisting those killed were civilians and the military asserting there were Taliban present.
5) The floods in Pakistan have upended US strategy there, the New York Times reports. "An army that is consumed by flood relief is not conducting counterinsurgency operations," said one US official.
Israel/Palestine
6) A UN report says 12% of Gaza’s population have lost livelihoods or been severely affected by Israeli security restrictions along the border, the New York Times reports. The report estimates the restricted land comprises 17% of Gaza’s total land mass and 35% of its agricultural land. Israel also restricts Gazan fishing to three nautical miles; catches are greatly reduced.
Afghanistan
7) A UK risk assessment company says Afghanistan has the world’s least- secure food supplies, Bloomberg reports.
Jordan
8) Jordan’s King Abdullah, a close US ally, has faced an unusual amount of domestic criticism in recent months that’s coincided with a trend toward more autocratic governance, the Washington Post reports. Teachers who tried to unionize were fired; a worker who was fired after demanding better pay for government-employed day laborers was sentenced in a military court to three months in jail in part for insulting an official after asking why he was fired. [The US-Jordan trade agreement has labor rights provisions that were praised by the AFL-CIO when it was passed under the Clinton Administration – JFP.] Jordan is planning to hold parliamentary elections in November following Abdullah’s dismissal of the legislature last year. The largest political party, the Islamic Action Front, is boycotting along with other smaller groups. Criticizing the king is punishable by up to three years in prison, while slandering a government official carries a penalty of up to one year.
Venezuela
9) While Colombia and Venezuela seem to be patching things up, no such détente with Venezuela seems to be on the agenda of the US, Mark Weisbrot writes in the Guardian. The Obama administration’s appointment of Larry Palmer as ambassador initially had Venezuelan approval. But after Palmer’s Senate testimony, he was asked to respond to questions from Republican Senator Lugar. Palmer’s answers to these questions were presumed to be private, but they were posted on Lugar’s website. Palmer wrote things a candidate for ambassador would not say publicly about the host country. He referred to "morale" in the Venezuelan armed forces as "considerably low", and to "clear ties between the Venezuelan government and Colombian guerrillas." Alan Henrikson, director of diplomatic studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts, said: "While we would expect candid answers to queries from a Senator that were supposed to be confidential, the publication of such comments – considered hostile and demeaning by the host country – is extremely unusual. Many countries would not accept as ambassador, someone who made such comments while being considered for appointment." There is no indication so far that the Obama administration is going to replace Palmer.
Mexico
10) Mexico enacted a law decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging government-financed treatment for drug dependency free of charge, AP reports. Mexican authorities said the change only recognized the longstanding practice of not prosecuting people caught with small amounts of drugs [but codifying the practice removes individual police discretion and therefore an avenue for abuse, thus making it an important reform – JFP.]
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Civilian Control? Surely, You Jest.
Andrew J. Bacevich, The New Republic, August 18, 2010
http://www.tnr.com/blog/foreign-policy/77086/civilian-control-american-power-barack-obama
The principle of civilian control forms the foundation of the American system of civil-military relations, offering assurance that the nation’s very powerful armed forces and its very influential officer corps pose no danger to our democracy. That’s the theory at least, the one that gets printed in civics books and peddled to the plain folk out in Peoria.
Reality turns out to be considerably more complicated. In practice, civilian control – expectations that the brass, having rendered advice, will then loyally execute whatever decision the commander-in-chief makes – is at best a useful fiction.
[…] A more recent example occurred just a year ago. With President Obama agonizing over what to do about Afghanistan, The Washington Post offered for general consumption the military’s preferred approach, the so-called McChrystal Plan. Devised by General Stanley McChrystal, who had been appointed by Obama to command allied forces in Afghanistan, the plan called for a surge of U.S. troops and the full-fledged application of counterinsurgency doctrine – an approach that necessarily implied a much longer and more costly war.
The effect of this leak, almost surely engineered by some still unidentified military officer, was to hijack the entire policy review process, circumscribing the choices available to the commander-in-chief. Rushing to the nearest available microphone, members of Congress (mostly Republicans) announced that it was Obama’s duty to give the field commander whatever he wanted. McChrystal himself made the point explicitly. During a speech in London, he categorically rejected the notion that any alternative to his strategy even existed: It was do it his way or lose the war. The role left to the president was not to decide, but simply to affirm.
The leaking of the McChrystal Plan constituted a direct assault on civilian control. At the time, however, that fact passed all but unnoticed. Few of those today raising a hue-and-cry about PFC Bradley Manning, the accused WikiLeak-er, bothered to protest. The documents that Manning allegedly made public are said to endanger the lives of American troops and their Afghan comrades. Yet, a year ago, no one complained about the McChrystal leaker providing Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leadership with a detailed blueprint of exactly how the United States and its allies were going to prosecute their war.
The absence of any serious complaint reflected the fact that, in Washington – especially in the press corps – military leaks aimed at subverting or circumscribing civilian authority are accepted as standard fare. It’s part of the way Washington works.
Which brings us to the present and to what is stacking up to be an episode likely to reveal a great deal about how much or how little actual civilian control currently exists. In adopting the McChrystal Plan, Obama added this caveat: U. S. troops will begin withdrawing from Afghanistan by July 2011. Before the president or anyone in his administration had explained exactly what that July 2011 deadline signifies, General McChrystal departed the scene, having violated the dictum that calls on senior officers to sustain, in public at least, the pretense of respecting civilians.
[…] Within the past week, complaints dribbling out of Petraeus’s headquarters in Kabul – duly reported by an accommodating press – indicate growing military unhappiness with the July 2011 pullout date. Now, Petraeus himself has begun to weigh in directly. This past weekend, he launched his own media campaign, offering his "narrative" of ongoing events. Unlike the ham-handed McChrystal, who chose a foreign capital as his soapbox, Petraeus sat for a carefully orchestrated series of interviews with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and NBC’s "Meet the Press," each of which gratefully passed along the general’s view of things.
In the course of sitting for these interviews, Petraeus placed down a marker, one best captured by the headline in the Times dispatch: "Petraeus Opposes a Rapid Pullout in Afghanistan." Or, as The Daily Beast put it, adding a twist of hyperbole, Petraeus told "David Gregory that he has the right to delay Obama’s 2011 pull-out target for troops in Afghanistan." A bit over the top, but you get the drift.
Dexter Filkins of the Times interpreted Petraeus’s comments as "a preview of what promise[s] to be an intense political battle over the future of the American-led war in Afghanistan." The operative word in that statement is "political," with the stakes potentially including not only the ongoing war, but an upcoming presidential election.
At the center of that battle will be a very political general, skilled at using the press and with friends aplenty on Capitol Hill, especially among Republicans. To have a chance of winning reelection in 2012, Obama needs to demonstrate progress in shutting down the war. Yet it is now becoming increasingly apparent the general Obama has placed in charge of that war entertains a different view. One, but not both, will have his way.
[…]
2) A Plan B For Afghanistan
Dan Froomkin, Huffington Post, August 18, 2010
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/18/a-plan-b-for-afghanistan_n_686292.html
There’s another way forward in Afghanistan. Call it Plan B. An ad hoc group of disillusioned foreign policy experts is offering President Obama a serious, well thought-out alternative to his current failing strategy there. Their Plan B entails a dramatic reduction in the American troop presence, a mission focused on the minimal Al Qaeda threat rather than on trying to defeat the Taliban, and a peace process that leads to power-sharing.
"[T]he way forward acknowledges the manifold limitations of a military solution in a region where our interests lie in political stability," says the forthcoming report from the Afghanistan Study Group. The group of 40 scholars, former officials and activists was assembled by Steve Clemons of the New America Foundation.
"The United States should by no means abandon Afghanistan, but it is time to abandon the current strategy that is not working," the report concludes. "Trying to pacify Afghanistan by force of arms will not work, and a costly military campaign there is more likely to jeopardize America’s vital security interests than to protect them. The Study Group believes that the United States should pursue more modest goals that are both consistent with America’s true interests and far more likely to succeed."
Patrick Cronin, a South Asian expert at the Center for a New American Security and a member of the study group, calls the report an antidote to mission creep. "There’s no significant Al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan today, so the original purpose has largely dissipated," Cronin told the Huffington Post. By contrast, he said, American interests do not require the military defeat of the Taliban. Worse than that, "this strategy is actually being counterproductive for our interests."
Paul R. Pillar, a Georgetown University professor who formerly served as the CIA’s chief intelligence analyst for the Middle East, wrote in an email to the Huffington Post: "For me, the most important part of this exercise is explicit recognition that: (1) there is a disconnect between waging a counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and the professed goal of keeping Americans safe from terrorism; and (2) the costs to the United States of this war are all out of proportion to what is at stake in Afghanistan and how it affects U.S. interests."
"The report’s main argument is that U.S. Interests in Central Asia are limited, and do not justify the costly and open-ended commitment in which we are currently engaged," Stephen M. Walt, a Harvard international relations professor and a group member, e-mailed HuffPost. "Instead of trying to build a unified central state in Afghanistan – a task for which the United States and its allies are unqualified – the United States and its partners should reduce their military footprint, focus on devolving power to local leaders and institutions, and concentrate on economic development. Our combat and intelligence effort should focus on the small number of Al Qaeda members remaining in Afghanistan or northwest Pakistan."
Plan B has five major points:
1. Emphasize power-sharing and political inclusion. The U.S. should fast-track a peace process designed to decentralize power within Afghanistan and encourage a power-sharing balance among the principal parties.
2. Downsize and eventually end military operations in southern Afghanistan, and reduce the U.S. military footprint. The U.S. should draw down its military presence, which radicalizes many Pashtuns and is an important aid to Taliban recruitment.
3. Focus security efforts on Al Qaeda and Domestic Security. Special forces, intelligence assets, and other U.S. capabilities should continue to seek out and target known Al Qaeda cells in the region and be ready to go after them should they attempt to relocate elsewhere or build new training facilities. In addition, part of the savings from our drawdown should be reallocated to bolster U.S. domestic security efforts and to track nuclear weapons globally.
4. Encourage economic development. Because destitute states can become incubators for terrorism, drug and human trafficking, and other illicit activities, efforts at reconciliation should be paired with an internationally-led effort to develop Afghanistan’s economy.
5. Engage regional and global stakeholders in a diplomatic effort designed to guarantee Afghan neutrality and foster regional stability. Despite their considerable differences, neighboring states such as India, Pakistan, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia share a common interest in preventing Afghanistan from being dominated by any single power or being a permanently failed state that exports instability to others.
Specifically, the report urges Obama to stick to his pledge to begin withdrawing U.S. troops in July 2011 – or earlier. There will soon be 100,000 American troops in Afghanistan; the report calls for that number to decrease to 68,000 troops by October 2011, and 30,000 by July 2012.
[…]
3) Operation Iraqi Freedom ends as last combat soldiers leave Baghdad
Ernesto Londoño, Washington Post, Thursday, August 19, 2010; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/18/AR2010081805644.html
[…] The 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, which left Iraq this week, was the final U.S. combat brigade to be pulled out of the country, fulfilling the Obama administration’s pledge to end the U.S. combat mission by the end of August. About 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq, mainly as a training force.
[…] Besides pride, the soldiers will carry with them the hidden costs of war: hardened glares; tales of comrades’ deaths relayed in monotone sentences devoid of emotion; young faces rendered incongruously old.
There might never be an acknowledged end to the Iraq war – a moment where it ceases being America’s conflict. U.S. commanders acknowledge that the months-long political impasse over the disputed March 7 elections and a flurry of other unresolved disputes in Iraq have the potential to erode hard-won security gains.
But U.S. commanders also seem to be stressing that this is no longer America’s war to lose. "I will let history judge whether we reached irreversible momentum," Norris said. "That’s not my call."
By the end of this month, the United States will have six brigades in Iraq, by far its smallest footprint since the 2003 invasion. Those that remain are conventional combat brigades reconfigured slightly and rebranded "advise and assist brigades." The primary mission of those units and the roughly 4,500 U.S. special operations forces that will stay behind will be to train Iraqi troops. Under a bilateral agreement, all U.S. troops must be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.
[…] More than 4,400 U.S. service members have died in the Iraq war since the invasion.
Several of these soldiers have served in Iraq more than one tour; some as many as four.
They witnessed the toppling of a dictator and its aftermath, including the rise of a powerful and lethal insurgency. That extended the conflict long after the words "Mission Accomplished" appeared on a banner as President George W. Bush prematurely declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq aboard an aircraft carrier May 1, 2003.
They were thrust into the front lines of a brutal sectarian war that ultimately ebbed. And they helped secure elections that bore a government system more akin to an oligarchy than a parliamentary democracy.
[…] But it is also clear that the departing soldiers are not leaving behind a peaceful country. The brigade ended up driving out in waves – rather than having most soldiers flown out – because that allowed the military to keep its last combat force a few weeks longer as commanders assessed the risks of political instability.
Commanders spent weeks studying the perils of the 360-mile nighttime drive through the sweltering, dusty desert of southern Iraq. Powerful roadside bombs lined the two-lane road. And Shiite militias have stepped up attacks against U.S. bases in southern Iraq in recent weeks. As a precaution, the military demanded that journalists accompanying the soldiers on the trip refrain from disclosing details of their departure until early Thursday, when the last group was scheduled to cross the Kuwaiti border.
For some troops, the protracted political crisis in Baghdad was a source of angst. Many Iraqis fear that militants are exploiting the period of uncertainty to make a comeback. "Of all the time and effort that we put in this country, the blood, the sweat, the tears, I wish you could see an answer within a couple of weeks or a couple of months," said the brigade’s second in command, Lt. Col. Darren Wright, 42, of Dallas. "But we won’t know that for another three to five years: Will all your efforts pay off?"
Some soldiers said that’s unlikely. "I hope good things come from it," said Clemens, the specialist. "But I think as soon as we leave, things are going to fall apart."
[…]
4) In Afghanistan, More Attacks On Officials And A Protest Over A Deadly NATO Raid
Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times, August 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/world/asia/19afghan.html
Kabul, Afghanistan – Violence struck southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, with attacks on government and security officials. There were also allegations that NATO forces had killed two civilians in a night raid in the northeast, although the military sharply disputed that.
[…] The disputed raid occurred early Wednesday in the Surkh Rod district of Nangarhar Province, about nine miles from Jalalabad, the largest city in eastern Afghanistan. It was at least the third raid in the district in four months, and in each, the military’s account and that of local people have been sharply at odds, with local residents insisting that those killed were civilians and the military asserting that there were Taliban present.
Hundreds of suburban residents of Jalalabad blocked its main east-west highway on Wednesday to protest the killings. Local residents said that the two men killed were both civilians, while a NATO military spokesman said that they had been shot by American troops only after opening fire themselves.
[…] The Nangarhar provincial police complained that they had not been consulted, nor had the Afghan national security forces, and said that there was no evidence that those killed were combatants.
"The dead and captured were not armed members of the governmental opposition," said Col. Ghafour Khan, the spokesman for the provincial police chief. "They were father and son," he said. "They were innocent civilians. The father was a farmer, and the son sold vegetables in the bazaar." He added that the NATO forces should be held accountable "for the subsequent consequences."
[…] A member of Parliament from Nangarhar Province, Safia Sidiqi, owns a house in the district where an elderly civilian man was killed in a raid on April 28. She denounced the latest raid as an unwarranted attack on civilians. She also accused the soldiers of beating the two men before they were shot to death. "The Americans say that ‘We were looking for a Taliban commander by the name of Yusuf,’ " she said. "This is just an excuse and in the name of these things, they go to people’s houses and kill innocent people."
5) U.S. Strategy In Pakistan Is Upended By Floods
Mark Landler, New York Times, August 18, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/world/asia/19diplo.html
Washington – The floods in Pakistan have upended the Obama administration’s carefully honed strategy there, confronting the United States with a vast humanitarian crisis and militant groups determined to exploit the misery, in a country that was already one of its thorniest problems.
While the administration has kept its public emphasis on the relief effort, senior officials are busy assessing the longer-term strategic impact. One official said the disaster would affect virtually every aspect of the relationship between the United States and Pakistan, and could have ripple effects on the war in Afghanistan and the broader American battle against Al Qaeda.
With Pakistan’s economy suffering a grievous blow, the administration could be forced to redirect parts of its $7.5 billion economic aid package for Pakistan to urgent needs like rebuilding bridges, rather than more ambitious goals like upgrading the rickety electricity grid.
Beyond that, the United States will be dealing with a crippled Pakistani government and a military that, for now, has switched its focus from rooting out insurgents to plucking people from the floodwaters. The Pakistani authorities, a senior American official said, have been "stretched to the breaking point" by the crisis. Their ragged response has fueled fears that the Taliban will make gains by stepping in to provide emergency meals and shelter.
"It certainly has security implications," said another official who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss internal policy deliberations. "An army that is consumed by flood relief is not conducting counterinsurgency operations."
[…] The disaster comes after a period in which the administration seemed to have made strides in repairing the American relationship with Pakistan. Mrs. Clinton visited Islamabad in July with a long list of pledges, including the upgrading of several power plants and a plan to promote Pakistani mangoes. Now, these projects seem almost beside the point. "Before, there were power plants in need of refurbishment," said Daniel S. Markey, senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Now there are power plants underwater."
In recent days, the United States has sent 15 helicopters, rescuing nearly 6,000 people. On Wednesday, military cargo planes delivered 60,000 pounds of food and other relief supplies, bringing total deliveries to 717,000 pounds. The speed and scale of the effort, officials in both countries said, have helped bolster the checkered American image in Pakistan.
[…] Against that, however, are the staggering dimensions of the disaster. A senior Pakistani official told the administration on Tuesday that the next flood surge was likely to inundate much of Punjab, the densely populated region that borders India and produces much of Pakistan’s food.
So far, this official said, the greatest damage has been in regions that are also hotbeds for Islamic insurgents, which has set back the army’s fight against extremist groups. Local governments in those places have largely collapsed, leaving the army as the only source of authority.
With 20 million people displaced from their homes, the Pakistani authorities are girding themselves for an immense migration to the major cities, which they fear could sow further instability.
[…]
Israel/Palestine
6) Report Criticizes Gaza Restrictions
Ethan Bronner, New York Times, August 19, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/world/middleeast/20gaza.html
Beit Hanoun, Gaza – Kamal Sweleim’s family has owned a farm in this northern part of Gaza for six decades. For most of that time, it was a mix of citrus orchards and plump cows, and the family made a handsome living selling its products to Israel, Jordan and the West Bank.
But 10 years ago, when the second Palestinian uprising broke out, spreading violence in Israeli streets, Israeli tanks started repeatedly tearing through the family’s fields chasing militants. Last year, during the Israeli war in Gaza, the Sweleims were ordered to move out, and their trees and wells were bulldozed.
A once prosperous clan with good ties to Israel, they now rent a tiny house, living off cousins and international welfare.
[…] A United Nations report issued on Thursday says the Sweleims are part of 12 percent of the population of Gaza – 178,000 people out of 1.5 million – who have lost livelihoods or have otherwise been severely affected by Israeli security policies along the border, both land and sea, in recent years. These include the establishment of no-go zones and frequent incursions and attacks.
The report estimates that the restricted land comprises 17 percent of Gaza’s total land mass and 35 percent of its agricultural land. Israel also restricts Gazan fishing to three nautical miles. Catches are greatly reduced, leading some fishermen to take a long, risky sail into Egyptian waters to buy the fish from Egyptian fishermen and return home to sell it.
The study, issued by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, says that anti-Israeli militants operate from the border areas in question, planting explosive devices, firing at Israeli military vehicles across the border fence and shooting rockets and mortars at civilians.
But it argues that Israel has an obligation under international law to protect civilians and civilian structures and to take greater precautions. It also notes that Israel has never clearly told those living in the area where they may and may not live and operate. "The Israeli military has consistently failed to provide the affected population with accurate information about the main parameters of the access regime being enforced, particularly in the farming areas, and to a lesser degree in the restricted fishing areas," it said.
It added that Israel "has failed to physically demarcate the restricted areas in any meaningful way, even though it carries out land incursions into the restricted areas three to four times every week and naval forces continuously patrol the coast."
Last year, the Air Force dropped leaflets telling Gazans they could not come within 300 meters, about 1,000 feet, of the border. But in reality, the report says, the restricted area is between 1,000 and 1,500 meters, or about 3,300 to 5,000 feet.
[…]
Afghanistan
7) Afghanistan’s Food Supply Is Least Secure in 163-Nation Ranking
Alex Morales and Francesca Angelini, Bloomberg, Aug 19, 2010
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-18/afghanistan-s-food-supply-is-the-least-secure-in-a-ranking-of-163-nations.html
Afghanistan has the world’s least- secure food supplies because poverty and conflict hamper distribution in the Asian nation, the U.K. risk assessment company Maplecroft said today.
The nation where 142,000 U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops are battling the Taliban topped a list of 163 nations published today in Maplecroft’s Food Security Risk Index. The next 11 countries are all in Africa.
"The ongoing conflict in Afghanistan impacts infrastructure readiness, and the capability for distribution of supplies is greatly reduced," Fiona Place, environmental analyst at Bath, England-based Maplecroft, said in a phone interview. "It’s the impact on the road networks and the telecommunications infrastructure."
[…]
Jordan
8) New restrictions provoke unusually strong wave of criticism among Jordanians
Janine Zacharia, Washington Post, Thursday, August 19, 2010; 10:57 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/19/AR2010081902955.html
Amman – Jordan’s King Abdullah II, one of the United States’ most Western-oriented allies in the Middle East, has faced an unusual amount of domestic criticism in recent months that’s coincided with a trend toward more autocratic governance, observers say.
In what many describe as a period of exceptional dourness, retired military officers, journalists, teachers and government workers have publicly complained about the direction Jordan is heading. Because overtly criticizing the king remains taboo, much of the grumbling is directed by proxy at the government Abdullah appoints. Some critics predicted the disenchantment could feed instability in Jordan, which has proven one of the most reliable U.S. partners in the region.
For now, steps taken by the government to restrict freedoms have blistered Abdullah’s reputation as an enlightened reformer and fueled a surprising amount of discontent among the monarchy’s traditional backers.
The domestic challenge comes as Jordan’s relevance in the region has dwindled. Because of its peace treaty with Israel, Jordan grew accustomed to being a mediator with the Palestinians. But Abdullah has little influence over the militant group Hamas, whose rapprochement with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas could be key to any Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement.
[…] "Jordan now really is in the balance," said Labib Kamhawi, a Jordanian political analyst in Amman. "People are now doubtful about Jordan," he added, predicting the criticism could lead to an "explosion."
It’s not that Jordanians haven’t had gripes in the past. What’s new, observers say, is the willingness to openly pass judgment on the "system," a euphemism for the king. Criticizing the king is punishable by up to three years in prison, while slandering a government official carries a penalty of up to one year.
In May, a group of retired military officers issued a public six-point complaint about the government that stunned many because of its bluntness. It criticized privatization, and it reflected a growing paranoia among Jordanian-born nationals that the United States, Israel and Jordan are concocting a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that will offer more Palestinians Jordanian citizenship.
"We will not accept under any condition or in any form, any solution to the Palestinian question at Jordan’s expense," Abdullah said in his June speech.
Amid this mounting discontent, Jordan is planning to hold parliamentary elections in November following Abdullah’s dismissal of the legislature last year. The largest political party, the Islamic Action Front, is boycotting along with other smaller groups.
Jordan’s autocratic trends led the non-governmental group Freedom House to downgrade it from "partially free" to "not free."
Rights activists deplored the crackdown on workers such as Muhammad al-Sunaid, 34, who was fired after demanding better pay for government-employed day laborers. He was sentenced in a military court to three months in jail in part for insulting an official after asking why he was fired.
This summer teachers expressed dissatisfaction with low wages by holding a 70-mile protest march, something unheard of in Jordan. Fifteen teachers who led the push to unionize were fired. "We have no unions and teachers live in poverty," said Mustapha Rawashdeh, one of the teachers’ organizers who lost his job.
[…] One of the most brazen restrictions introduced this year affects online media . Whereas Abdullah made affordable Internet access a priority – and Queen Rania has more than a million followers on Twitter – Jordan this month passed a provisional cyberspace law that Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said creates a "legislative arsenal that can be used to punish those whose posts upset the authorities." Penalties range from fines to forced labor.
In a letter Tuesday to Abdullah, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said the law could be used to harass online media and undermined "Jordan’s image as a free and open society."
[…] Only one site, http://www.allofjo.net, carried the retired military officers’ statement in full. Even though the Web site was hacked four times, it still carries articles that upset the government. Its two main writers say they keep bags packed for the possible eventuality that they will be arrested once the cyberspace law formally takes effect.
Venezuela
9) No ‘reset’ with Venezuela soon
After a clumsy row over a diplomatic appointment, we have to ask: does the US really want better relations with Hugo Chávez?
Mark Weisbrot, Guardian, Wednesday 18 August 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/aug/18/venezuela-hugo-chavez
While President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and the new president of Colombia, Manuel Santos, met in Santa Marta, Colombia last Tuesday and agreed to normalise relations after a fierce diplomatic fight, there are no indications that such détente is on the cards for Venezuela and the United States. Washington, it now appears, may not even want to maintain ambassadorial relations. This could be a significant turn toward the worse for the United States’ already rocky relationship with its third largest oil supplier.
Back in June, the Obama administration announced the appointment of Larry Palmer, president and CEO of the Inter-American Foundation, to replace the current ambassador in Caracas. The Venezuelans gave their initial approval. But then came the US senate confirmation process. Although there were no major problems in Palmer’s testimony before the Senate on 27 July, Palmer was subsequently asked to respond to questions from Senator Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the senate foreign relations committee.
Palmer’s answers to these questions were presumed to be for the senators and not for the public, but a week later, they were posted on Senator Lugar’s website. Unfortunately, Palmer wrote some things that a candidate for ambassador would not say publicly about the host country. He referred to "morale" in the Venezuelan armed forces as "considerably low", and to "clear ties between the Venezuelan government and Colombian guerrillas". There were a number of other remarks about Venezuela that most governments would consider quite unfriendly or even insulting.
Alan K Henrikson is director of diplomatic studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University; in a telephone interview, he said: "While we would expect candid answers to queries from a Senator that were supposed to be confidential, the publication of such comments – considered hostile and demeaning by the host country – is extremely unusual. Many countries would not accept as ambassador, someone who made such comments while being considered for appointment."
It didn’t take long for this to be all over the news, especially in Venezuela. President Chávez announced on 8 August that Palmer was not acceptable, and appealed to President Obama to appoint another ambassador. According to congressional sources here, the Lugar questions to Palmer and the leak of his answers is seen as a "setup from the right". But there is no indication so far that the Obama administration is going to replace Palmer with another choice.
Washington is a city of diplomatic intrigue, and there is an interesting "whodunit" aspect to the diplomatic row. Was this leak simply the work of Lugar’s office, or was it done in collaboration with officials in the State Department who wanted to torpedo the nomination?
Whatever insider game is going on, the sabotage of this appointment is yet another clear indication that Washington is not ready, or willing, even to try to normalise relations with Venezuela. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s gratuitous public insults to Venezuela – widely condemned when Chávez engages in the same behaviour towards the United States – are another indicator that high-level officials here do not want to normalise relations.
[…]
Mexico
10) Mexico Legalizes Drug Possession
Associated Press, August 21, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/world/americas/21mexico.html
Mexico City – Mexico enacted a controversial law on Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging government-financed treatment for drug dependency free of charge.
The law sets out maximum "personal use" amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution; the law goes into effect on Friday.
Anyone caught with drug amounts under the personal-use limit will be encouraged to seek treatment, and for those caught a third time treatment is mandatory – although no penalties for noncompliance are specified.
Mexican authorities said the change only recognized the longstanding practice here of not prosecuting people caught with small amounts of drugs. [Codification removes the discretion of authorities to implement the law unfairly or abusively, an important reform – JFP.]
[…]
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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.