Just Foreign Policy News
August 2, 2010
Fellowship of Reconciliation: U.S. military aid to Colombia is having a negative effect on the human rights of Colombians
Though the US "Leahy Law" prohibits aid to military units that have committed gross violations, the US continues to support such units in Colombia. Areas where Colombian army units received the largest increases in U.S. assistance reported increased extrajudicial killings on average. [See also Global Post report, #4 below.] http://forusa.org/content/report-military-assistance-human-rights-colombia-us-accountability-global-implications
South of the Border, scheduled screenings:
http://southoftheborderdoc.com/in-theatres/
August 8: Special giving opportunity
August 8 marks an important anniversary. It’s the birthday of Just Foreign Policy’s Policy Director Robert Naiman, who edits the Just Foreign Policy News. If you value the News, if you value the work of Just Foreign Policy, why not take this opportunity to make a donation to the work of Just Foreign Policy? Your financial support allows us to educate Americans about U.S. foreign policy and to create opportunities for Americans to advocate for U.S. policies that are more just.
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) America’s military death toll in Afghanistan is rising, with back-to-back record months for U.S. losses, AP reports. All signs point to more bloodshed in the months ahead. Six more Americans were reported killed in fighting in the south Thursday and Friday, pushing the U.S. death toll for July to a record 66 and surpassing June as the deadliest month for U.S. forces in the war. [According to icasualties.org, the number of U.S. soldiers killed in Afghanistan under Obama will soon have passed the number killed under Bush – JFP.]
2) Afghan protesters marched through Kabul Sunday chanting anti-US slogans and denouncing NATO bombardments that have killed civilians, the Washington Post reports. The couple of hundred demonstrators carried banners calling the US the "guardian and master of [the] ruling Mafia in Afghanistan" as well as images of burned and bandaged children.
3) Defense Secretary Gates and Speaker Pelosi offered differing visions of the planned drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, AP reports. Gates predicted only a small number of U.S. forces will come home from Afghanistan when a presidentially mandated withdrawal begins a year from now. Pelosi pushed back against that prediction on Sunday. "Well, I hope it is more than that," the Speaker said. "I know it’s not going to be turn out the lights and let’s all go home on one day. But I do think the American people expect it to be somewhere between that and a few thousand troops."
4) The Fellowship of Reconciliation and the U.S. Office on Colombia charge in a new report that when Colombian military units receive an increase in U.S. aid, they kill more civilians and frame the deaths as combat kills, GlobalPost reports. The US has provided more than $7 billion in mostly military aid to Colombia since 2000, making it the largest recipient of U.S. military aid after Israel.
5) The aim of the Netanyahu government and its partisans is to get US support an attack by Israel so that the US can be drawn into direct, full-scale war with Iran, argues Gareth Porter, writing for Truthout. In the absence of confidence that Obama would be ready to come into the war fully behind Israel, there cannot be an Israeli strike. That’s why the Israeli government’s partisans are determined to line up a strong majority in Congress and public opinion for war to foreclose Obama’s options, by means such as House resolution 1553.
6) Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, is worried that conservatives and liberals could join forces to undermine Obama’s efforts in Afghanistan, CNN reports. Asked about the growing tide of sentiment against the Afghanistan war, Graham said, "You know what I worry most about: an unholy alliance between the right and the left… My concern is that, for different reasons, they join forces and we lose the ability to hold this thing together."
Afghanistan
7) The Netherlands became the first NATO country to end its combat mission in Afghanistan, AP reports. The departure is politically significant because it comes at a time of rising casualties and of growing doubts about the war in NATO capitals. Canada has announced that it will withdraw its 2,700 troops in 2011, and Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski has promised to pull out his country’s 2,600 troops in 2012. That is likely to put pressure on Germany and Britain to scale back their forces, adding to the burden shouldered by the US.
8) The UN Security Council removed five members of the Taliban from its sanctions list in a nod toward reconciliation, the New York Times reports. Three of them have already made peace with the Kabul government, and two of them are dead. The living were Abdul Satar Paktin, a former deputy health minister; Abdul Salam Zaeef, a former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan; and Abdul Hakim Mujahed Awrang, a former unofficial representative to the UN. Zaeef, who has been a channel to the Taliban for several years, called the blacklist one of the major obstacles blocking peace talks. He described the move as a good first step which should lead to more people being removed from the blacklist.
Israel/Palestine
9) Israel agreed to participate in a UN-led probe of an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship, the Washington Post reports. An Israeli official said Israel’s decision to participate was driven in large part by its desire to repair ties with Turkey. The U.N. panel will begin its work Aug. 10 and submit a progress report by mid-September.
10) A senior PLO official said President Obama warned Mahmoud Abbas U.S.-Palestinian relations might suffer if the Palestinian leader refuses to resume direct peace talks with Israel, AP reports. "The Palestinians are between a rock and a hard place," said Hanan Ashrawi. She said public opinion in the Palestinian territories opposes talks without ironclad guarantees but that Abbas would be blamed by the world if negotiations don’t get off the ground.
Pakistan
11) An Afghan Taliban logistics officer says the Taliban and the US have something in common: they are both being played by Pakistan, Newsweek reports. Taliban say the only thing Pakistan can be relied on for is a single-minded pursuit of its own national interest. "They’re neither in bed with the [Afghan] Taliban nor opposed to them," says Stephen Biddle, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations. "The reality is that they’re in between, which is the rational place for them to be." Which side is Pakistan on? "That’s a foolish question," says Anatol Lieven of King’s College London. "Pakistan is on Pakistan’s side, just as America is on America’s."
Guatemala
12) The Obama administration announced it would file a complaint against Guatemala claiming labor law violations under the Central America Free Trade Agreement, the first time Washington has pursued such a case against such a trade agreement partner, the New York Times reports. In April 2008, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and six Guatemalan labor groups accused Guatemala of violating labor standards in the agreement, citing the killings of two union leaders, the firing of workers for union activity and a failure to enforce collective bargaining rights. "We sincerely hope that these consultations will signal meaningful and lasting change for Guatemalan workers," AFL-CIO President Trumka said. "If consultations fail, however, we call upon our government to prosecute this case vigorously through the dispute settlement process."
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) US casualties in Afghanistan soar to record highs
Robert H. Reid, Associated Press, Fri Jul 30, 7:46 pm ET http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100730/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan
Kabul, Afghanistan – In a summer of suffering, America’s military death toll in Afghanistan is rising, with back-to-back record months for U.S. losses in the grinding conflict. All signs point to more bloodshed in the months ahead, straining the already shaky international support for the war.
Six more Americans were reported killed in fighting in the south – three Thursday and three Friday – pushing the U.S. death toll for July to a record 66 and surpassing June as the deadliest month for U.S. forces in the nearly nine-year war.
[…] After a dip in American deaths last spring following the February capture of the southern town of Marjah, U.S. fatalities have been rising – from 19 in April to 34 in May to 60 in June. Last month’s deaths for the entire NATO-led force reached a record 104, including the 60 Americans. This month’s coalition death count stands at 89, including the 66 Americans.
[…] American troop strength stands at about 95,000, and by the end of August the figure is expected to swell to 100,000 – three times the number in early 2009. Commanders say more boots on the ground inevitably means more casualties.
[…]
2) Afghans march in Kabul to denounce NATO strikes that killed civilians
Joshua Partlow, Washington Post, Monday, August 2, 2010; A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/01/AR2010080100490.html
Kabul – Afghan protesters marched through downtown Kabul on Sunday morning chanting anti-American slogans and denouncing NATO bombardments that have killed civilians.
Led by a police escort, the couple of hundred demonstrators carried banners calling the United States the "guardian and master of [the] ruling Mafia in Afghanistan" as well as images of burned and bandaged children.
The protesters said they were angry not only about the civilian toll from ongoing NATO military operations in Helmand province but also a traffic accident Friday involving an SUV driven by DynCorp International contractors that killed four Afghans.
"Many times NATO troops and these cars have killed our innocent people. They never care whether we are Afghans or animals," said Samia, 26, an activist from Kabul who took part in the demonstration.
Samia, who like many Afghans goes by only one name, said that she did not want the Taliban to return to power in Afghanistan but that NATO has only aggravated the situation over the past decade and fed a parasitic and dependent Afghan government.
"We want NATO troops and American troops to leave Afghanistan. Even with their huge army, they couldn’t do anything in the past 10 years. And in the future, they won’t be able to do anything. The result will be just death and casualties, and our innocent Afghan women and children will die," she said.
After the traffic accident on Friday near the U.S. Embassy, an angry crowd surrounded the DynCorp vehicle and set it on fire. DynCorp employees who arrived to help were attacked, and their vehicle also was torched.
[…]
3) Gates, Pelosi Split On Afghan Pullout Pace
AP/Huffington Post, 08-1-10
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/01/nancy-pelosi-robert-gates-afghanistan_n_666521.html
Washington – Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi offered differing visions of the planned drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Appearing Sunday on ABC’s "This Week," Gates predicted that only a small number of U.S. forces will come home from Afghanistan when a presidentially mandated withdrawal begins a year from now.
Gates reaffirmed that a withdrawal will begin in July 2011 but said he thinks the initial pullout will be modest, and that a large number of U.S. forces will remain in Afghanistan. "July 2011 is not the end. It is the beginning of a transition," Gates said. "Drawdowns early on will be of fairly limited numbers." The pace of the withdrawal would pick up as security conditions improve.
Last month, Vice-President Joe Biden also cautioned that the number of troops withdrawing from Afghanistan "could be as few as a couple of thousand troops."
Pelosi pushed back against that prediction on Sunday. "Well, I hope it is more than that," the Speaker said. "I know it’s not going to be turn out the lights and let’s all go home on one day. But I do think the American people expect it to be somewhere between that and a few thousand troops."
[…]
4) Colombia: US aid may have sparked civilian killings
Colombian army accused of killing civilians and labeling them guerrillas.
Nadja Drost, GlobalPost, July 31, 2010 09:47
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/colombia/100730/farc-us-military-aid
La Macarena, Colombia – When Colombian military units receive an increase in U.S. aid, they allegedly kill more civilians and frame the deaths as combat kills, according to a new report.
The report, released Thursday by two American human rights organizations, raises serious questions about the implications of U.S. military aid to Colombia. The United States has provided more than $7 billion in mostly military aid to Colombia since 2000 for fighting drugs and counterinsurgency – making it the largest recipient of U.S. military aid after Israel.
The army is accused of killing civilians and presenting them as guerrillas killed in combat to pump body counts. The Colombian military faces significant political pressure to produce concrete results in its war against the the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the country’s left-wing guerrilla insurgency.
Many point to the macabre practice – euphemistically known as producing a "false positive" – as a result of an unofficial incentive-based system that rewards high numbers of combat kills with job perks and promotions. Colombia’s attorney general’s office is investigating more than 2,000 alleged cases of false-positives committed by the armed forces.
The report was based on a two-year study using records of 3,000 reported extrajudicial killings since 2002 and lists of 500 military units approved to receive U.S. assistance. It found that in regions that received the largest increases in U.S. aid, the number of reported extrajudicial killings surged 56 percent on average in the four years surrounding the aid boost. When U.S. assistance was withdrawn or reduced, the number of army killings of civilians dropped.
The Fellowship of Reconciliation and the U.S. Office on Colombia published the report.
[…]
5) Zombie Neocon Strategy Behind Israel’s "Bomb Iran" Campaign
Zombie Neocon Strategy Behind Israel’s "Bomb Iran" Campaign
Gareth Porter, Truthout, Friday 30 July 2010
http://www.truth-out.org/the-real-aim-israels-bomb-iran-campaign61866
Reuel Marc Gerecht’s screed [http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/should-israel-bomb-iran – JFP] justifying an Israeli bombing attack on Iran coincides with the opening the new Israel lobby campaign marked by the introduction of House resolution 1553 expressing full support for such an Israeli attack.
What is important to understand about this campaign is that the aim of Gerecht and of the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu is to support an attack by Israel so that the United States can be drawn into direct, full-scale war with Iran.
That has long been the Israeli strategy for Iran, because Israel cannot fight a war with Iran without full U.S. involvement. Israel needs to know that the United States will finish the war that Israel wants to start.
Gerecht openly expresses the hope that any Iranian response to the Israeli attack would trigger full-scale U.S. war against Iran. "If Khamenei has a death-wish, he’ll let the Revolutionary Guards mine the strait, the entrance to the Persian Gulf," writes Gerecht. "It might be the only thing that would push President Obama to strike Iran militarily…."
Gerecht suggest that the same logic would apply to any Iranian "terrorism against the United States after an Israeli strike," by which we really means any attack on a U.S. target in the Middle East. Gerecht writes that Obama might be "obliged" to threaten major retaliation "immediately after an Israeli surprise attack."
That’s the key sentence in this very long Gerecht argument. Obama is not going to be "obliged" to joint an Israeli aggression against Iran unless he feels that domestic political pressures to do so are too strong to resist. That’s why the Israelis are determined to line up a strong majority in Congress and public opinion for war to foreclose Obama’s options.
In the absence of confidence that Obama would be ready to come into the war fully behind Israel, there cannot be an Israeli strike.
Gerecht’s argument for war relies on a fanciful nightmare scenario of Iran doling out nuclear weapons to Islamic extremists all over the Middle East. But the real concern of the Israelis and their lobbyists, as Gerecht’s past writing has explicitly stated, is to destroy Iran’s Islamic regime in a paroxysm of U.S. military violence.
Gerecht first revealed this Israeli-neocon fantasy as early as 2000, before the Iranian nuclear program was even taken seriously, in an essay written for a book published by the Project for a New American Century. Gerecht argued that, if Iran could be caught in a "terrorist act," the U.S. Navy should "retaliate with fury". The purpose of such a military response, he wrote, should be to "strike with truly devastating effect against the ruling mullahs and the repressive institutions that maintain them."
And lest anyone fail to understand what he meant by that, Gerecht was more explicit: "That is, no cruise missiles at midnight to minimize the body count. The clerics will almost certainly strike back unless Washington uses overwhelming, paralyzing force."
[…] The idea of waging a U.S. war of destruction against Iran is obvious lunacy, which is why U.S. military leaders have strongly resisted it both during the Bush and Obama administrations. But Gerecht makes it clear that Israel believes it can use its control of Congress to pound Obama into submission. Democrats in Congress, he boasts, "are mentally in a different galaxy than they were under President Bush." Even though Israel has increasingly been regarded around the world as a rogue state after its Gaza atrocities and the commando killings of unarmed civilians on board the Mavi Marmara, its grip on the U.S. Congress appears as strong as ever.
Moreover, polling data for 2010 show that a majority of Americans have already been manipulated into supporting war against Iran – in large part because more than two-thirds of those polled have gotten the impression that Iran already has nuclear weapons.
[…]
6) Graham fears left, right in ‘unholy alliance’ on Afghanistan
Martina Stewart, CNN, August 1, 2010
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/08/01/graham-fears-left-right-in-unholy-alliance-on-afghanistan/
Washington – A prominent Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee is praising President Barack Obama’s approach to fighting terrorism in Pakistan.
However, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, is also worried that conservatives and liberals could join forces to undermine Obama’s efforts in Afghanistan.
Obama has set July 2011 as the target date to begin to draw down the additional troops he’s surged into Afghanistan. But, in an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN’s "State of the Union," Graham predicted that conditions may not allow the troops to begin to come home by that date.
[…] Asked about the growing tide of sentiment against the Afghanistan war, particularly among Obama’s base of supporters and some Democrats on Capitol Hill, Graham said he is worried about conservative and liberal forces joining together to frustrate Obama’s efforts to stabilize Afghanistan.
"You know what I worry most about: an unholy alliance between the right and the left," Graham said. "That there are some Republicans who are not going to take a, you know, do-or-die attitude for Obama’s war. There are some Republicans that want to make this Obama’s war. . . There will be some Republicans saying you can’t win because of the July 2011 withdrawal date, he’s made it impossible for us to win, so why should we throw good money after bad?"
Graham added that liberals could also refuse to back the president’s plans in Afghanistan. "You’ve got people on the left who are mad with the president because he is doing exactly what [former President George W.] Bush did and we’re in a war we can’t win," Graham said, adding: "My concern is that, for different reasons, they join forces and we lose the ability to hold this thing together."
[…]
Afghanistan
7) Netherlands becomes first NATO country to end its combat mission in Afghanistan
Robert H. Reid, Associated Press, Monday, August 2, 2010; A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/01/AR2010080103108.html
Kabul – The Netherlands became the first NATO country to end its combat mission in Afghanistan, drawing the curtain Sunday on a four-year operation that was deeply unpopular at home and even brought down a Dutch government.
The departure of the small force of nearly 1,900 Dutch troops is not expected to affect conditions on the ground. But it is politically significant because it comes at a time of rising casualties and of growing doubts about the war in NATO capitals, even as allied troops are beginning what could be the decisive campaign of the war.
Canada has announced that it will withdraw its 2,700 troops in 2011, and Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski has promised to pull out his country’s 2,600 troops the year after.
That is likely to put pressure on other European governments such as Germany and Britain to scale back their forces, adding to the burden shouldered by the United States, which expects to have 100,000 troops in Afghanistan by the end of next month.
[…]
8) U.N. Removes 5 Taliban From Its Sanctions List
Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times, July 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/world/asia/31nations.html
United Nations – The United Nations Security Council removed five members of the Taliban from its sanctions list on Friday, in a nod toward the kind of reconciliation considered crucial for Afghanistan’s future stability.
The five were hardly viewed as much of a threat: Three of them have already made peace with the Kabul government, and two of them are dead.
But they were among a list of 20 names that the government of President Hamid Karzai submitted several years ago to the Security Council committee responsible for maintaining the blacklist, diplomats said. Five others were removed in January, eight have been rejected for removal and two remain under review, they said.
Though many experts doubt it is possible, reconciliation with the Taliban is being widely discussed as the only way of resolving the Afghan war. President Karzai has spoken recently about removing all the Taliban members from the sanctions list, currently about 135 of them, but he has not formally submitted any further requests, diplomats said.
Among the five taken off the list Friday were Abdul Satar Paktin, a former deputy health minister; Abdul Salam Zaeef, a former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan and a former deputy minister of mines; and Abdul Hakim Mujahed Awrang, a former unofficial representative to the United Nations. The two dead men removed were Mohammed Islam Mohammadi, the former governor of Bamian Province, and Abdul Samad Khaksar, the former deputy interior minister.
Russia has been the most reluctant to accept removing any of the Taliban from the list, worried that their resurgence could help fuel militant Islam in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and across the Caucasus. They contend even the assets of the dead might be put toward that end, diplomats said.
In Kabul, where he has been a channel to the Taliban for several years, Mr. Zaeef called the blacklist one of the major obstacles blocking peace talks. He joked, though, when asked about being taken off the list, saying, "Are you sure my name was removed?"
Mr. Zaeef, who spent more than four years in prison, including the United States military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, wrote a memoir published earlier this year, "My Life with the Taliban." He said that taking the names off the list constituted a good first step. "It will build trust between both sides, but on one condition," he said in a brief interview. "This process should continue and does not stop right here. They should remove the names of more and more people from this list – one or two or five names are not enough."
Those listed are subject to a travel ban, asset freeze and arms embargo, although in Afghanistan the list is often interpreted as some kind of hit list for assassination. The conditions for being removed are renouncing violence, renouncing all ties to Al Qaeda and accepting the Afghan Constitution.
[…]
Israel/Palestine
9) Israel agrees to participate in U.N.-led probe of raid on Gaza-bound aid ship
Janine Zacharia, Washington Post, Monday, August 2, 2010; 4:03 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/02/AR2010080202084.html
Jerusalem – Israel agreed Monday to participate in a United Nations-led probe of an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship that left nine Turkish activists aboard dead, backing off its original insistence that its own internal investigation was sufficient.
The May 31 incident at sea prompted widespread condemnation of Israel and sparked a diplomatic row between Israel and Turkey that U.S. and U.N. diplomats have sought to defuse.
Israel was originally cool to the idea of a U.N.-led panel of inquiry into the encounter. But U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon insisted on appointing his own panel to ensure a credible inquiry was conducted.
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu informed Ban that Israel would participate in the U.N. probe after being assured the panel would be fair.
[…] An Israeli official said Israel’s decision to participate was driven in large part by its desire to repair ties with Turkey, an important Israeli ally in the Middle East.
[…] The U.N. panel of inquiry will be led by former New Zealand former prime minister Geoffrey Palmer and outgoing Colombian President Álvaro Uribe. The panel will also have a member from Turkey and from Israel and will receive reports from both countries’ own inquiries.
[…] The U.N. panel will begin its work Aug. 10 and submit a progress report by mid-September.
10) Obama letter to Palestinian leader included warning, PLO says
Karin Laub, AP, Sunday, August 1, 2010; A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/31/AR2010073102972.html
Ramallah, West Bank – President Obama warned Mahmoud Abbas in a letter that U.S.-Palestinian relations might suffer if the Palestinian leader refuses to resume direct peace talks with Israel, a senior Palestine Liberation Organization official said Saturday. The White House had no comment Saturday. However, the Obama administration has been pushing Abbas hard in recent days to move quickly to face-to-face negotiations.
The PLO official said Obama sent the letter – the strongest U.S. warning to Abbas yet – on July 16.
Abbas insists he will only negotiate once Israel commits to the idea of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, with minor modifications. He also wants Israel to freeze all settlement construction in those areas. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu refuses to be pinned down ahead of talks and has put in place only a 10-month freeze on housing starts in the West Bank, which is to expire in September.
Last week, senior PLO members were briefed on the latest attempts to restart talks. During the meeting, an Abbas aide summarized the main points of Obama’s letter, said the PLO official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the letter has not been made public. "In this letter, Obama asked Abu Mazen [Abbas] to go to direct negotiations and [wrote] that he can’t help the Palestinians unless they go to direct negotiations," the official said. "Obama said he expects Abu Mazen to agree to this demand, and that not accepting it would affect the relations between the Palestinians and the Americans."
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat insisted the letter did not refer to Palestinian-U.S. ties. Erekat said Obama wrote that he remains committed to establishing a Palestinian state but that his ability to help will be limited if Abbas does not resume talks.
[…] On Thursday, Arab foreign ministers meeting in Cairo endorsed the idea of direct talks, but left the timing up to Abbas.
On Monday, the PLO’s top decision-making body, the Executive Committee, will be asked to make a recommendation. "The Palestinians are between a rock and a hard place," said committee member Hanan Ashrawi. She said public opinion in the Palestinian territories opposes talks without ironclad guarantees but that Abbas would be blamed by the world if negotiations don’t get off the ground.
Pakistan
11) With Friends Like These…
The Afghan Taliban say they have one thing in common with the Americans: they’re both getting played by Pakistan.
Ron Moreau, Newsweek, July 31, 2010
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/31/with-friends-like-these.html
The Afghan Taliban logistics officer laughs about the news he’s been hearing on his radio this past week. The story is that a Web site known as WikiLeaks has obtained and posted thousands of classified field reports from U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and hundreds of those reports mention the Americans’ suspicions that Pakistan is secretly assisting the Taliban-a charge that Pakistan has repeatedly and vehemently denied. "At least we have something in common with America," the logistics officer says. "The Pakistanis are playing a double game with us, too."
Pakistan’s ongoing support of the Afghan Taliban is anything but news to insurgents who have spoken to Newsweek. Requesting anonymity for security reasons, many of them readily admit their utter dependence on the country’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) not only for sanctuary and safe passage but also, some say, for much of their financial support. The logistics officer, speaking at his mud-brick compound near the border, offers an unverifiable estimate that Pakistan provides roughly 80 percent of the insurgents’ funding, based on his conversations with other senior Taliban. He says the insurgents could barely cover their expenses in Kandahar province alone if not for the ISI. Not that he views them as friends. "They feed us with one hand and arrest and kill us with the other," he says.
The militants say that most often they’re dealing with middlemen who appear to be merchants, money-changers, or businessmen, although the assumption is that they’re working for Pakistani intelligence. Some provide money, some motorbikes; others supply contacts for sources who can provide weapons. One smuggler who funnels much of his profits to the insurgency claims that Pakistani forces reserve one remote border crossing in Baluchistan for the Taliban and force civilians to divert to far-off posts.
But many insurgents still blame the Pakistani government for its cooperation in the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11. "We can’t forget or forgive Pakistan for turning against us nine years ago," says a senior Taliban intelligence operative, also speaking with Newsweek along the remote border. And the betrayals didn’t stop there. Every Taliban can recite a long list of insurgent leaders who have been arrested in Pakistan or who were killed in Afghanistan with assumed Pakistani complicity. One of the biggest losses was Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani, a driving force in the Taliban’s revival whose hideout near Quetta was raided by Pakistani forces in 2006. He fled across the border, where he was killed in a U.S. airstrike. Another was Mullah Dadullah Akhund, one of the insurgency’s most feared commanders, who died in a coalition raid in Helmand-with the help of the ISI, the Taliban suspects. The insurgents say he was too brazen, too independent, and too close to Al Qaeda for Pakistan’s comfort.
That illustrates a central point, Taliban say: the only thing Pakistan can be relied on for is a single-minded pursuit of its own national interest. Some ISI operatives may sympathize with the Taliban cause. But more important is Pakistan’s desire to have a hand in Afghan politics and to restrict Indian influence there. "They’re neither in bed with the [Afghan] Taliban nor opposed to them," says Stephen Biddle, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations. "The reality is that they’re in between, which is the rational place for them to be."
[…] The Pakistanis, for their part, continue to resist U.S. pressure for strikes against Taliban sanctuaries. "Their aim seems to be to prolong the war in Afghanistan by aiding both the Americans and us," says the logistics officer. "That way Pakistan continues to receive billions from the U.S., remains a key regional player, and still maintains influence with [the Taliban]." And which side is Pakistan on? "That’s a foolish question," says Anatol Lieven, a professor in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. "Pakistan is on Pakistan’s side, just as America is on America’s." Nobody knows that better than the Taliban.
Guatemala
12) U.S. Plans Trade Complaint Against Guatemala
Sewell Chan, New York Times, July 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/business/global/31trade.html
Washington – The Obama administration announced Friday that it would file a complaint against Guatemala claiming labor law violations under the Central America Free Trade Agreement, the first time Washington has pursued such a case against a free-trade partner.
Ron Kirk, U.S. trade representative, said Friday that America was prepared to enforce labor protections under trade treaties.
The move, a victory for labor unions, comes as the administration is cautiously trying to revive its trade agenda. The White House wants to double exports over five years and ratify a free-trade pact with South Korea that many unions oppose.
"With this case, we are sending a strong message that our trading partners must protect their own workers, that the Obama administration will not tolerate labor violations that place U.S. workers at a disadvantage, and that we are prepared to enforce the full spectrum of American trade rights from labor to the environment," the United States trade representative, Ron Kirk, said in a speech in Washington, Pa., near Pittsburgh.
With little Democratic support, the Republican-controlled Congress narrowly ratified the Central America Free Trade Agreement in 2005 at the urging of President George W. Bush, whose administration had negotiated the accord with six other countries. Guatemala ratified it the following year.
In April 2008, the A.F.L.-C.I.O., which opposed Cafta, and six Guatemalan labor groups accused Guatemala of violating labor standards in the agreement, citing the killings of two union leaders, the firing of workers for union activity and a failure to enforce collective bargaining rights.
Four days before President Obama took office in January 2009, the Labor Department issued a report that substantiated many of the complaints. The report cited efforts by Guatemala’s president, Álvaro Colom, to address some of the problems, and made some recommendations. But negotiations since then have "yielded limited results," Mr. Kirk’s office said.
In a statement on Friday, the Labor Department said it "has grave concerns about labor-related violence in Guatemala, a problem which is serious and apparently deteriorating."
The first step to bringing a case under Cafta is a request for a formal consultation with the Guatemalan government. If the talks fail to yield a resolution within 90 days, the United States could take the dispute before an arbitration panel. If the case were decided in favor of the United States, and Guatemala did not comply, it could be subject to penalties of up to $15 million a year, with the money dedicated to improving enforcement of labor laws.
"We sincerely hope that these consultations will signal meaningful and lasting change for Guatemalan workers," Richard L. Trumka, the president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., said in a statement. "If consultations fail, however, we call upon our government to prosecute this case vigorously through the dispute settlement process."
[…] –
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
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