Just Foreign Policy News
August 9, 2010
How Many Iraqis Did We "Liberate" from Life on Earth?
Attempts to estimate the Iraqi death toll from the U.S. invasion support the conclusion that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died as a result of the war, which we can now state with high confidence. This suggests a test for anyone who claims that demands for occupying Afghanistan or bombing Iran have anything to do with human liberation: if they can’t be bothered to know or won’t acknowledge that the war killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, their claims of "humanitarian" motivation should be ignored.
http://www.truth-out.org/how-many-iraqis-did-we-liberate-from-life-earth62112
South of the Border, scheduled screenings:
http://southoftheborderdoc.com/in-theatres/
Help Support Our Work
Your donation helps us educate Americans and create opportunities to advocate for a just foreign policy.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate
Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) 43% of Americans say it was a mistake to go to war in Afghanistan, USA Today reports.
2) Venezuela says it won’t accept Larry Palmer as US Ambassador following reports of his criticisms of the Venezuelan government and military, Christopher Toothaker reports for AP. [Toothaker downplays what Palmer said, but notes that the criticism was unusually strong for an ambassador assigned to Venezuela – JFP.] The Senate has not yet acted to confirm Palmer for the post.
3) Efforts by the US to build a united front against Iran are facing strong resistance from China, Russia, India and Turkey, which are seizing investment opportunities in defiance of US sanctions, Paul Richter reports in the Los Angeles Times. Since the new U.S. sanctions took effect July 1, all four have moved ahead with trade and investment deals that violate the sanctions or threaten to do so in the future. The countries say they will honor the sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council, but are under no obligation to follow the more stringent rules that the US and EU tacked on in July. If Iran can meet its needs with these eager partners, the sanctions lose much of their bite, the LAT says. And if European companies see that the new rules simply shift Iran’s lucrative business to competitors, they will pressure their governments to jettison the sanctions in hopes they can get back into the Iranian market.
4) Peace in "AfPInd" requires not U.S. troops, but a concerted effort to bring India and Pakistan to the negotiating table, where under the eyes of the international community they can end their confrontation over Kashmir, writes Mohsin Hamid in the Washington Post. If the US hopes to salvage any positive outcome from its war in Afghanistan, it should move a resolution over Kashmir up on its list of priorities.
5) Writing in The New Yorker, Amy Davidson notes that there is much in Wikileaks that we didn’t know, citing one US report that a group of civilians "had a negative opinion" of security forces after security forces beat them and a man who complained about an alleged sexual assault by a police commander against a local woman was ordered to be shot.
6) Writing in Newsweek, Fareed Zakaria takes the Anti-Defamation League to task for its opposition to the construction of an Islamic center a few blocks from the World Trade Center site, and announces that he is returning an award he received from the ADL in protest.
Afghanistan
7) The killing of 10 aid workers in Afghanistan offered evidence of the increasing insecurity in northern Afghanistan and added to fears that the insurgency has turned more vicious, the New York Times reports. According to the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, abductions and assassinations of aid workers have been rising sharply in recent years. Five Doctors Without Borders workers were killed in 2004, and four International Rescue Committee workers were shot to death in a Taliban ambush in 2008.
Iran
8) Writing in Foreign Policy, Stephen Walt asks the Obama Administration to explain why they think our current approach to Iran is going to deliver any of the things we claim to want. There is no reason to believe that the sort of the diplomacy that the administration is currently practicing is going to produce a breakthrough and it will face continued right-wing pressure for a more forceful response. He urges the US to propose to acknowledge Iran’s right to an enrichment program provided they ratified and implemented the NPT Additional Protocol and undertook other measures designed to reassure us about the peaceful nature of their nuclear program.
Pakistan
9) As public anger rises over the government’s response to Pakistan’s flooding, hard-line Islamic charities have stepped into the breach with grass-roots efficiency that is earning them new support, the New York Times reports. In two districts, three Islamic charities beat the government by six days in delivering hot meals. Officials at one Islamic aid center said police tried to dismantle their operation Tuesday as they prepared a breakfast for about 25 flood victims. The victims pleaded with the police not to shut down a humanitarian service that the government was not providing. They got their way. "They could not put a hand on us," said a madrassa teacher who volunteers at the post, "because we were here first and we’re the only ones delivering."
Venezuela/Colombia
10) President Chavez and Colombia’s new president Santos plan to take the first step toward restoring relations Tuesday when they sit down together in Colombia, their foreign ministers announced Sunday, AP reports. Earlier Sunday, Chavez urged Colombia’s rebels to release their hostages as a means of kick-starting negotiations with Santos on ending Colombia’s armed conflict. His comments appeared to be a show of support for Santos, AP says.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Poll: Waning support for Obama on wars
Richard Wolf, USA Today, August 2, 2010
http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2010-08-02-afghan-poll_N.htm
Washington – Public support for President Obama’s Afghanistan war policy has plummeted amid a rising U.S. death toll and the unauthorized release of classified military documents, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll shows.
Support for Obama’s management of the war fell to 36%, down from 48% in a February poll. Now, a record 43% also say it was a mistake to go to war there after the terrorist attacks in 2001.
The decline in support contributed to the lowest approval ratings of Obama’s presidency. Amid a lengthy recession, more Americans support his handling of the economy (39%) than the war.
[…] The waning support for the Afghanistan war coincides with the deaths of a record 66 U.S. servicemembers in July, up from 60 in June. As the last of 30,000 reinforcements ordered by Obama enter the country, the international military force is encountering heavy Taliban resistance in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand. "It’s hard to find any positive news that would boost public opinion," says Richard Eichenberg of Tufts University, who studies presidential polling and foreign policy.
[…] In a CBS interview that aired earlier Monday, Obama said, "If I didn’t think that it was important for our national security to finish the job in Afghanistan, then I would pull them out today, because I have to sign letters to these families – families who have lost loved ones."
[…]
2) Chavez: US diplomat won’t be accepted as envoy
Christopher Toothaker, Associated Press, Sunday, August 8, 2010; 11:17 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/08/AR2010080802134_pf.html
Caracas, Venezuela – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Sunday went through with his threat to reject the diplomat nominated by President Barack Obama to be the U.S. ambassador to Caracas.
Chavez said he won’t accept Larry Palmer as envoy because he recently suggested morale is low in Venezuela’s military and raised concerns about Colombian rebels finding refuge in Venezuela. The socialist leader had said Thursday that he probably would refuse Palmer’s ambassadorship, which has not yet been confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
[…] "Obama, how do you expect me to accept this gentleman as ambassador?" Chavez said. "He disqualified himself, he cannot come as ambassador," he added.
As part of his Senate confirmation process, Palmer said last month that "morale is reported to be considerably low" in Venezuela’s military because of politically motivated appointments.
Palmer also mentioned Colombia’s accusations that Chavez has ignored the presence of Colombian rebel camps inside Venezuela, saying Chavez has an obligation to investigate. Chavez denies he gives haven to the rebels and he severed diplomatic relations with Colombia on July 22 over the allegations.
[AP’s Toothaker softpedals what Palmer told Lugar’s office. He did not just "mention" Colombia’s allegations, he said that he agreed with them, specifically agreeing with the allegation that Venezuelan government officials had "clear ties" to Colombia rebels: "In written replies to questions from Senator Dick Lugar of Indiana, Palmer said he was ‘keenly aware of the clear ties’ between members of the Chavez government and Colombian rebels." http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/08/05/world/international-uk-venezuela-usa.html – JFP] […] U.S. officials have long been critical of Chavez, but ambassadors assigned to Caracas have rarely taken such strong stances in public. The Senate has yet to confirm Palmer. It has been expected to take up the matter once senators return from a summer break Sept. 7.
[…]
3) U.S., EU Fail To Isolate Tehran
China, Russia, India and Turkey move into the lucrative void left by U.S. and EU sanctions that aim to halt Iran’s nuclear program.
Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times, August 8, 2010, 10:03 PM PDT
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-sanctions-20100809,0,6722759.story
Washington – Efforts by the United States and its European allies to build a united front to halt Iran’s nuclear program are facing increasingly bold resistance from China, Russia, India and Turkey, which are rushing to boost their economies by seizing investment opportunities in defiance of sanctions imposed by the West.
The Obama administration and the European Union opted to try to toughen United Nations sanctions against Iran with their own unilateral restrictions on foreign companies that do business with Tehran’s energy sector, hoping that squeezing the country’s most lucrative industry can force the Islamist government to bend on its nuclear program.
But the four countries condemned the additional sanctions, and in recent weeks went further: Since the new U.S. sanctions took effect July 1, all four have moved ahead with trade and investment deals that violate the sanctions or threaten to do so in the future.
The countries say they will honor the weaker set of sanctions imposed on Iran in June by the U.N. Security Council, but are under no obligation to follow the more stringent rules that the United States and European Union tacked on in July.
The U.S. sanctions prohibit petroleum-related sales to Iran, yet China and Turkey have sold huge cargoes of gasoline to Tehran, and Russian officials say they will begin shipping gasoline as well later this month, according to industry officials. The four countries also have signed deals or opened talks on investments worth billions of dollars in Iran’s oil and gas fields, petrochemical plants and pipelines.
The countries "are making it very clear they are not going to go along with the new American and European efforts to ratchet up pressure on Iran," said Ben Rhode, an analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
Although China’s economic ties with Iran have been growing for 15 years, the recent expansion of its business "has been amazing," said a senior European official, who asked to remain unidentified because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the issue.
"Sanctions will not hinder us in our joint cooperation," Sergei Shmatko, Russia’s energy minister, declared last month in Moscow after signing an agreement for a long-term energy partnership with his Iranian counterpart.
Obama administration officials boast that the new sanctions already have begun to damage Iran’s economy. European energy companies that have been key partners have canceled deals with Iran, and gasoline imports – badly needed because of Iran’s limited refining capacity – have slumped. Yet the U.S. dilemma is clear: If Iran can meet its needs with these eager partners, the sanctions lose much of their bite.
And if European companies see that the new rules simply shift Iran’s lucrative business to competitors, they will pressure their governments to jettison the sanctions in hopes they can get back into the Iranian market.
[…] The four countries say they don’t want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, but don’t see why they shouldn’t make money off Iran’s vast resources. China and India are also eager to lock up energy supplies for their fast-growing economies.
The U.S. sanctions seek to punish companies that sell refined petroleum products to Iran, or help Iran refine them. The U.S. government can fine foreign companies, but the biggest weapon is its ability to cut off companies’ access to the U.S. market – a powerful threat to most international concerns.
The European Union sanctions don’t target refined petroleum sales, but penalize companies for investing in the energy industry, as well as banking, shipping, insurance, transportation and nuclear-related industries.
Russia and China say they were surprised and disappointed that the Americans and Europeans, after pressing them to support U.N. sanctions on Iran for months, then adopted tougher sets of unilateral sanctions. In recent days, senior officials of both countries have rejected calls from Washington to back off their business with Iran.
Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang told the visiting Iranian oil minister on Friday that China remained firmly committed to joint projects, calling Iran "an important trade partner."
Obama signed the sanctions bill July 1, but the move did not derail a number of deals between Asian nations and Iran.
Days later, Chinese energy firms China International United Petroleum & Chemicals Co., also known as Unipec, and PetroChina International Co., or Chinaoil, sold four tanker cargoes of gasoline to Iran, while four others were sold by the Turkish refiner Tupras, said an oil industry official who asked to remain unidentified because he was speaking about an unannounced deal.
China and Iran also have continued talks over the last month regarding oil and gas field development, petrochemicals, refineries and pipeline projects, which have raised China’s total investment to $40 billion, Iran’s deputy oil minister, Hossein Noghrekar Shirazi, said last month. He said China has proposed to build seven new refineries in Iran.
Also in July, India opened new talks with Iran over a $7.4-billion pipeline that would deliver natural gas to India and Pakistan. A Turkish company, Som Petrol, signed a $1.3-billion deal to build a 410-mile section of pipeline carrying natural gas from Iran to Europe.
Russian and Iranian energy officials, after a meeting in Moscow, issued a statement saying they were "developing and widening" their joint efforts in the oil, gas and petrochemical sector. The Russian Foreign Ministry has warned the United States against trying to punish Russian firms for expanding business in Iran.
Energy industry experts say China and other countries may continue signing deals with Iran, but before sinking money into the projects they will probably wait to see how strongly the United States and Europe will enforce the sanctions. But it remains unclear how tough the Obama administration will be in punishing foreign companies, since doing so risks enraging major powers and complicating relations.
In 1998, for example, the Clinton administration considered sanctions against France’s Total, Russia’s Gazprom and Malaysia’s Petronas under an earlier law punishing foreign companies that invested in Iran. But to the dismay of some in Congress, President Clinton waived the punishments after loud protests from the three governments.
This month, the Obama administration may reveal whether it is willing to give the new sanctions teeth. The administration is considering sanctions against 10 foreign companies and may announce its decision in the next few days. It has not disclosed where the companies are based.
[…] Some members of Congress remain nervous that the administration, during a period of tense relations with China, Russia and Turkey, might be tempted to set aside the punishments. At the House hearing on July 29, members of Congress complained repeatedly about past administrations’ habit of waiving punishments for companies doing business in Iran, and urged the administration not to let China and Russia off the hook.
But Edward Chow, a former energy industry executive at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, noted that the countries the White House might enrage if it hands out stiff punishments are also ones whose cooperation the United States needs in its efforts to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions. "This has kind of painted the president into a corner," he said.
4) The real problem in the Afghan war is India, Pakistan and Kashmir
Mohsin Hamid, Washington Post, Sunday, August 8, 2010; B04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/06/AR2010080602658.html
[Hamid is a writer based in Pakistan.]
Lahore – The United States is struggling to implement a strategy for Afghanistan that will improve the lives of the Afghan people and allow U.S. troops to go home. Part of what makes it so difficult is the way Washington views the conflict: through the lens of what officials have dubbed "AfPak," a war in the southern part of Afghanistan and the adjoining border areas of Pakistan. Though the acronym is falling out of official favor, the AfPak mind-set remains.
A different shorthand for the war might help. "AfPInd" may be less catchy, but it is far more useful. Peace in AfPInd requires not U.S. troops on the ground, but a concerted effort to bring India and Pakistan to the negotiating table, where under the watchful eyes of the international community they can end their hydra-headed confrontation over Kashmir.
But that’s not how the United States sees this conflict. Mutual mistrust has bedeviled the U.S.-Pakistani alliance since the Afghan war began in 2001. Certain suspicions surfaced again recently in military documents revealed by WikiLeaks alleging that members of the Pakistani intelligence agency collaborated with militant groups fighting the United States in Afghanistan. Both Pakistani and U.S. officials have said that the information is old, unreliable and not true to the situation on the ground. Yet the recriminations and controversy have a "here we go again" feel. After all, we’ve seen this pattern before.
[…] Today, Pakistan and the United States are allies for a third time. Over the past decade, the United States has given Pakistan weapons and $4 billion (and counting) in economic aid; it hopes that the Pakistani military will be a bulwark against terrorist groups in the region. The Pakistani military hopes the United States will help it against a much larger and hostile India. Then . . .
By now, the recurring failure in the Pakistan-U.S. alliance should be obvious: The Pakistani military views it primarily as a means of reducing the threat from India, and the United States does not. But perhaps the United States should.
The reason the Pakistani military continued to back jihadist groups, jointly set up with the CIA in the 1980s, after the Soviet Union was defeated in Afghanistan was that it believed the same tactics could be used in Kashmir against India. And the reason the Pakistani military remains obsessed with shaping events in Afghanistan is because that country is the site of a power struggle between Pakistan and India – what commentators in Pakistan go so far as to call a "proxy war." It is what Ashfaq Kayani, the Pakistan army chief, means when he speaks of Pakistan’s desire for "strategic depth" in Afghanistan.
Fighting terrorists or fighting the Taliban – or indeed, fighting in Afghanistan at all – addresses symptoms rather than the disease in South Asia: the horrific, wasteful, tragic and dangerous six-decade confrontation between India and Pakistan over Kashmir.
This confrontation ravages Afghanistan, where the Northern Alliance, which was organized to fight the Taliban, is backed by money and weapons from India, and militant groups among the southern Pashtuns are backed by Pakistan. It is a big part of why peace eludes the country, even though the Soviets left a generation ago.
Ignore Kashmir, as the United States does, and the conflict seems incomprehensible. Include Kashmir in the picture, and it all makes sense.
At the moment, the Pakistani military uses militant groups to put pressure on India to negotiate, and India uses terrorism as an excuse not to negotiate. By so doing, both sides harm themselves greatly. The vast majority of people in South Asia, who like myself desire peace built on compromise, find our hopes held hostage by security hawks.
The situation is not improving. India’s stance toward Pakistan has hardened since attacks by Pakistan-based militants on Mumbai killed 173 people in 2008. And here in Pakistan, militants are killing even more civilians, police officers and soldiers every month – more than 3,000 Pakistanis in 2009. Some of the preschools I’m considering for my daughter now have snipers on their roofs and steel barricades at their gates.
Meanwhile, the United States has placed 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, where they can do little to eliminate the single biggest problem that nation faces: being made into a battleground by its neighbors.
The United States still sets much of the global agenda. If it hopes to salvage any remotely positive outcome from its massive, nine-year-old war in Afghanistan, then it should move a resolution over Kashmir up on its list of priorities.
Peace in AfPak is failing because the term itself is a willful illusion. Peace in AfPInd will not be easy, but the term rings true, and that at least offers a start.
5) Leaks
Amy Davidson, The New Yorker, August 9, 2010
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2010/08/09/100809taco_talk_davidson
Last September, an assessment of the war in Afghanistan, by the American commander General Stanley McChrystal, was leaked to the press. The timing was not incidental. President Obama was trying to make up his mind about what kind of war he wanted to wage, for how long, and with how many soldiers. McChrystal had a definite opinion: the best way to win was to send forty-five thousand more troops to Afghanistan-the sooner the better.
That same month, American soldiers in Balkh Province, in the north of Afghanistan, were planning a search-and-clear operation. It was not going well. According to a report written by a member of Task Force Warrior, a unit of the 10th Mountain Division, local civilians would not coöperate, whereupon Afghan soldiers and policemen "harassed and beat" them. The area’s residents "had a negative opinion" of their nation’s security forces, the writer noted. A police district commander
"is reported to have had forcible sexual contact with a 16 ye old AC [Afghan civilian] female. When AC from the area went to complain to the ANP [Afghan National Police] district commander about the incident, the district commander ordered his body guard to open fire on the AC. The body guard refused at which time the district commander shot him in front of the AC."
This dispatch was one of some seventy-six thousand classified American military documents, mostly field reports, released online by WikiLeaks, an organization committed to making secrets public.
[…] Almost immediately, a consensus emerged that little in the files was actually secret or new. There is something to that. We did know, in a general sense, much of what they document: that the regime of President Hamid Karzai is corrupt and unpopular, that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency has ties to the Taliban, that too many civilians are dying. There had been reports, including some in this magazine, of targeted killings. And we knew that the Afghan security forces were a disaster, even after we had spent twenty-seven billion dollars to train them. But knowing specifically what happened to a sixteen-year-old girl and to the man who stood up to her alleged rapist-and knowing that her attacker may have been in a position to do what he did because he was backed by our troops and our money-is different.
[…]
6) Build the Ground Zero Mosque
I believe we should promote Muslim moderates right here in America. And why I’m returning an award to the ADL.
Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, August 06, 2010
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/06/the-real-ground-zero.html
Ever since 9/11, liberals and conservatives have agreed that the lasting solution to the problem of Islamic terror is to prevail in the battle of ideas and to discredit radical Islam, the ideology that motivates young men to kill and be killed. Victory in the war on terror will be won when a moderate, mainstream version of Islam-one that is compatible with modernity-fully triumphs over the world view of Osama bin Laden.
As the conservative Middle Eastern expert Daniel Pipes put it, "The U.S. role [in this struggle] is less to offer its own views than to help those Muslims with compatible views, especially on such issues as relations with non-Muslims, modernization, and the rights of women and minorities." To that end, early in its tenure the Bush administration began a serious effort to seek out and support moderate Islam. Since then, Washington has funded mosques, schools, institutes, and community centers that are trying to modernize Islam around the world. Except, apparently, in New York City.
The debate over whether an Islamic center should be built a few blocks from the World Trade Center has ignored a fundamental point. If there is going to be a reformist movement in Islam, it is going to emerge from places like the proposed institute. We should be encouraging groups like the one behind this project, not demonizing them. Were this mosque being built in a foreign city, chances are that the U.S. government would be funding it.
The man spearheading the center, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, is a moderate Muslim clergyman. He has said one or two things about American foreign policy that strike me as overly critical -but it’s stuff you could read on The Huffington Post any day. On Islam, his main subject, Rauf’s views are clear: he routinely denounces all terrorism-as he did again last week, publicly. He speaks of the need for Muslims to live peacefully with all other religions. He emphasizes the commonalities among all faiths. He advocates equal rights for women, and argues against laws that in any way punish non-Muslims. His last book, What’s Right With Islam Is What’s Right With America, argues that the United States is actually the ideal Islamic society because it encourages diversity and promotes freedom for individuals and for all religions. His vision of Islam is bin Laden’s nightmare.
Rauf often makes his arguments using interpretations of the Quran and other texts. Now, I am not a religious person, and this method strikes me as convoluted and Jesuitical. But for the vast majority of believing Muslims, only an argument that is compatible with their faith is going to sway them. The Somali-born "ex-Muslim" writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s advice to Muslims is to convert to Christianity. That may create buzz, but it is unlikely to have any effect on the 1.2 billion devout Muslims in the world.
The much larger issue that this center raises is, of course, of freedom of religion in America. Much has been written about this, and I would only urge people to read Michael Bloomberg’s speech on the subject last week. Bloomberg’s eloquent, brave, and carefully reasoned address should become required reading in every civics classroom in America. It probably will.
Bloomberg’s speech stands in stark contrast to the bizarre decision of the Anti-Defamation League to publicly side with those urging that the center be moved. The ADL’s mission statement says it seeks "to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens." But Abraham Foxman, the head of the ADL, explained that we must all respect the feelings of the 9/11 families, even if they are prejudiced feelings. "Their anguish entitles them to positions that others would categorize as irrational or bigoted," he said. First, the 9/11 families have mixed views on this mosque. There were, after all, dozens of Muslims killed at the World Trade Center. Do their feelings count? But more important, does Foxman believe that bigotry is OK if people think they’re victims? Does the anguish of Palestinians, then, entitle them to be anti-Semitic?
Five years ago, the ADL honored me with its Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize. I was thrilled to get the award from an organization that I had long admired. But I cannot in good conscience keep it anymore. I have returned both the handsome plaque and the $10,000 honorarium that came with it. I urge the ADL to reverse its decision. Admitting an error is a small price to pay to regain a reputation.
Afghanistan
7) Gunmen Kill Medical Aid Workers in Afghanistan
Rod Nordland, New York Times, August 7, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/world/asia/08afghan.html
Kabul – Their last meal was a picnic in the forest in the Sharrun Valley, high in the Hindu Kush mountains of northern Afghanistan. Returning home from a three-week trek on foot to deliver free medical care to the remotest regions of the country, the aid workers – six Americans, a Briton, a German and four Afghans – had just finished eating when they were accosted by gunmen with long dyed-red beards, the police said.
The gunmen marched them into the forest, stood them in a line and shot 10 of them one by one. The police found their bodies, seven men and three women, on Friday, the Badakhshan Province police chief, Gen. Aqa Noor Kentoz, said Saturday.
The attack, the largest massacre in years of aid workers in Afghanistan, offered chilling evidence of the increasing insecurity in the northern part of the country and added to fears that the insurgency has turned even more vicious in recent months.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the killings, accusing the group of being spies and Christian missionaries. Pressured in their traditional strongholds in the south and east by NATO’s growing concentration of forces there, the insurgents have become more active in areas once relatively quiet, like Badakhshan Province.
They have recently jettisoned taboos on using women and children as suicide bombers, and on assassinating tribal elders. Now it appears they have also breached the longstanding custom of providing safe passage to aid workers, who have often been free to work in both government and insurgent-dominated areas.
The police said the group of doctors, nurses and technicians were working for the International Assistance Mission, a Christian aid group that has operated in Afghanistan since 1966. "All indications are this is probably our team," said Dirk Frans, the group’s executive director. "They were on an optometric expedition, running an eye camp."
[…] Mr. Frans confirmed, however, that an Afghan man who survived the attack and later told his story to the police, was the group’s driver. And the local police identified the mission’s team leader, Dr. Tom Little of Delmar, N.Y., as one of the dead.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said that the aid workers had ignored orders from an insurgent patrol to stop and were shot as they tried to flee. He said they discovered among their belongings a Bible in the Dari language widely spoken in Afghanistan, and maps showing Taliban positions in northern Afghanistan. "They were not actually here to provide medication for people, but were here for spying," he said. "The punishment for spying is death."
Mr. Frans said that he doubted the Taliban claim of responsibility, and said the police had told him the probable motive was robbery. The police changed that assessment after interviewing witnesses and on Saturday were saying that the Taliban were responsible.
[…] According to the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, an umbrella group for aid organizations, abductions and assassinations of aid workers have been rising sharply in recent years. Five Doctors Without Borders workers were killed in 2004, and four International Rescue Committee workers were shot to death in a Taliban ambush in 2008.
[…]
Iran
8) The Obama administration is still sleepwalking on Iran
Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy, Friday, August 6, 2010 – 11:52 AM
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/08/06/the_obama_administration_is_still_sleepwalking_on_iran
[…] You can find links to eye-witness accounts of the meeting here, but the gist of the president’s pitch was as follows: 1) Our efforts to isolate Iran are working, and the regime is under growing pressure; 2) We remain open to improved relations with Iran and would welcome the opportunity to cooperate on matters of mutual interest, such as Afghanistan; 3) All Iran has to do is accept our entirely reasonable demand that it cease all nuclear enrichment; 4) Iran isn’t making rapid progress toward a nuclear bomb, so there’s no need for precipitate (i.e., military) action, but 5) All options are still "on the table."
[…] I’d like someone in the administration to be explicit about why they think our current approach is going to deliver any of the tangible things we claim to be want, such as 1) A guarantee that Iran won’t get nuclear weapons, 2) An improved relationship with Tehran, or 3) An end to Iranian support for Hezbollah, etc. It’s always possible that our current policy will eventually cause Iran to simply cave in to our demands, but the extensive literature on the efficacy of economic sanctions doesn’t offer much hope that this will happen soon. It is also possible that the clerical regime might conveniently collapse and be replaced by some version of the opposition, but there’s no reason to think this event is imminent. Indeed, tighter sanctions may even be strengthening the Revolutionary Guards and other pillars of the current regime, for the simple reason that they control key sectors of the illicit economy. And even if we did eventually get some sort of regime change, there is considerable popular support for Iran’s civilian nuclear program and key leaders of the opposition – including former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi – are strong proponents of the program. So why do we think our current policy will bring us what we want?
[…] It’s possible that Obama’s meeting with the journalists was intended to damp down the recent groundswell of voices calling for imminent military action. After all, part of his message was that Iran’s nuclear program isn’t moving that rapidly, so we have lots of time for diplomacy to take effect. I hope that reflects his own views, but there is no reason to believe that the sort of the diplomacy that the administration is currently practicing is going to produce a breakthrough and he’s going to face continued right-wing pressure for a more forceful response.
[…] What if the United States acknowledged that it can’t stop Iran from having control of the full nuclear fuel cycle (at least, not at an acceptable price), and that in all likelihood Iran will end up with a latent "breakout" capability akin to Japan’s? What if we actively tried to construct a deal that kept them from crossing the nuclear threshold and actually testing and deploying a weapon? Have we ever put a proposal like that on the table – one that acknowledged their right to an enrichment program provided they ratified and implemented the NPT Additional Protocol and maybe undertook some other measures designed to reassure us about the peaceful nature of their nuclear program?
An initiative like this would require real patience and might not work, but it would be real diplomacy as opposed to our present policy. Right now, Washington simply assumes that Iran won’t negotiate unless it is coerced into doing so by outside pressure. At the same time, Tehran has made it clear that it wants to negotiate but refuses to do so under pressure. The predictable result is the current stalemate. You’d think the U.S. government could come up with something creative to try to overcome this impasse, instead of just hoping for a miracle.
Pakistan
9) Hard-Line Islam Fills Void In Pakistan’s Flood Response
Adam B. Ellick and Pir Zubair Shah, New York Times, August 6, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/world/asia/07pstan.html
Charsadda, Pakistan – As public anger rises over the government’s slow and chaotic response to Pakistan’s worst flooding in 80 years, hard-line Islamic charities have stepped into the breach with a grass-roots efficiency that is earning them new support among Pakistan’s beleaguered masses.
Victims of the floods and political observers say the disaster has provided yet another deeply painful reminder of the anemic health of the civilian government as it teeters between the ineffectual and neglectful.
The floods have opened a fresh opportunity for the Islamic charities to demonstrate that they can provide what the government cannot, much as the Islamists did during the earthquake in Kashmir in 2005, which helped them lure new recruits to banned militant groups through the charity wings that front for them.
In just two districts in this part of the northwest, three Islamic charities have provided shelter to thousands, collected tens of thousands in donations and served about 25,000 hot meals a day a since last Saturday – six full days before the government delivered cooked food.
"The West says we are terrorists and intolerant, but in time of need, we’re the ones serving the people," said Maulana Yousaf Shah, the provincial leader of one of the groups, Jamiat-ulema-e-Islam.
Mian Adil, the vice chairman of another group, Falah-e-Insaniyat, said the aid he distributed at a center in one of the districts, Nowshera, came with a message attached – "not to trust the government" and its Western allies. Falah-e-Insaniyat is the charity wing and the latest front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group behind the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. Jamaat-ud-Dawa is the political arm of Lashkar, which the United Nations has listed as a terrorist group.
Under pressure since the Mumbai attacks, Jamaat-ud-Dawa had lowered its profile. But now, at least one of its relief centers in Mianwali, in Punjab, boldly flies its trademark flag, displaying a black sword.
The very visible presence of such groups shows they continue to operate openly from their strongholds in Punjab Province, the nation’s heartland, to far-flung corners of the northeast, where they are expanding their legitimacy, and by extension, their ideology.
Their gains come as the United States continues to struggle to win support in the region, despite lavishing billions of dollars in military and civilian aid on Pakistan since 2001 to encourage its help in fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Some experts predicted that the public resentment of the government generated by the floods could erode support from the military’s campaign against the militants, and give a boost to Pakistan’s Islamic parties, which remain small but influential.
A 30-year-old tobacco dealer, Gohar Aman, said he got a taste of the nearly complete absence of the government’s response when he got in his car on Thursday to search for a relief post he could entrust with an $80 donation. For 25 miles all he could find were centers run by hard-line Islamic groups, an unsettling option for a man whose brothers are elected leaders of the governing secular party.
Finally, he settled on the Haqqania Madrasa – a fundamentalist boarding school whose alumni include Jalaluddin Haqqani, who runs the militant network that recruits suicide bombers to strike at coalition forces in Afghanistan from his redoubt inside Pakistan.
The school’s leaders, including the director, Maulana Shah, had converted their buildings just off the main road in Charsadda into a dignified homeless shelter providing hot meals, medical treatment and 24-hour electricity to 2,500 flood victims. "It’s our first time here," said Mr. Aman, giving a wad of cash to the director. "But we see how comfortable the people are living here, and we can’t trust the government."
[…] In places where foreign and government officials retreated for security reasons, the well-mobilized Islamic charities have consistently been a step ahead and penetrated even remote villages with ease, survivors said.
The Islamic charities sprung into action immediately after the floods hit last week, they said, sending a brigade of 4,000 volunteers in Nowshera, in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, to rebuild homes in villages far too dangerous for foreign aid workers to enter.
When asked about the government’s slow response, Maulana Shah, the madrasa director, was dismissive. "They’re your slaves, so why don’t you ask them?" he said, referring to the Pakistani-American ties. He had collected more than $30,000 from private donors since opening the doors of his madrassa, he said.
Officials at one aid center associated with Jamaat-ud-Dawa said that the police tried to dismantle their operation on Tuesday morning as they prepared a breakfast for about 25 flood victims, using an ordinance that prohibited public gatherings without a permit.
The victims protested and pleaded with the police not to shut down a humanitarian service that the government was not providing. They got their way. "They could not put a hand on us," said Farhad Ali, a madrassa teacher who volunteers at the post, "because we were here first and we’re the only ones delivering."
Venezuela/Colombia
10) Venezuela’s Chavez to meet with Colombia’s new leader this week seeking to restore relations
Christopher Toothaker, Associated Press, August 9, 2010, 3:18 a.m.
http://latimes.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-lt-venezuela-colombia,0,6665671.story
Caracas, Venezuela – A bitter diplomatic faceoff between Venezuela and Colombia over allegations President Hugo Chavez let leftist rebels take refuge in his country – a dispute that has seen stinging insults and talk of possible war – could be cooling now that power has shifted in Colombia.
Chavez and Colombia’s new president, Juan Manuel Santos, plan to take the first step toward restoring relations between the South American neighbors Tuesday when they sit down together in Colombia, their foreign ministers announced Sunday.
Both leaders have said they desire friendly and mutually respectful diplomatic ties, a sharp contrast to the acrimonious relations between Chavez and Santos’ predecessor, Alvaro Uribe.
Colombian Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin said the presidents’ meeting will try to smooth over the conflict that boiled over last month when Chavez severed diplomatic ties with Uribe’s government. "We’ve taken this first step … with the objective being the reestablishment of relations between the two countries," Holguin said at a joint appearance in Bogota with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro.
[…] Earlier Sunday, Chavez urged Colombia’s rebels to release their hostages as a means of kick-starting negotiations with Santos on ending the nation’s decades-long armed conflict. His comments appeared to be a show of support for Santos. "Just as one proposes that Colombia’s government seek the path to peace, the guerrillas also must do it," said Chavez.
Then he called on the rebels to release dozens of hostages held in camps located deep within Colombia’s jungles. "Why do the guerrillas have people held hostage?" Chavez asked, suggesting they should not be using kidnapped Colombians to try to negotiate the release of imprisoned rebels.
[…] Chavez said the rebels are mistaken in thinking they can seize power in Colombia through armed struggle. "The Colombian guerrillas don’t have a future through the armed struggle," he said.
–
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.