USBlog

Military Industrial Complex and the Obama Administration

2011-11-25T09:32:00.000-08:00

The military industrial complex is alive and well in the United States despite the deepest economic-financial crisis since the 1930s and unemployment levels topping 9%. And any threat from any quarter to the bloated military budget - which stands at $903 billion in 2011 - is dismissed by scare tactics of huge potential job losses - and of leaving the USA vulnerable to its enemies (without specifying who these enemies might be, given that the US spends vastly more on military hardware than practically the rest of the world put together). By using these arguments, the Obama administration merely shows how deeply embedded it remains in the militarised economy, culture and mindsets of the US foreign policy establishment. And that its attempts at solving the problem of unemployment do not include job-creating investment in education or other socially useful aspects of the domestic economy or society.

Interestingly, there are even voices on the Right, such as Republican hopeful Ron Paul, calling for deep cuts in military spending. Lawrence Korb, former Reagan adminstration appointee, also calls for the reallocation of parts of the huge military budget to domestic projects. Despite this, the 'centrist' Obama continues to pursue a militarist spending programme.

Obama claims that defense cuts will lead to massive job losses, raising a key question: where are the Obama administration's figures about the alleged effects of 'drastic' military spending cuts coming from? From research paid for by the Aerospace Industries Association, Inc, a lobbying organisation at the heart of America's military industries, citing figures generated at George Mason University, a university that comes closest to being a part of the 'conservative establishment'. And they paint a bleak picture of the future should the (very unlikely) military budget cuts transpire.

Yet, currently, the US military budget consumes 25% of the annual federal budget, representing the single largest item of government expenditure. While the health budget costs $882 billion, education comprises a mere $129 billion this year. On the other hand, interest on government debt eats up over $230 billion.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Obama administration has increased military spending in each year of its term of office - from almost $800 billion in 2009 to $847 billion in 2010 (USgovernmentspending.com is a brilliant website for such matters). On the other hand, the gung-ho George W. Bush administration spent a 'mere' $730 billion and $650 billion during its last two years in office.

Despite the shrill warnings from the Obama administration and its arms industry allies, Lawrence Korb, former Reagan era assistant defence secretary, argues that a cut to the military budget of $1 billion would do wonders for domestic unemployment levels: "Applying $1 billion to domestic spending priorities would create far more jobs than the same $1 billion spent on the military, according to a 2009 analysis by Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett Peltier, economists at the University of Massachusetts". He argues further that "spending on educational services creates almost three times as many jobs as military spending, and health care creates almost twice as many." (Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/68505.html#ixzz1ejxeigVP)

Korb goes onto to debunk all AIA's, and the Obama administration's, claims of the impact of military budget cuts: he shows that potential job losses would likely stand at 600,000 not one million. But even more significantly, he exposes the AIA's alleged concerns for Americans' jobs:

Korb shows that in 2004 Congress tried to insert a clause into the National Defense Authorization Act that would have increased the percentage of US-made components of Defense Department purchases to 65 percent of the product, rather than the current 50 percent.

Korb declares that the proposal, which was supported by many small manufacturing companies and unions because it would create jobs in the U.S., "was vehemently opposed by AIA. Why? Because it would cut its members’ profits and make it harder to sell their wares around the world (The U.S. is the global leader in arms sales).

"As a result of AIA’s efforts, the 'buy American' provision, which would have increased employment in the U.S., was dropped. It is clear that the AIA study’s real purpose was to protect not U.S. workers but the group’s profits, which have exploded over the past decade, as spending on modernization doubled in real terms. Moreover, AIA fails to mention that, in the past decade, as a result of the industry’s own business practices, the Defense Department spent $50 billion on weapons that were canceled. Cost overruns of weapons exceeded $300 billion.

"Reducing the defense budget by as much as $1 trillion over the next decade will reduce defense spending in real terms to its fiscal year 2007 level. But it will still keep it above what we spent on average during the Cold War.

That $1 trillion, he argues, "could be used to create at least 2 million new jobs — to replace the 600,000 that could be lost."

Korb is no radical. He's a centrist at best, and the centre has shifted to the right in recent years.

In the Financial Times (23.11.11), Korb is quoted to the effect that US military spending had increased for 13 consecutive years up to 2011, and currently stands 50% higher in real terms than in 2001.

Obama's words about cutting unemployent are as hollow as those of the Aerospace Industries Association. He is the commander-in-chief of the world's sole superpower: and that demands, with his full support, continued massive trillion dollar military budgets. Running a global empire demands nothing less.

President brought needed sobriety to defense debate

By Marion C. Blakey, president  and CEO of Aerospace Industries  Association - 07/19/11 04:44 PM ET

President Obama did more Friday than effectively rule out trillion-dollar defense cuts (“Obama lays down new marker in Defense spending debate,” July 15). He also brought a needed dose of sobriety to the debate, reminding those calling to slash defense during wartime that any cuts must be “consistent with our defense needs and our security needs.”

For months, extreme figures on both the left and right have called for severe cuts that would undermine our dominance in the skies and gut our industrial base and research capabilities for decades.

Almost $200 billion in defense spending has already been placed on the chopping block, a remarkable figure for a nation fighting two wars as well as flying thousands of sorties a month over Libya. Those calling for indiscriminate additional cuts need to explain specifically how such cuts won’t cost jobs or compromise our national security.

The U.S. is second to none in aerospace and defense today. Budget proposals that fail to spell out how we maintain that second-to-none status are not proposals at all, but mere rhetorical posturing. And the abstract calls of some for hundreds of billions in additional cuts don’t seem very sober at all.

Obama Restores Gunboat Diplomacy, Imperial Power

2011-11-05T02:16:00.000-07:00

At a round table discussion a few years back at Durham University, some of us discussed whether the-then President George W. Bush would order the bombing of Iran, such was the hubris of his administration despite setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan. This week, it is revealed that there are contingency plans for Anglo-American military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities (The Guardian, 3.11.11). These come off the back of the general celebration over the great victory in Libya - 'great' because Gaddafi has been overthrown, casualties were "few" (some estimates number well over 10,000), "democratic" forces are now in charge (the Libya Islamic Fighting Group might beg to differ), and an era of peace and prosperity beckons (as lucrative oil and gas contracts and arms deals get signed). A great enemy - a "mad dog" - has been slain, and Obama and his supporters bask in the glory. There is an echo - a fearful, more anxious one but an echo nonetheless - of the great celebrations that followed the collapse of the great enemy in 1989-91 - the Soviet Union.

In the wake of the Soviet meltdown, it was Francis Fukuyama who led the chorus and set the tone for the festivities. Nothing less than 'history' itself, he claimed, had come to an end: liberal democratic capitalism had triumphed - there were no more fundamental problems to be solved. Even so, Fukuyama warned that there would be negative consequences for mankind, i.e., the West: great problems brought to the fore "men with chests" who took on the great struggles and helped resolve contradictions and drove history forward. Along with "history", he argued, "we" would live to lament the loss of history's heroes.

Fukuyama was dismissed by many as a deluded neoconservative extremist. Indeed, his ilk in the George HW Bush administration were labelled "the crazies" - they were that far from the realist and pragmatic Bush-Baker team in the White House.

Today's celebrations are led by Walter Russell Mead in the pages of Foreign Policy, the magazine of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (a 'peace' organisation that supported American entry into World War I). This is instructive as to how far the ideas of the "crazies" of the early 1990s occupy the centre ground of US foreign policy politics today.

Mead sits at the heart of the US foreign policy establishment - Groton, Yale, Harvard, Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Foreign Affairs, the Democratic party, and supporter of the 2003 war of aggression on Iraq - these elite institutions are his past, present and future. His books are reviewed in all the right places. He is described as a centrist liberal-conservative which, today, means he cannot be counted among the "crazies" but is "mainstream".

What does he say about Libya? Well, he invents a new name for Gaddafi - the "Great Loon" - and proceeds to remind us of the way his "lifeless body" was kicked around Sirte, and how the former dictator's allies "are huddled in their homes" fearing retribution from the people Gaddafi "tortured, murdeed and dispossessed" (is Tony Blair really that worried?).

"History", Mead announces, "will not shed any tears over the Loon" - he was the "worst type of ruler". Was Gaddafi worse than any key US allies, like Duarte in El Salvador, or Somoza in Nicaragua? Did Gaddafi kill as many people as were killed on the orders of US presidents in Vietnam or Korea or Cambodia? Did he kill more people than did Suharto in Indonesia? Did not the US use Gaddafi's torture and rendition services when it suited them? This is not to defend Gaddafi's rule - it is to point up the one-eyed analysis of US foreign policy 'centrists' for whom official enemies may be denounced as satanic devils, usually without recourse to comparative evidence.

Gaddafi, we're informed, was worthy of support only by fellow "thugs" Robert Mugabe and Hugo Chavez - conveniently forgetting that law-breakers like Bush and Blair and Obama welcomed and supported Gaddafi after 2003.

The "Great Loon" wrecked his country - which actually had a higher standard of living than its neighbours along with other strong social indicators in education, health, longevity etc..: again, facts cannot be permitted to stand in the way of a good story of enemy evil and American purity.

After all this, the reader will be surprised to read that Mead declares his sadness at the manner of Gaddafi's demise; but his humiliation, like Saddam's, was "deserved": indeed, Mead declares that he "can think of a list of other vain, vicious and delusional tyrants who deserve the same fate" - this quest he calls "universal justice". So much for championing the rule of law and humanitarian values.

And for bombing Libya from high above the clouds, Mead praises the "brave Americans" who helped bring Gaddafi down: how brave is it to bomb with little threat of effective retaliatory action from ground forces?

And that is the most significant import of Mead's article - that the Victory in Libya has restored the balance of power in favour of the West/America to 19th century levels. Bush's freedom agenda, he says, is alive and well, and the US remains a "revolutionary power" in the Middle east, that wants to overturn the "status quo" (excepting Saudi Arabia, he argues, but omitting mention of Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, not to mention Israel).

"The US has considerably more power to impose its agenda on most 'third world' countries than it did twenty years ago," Mead notes. There is no alternative superpower to protect them, and the US military is today "the most effective force in the history of the human race... America's unprecedented military power has changed the way the world works."

The US "swatted" Saddam's forces (twice), while Libya was dealt "with the back of our hand".

"We are back to the kind of military superiority that European forces enjoyed over non-European rulers in Victorian times... Drone strike diplomacy is not all that different from gunboat diplomacy.."

It is ironic that it should be Barack Obama - a Kenyan-American - at the helm while a colonial balance of power is restored.

Red Poppy Obscures history and state responsibility

2011-10-31T00:41:00.001-07:00

As we approach 11 November 2011, and the red poppy once again appears on lapels, Richard Jackson reminds us of what the red poppy symbolises - militarism, unthinking patriotism, a second tax on citizens to make up for the state's refusal to pay the full costs of war, and the forgetting of civilian casualties of war. He urges we wear a white poppy instead which emphasises the need to make peace the cenral value of our society.

Why I wear the White Poppy, not the Red Poppy

October 30, 2011 by richardjacksonterrorismblog

I would wear a red poppy if it was a symbol of remembrance for all the victims of war, and not just the ones who did the killing. By excluding the non-military victims of war from remembrance, the red poppy upholds a moral hierarchy of worthy and unworthy victims: the heroic soldier who is worthy of respect and official commemoration, and the unworthy, unnamed civilians killed or maimed by the heroic soldier who remains unacknowledged and unremembered. This validation of those who wage war and the moral hierarchy of victims is a central part of the cultural architecture which upholds the continuing institution of war in our society. It is a central part of what makes war possible. When the red poppy comes to be associated with an honest public acknowledgement of all the people killed by our soldiers, enemy soldiers and civilians alike; when it symbolizes our sorrow and regret for all the victims of war, not just a chosen few; then I would consider wearing a red poppy.

I would wear a red poppy if it did not function to hide the truth and obscure reality – if it wasn’t a way of enforcing a particular kind of collective memory which is actually designed to forget uncomfortable realities; if it wasn’t intimately tied up with a whole series of myths and untruths about heroic sacrifice and necessary violence in war. The truth is that war is cruel, bloody, and inglorious, and that the soldiers we remember are there to kill and maim fellow human beings, and to die screaming for their mothers. The truth is that when we send soldiers to kill others, we consign those who survive to mental and moral injury; a huge proportion of them will attempt suicide in one way or another after they return home. The truth is that many of our wars are nothing to do with freedom, liberty, or democracy; they are often illegal, pointless, or predatory. When the red poppy is associated with an honest debate on the reality and morality of our wars; when it acknowledges the truth about the horror of war and its often pointless slaughter of our best and brightest; then I would consider wearing a red poppy.

I would wear a red poppy if its fund-raising and symbolism had the true interests of the military personnel it purports to support at heart. The fact is that the best interests of every military person would be to never have to kill or face death or mutilation ever again, and certainly not for the squalid purposes most often dreamed up by our venal and vainglorious politicians. The funds raised by the red poppy should be used to work for the end of all war, not to make up for the short-coming in state support for military personnel or to prepare the nation for the further slaughter of our fellow citizens in future wars.

I would wear a red poppy if it wasn’t a way for the state to offset the costs of war so that it can engage in ever more military adventures. In truth, the state sends the nation’s young people to war and then refuses to spend the necessary money on supporting them when they return home. Buying a red poppy is in effect a second tax for funding war, as it allows the state to spend the money it should have spent on rehabilitation on buying new weapons and training new soldiers. Instead of buying a red poppy, we should demand that the state pay the full support and rehabilitation of all soldiers who need it out of the taxes we have already paid to the military. If this means that there is not enough money for the next military adventure because we are taking care of the last war’s victims, then this is how it should be. It should not be easy for governments to take the decision to go to war; they must pay the full cost. If the red poppy came to symbolize a challenge to government to properly care for service personnel; if it was a means to really question the decision to go to war, instead of implicitly supporting every war regardless of its morality; I would consider wearing a red poppy.

I would wear a red poppy if it wasn’t used socially to enforce an unthinking patriotism, and to punish and discipline those who would question the morality of war or the values of militarism. Those who fervently promote the red poppy often assert that the soldiers we remember fought for our freedom, but this does not include the freedom to question military values or public displays of violent patriotism. Anyone should be allowed to refuse to wear a red poppy in public on the basis of conscience without being questioned or looked down upon, or even to wear a different coloured poppy.

I would wear a red poppy if it wasn’t part of a broader militarism in our society which makes war more likely, rather than less; if it wasn’t bound up with national narratives of heroism and the legitimacy and rightness of military force; and if it wasn’t implicitly supportive of military values. If the red poppy came to symbolize opposition to war and support for peaceful values; I would consider wearing it.

I wear the White Poppy because it is an unambiguous commitment to peace, the end of all war and opposition to militarism. The Red Poppy may have once been part of a commemorative culture shortly after the First World War that was aimed at working towards ensuring that no one ever had to experience the horrors of war again; but this meaning has long since vanished, replaced instead by an insidious military patriotism. The White Poppy is now the main symbol of a commitment to remember all the victims of war, to tell the truth about war, to work to ensure that no soldier ever has to suffer its horrors again, and to make peace the central value of our culture, instead of militarism.

Libya Expose Obama's Contradictions

2011-10-30T03:38:00.000-07:00

Libya's contradictions are real enough and devastating in their consequences. But a couple of points missed by most commentators are worthy of note, adding to the strange mix of motives and actions that are the principal feature of the situation in and surrounding Libya. Possessing NO weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is no guarantee of regime survival; and having a black president in the White House offers no gurantees that the incumbent will stand up for blacks' rights.

The first, and most significant point, is this: that not having, or even planning, or surrendering in full view of the "international community" (i.e., the American hegemon and its, mainly western, core allies) one's weapons of mass destruction programmes, is no guarantee that the West will not continue to nurture the desire or to attempt forcible regime change.

It will be recalled that the erstwhile dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, was removed from power due to his alleged WMD stockpiles, primed for action at 45 minutes' notice, the Britain's Tony Blair regime claimed, despite all the evidence compiled by Hans Blix's UN inspection teams. There "had" to be WMD in Iraq, so they were manufactured by false intelligence reports.

It was in the wake of that blatant violation of international law and the UN charter that Libya's Colonel Gaddafi gave up on his WMD programmes and embraced, and was embraced by, the West. And, despite that, or perhaps because of that "deadly embrace", the former Libyan dictator lies buried in the middle of the desert in an unmarked grave, brought down by NATO firepower. No claim this time round of WMD programmes as an excuse for intervention - but recourse to the favoured post-1989 rationale of "humanitarian intervention", a justification that proved enough to obtain a figleaf resolution at the UN Security Council, but was revealed as precisely that when Tomahawk Cruise missiles began raining down on Gaddafi's military forces, command and control centres, and private residences. The switch from humanitarian intervention to regime change was immediate and obvious, with results now apparent to all observers.

The lessons from this for Iran and Syria are all too clear - take the "North Korean" route and develop WMD as soon as possible, because the Western 'hand of friendship' which Obama proffers is just the beginning of a new phase of intervention with a view to regime change.

It is instructive that in proffering a hand of friendship, Obama's approach is identical to that of his predecessor, President George W. Bush. Far from being a break with the past, Obama's administration has just picked up where Bush's left off, although Obama clearly delivers a better speech to justify his actions.

One issue Obama has yet to make a speech about, however, is what's been happening to thousands of black Libyans and other black people who live and work in Libya as migrant labour. For many months both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty have noted the indiscriminate killing, detention and abuse of black Africans by so-called rebel forces, under the false argument that the former were mercenary fighters for Gaddafi. Despite reports from reputable sources, Obama has yet to speak up for the rights of black Africans.

This is hardly surprising: Obama has yet to speak up for the rights of black Americans. Atlantic Magazine noted some time ago that President Obama was seen by whites as a "no demands black" - a black American politician who did not demand radical change or redistribution of resources from better off whites to poor minorities.

They were right then, and they're right now as Obama exports his domestic policy. Because, even when it comes to the killing of blacks in Africa, Obama demands nothing.

Liam Fox et al: Corruption in domestic and foreign policy

2011-10-18T03:35:00.000-07:00

Liam Fox has, rightly, been lambasted for his indiscretions as Defence Secretary and resigned in shame. His 'crime' - the one for which he was punished by a relentless media campaign - was that he may have benefited financially from arms and other deals done by his corrupt friend and unofficial adviser, Adam Werrity. Well and good.

What has hardly stirred the hearts or minds of the British media or political class is all the more instructive of their moral condition at this point in the 21st century: the pummelling of Gaddafi stronghold, Sirte, in Libya at the loss of countless lives, by the NATO-backed 'rebel' National Transitional Council's troops, followed by reports from the Washington Post and Reuters of looting on a massive scale, revenge killings, and a spiraling number of refugees from the war-torn city. No talk of humanitarian interventions any longer - the original fig-leaf for the Cameron-Sarkozy-Obama war on Libya.

Nor have recent events in Egypt - army-led and inspired divide and rule violence against Coptic Christians, leaving dozens dead and injured - led to any denunciations of, or sanctions against, the US-backed military regime that is supposedly the vehicle for a transition to democracy there. The Egyption army attacked and closed TV stations that showed army violence against peaceful protestors, moving one protestor to comment: "this is not religious strife, it is state-sponsored terrorism." (The Guardian, 15.10.11).

Nor was Liam Fox unduly detained or quizzed, while Defence secretary, by the exposure that he had effectively misinformed the country and Parliament time and again about the burgeoning costs of Britain's war in Libya. According to military journalist, Francis Tusa, who has dug deeper than anyone else into the murky world of the MoD's Orwellian accounting system, the real costs of Britain's military campaign in Libya is between £850 to £1.75 billion, NOT the ca £250 million figure bandied about by Liam Fox and his official advisers, and the official opposition foreign affairs spokesman, Douglas Alexander.

When it comes to foreign wars and military interventions, money appears to be no object. Take the estimated costs of the illegal Iraq war, for example: up to March 2010, Britain spent over £9 billion on the war there. In Afghanistan, over £11 billion has been expended since 2001, with other long term costs accumulating. No talk of deep cuts for foreign adventures, despite deep cuts to domestic social programmes.

Corruption - official and unofficial - is alive and well at the very apex of the British state and national life.

Political corruption is normal politics

2011-10-17T10:56:00.000-07:00

Millionaires control British politics

Liam Fox's resignation has highlighted a deeper corruption in British politics and national life - over and above the goverment's slavishness towards American power: when free market capitalism becomes national ideology, the so-called drivers of growth and creators of wealth - private businessmen and major corporations - move into the very heart of the state, while practically all other political and social forces are elbowed out. With government and opposition armed with free market ideology, why wouldn't every problem look like it must have a private, 'big-monied' society solution?

It is hardly news to point out that the current British government of 'liberal-conservatives' is mired in free markets and corporate wealth, with social backgrounds to match: including premier David Cameron and his deputy, Nick Clegg, The Sunday Times counted 18 millionaires in the "austerity cabinet" (Sunday Times, 23.5.10).

The government's foreign and national security policy is in the hands of a group predominantly educated at exclusive public schools and Oxbridge, with previous careers in the City of London and big business. The Sunday Times calls them the "New Establishment...a new elite... pulling the strings in Britain".

And they govern as would be expected by any semi-impartial observer - an open door policy for practically anyone in big business to saunter into the most guarded of ministries, including the Ministry of Defence. Today's Guardian (17.10.11) provides the details on an open secret - that this government is wide open for business and wide shut to practically anyone else. While private corporations were met with by ministers across Whitehall over 1000 times in the 12 months to March 2011, trade union representatives were greeted under 100 times, while charities were entertained 640 times. The message is clear - working class politics (what's left of it) is out; corporate politics, with charities to look after the social fall out, is in.

In political science's mainstream, this is known as 'pluralism' - where competing interests ensure that no one interest predominates and the political system tends towards 'balancing' interests, producing governments that preside over the 'national' interest. How precisely do ordinary working people compete with corporate power?

The putative vehicle for the politics of the oppressed has embraced the free market, with some protections, itself, since the advent of New Labour. The last government also featured several millionaires, businessmen, and had cosied up to the City since the mid-1990s, and fetishised the 'market' to such a degree that it brought the 'market' itself into disrepute.

Ironically, it was a man called (Ralph) Miliband who wrote most cogently on this question, when David (Miliband) was still wearing short trousers, and Ed was yet to be born. In his classic study, The State in Capitalist Society (1969), Miliband argued that British (and Western) political systems were dominated by big business and their supporters who also determined the character of the 'national' interest in such a way that it enshrined the interest of big business into its very heart. Consequently, political philosophies and arguments could not be brooked that failed to take into account their impact on 'business confidence' and the 'markets', international or national.

Analysing the rest of the state, Miliband argued that the civil service, military, judiciary, BBC, among others, were led by (mainly) men drawn from the same elitist social backgrounds as the political elite, further reinforcing the 'conservative' character of the British state, and acting as a brake on radical political agendas.

Labour governments in the postwar era were structurally constrained by the character of the British state as well as the generalised power of big business over economic affairs and policy, not to mention 'popular' culture and thinking. But Miliband also emphasised that the Labour party was no vehicle for revolutionary transformation but a symptom of the development of capitalist industrialism, seeking concessions from big business and some measure of social protection for workers. In the main, Labour governments managed capitalism rather than damaging or undermining it.

Furthermore, Labour leaders were hardly revolutionary, even in the nationalising phase of 1945-50: Clement Attlee was educated at Haileybury College, an elite public school established by the East India Company to train its servants for service in the empire. Attlee's foreign secretary, Ernest Bevin, who had headed the massive Transport and General Workers' Union since the 1920s, was authentically working class, of course, and offers an excellent example of how such individuals rise to the top of the greasy pole of British politics. He was deeply anti-communist and, like the majority of his party, an imperialist. Where the likes of Churchill openly declared Britain superior to all other races and nations and therefore justified in exploiting and dominating the colonies, Bevin et al wanted to 'develop' the 'backward' countries for the 'betterment' of their peoples. The old imperial ties and connections were maintained, despite (or because of) 'de-colonisation', along with Britain's large, but diminishing, global role.

While the benefits of a welfare state, inaugurated in 1945-50, are undoubted, it remained the case that at a fundamental level, the Labour project was at heart an ameliorative one of reforming capitalism and offering workers social protection from 1930s-style economic crises and deprivations. It did not fundamentally challenge 'market supremacy' in economic policy and the distribution of income and wealth.

Hence, we now have a situation where the government and opposition are dominated by rich and exclusively educated individuals, market-oriented in 'philosophy', and unrepresentative of the broad mass of British people. They claim to champion 'new politics' but are mired in the British aristocracy and the mindsets of the City of London. Like its American counterpart, British politics now features just one ideology - focused on free market economics and regular elections between parties that manage capitalism. There is a Centre, a Right but no Left in British politics.

When Cameron says that Britain is 'broken' he means that ordinary people are to blame for moral decline. He should look a bit closer to home - and his offices in Downing Street - to find the real heart of moral corruption in this country.

British-American Project Needs Investigation Too

2011-10-16T06:52:00.000-07:00

Although former British Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, has been forced to resign because of his relationship with an unofficial adviser, Adam Werrity, the saga reveals another example of the numerous networks - pretty much all of them under the cover of being non-political and/or charitable - that operate to strengthen and consolidate the so-called special relationship between Britain and the United States.

The Fox-Werrity Atlantic Bridge organisation was wound up earlier this year after the charities' commission ruled it had no charitable functions or benefits and seemed largely a vehicle for channeling funds in Werrity's personal direction. Yet, the political functions of the Atlantic Bridge, which unified elements of Britain's and America's aggressively interventionist establishments, should not be overlooked. Its members included William Hague, the current foreign secretary, as well as George Osborn, the chancellor of the exchequer; American members included US Senator Joe Lieberman, the Democratic hawk who backed the Iraq War. Its neoconservative ethos of aggressive support for military intervention is shared by PM David Cameron - as evidenced by his enthusiasm in backing military force to oust Colonel Gaddafi from office in Libya.

Yet, it is not only the extreme right in British and American 'mainstream' politics that maintains such 'charitable' networks: the British-American Project, funded by major oil and other corporations and by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the subject of little public awareness or enquiry, represents a similar network on the centre-left, along lines Tony Blair and Gordon Brown would have approved. Indeed, it complemented the various schemes under which the future leaders of 'New' Labour were primed for high office, under the tutelage of the FCO's Jonathan Powell, who later went on to become Blair's chief of staff. Indeed, Powell was a member of BAP, as was David Miliband for many years.

What precisely does BAP do that is 'beneficial'? Is it not overtly political in its aims of developing and nurturing British elites to steer a path close to Washington's? Does it also benefit from tax exemptions under charities law?,

The BAP is a political project aimed at incorporating and developing rising stars in Britain - in a diverse range of fields - and ever so subtly helping them conclude that the United States - for all its faults - remains the power to which Britain's own chariot must remain hitched. The propaganda, to be sure, is subtle and needs to be - the sort of people attracted - whether Trevor Phillips of the Equalities Commission or Yasmin Alibhai Brown or Anatol Lieven, all critics of George W. Bush's adventurism - are not dupes. Yet, it is the very presence of such 'critics' that lends such weight to BAP.

Famously, Henry Kissinger ran for over 20 years a transatlantic organisation out of Harvard University for the very same ends - a bridge between Europe's emerging leaders who appeared seduced by 'neutralism' between the US and USSR and the American foreign policy establishment. It cemented relations that endure to this day. They made possible almost seamless cooperation between the foreign policies of Labour's Tony Blair and Republican George W. Bush, and the current cooperation between Democratic Obama and 'liberal-conservative' David Cameron.

The power of networks is considerable - they ensure the flow of money, people, and ideas that strengthen certain lines of thought and action while simultaneously marginalising others. Networks tend to legitimise some ideas and policies, making them 'normal' or 'conventional', beyond dispute at basic level. They tend to unify a range of people and organisations -public and private - and help develop new ideas or leaders. Being elite networks, they are by definition well connected with the media and politics and thereby gain a broader audience, skewing the 'free market of ideas' in specific directions.

The Atlantic Bridge has been exposed for its overtly political character: perhaps the British American Project should be subject to much closer investigation too?

Libya is a mass of contradictions

2011-09-25T04:55:00.000-07:00

Libya is a mass of contradictions

However history judges the meaning of the current events in Libya, one conclusion might be hard to dismiss: that the situation there is a mish-mash of contradictions that appear to defy logic, in the conventional sense of that term. But there is at its heart of the Libya intervention what might be called imperial-political logic: my enemy's enemy is my friend (at least for now). It makes for an explosive brew, pregnant with potential for violent blowback in all directions - the western powers that led the charge, the various factions collectively known as the 'rebels' but, most of all, to the Libyan population at large in whose name, and for whose alleged protection or advancement, the west intervened.

Originally touted as a UN-authorised intervention to impose a 'no-fly zone' over Libya, the US fired dozens of million-dollar Tomahawk missiles at Gaddafi regime targets from the outset, deliberately aiming at regime change, a goal rhetorically rejected as an object of US and western policy but aimed at nonetheless. It is crystal clear that a policy claiming to protect civilians, aspects of which are contested by human rights monitoring organisations like Amnesty, by attacking Gaddafi forces instantly transformed into military belligerence on behalf of one side of the domestic conflict as NATO rained bombs from the skies through thousands of airstrikes. The legitimacy of the intervention was, and remains, in doubt. To argue that the UN gave authorisation for intervention was exposed as a sham as soon as the US and Anglo-French forces started attacking Gaddafi's infrastructure. That the Arab League, originally established with British colonial-era support, provided legitimacy was always hollow - the likes of Saudi Arabia and Qatar and other ‘conservative’ Gulf States repress their populations and put down domestic rebellions with ruthless force, and are hardly bastions of human rights and democratic virtue. Indeed, alongside support for Western intervention in Libya, the Saudis and others were busy putting down with military force uprisings in Bahrain.

Neither UN authority nor Arab League support legitimised intervention in a civil war, particularly the kind of selective interventions that are the hallmark of imperial powers.

On the other hand, it is interesting that the 'rebels' of the National Transitional Council (NTC) are a mixed, and contradictory, bag: there are former CIA agents in the lead, some people who have yet openly to be named, as well as people who support Al Qaeda and have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan against US and western forces. The legitimacy of the NTC is pretty tenuous (The Economist, 27.8.11), while the right-wing Daily Mail (24.8.11) referred to Britain’s favoured Libyan groupings as “a rackety gang of incompetents and hoodlums”. The Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), largely based in Benghazi, Darnah and Tobruk, all in eastern Libya, supplied more suicide bombers to the 'cause' in Iraq, per capita, than did Saudi Arabia. According to a 2007 paper by West Point academics, Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman, based on 600 Al Qaeda personnel files seized by US forces in Iraq, Darnah supplied one fighter in Iraq for every 1500 of its population, a higher proportion than Riyadh. It was from this area that a major Islamist-led uprising against the Gaddafi regime occurred in 1996.

Echoes of the US (and Pakistani) creation of al Qaeda in Afghanistan in the 1980s to fight the Soviet Union are all too clear, and the possibility of blowback from support of LIFG and affiliates appears to be downplayed. One would think that with the approach of the 10th anniversary of 9-11, the west would reflect on its past practices and learn some valuable lessons.

The goals of the US and those of LIFG are not identical once Gaddafi has been definitively deposed. The people who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, and presumably will continue to do so, are unlikely to cooperate with increased western control of national resources in oil and gas, of which Libya has 46.4 billion barrels of oil reserves and 55 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the 9th highest proven reserves in the world. They will want to create a very different type of internal regime and culture, with a very different idea of foreign policy.

A current military commander of rebel forces – Khalifa Hifter - defected from Libya in the late 1980s and lived just 5 miles from CIA HQ at Langley, Virginia. Closely associated with a CIA-funded organisation for Libya's salvation, Hifter is for all intents and purposes a CIA asset. He headed for many years a contra-style organisation called the Libyan National Army (Washington Post, 26.3.1996).

Another leading figure among rebels is Abdel Hakim Belhaj - who was renditioned, tortured and held without charge by Britain with US support, and the assent of the Gaddafi regime, for 6 years. He is currently thinking over whether to sue the British government over his maltreatment.

The 'rebels' are actually made up of dozens of factions, possibly up to 40 in total, who owe only slight loyalty to the NTC which is a largely Benghazi-based organisation, representing various tribes that predominate in that region. And, according to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International (September/October 2011), they have engaged in murderous racial attacks on black Libyans they have erroneously declared mercenaries for Gaddafi. Tribally-based, it is not clear that the NTC has legitimacy across the country as it embarks on 'nation-building' with western support.

This national revolution contains another contradiction: it's not national, and its revolutionary credentials are contested. The 'rebels' have come to power due to NATO's military might in knocking out the bulk of Gaddafi's military forces, as well as various western special forces on the ground who coordinated the rebel armies and identified targets for airstrikes. That is a contradiction that will haunt this 'revolution' - led by Islamist militants, tribal leaders, monarchist exiles, and former Gaddafi regime high officials. They have already promised lucrative contracts to rebuild Libya's rich and ‘sweet’ oil fields and refineries, and its infrastructure. Every western country - as are Russia and China - is lining up to reap the fruits of their state's military investments. As the Daily Telegraph reported (23.8.11), Britain is determinedly seeking to “recover commercially some measure of [its]… significant diplomatic and military investment.” Gaddafi - according to many reports - including US embassy cables released by Wikileaks - was increasingly engaging in "resource nationalism" against foreign, mainly western, oil companies, demanding more and more nationalist concessions, and possibly expulsion of non-compliant foreign corporations.

The declarations from practically all parts of the political spectrum that Libya was a humanitarian intervention may be deafening but they are nonetheless problematic. Libya is an imperial intervention, a colonial intervention that has not only secured control of scarce energy resources - a key force in the west's increasingly fraught contest with rising powers in the east - but also placed in virtual power a far more compliant regime in Tripoli. Libya has also placed the west back in the ‘good’ books of broad swathes of Arab opinion, for now at least.

In Tony Blair's memoir - A Journey (2010)- he reflects on the history of foreign interventions in Afghanistan, claiming that he knew all that there was to know about the unhappy fate that has met every foreign occupier there. Yet, Blair fully supported an invasion and occupation of that tragic country. 10 years later, the bloodbath continues there.

Imperial leaders believe that they can overcome, despite history. They cannot help themselves. It is the very essence of their imperial mentality that they know best, that they will prevail. To achieve short term objectives, they side with all manner of 'allies' - empowering all sorts of people whose longer term goals are very different.

Therein lies the fatal flaw in imperial-political logic.

Military schools miss the target

2011-09-04T09:19:00.000-07:00

The Cameron Government is encouraging the formation of a 'free school' in Manchester (the Phoenix school) - funded by the state - that is to be run entirely by former soldiers. According to The Sunday Times (4.9.11), the new school is to operate a "zero tolerance" approach to indiscipline, the malady the government most obviously identified as the principal cause of the riots across England's cities in August 2011.

This announcement, first made public in The Guardian (2.9.11), comes hot on the heels of a declaration that the American "zero tolerance" policing champion, William Bratton, was to be considered for the post of Commissioner at London's Metropolitan Police because of his record in tackling gang culture in New York and Los Angeles; in the wake of a proposed Sandhurst-style police training college to create an officer class, packed with former soldiers and intelligence officials, among police that would be a precursor to an American-style FBI; and amid calls for the return of 'national service'.

The above indicate worrying levels of militarism and coercion in national life, the insertion of "martial values" ever deeper into the social and psychological fabric of British society. Britain is at war in two theatres - Libya and Afghanistan - and also leading the EU's efforts at sanctions against Syria. Pro-military charities are evident in schools, nurseries and communities, military personnel appear on a range of television programmes.

The latest announcement, however, would institutionalise martial culture in the very curriculum of a state-funded school. Commented the Phoenix school's likely headteacher, Captain Affan Burki: "All the old rememdies for poverty, underachievement and alienation have been tested to destruction. The consequences were starkly before us on the streets of Tottenham and Croydon."

According to Burki, echoing the government's thoughts about broad and deep moral decay as a source of the English riots, "...before we put troops on the streets we should consider putting them in our schools".

What will troops do in the schools? Despite claims that there would be no parade ground humiliation rituals for wayward behaviour, it is instructive that schools' secretary, Michael Gove, has recently scrapped the requirement for teachers to record every instance of corporal punishment, opening the door to harsher disciplinary regimes. In language all too familiar in an imperial culture, Gove aims, thereby, to restore "civilised " behaviour among "a vicious, lawless, immoral minority". It's the language used by many before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, only now it's being deployed at home.

What's wrong with that? Surely, there must be discipline? Of course, but the problem with the series of proposals and plans discussed above is that they suggest that the solution to Britain's problems of crime and disorder lie almost entirely in better behaviour among the children of the poor. And that solving the behavioural problem will generate youth capable of taking advantage of what opportunities there might be in terms of education and work. Herein lies the major flaw.

The vast majority of rioting youth arrested and prosecuted after the riots are from very poor neighbourhoods which have lost jobs at a faster rate than the rest of the country. Over 40% of defendants live in the top 10% of the most deprived places in the country, according to Liverpool University's Alex Singleton. The Institute of Public Policy Research argues that defendants come from areas of "stubbornly high" child poverty rates and low educational attainment.

The youth and community budgets in those areas are earmarked for deep cuts, as are other public services on which those communities in particular depend. Rates of unemployment in poor areas are 3-4 times the national average. In that context, morality and behaviour are marginal as causes of alienation: it is the very physical, economic and social fabric of stability, legitimate opportunity and progress that is missing, allowing little or no room for ambition, initiative and endeavour.

Getting school children to listen more to their military mentors won't change that.

Is All Violence Unjustified?

2011-08-05T07:57:00.000-07:00

Richard Jackson posted aan article on his blog recently - an excellent post – raising a number of very interesting issues (see below). Basically, violence of any kind and under any circumstances, he argues, is unjustified. I raise a number of issues with this view

Is violence never justified? How about in self-defence and in a proportionate degree and manner? Surely, if one of the victims of the Anders Brevik had picked up a gun, if available, or a stick and hit him with to prevent him from doing even more killing, that cannot be classified as equivalent to what Brevik was doing – an unjustifiable violent aggression against unarmed civilians? On a larger canvas, is violence such as used by the ANC to resist apartheid unjustified and the ‘same’ as the violnce of the apartheid state?

And, on non-violence: can it not be argued that the political strategies of the two major exemplars of non-violence, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, jr., required state or other violence in order for the non-violent to make their moral case?

I won’t even mention what anyone opposed to nazi aggression in the 1930s and WWII was supposed to do to overcome that particular foe?

I guess my point is that ‘violence’ needs to be seen in context – why is it being carried out, to what end and purpose, whether defensive or offensive, rather than being condemned as negative, regardless of the circumstances.

Understanding the Oslo Attacks: “It’s the Violence, Stupid!”

July 27, 2011 by richardjacksonterrorismblog

It is very doubtful that Anders Breivik is insane; terrorists very rarely are, because they would not be able to effectively carry out their attacks if they were prone to anxiety, doubt, depression, mania or mental instability. If we want to understand why he chose to commit these horrible acts, we need to look closer to home and consider the central role of violence in our culture, in particular, the almost universally accepted and commonsense idea that violence can sometimes be the right thing to do – that violence can be an effective and legitimate tool to bring about positive political change. It was this widely-shared belief that Anders Breivik was acting on; it is the same belief that our leaders act on when they bomb and invade other countries to try and bring about democracy. It is, in fact, the same belief that drives all forms of political violence, from terrorism to war, humanitarian intervention and capital punishment.

In other words, it is a simplification and a distraction to assume that it was his extremist right-wing ideas or his desire to rid Europe of Muslims that made Anders Breivik commit mass murder in Norway last week. After all, there are probably millions of people across Europe who hold to very similar beliefs without ever considering going out and slaughtering children. These ideological beliefs were merely the justification he used to rationalize his decision to use violence, and the way he strengthened his resolve to act. All violent actors use ideological justifications to justify using extreme violence, such as when politicians claim they have to bomb a country in order to bring about democracy or create greater security. This is a reason for the violence, not its cause.

The fact is: extremist ideology or particular political creeds do not cause violence in the sense commonly meant, nor is violence the direct consequence of any particular set of beliefs. Violence has been committed by, and continues to be committed by, all belief systems and ideologies: fascists, nationalists, communists, socialists, democrats, patriots, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, and even humanitarians. People from all these faiths and creeds regularly commit, and almost universally support, certain forms of political violence. At the same time, the fact is that most people who hold to a particular belief system or ideology chose not to use violence and instead to pursue their goals non-violently – although most do support forms of military violence.

The real problem is not ideology or belief therefore, it is violence and the decision to use it. It is the almost universally accepted idea that violence can be an effective and legitimate way to achieve a good political goal, whether it is ending an occupation, ridding the world of a dictator, eliminating a threat to one’s way of life, stopping human rights abuses or resolving conflict. The real problem is the widely accepted belief that killing and injuring thousands of fellow human beings may be a way to do something positive in the world – the idea that violence can be good if it is done in the right way by the right people.

This idea is embedded in our culture and our politics. We give children toy weapons and violent video games to play with, and teach them to kill the ‘bad guys’ for hours at a time. We watch ‘good people’ – cops, vigilantes, soldiers, spies – killing all the ‘bad people’ on television and movies a thousand times a day. We consume violence in comics, novels, songs, cartoons, plays, and a thousand other cultural artifacts without question. Our societies maintain powerful militaries which are almost universally supported and valorized as heroic and necessary. We commemorate and celebrate military victories and military sacrifice in the name of freedom and democracy through regularly held national ceremonies, and in the statues and plaques which adorn every town and church. We have entire economic industries which research and make new weapons by the ton, which we then export all over the globe until you can buy an automatic weapon for a few dollars almost anywhere in the world. And our politicians launch wars and military interventions regularly and without significant opposition to solve their political conflicts or to try and bring about the political goals they want to achieve.

The fact is that we live in a culture of violence, and most of us accept and celebrate violence and agree that violence can often be the right thing to do. The hard truth is that as a society, we love violence; we are addicted to it, especially as entertainment or jobs. Anders Breivik loved it too, as photos showing him holding weapons and dressing up in military style gear reveals. We may try to maintain a separation between ‘good’ kinds of violence and ‘bad’ kinds of violence, but violence is always unjust and bad to its victims: a child killed by a NATO bomb is just as dead and her parents suffer equally to the child killed in the name of a Muslim-free Christian Europe. We may try and devise ways to control when violence is used, who it is used by and how much violence may be applied, but such justifications – just war theories – have failed to control or limit violence for thousands of years. The fact is that we live in the most war-like, aggressive and violent period in human history; within our lifetime, our societies have killed hundreds of millions of people in hundreds of the most vicious and deadly wars in history, and there are dozens of violent conflicts going on right now.

The only possibility for really ending violence and stopping people from using it is to de-legitimise it completely – to make it as abhorrent as slavery and racism now are. If we want some people to stop using violence, we must all stop using it. To do this, we will have to face up to our deep love affair with and acceptance of violence, and try much harder to change our violent culture and our violent politics. We will have to take the philosophy and values of non-violence seriously.

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British Militarism Marches On

2011-07-26T10:11:00.000-07:00

It's not enough that retired colonels in hotel lobbies drone on about their military campaigns and kill ratios; the Conservative government's latest wheeze is to recycle former senior military and intelligence officers into an "officer class" of Britain's police forces. Plans are being floated of a Sandhurst-style police training facility to improve the quality of policing, as well as to develop a US-style FBI, a national police force.

In truth, this has been on the cards: British police increasingly resemble soldiers in terms of their uniforms, equipment, helmets, vehicles. It is staggering to think that back in 1981, when youth riots and uprisings hit Britain, police were reduced to using dustbin lids for protection. It was shortly after that that Margaret Thatcher's "stop youth in their tracks" policies really took hold, and we saw the appointment of a Metropolitan police commissioner, Newman, with experience of policing the north of Ireland. One assumes that the Cameron government is preparing the Eton Rifles for service against British people squeezed out of their jobs and pensions and benefits.

But the open espousal of plans to place former soldiers in the top ranks of the police suggests that the militarisation of practically all aspects of national life marches on. We have nursery militarism, military charities working in schools, broadcast on popular entertainment programmes at peak time, and the virtual hijacking of poppy day by the British Legion which has come under fire for militarising what is supposed to be a solemn remembrance of men and women who were killed in war and a reaffirmation of the universal desire for peace. And we know that, as a matter of policy, the British military recruits virtual child soldiers at the tender age of 16 years on the basis of some semblance of a career for kids from council estates. We also know that the British military welcomes the impacts on kids of air shows and military parades, with all their pomp and ceremony and colour, as it sows a seed that latter germinates into signing up. No mention of death and destruction, of unjust wars.

It is also interesting that the crisis in the Metropolitan police brought to attention by their extremely close and corrupt relationship with News International is being used as a lever to inaugurate change in the police. Meanwhile, the larger lessons of the Murdoch empire's behaviour, that a media in the hands of a tiny number of large corporations is corrosive of free speech and democracy, and that successive governments have been in hock to Murdoch appears, to have slid onto the inside pages of most newspapers. No calls there for a radical shake up of media ownership laws.

The Conservative government may well plan deep cuts in military spending but it is clear, from its leading role in the intervention in Libya's internal affairs, and in its other actions and plans, that it still marches to a militarist tune. And the full brunt of that militarism is to be faced by those who protest against job losses, cuts to benefits and university places, those very often who have very little in the first place. What more could be expected from the most elitist Cabinet in recent history?

Reagan - warmonger and reactionary who waged war on the poor

2011-07-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

It is only fitting that the current British government unveils a new statue of Ronald Reagan, while a war rages in Libya, a country the US illegally bombed back in the 1980s, while Reagan was president and Margaret Thatcher the UK's premier. Of course, US bombers took off from UK bases which Mrs Thatcher had considered entirely appropriate.

In those days, the Reagan administration backed or fomented many civil and other wars around the world - via the "sons of Reagan" murderous Contras in Nicaragua against the democratic government of Nicaragua, built up the Osama bin Laden-led forces of Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan, militarily intervened in Grenada, sold arms to Iran, backed Saddam's war of aggression against Iran in which around a million people were killed. Claims by human rights organisations - backed by evidence - that Iraq used chemical weapons during the war on the West's (and their repressive friends in the Gulf) biggest 'enemy' were rejected as inadequate by the British and American authorities. The world lives even today with the fruits of Reagan's achievements.

Reagan's greatest achievement was in pulling the US out of the national hand-wringing that arose from the war of aggression in Vietnam, where ca 2 million Vietnamese lost their lives, alongside around 55,000 US servicemen, mostly conscripts, and the coruption at the heart of America's politics exposed by the Watergate scandal. Reagan taught America that it was "morning again" and time to walk tall and to not worry too much about the costs of America's past aggressions, but instead to celebrate her achievements. President Carter had begun the process but Reagan completed it. Eliding history is a core principle for imperial powers.

At home, Reagan did his level best to reverse the gains of the civil rights movement, cutting the largest welfare bureaucracies that employed minority workers the most, and radically increasing racialised social polarisation. For white workers, Reagan was no better, despite electoral backing from that grouping. Reagan famously declared that he did not care what the US produced - potato chips or microchips, so deindustrialising America was no problem for the millionaires who backed and gained most from the ' no taxation with full representation' Reagan Revolution. America's rotting cities are a testament to the Reagan revolution.

President Barack Obama declared an interest in learning lessons from Reagan.

In the 1980s, we talked of the 'Reagan Revolution', a metaphor for reversing the legacies - what was left of them - of the New Deal, inaugurated by Reagan's original inspiration, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Resurrecting Reagan today is to empower and encourage the most reactionary elements of US imperial power and their supporters in this country. It is to declare that might is right and wars of aggression will continue. It is to confirm America's self-serving right to continue its imperial mission.

But there was another, alternative 1980s too: one in which there was mass opposition to US militarism and its Thatcherite backers, and a slogan was advanced across Europe when Reagan visited 10 Downing Street and the other capitals of Europe: "Yankee Assassin Go Home!"

There may not be a statue to mark that resistance, but it remains a powerful legacy nevertheless.

Obama's "deep cuts" in military spending largely illusory

2011-06-29T05:13:00.000-07:00

A couple of months ago, President Obama announced 'deep cuts' in US military spending, sending signals to hopeful liberals and pessimistic conservatives alike. But, as is so frequently the case with Barack Obama's announcements, rhetorical flourishes need unpacking, and who better to open up this matter than someone who's job it is to read the fine print and tell us what the 'deep cuts' announcement actually means.

Not very much, as it turns out. Despite being the 'soft power' president, offering the hand of friendship rather than a clenched fist to the world, Brack Obama continues to pursue policies that fit right in with his Republican predecessor. 50 years and a few short months after President Eisenhower's warnings about the corrosive effects of a 'military-industrial complex', President Obama continues to fund, empower and encourage the most aggressive and militaristic elements of American society, economy and polity.

The author of the article reprinted below from a blog at Forbes magazine is:

Loren Thompson is Chief Operating Officer of the non-profit Lexington Institute and Chief Executive Officer of the private consultancy Source Associates. The Lexington Institute receives money from many of the nation’s leading defense contractors, and Source Associates provides technical services to companies in the industry.

http://blogs.forbes.com/beltway/2011/04/19/obamas-deep-defense-cuts-wont-amount-to-much/

ACCESSED 29 JUNE 2011

Obama’s “Deep” Defense Cuts Won’t Amount To Much

Apr. 19 2011 - 9:16 am | 4,059 views

Posted by Loren Thompson

On April 13, President Obama finally got around to saying what he would do about the federal government’s huge budget deficit. Not surprisingly, one of the items in his proposed deficit-reduction package was cuts in spending on national security — $400 billion over 12 years, to be precise. Well, maybe precise is the wrong term to use here.

The White House hasn’t clarified whether it’s counting inflation, where the cuts would fall, or when. In fact, it hasn’t really said much at all beyond the big top-line number. Nonetheless, the lead in the next day’s Washington Post story described “deep cuts in military and domestic spending,” and Politico warned of “far-reaching implications” that might entail “a dramatic reduction in the U.S. military’s global footprint, size and capabilities.”

These characterizations seem a bit exaggerated. Mr. Obama’s new and improved plan for slimming down America’s national-security posture likely will entail little sacrifice for the federal government’s biggest source of discretionary spending, the Department of Defense. It’s not that there isn’t plenty of wasteful spending to be found — the Army will spend over $2 billion during the period in question just on its music bands — but the way the President has couched his proposed savings minimizes their likely impact on security (and the deficit). Let’s take a look at some of the factors mitigating what seems like a very big cut in spending.

The first and most obvious point to note is that Mr. Obama won’t even be in office during most of the period when his reductions are supposed to be realized. The factsheet distributed by the White House press office predicts the president’s security cuts would “save $400 billion by 2023,” but even if he is re-elected to a second four-year term in 2012, that would still require his successor to follow through on implementing the savings for the last seven years of a twelve-year period. Nobody today can say whether that successor will be a Democrat or a Republican, what new security challenges might arise, or how the government’s fiscal circumstances could change. What can be said for sure is that new presidents seldom feel bound by the priorities of their predecessors, and thus the Obama efficiencies are likely to be forgotten long before 2023 rolls around.

A second factor that has gotten short shrift in initial coverage of the president’s proposals is the sheer scale of planned defense spending during the period in question. The government hasn’t yet released spending plans for the last two years of the period covered by the President’s pronouncements, but it has disclosed planned defense spending of over $6 trillion during the ten years ending in 2021. Robert Ewers of Height Analytics estimated in an April 14 note that the last two years of the covered period — assuming two percent inflation annually — would raise the 12-year total to $7.5 trillion in military outlays. So if the president is expressing his aggregate security savings in then-year rather than constant dollars, which is almost certainly the case, then the $400 billion only amounts to 5.3 percent of Pentagon spending during the period. Saving one out of every twenty dollars spent from a defense budget that has seen buying power balloon by 75 percent over the past ten years doesn’t sound like a herculean task.

But the task isn’t even that hard, because a third mitigating factor in the president’s proposed cuts is that they would be derived from the government’s entire security community, not just the Department of Defense. That broader security community currently includes an annual budget of $53 billion for the Department of State and international programs, $57 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, $43 billion for the Department of Homeland Security and $11 billion for Department of Energy nuclear weapons programs. Each of these departments expects annual budget increases during the period in question, and there are additional intelligence outlays not reported in public documents that are funded outside the Pentagon budget. Add those to the defense budget for the period 2012-2023, and total security outlays approach a staggering $10 trillion. Thus, the $400 billion in savings that President Obama is seeking represents only about four percent of the amount the government currently proposes to spend on all security functions during his target period.

Finding an average of $33 billion in annual savings in America’s current, overgrown security apparatus is not likely to entail heavy political lifting for this president or whoever follows him. In fact, Mr. Obama’s aides were able to identify two trillion dollars in prospective savings across the entire federal government over a ten-year period during his first month in office, half of which were supposed to come just from getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan. But those savings didn’t materialize the way the administration planned due to congressional resistance, and that brings us to one other point about the Obama defense cuts: none of them will happen unless Congress goes along, which it probably won’t. Despite all the speculation about Tea Party deficit hawks making common cause with liberals on the other side of the aisle to cut Pentagon spending, there just isn’t much evidence Republicans are ready to slash military outlays. Party leaders like Representatives John Boehner and Paul Ryan have explicitly said they will not countenance big cuts in the military budget, regardless of what other tradeoffs have to be made.

So the bottom line on President Obama’s “deep cuts” in security spending is that many of them probably won’t happen, but even if they did the damage to America’s military posture and global presence is likely to be modest. The White House has already directed that any new cuts to defense spending be preceded by a comprehensive review of capabilities and missions, meaning that whatever budget cuts occur will be allocated to avoid harming essential functions. What’s remarkable about the proposed reductions isn’t their size, but the stubbornness with which the Obama Administration continues to resist turning the Pentagon into a bill-payer for other priorities. This isn’t the way Democratic administrations are supposed to behave when wars are ending, and it suggests much of the rhetoric about a coming defense downturn has been overdone. Preserving a strong security posture may be one area where bipartisanship still has a future.

Despite Obama's anouncement, America in Afghanistan to Stay

2011-06-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

There's an old saying about the art of political smoke and mirrors: 'signal left while turning right'. Obama's Afghanistan speech last night has been hailed by some as a turning point, and in the long run it may well turn out to be. In the short term, however, very little is likely to change: the US will still have ca 70,000 troops on the ground after the 'surge' troops Obama ordered in 2009 leave. 70,000 troops is still around twice the levels Obama inherited from the Bush administration.

There's another saying: 'follow the money'. The article below does just that.

Source: CNNMoney
Journalist: Charles Riley
Original Post: Troops Drawdown Won't Stop Spending Machine
Type: Blog Post

June 22, 2011 — When snow starts falling in Afghanistan later this year, fewer U.S. soldiers will be on the ground, and fewer taxpayer dollars will be required to continue to finance the war.

President Obama is expected to announce Wednesday evening that a portion of the 30,000 surge troops he ordered to Afghanistan will be brought home later this year.

But the savings in the first year -- probably less than $10 billion -- won't be much to write home about, especially considering the U.S. has already run up a $443 billion tab in Afghanistan.

It's not yet clear exactly how many troops will leave the country, or when. But according to an analysis conducted by Center for a New American Security researcher Travis Sharp, if 15,000 troops were removed in fiscal year 2012, taxpayers would save $7 billion over the previous year's spending levels.

That level of savings is hard to get excited about.

"Seven billion is really quite modest," said Sharp. "If people think taking out surge troops is the answer to the Pentagon's budget problems, they have another thing coming."

In recent years, spending in Afghanistan has skyrocketed, right along with troop levels.

The United States spent $43 billion on the war in 2008, seven years after hostilities began, according to a Congressional Research Service report. This year, spending will hit $118 billion. There were 33,000 troops on the ground in 2009. Now there are 102,000.

Generally speaking, more troops mean higher costs for the military.

The bin Laden spending spree

Some researchers have estimated that each soldier on the ground in Afghanistan costs the military as much as $1 million a year. That's the top-end range.But there are other factors to consider.For the military, one of the biggest cost drivers in simple geography. Afghanistan is home to some very, very rough terrain, no ports, and little in the way of infrastructure.

"It's a landlocked country and you have to truck everything in from somewhere," said Chris Hellman, senior research analyst at the National Priorities Project, who added that supply lines are often disrupted by Afghan militants.

Fuel, for example, is shipped from Pakistan in convoys of trucks that must endure challenging terrain, a lack of decent highways, and a tricky border crossing. All that increases cost.

Another driver of cost in recent years is a vast expansion in operations and maintenance costs, which have nearly doubled between 2004 and 2008, from $42 billion to $80 billion.

And spending on war-related investments like mine-resistant trucks and base construction necessary for the unique challenges of Iraq and Afghanistan still costs billions every year.

Pentagon budget: Time to cut

Just because troops start leaving Afghanistan, those costs won't go away. And if combat forces leave, other kinds of spending might have to increase.

"We may see a shift in funding rather than a reduction," Hellman said. "We might just be moving money from combat accounts to support accounts."

Afghan security forces, for example, might get a funding boost as their duties expand. Already the United States has increased the money spent on that force from $1.3 billion in 2005 to $11.6 billion in 2011.

Hellman said U.S. taxpayers will be footing that bill for a long time. After all, the GDP of Afghanistan was only $27 billion in 2010, according to the CIA factbook.

And even the act of pulling soldiers out of the fight will cost, Sharp said, citing additional transportation and security spending necessary to complete the drawdown.

Tony Blair: New Chapter, Same Old Imperial Story

2011-06-09T01:46:00.000-07:00

Tony Blair, interviewed on BBC Radio 4 this morning, selling the paperback of his autobiography, A Journey. It has a new chapter further to justify Western military and other interventionism in the Middle East. He gave two reasons: first, what happens "over there" affects "us" over here; secondly, the changes in the Middle east need to be comprehensive - political, economic, social - and must be "evolutionary" NOT "revolutionary". This was loosely introduced under the broad banner of "humanitarian" intervention.

Blair provided no elaboration on precisely how "over there" affects "over here", nor was he pressed to, indicating an underlying assumption in the discussion: that everywhere is a "Western" interest, and the "West" (which presumably now also includes Saudi Arabia) had better be ready and willing permanently to intervene. The second assumption was just as instructive: that Middle eastern states are of interest to the West because the latter just want to 'do good' in the former, neatly eliding very recent history not to mention the longer record of colonial rule and interference. In that regard, Blair echoes, from his perch as Middle East peace envoy, the message pumped out of the White House by President Barack Obama, and by current premier, David Cameron.

Back in 2010, USBlog noted that Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative-Liberal coalition government’s foreign and national security policy team may be inexperienced, but their ideological record is not unclear: the team is made up of a mixture that may prove quite lethal in terms of overseas interventions behind a ‘renewed’ and ‘re-balanced’ ‘special relationship’ with the

United States

David Cameron has denied being a ‘neo-conservative’ in foreign policy terms; he claims to be a ‘liberal-conservative’. On those grounds, Cameron had supported the Iraq War and, in 2010, restated his commitment to that course of action.

Cameron outlined his interventionist plans at a speech at Chatham House, in January 2010. There is nothing original in his national security ‘strategy’s’ goals: he wants Britain to intervene before potential threats become actual threats: “we need to do much better at stopping wars from ever starting and that means really focussing on the causes of conflicts and then joining all that together to make sure that DfiD and the Foreign Office deliver a really tight, tied-up, progressive approach.”

In 2006, Cameron told an audience at the British-American Project that 9-11 style attacks represented a kind of “terrorism [that] cannot be appeased – it has to be defeated”, and called for increasing the size of the security services. He wanted to take elements that were best in the British neo-conservative approach (i.e., what Cameron attributes to Tony Blair’s approach) – appreciation of the scale of the terrorist threat, the centrality of “the leadership of the United States, supported by Britain… to the struggle”, the correctness of “extending freedom…[as] an essential objective of Western foreign policy”, and commitment to the use of military force, including “pre-emptive force” and for “humanitarian purposes”.

As a liberal, Cameron supports “spreading freedom and democracy,” but as a conservative he remains sceptical of “grand schemes to remake the world”. Cameron’s is a call for ‘realism’ in light of what’s happened since 2003 in Iraq and Afghanistan: greater multilateralism, exploring military and non-military options, including winning “hearts and minds”, development aid, public diplomacy and strategic communications.

At the same time as calling for multilateralism, Cameron argued that the United Nations may not always be the best vehicle for decisive international intervention; “So we may need to fashion alliances which can act faster than the machinery of formal international institutions.” This sounds suspiciously like ‘coalitions of the willing’ assembled ahead of the Iraq war.

In the struggle to defend “civilisation”, Cameron told the British-American Project that Britain would be “moral”, that its foreign policy (quoting Victorian era prime minister, WE Gladstone), “should always be inspired by a love of freedom”, and that its methods match the morality of its goals.

This may not be full-blooded neo-conservatism, hubristic before the chastening experience of Iraq. It may not be full-blooded conservatism, eschewing grand schemes and ideas on a global scale. Cameron’s views, which are now central to his coalition government, merely serve to remind us that the post-9-11 Anglo-American story was not a neo-con hijacking: it was the fusion of several tendencies that had previously been in tactical disagreement – liberal interventionism combining Gladstonian and Wilsonian morality, with a wounded (American) conservative nationalism, in a language and terminology so skilfully developed by groups of neo-cons previously known as ‘the Crazies’.

That post-9-11 fusion was institutionalised in the US by the passing of power from Republican George W. Bush to the Democratic Obama; and in Britain by its passing from Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s New Labour to the Conservative-Liberal Cameron. Blair may have written a new chapter; he remains fully committed to his imperial journey.

Militarised Memorials

2011-06-03T02:59:00.000-07:00

The post below is by Richard Jackson and is characteristically excellent. It is from his blog, the address of which is below. It is timely, of course. Britain is at war in Libya and in Afghanistan, and its military casulaties are honoured and on display in practically all aspects of life: schools, nurseries, TV shows, charitable events, and sporting occasions, most recently when Manchester United were awarded the Premier League champions trophy.

USBlog has noted numerous times the militarisation of British national life, and the great discomfort it causes those who take the views that Richard so eloquently, and sensitively, espouses. This discomfort with "military sacrifice" and "heroism" exists at all levels including at the very pinnacles of British government and state.

I've been reading Sherard Cowper-Coles's book, Cables From Kabul, which is very enlightening about the mindsets of British and American elites as a seemingly endless war rages in Afghanistan. Cowper-Coles is a loyal servant of the Crown but refers to the mission in that tragic country as "a kind of military colonialism" foisted on a country and people who have little say in in their own affairs. He also indicates the lack of "balance" and levels of deference towards the military that exist today. This makes it "awkward and unpatriotic to criticise that [military] machine..."

Managing the war machine is not easy, Cowper-Coles argues: in the Ministry of Defence, he says, top civilian officials are "treated by their military colleagues rather as second-class citizens", making it difficult to argue with military planners. In addition, even Cabinet Ministers don't know, and appear unwilling to find out, the difference between a Tornado ground attack aircraft "and a torpedo" and, therefore could not "possibly question the Chief of the Defence Staff on this".

Memorial Day 2011

May 30, 2011 by richardjacksonterrorismblog

I would attend Memorial Day services if…

I would attend Memorial Day services if the churches were not festooned with military flags and the emblems of war and conquest. It would be more appropriate to have flags of peace and pictures of war’s pity and grief so the congregation might be better reminded of its brutality and the colossal destruction and waste of human life war has always caused.

I would attend Memorial Day services if they laid wreaths of the white poppies of peace rather than the red poppies of the Legion. It seems to me that the red poppies have lost their original meaning as remembrance for the unspeakable destruction of human life and the commitment to ensuring ‘never again’; instead, they valorize the heroic dead, plaster over the waste of human life, and make the call to sacrifice a noble gesture. The white poppies, in contrast, symbolize an explicit commitment to finding alternatives to ritual slaughter and the remembrance of all the victims of war, soldier and civilian alike.

I would attend Memorial Day services if they said prayers for all the victims of war, and not just the soldiers sent to kill. It seems obscene to me to pray solely for those who rained down death on their fellow human beings, and not for the countless, nameless, innocent people they killed in the name of patriotism, militarism, imperialism.

I would attend Memorial Day services if the clergy prayed for the forgiveness of the massacres, the unlawful killings, the torture, the brutality and the crimes committed by our own soldiers acting in our name. It is a willful deception to pretend that our soldiers have not committed grievous crimes against humanity, that they have not fought in wars of aggression and imperialism to enslave others and pursue our own material gain. Some prayers for forgiveness for this long history of brutality would seem to be in order when we remember war.

I would attend Memorial Day services if prayers were prayed against the venal, cowardly, vainglorious politicians who are so willing to spill the blood of fellow humans so freely, who hunger for the glory of military victory, who believe that national identity requires an enemy to defeat and humiliate, and who lack the intelligence, imagination and moral courage to find a non-violent solution to their conflicts. Politicians are the slave-owners of previous centuries, prisoners of a brutish bygone era, moral luddites who refuse to believe in the ethical progress on plain view before their eyes. To them, the discrediting of eugenics, the establishment of universal human rights, women’s emancipation, and the growth of global environmental responsibility are as nothing; they still see the orgy of organized killing as a necessary response to human conflict – as if slavery could be an alternative to multiculturalism. They are the enemies of humanity, a demonic force to be resisted, dangerous lunatics.

I would attend Memorial Day services if the priests and clergy took the opportunity to preach a message of peace and non-violence: if they spoke of Jesus’ commands to turn the other cheek, to love your enemy, and to pray for those that persecute you; if they recounted how Jesus told Peter to put away his sword, and how he was called the Prince of Peace; how in his first sermon, Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’; how Christians are commanded to work towards the coming of God’s kingdom when swords will be beaten into ploughshares and no one will study war anymore. The Jesus I read about in the Gospels would never shoot someone in the face or drop a bomb on their house, tearing the bodies of children into pieces. He would never light someone on fire with a flame-thrower to hear their flesh bubble and burn in the heat. The Jesus I read about would lay down his life, rather than call down his army, even when he was unjustly persecuted by an occupying imperial power.

I would attend Memorial Day services if they spoke the truth about why we sent our best young men to war, instead of telling blatant lies about how they fought for our liberty, how they died so we might be enjoy democracy. More often than not, they were sacrificed on the altar of imperialism and greed or the venal stupidity of politicians. Few soldiers I know join to fight for country or patriotism; they most often fight instead for bread, opportunity denied them through unjust social structures, or their mates.

I would attend Memorial Day services if the clergy made it clear that according to Christian doctrine, war is evil, and that the Just War doctrine used to legitimize military force today was written by clergymen, not by Jesus Christ, and that it has little basis in scripture. The clergy need to make it clear that this man-made doctrine of Just War is based on the proposition that war is evil, even though sometimes it may be a greater evil not to go to war – but that the most important point is that war can never be good; it is inherently and irrevocably evil. This point has never been made in any Remembrance Day service I have ever attended or seen.

I would attend Memorial Day services if the clergy followed Christ’s example and refused to serve in the military, refused to bless militarized patriotism, prayed for our enemies instead, and if the church made clear its first loyalty to God’s kingdom of peace and justice.

I would attend Memorial Day services if such rituals were not part of the social infrastructure of military propaganda that primes people to accept violence as normal and makes war likely again.

Obama's Egyptian Dawn Under Military Rule

2011-05-26T07:36:00.000-07:00

"The decades-long political winter in the Arab world seemed to be thawing early this year as mass protests toppled Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in January and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in February. It appeared as though one rotten Arab dictatorship after another might fall during the so-called Arab Spring. Analogies were quickly conjured to 1989, when another frozen political space, Eastern Europe, saw one dictatorship after another collapse. A similar wave of democratic transitions in the Arab world was finally possible to imagine, particularly given the extent to which previous transformations had been regional in scope: Portugal, Spain, and Greece all democratized in the mid-1970s; much of Latin America did shortly thereafter; Korea and Taiwan quickly followed the Philippines’ political opening in 1986; and then a wave of change in sub-Saharan Africa began in 1990. All of those were part of the transformative “third wave” of global democratization. In March, many scholars and activists reasonably imagined that a “fourth wave” had begun.

Two months later, however, a late spring freeze has seemingly hit some areas of the region. And it could be a protracted one. Certainly, each previous regional wave of democratic change had to contend with authoritarian hard-liners, opposition divisions, and divergent national trends. But most of the Arab political openings are closing faster and more harshly than happened in other regions -- save for the former Soviet Union, where most new democratic regimes quickly drifted back toward autocracy.

If Tunisia still provides grounds for cautious optimism, the Egyptian situation is already deeply worrying. Its senior officer corps, which currently controls the government, does not want to facilitate a genuine democratic transition. It will try to prevent it by generating conditions on the ground that discredit democracy and make Egyptians (and U.S. policymakers) beg for a strong hand again. The ruling officers have turned a blind eye to mounting religious and sectarian strife (and an alarming explosion in crime). The military has spent enormous effort arresting thousands of peaceful protesters in Tahrir Square and trying them in military tribunals over the last two months. (In April, one such detainee, a blogger named Maikel Nabil, was sentenced to three years in prison for “insulting the military establishment.”) Yet it claims that it cannot rein in rising insecurity. Many Egyptians see this as part of the military’s grand design to undermine democracy before it takes hold.

The parliamentary elections slated for September are unlikely to help: New political forces have no chance of being able to build competitive party and campaign structures in time. The Muslim Brotherhood, which initially said it would only contest a third of the parliamentary seats, has now announced its intention to contest half of all seats, forming a new political party (Freedom and Justice) for the purpose. If the electoral system retains its highly majoritarian nature, it might well win a thumping majority of the seats it contests (perhaps 40 percent in all), with most of the rest going to local power brokers and former stalwarts of the Mubarak-era ruling party, the National Democratic Party.

Both theory and political experience teach that regimes with spent legitimacy do not last, and the legitimacy of the Libyan, Syrian, and Yemeni dictators is utterly depleted.

Elsewhere in the region, Bahrain’s minority Sunni monarchy opted to crush peaceful protests and arrest and torture many of those with whom it might have negotiated some future power-sharing deal. With active Iranian support and a bizarre degree of American and Israeli acceptance, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad unleashed a slow-motion massacre that could go on for weeks or even months. In Yemen, the government is paralyzed, food prices are rising, and the country is drifting. Having seen the fate of Mubarak, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is playing for time, but his legitimacy is irretrievably drained, and he lacks the ability to mobilize repressive force on the scale of Assad’s."

Anglo-American Joint Strategy Board Announced

2011-05-26T07:17:00.000-07:00

President Obama has announced the formation of an Anglo-American Joint Strategy Board, cementing what he referred to as "the essential relationship" between the two powers. The details, such as they are, are provided below in a White House press release. Among other measures, the White House also announced that Britian and the Us would work more closely together to support their armed forces and veterans in various ways, including linking them ever more deeply into community life. Postgraduate student exchange programmes also receive a boost as do links between the British Voluntary Service Overseas organisation and the US Peace Corps.

It may not be 'special' but the relationship between the two Anglo-Saxon powers remains deep and enduring. This is not because of sentiment, though that does play a peripheral role. It is because Anglo-American elites share an understanding and definition of the world, and its 'problems' and issues, which tends to align them on the really biq questions of world politics: resistance to western power, rising Chinese influence, uprisings in the Arab world.

President Obama's Visit to the UK, May 2011

25 May 2011

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary

___________________________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FACT SHEET: The U.S.-UK Joint Strategy Board

The United States and the United Kingdom today are announcing the creation of a Joint Strategy Board. The Board will help enable a more guided, coordinated approach to analyze the “over the horizon” challenges we may face in the future and also how today’s challenges are likely to shape our future choices. It is designed to better integrate long-term thinking and planning into the day-to-day work of our governments and our bilateral relationship, as we contemplate how significant evolutions in the global economic and security environment will require shifts in our shared strategic approach.

The Joint Strategy Board, co-chaired by the U.S. National Security Staff and the U.K. National Security Secretariat, will include representatives from the Departments of State and Defense, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Ministry of Defense, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Joint Intelligence Organization. It will report to the U.S. and U.K. National Security Advisors, Thomas E. Donilon and Sir Peter Ricketts.

The Joint Strategy Board will meet quarterly alternating between sites in the United States and United Kingdom. The U.S. and U.K. National Security Advisors will review the status of the Board after one year and decide whether to renew its mandate.

Obama Elides America's record in the Middle East

2011-05-21T05:02:00.000-07:00

President Barack Obama's recent speech on the Middle East is hailed by many as signalling new departures for the region. Even those those who read speeches carefully, or at least press accounts and commentaries on them, are encouraged by the tone and 'realism' in the words Obama used. They are encouraged by the 'moderate' language, the soothing tone, the reasonableness of it all. Here is a man struggling to redefine America's approach in line with its recent history in Iraq and recent uprisings across the Arab world. He's constrained, many eager and reluctant supporters argue, by entrenched forces so he can only do so much: the US foreign policy establishment, as Stephen Walt argues, is hard to shift and casts a permanent shadow over the White House. Two inherited wars from the Bush era continue to hamstring Obama. "Girl power" it is said - Hillary Clinton, Samantha Power, Susan Rice - forced Obama's hand on Libya. The US military forced his hand over the 'surge' in Afghanistan. Israeli PM, Netanyahu, threatens the 'peace process' while Obama tries against entrenched interests to solve the problem.

The United States is now on the 'right side of history' in backing democratic forces in the Arab world, Obama suggests. It is on the side of the people against the vested interests, and is backing democratic change. Of course, it must uphold its 'vital interests' in defeating terrorism and maintaining the free flows of commerce and oil, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

Therein lies the elision of history in Obama's latest speech to restore America's image in the world: the war on terror has been waged largely in the Middle east and involved the active support of pro-US elites in torture and rendition and disappearances. Billions of dollars of US aid has poured into the coffers of the militaries of the region, many of which are using those weapons systems and equipment to put down uprisings across the region - in Yemen, Egypt, Bahrain, among others. Obama has hardly uttered a word on that oppression and even when he has the words are contradicted by the renewed aid packages to the military regime in Egypt, and the Saleh administration in Yemen.

In Egypt, the US supports a 'negotiated path to reform' under the auspices of the very regime that was headed by Hosni Mubarak. Even as Obama lauds democracy's stirrings in Egypt the military there are cracking down on strikes by underpaid workers suffering untrammeled neoliberal reforms forced by the US in a bid to keep open the flows of commerce.

On Israel Obama is said to lead the way to renewing the peace process: two states based on 1967 borders. Yet, in his speech, he pledged undying support for Israel, the only power with nuclear weapons in the region and which has violated UN resolutions for decades with American support. Israel continues to build illegal settlements on the West Bank; meanwhile Obama signed off Bush's $30 billion aid package to Israel and continues to sell weapons systems to Israel far superior to such aid and sales to US' Arab allies in the region - to maintain Israel's qualitative military edge. To the Palestinians he urged moderation and non-violence.

The 'Palestine Papers' published by The Guardian and other media a few months ago showed quite clearly the doube standards of the US and Israel in the peace process: the Palestine Authority offered practically everything Israel demanded. Like Israel, Obama refuses to recognise Hamas, despite its victory in democratic elections.

American policy towards a democratic Middle east remains wedded to its 'core interests'. Caught on the hop by the uprisings in the Arab world, Obama initially gave full backing to repressive regimes. Finding that the uprsings were serious and unlikely to fade away, he eventually backed change - but a negotiated change under the auspices of the very regimes that were the source of the problem so far as protestors were concerned. Such negotiated change is likely to produce 'low-intensity democracy' - regimes that have limited space for dissent because their own elites have a lot to lose, including massive American aid. But market reforms will proceed at full pelt.

No leader operates without constraints. Yet, it's clear that Obama chose after long deliberation to send in tens of thousands of additional US troops to Afghanistan. Contra Walt, Obama is part of the US foreign policy establishment - not its plaything or pawn.

The 'hesitation' that Obama exhibits before taking action is born of his own character and personality - a 'fence sitter' who deliberates excessively to look at the pros and cons of action, according to Britain's ambassador to the US. And the world situation today suits Obama's personality - it's complicated and changing. It requires an Obama rather than a Bush. In the end, however, American policy hardly seems to shift, despite Obama's continuous re-setting oratory.

The Education of Osama Bin Laden

2011-05-07T05:30:00.000-07:00

Below is a reprinted article from the Southern Times, a Southern African online publication: in all essentials, it correctly details the rise and education in terror tactics of Osama bin Laden. It shows that America's desire to destabilise the illegal Soviet occupation of Afghanistan led to its backing of forces that later, and now, constitute a major problem for the region (and for the Obama administration). CIA operations, training, and funding of Osama bin Laden led directly to the rise of the Taliban and of his al qaeda organisation. It also led to funding for the Pakistan military's Interservices Intelligence agency (ISI), which is still, to this day, backing the Taliban.

**************************************************************************************

On July 3, 1979 US President Jimmy Carter, under advice from National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, signed the first directive allowing secret aid to be given to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime that had recently come to power in Afghanistan.

It marked the beginning of a now infamous convergence of interests, which saw the CIA, the Saudi Arabian regime and the Pakistani Intelligence Directorate (ISI) train and equip the Islamist mujahideen resistance to the Soviet Union.

The US saw an immense opportunity.

In the preceding five years, they had been forced out of both Vietnam and Iran. It had been 'the most humiliating half decade in American history'.

Now they sought to lure the Soviets into an intractable guerrilla war in Central Asia.

Over more than a decade up to 35 000 fighters from the Muslim world were recruited, US$10 billion worth of aid was channelled (including, by 1987, 65 000 tons of arms), and a 'ceaseless stream' of CIA and Pentagon officials helped to plan mujahideen operations.

According to Stephen Coll, writing in the Washington Post: 'At any one time during the Afghan fighting season, as many as 11 ISI teams trained and supplied by the CIA accompanied mujahideen across the border to supervise attacks…

'CIA operations officers helped Pakistani trainers establish schools for the mujahideen in secure communications, guerrilla warfare, urban sabotage and heavy weapons.'

Not only this.

They gave support to the most retrograde elements like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. His followers, according to journalist Tim Weiner, 'first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil'.

The reasoning of the CIA was simple: the more fanatical the fighters and the more brutal their methods, the better they would fight. And the better they fought the more support they should receive.

Ronald Reagan – the same man who denounced the African National Congress and the Palestine Liberation Organization for not renouncing violence – described the mujahideen as 'freedom fighters'.

As president, Reagan met in Washington with rebel leaders like Abdul Haq, who openly admitted his responsibility for terrorist attacks such as a 1984 bomb blast at Kabul's airport that killed at least 28 people.

Meanwhile, with CIA assistance, the mujahideen greatly expanded opium production in areas under their control – turning Afghanistan into what one US official later described as the new Colombia of the drug world.

One of the first non-Afghan volunteers to join the ranks of the mujahideen was Osama bin Laden, hailing from a wealthy construction family in Saudi Arabia.

Bin Laden recruited 4 000 volunteers from his own country and developed close relations with the most radical mujahideen leaders.

He also worked closely with the CIA, raising money from private Saudi citizens. By 1984, he was running the Maktab al-Khidamar, an organization set up by the ISI to funnel 'money, arms, and fighters from the outside world in the Afghan war'.

According to journalist John Cooley, 'The CIA gave Osama free rein in Afghanistan, as did Pakistan's intelligence generals. They looked with a benign eye on the build up of Sunni sectarian power in South Asia to counter the influence of Iranian Shi'ism of the Khomeiny variety.'

By 1989 the Russians were exhausted.

Afghanistan had become to them what Vietnam had become to the US. News of the Soviet defeat saw champagne corks popping all over Washington.

The Cold War was about to become history, the US had triumphed.

But when the USSR finally withdrew, the administration of George Bush Sr. turned its back on Afghanistan – leaving it, in the words of The Economist, 'awash with weapons, warlords and extreme religious zealotry.' – The Socialist Alternative

As the state funding from the Saudis and the US dried up, private financiers – like bin Laden himself – further stepped up their contributions to 'the cause'.

The Soviets may have gone, but there were new targets, and they weren't limited to within Afghanistan's borders.

Looking back on his role in the conflict Zbigniew Brzezinski asked (in 1998), 'What is most important to the history of the world…some stirred up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?'

In light of the 'war on terror' Brzezinski's question is tragic.

The hypocrisy is there for all to see: the 'terrorists' of today were trained, funded and backed by modern imperialism yesterday.

Bin Laden gave Bush just the excuse the US needed to go into Afghanistan again, and to follow it up with the obliteration of Iraq. That war shows that while bin Laden may have been a useful protégé, the US is still the master when it comes to terror.

Osama bin Laden is Killed but no end in sight to the war on terror

2011-05-03T03:47:00.000-07:00

Below is a post from Richard Jackson's new blog, offering his interesting and salutory reflections on the killing of Osama bin Laden and the likely consequences. His blog is at http://richardjacksonterrorismblog.wordpress.com/

The Death of Osama bin Laden: It’s a pity…

May 2, 2011 by richardjacksonterrorismblog

The fact that Osama bin Laden, a man who fought his enemies with violence that frequently killed the innocent, is now dead could be a positive development…

But it’s a pity that the US chose to pursue a massive ‘war on terrorism’ as a response to bin Laden’s terrorist campaign, a war that has killed and injured far more innocent people than bin Laden’s initial attacks…

And it’s a pity that the Bush administration and the coalition of the willing linked Iraq to al Qaeda and bin Laden, and then invaded with the result of more than 600,000 dead…

And it’s a pity that so many people, including many innocents, were kidnapped, rendered and tortured for information on bin Laden’s whereabouts, and in the end, normal methods of intelligence-gathering found him anyway…

And it’s a pity that the US did not respond to the Taliban’s offer to hand over bin Laden to trial in Pakistan in 2001, and that they did not take the opportunity to strengthen international law and the ICC, so that bin Laden (and any other terrorist or war criminal) could be captured, tried and imprisoned at the Hague. A strong international legal system guaranteed by the US would have been far better than the disastrous decade of war on terrorism than we have had instead…

And it’s a pity that so many are celebrating using violent means to fight a violent group, and that it will most likely lead to a continuing, maybe even intensifying, cycle of violence. It’s a pity that so few recognize that violence rarely leads to any long-term solutions, but instead, most often creates ever more violence and suffering in the long run…

And it’s a pity that some think we should just celebrate his death without thinking about the context in which it occurred, the history of suffering he and his enemies engendered, the inherent moral and strategic problems with the way it was done, and the likely future consequences for so many…

And it’s a pity that the US and other Western states view ‘justice’ as killing a man extra-judicially and then disappearing his body in the sea. This seems like a surrender of our own values and principles, and it helps to create a world in which law and justice is ever weaker…

And it’s a pity that targeted killing is now a core tactic of counter-terrorism, especially when the Israeli experience clearly demonstrates that it does not work to reduce terrorism, kills many innocent bystanders, and leads to more recruits for the terrorist groups…

And it’s a pity that bin Laden came to be seen as the personalization of evil, the mastermind who could be blamed for causing most of the world’s terrorism, and who therefore needed to be eradicated at all costs. Solely focusing on one man meant that the history and context of real political grievances which lead to bin Laden’s rise was silenced and erased; terrorism was about one evil guy, not decades of US foreign policy, entrenched grievances, structures of oppression and daily physical, structural and cultural violence. Now he’s gone, I wonder who will take his place as the next personification of evil…

And it’s a pity that it happened so late that it will have no positive effect at all on terrorism or counter-terrorism, or on bin Laden’s mythical status as the man who stood up to the Western world for more than a decade…

And it’s a pity that they dumped his body in the sea, which will most likely add to his mythical status. It won’t surprise me if a lot of his supporters refuse to believe he is really dead. They may also be further angered that his corpse was thrown into the sea rather than being given a normal burial…

And it’s a pity that killing him in this way now makes him even more of a martyr to his followers, and a potent symbol of resistance. It would have been better to de-mythologise him and exorcise his power by putting him on trial and showing him in prison – an ordinary man growing old, rather than some kind of super-terrorist who eluded the world’s greatest superpower for years…

And it’s a pity that all the resources and efforts put into killing bin Laden over ten years was not instead put into strengthening international law, dealing with political grievances, supporting peace constituencies, resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, genuinely promoting political participation and democracy, and reconsidering oppressive and unjust foreign policies which provoke violent resistance…

And it’s a pity that so many Americans are on the streets celebrating and so many political leaders are crowing about it as a major victory. It will be a further humiliation for some in the Middle East, and they may rightly feel that the celebrations contain no acknowledgement of the suffering they have experienced from US invasion, counter-terrorism operations, drone attacks, rendition, etc. I wonder how we would react to celebrations in Iraq at the news of Bush’s death…

And it’s a pity that no one is talking about the other three people killed in the operation, one of whom was bin Laden’s son and the woman who was purportedly his wife. They may be more ‘collateral damage’ in our war on terror. It illustrates something about our real values that their lives are so unimportant that they won’t be discussed or mourned in all the euphoria over killing bin Laden, the evil mastermind. And it’s a pity that Obama said ‘no Americans were harmed’ in the operation, as if American lives are more valuable than others. This way of ordering the world into worthy and unworthy victims, people to be mourned and people to be erased, is what keeps the cycle of violence ever turning…

And it’s a pity that it will not lead to the end of the war on terror, the culture of fear, and all the intrusions into daily life of militarized forms of counter-terrorism. It’s a pity that in response to bin Laden’s initial attacks, we irrevocably changed our way of life and undermined our own values, and that political leaders are already saying that his death changes none of these things but that we will have to (endlessly) continue to be vigilant in the fight against terrorism…

It’s a pity that this event will do nothing to end the sheer stupidity and shameful waste of ten years of war and violence.

America and Egypt

2011-04-23T10:18:00.000-07:00

Below is a report from Atef Said a human rights attorney. He practiced human rights law and directed research initiatives in human rights organizations in Egypt from 1995 to 2004. He is the author of two books about torture in Egypt (published in Arabic, in Egypt in 2000 and 2008). He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and is working on his dissertation about the Egyptian revolution. He has been in Egypt since February 6, participating in the organization of events related to the revolution and assisting human rights organizations.

Said's report highlight's the complexities of the uprisings in Egypt and the significance of the United States in upholding the current and previous repressive regimes in that country. It is one of the few objective 'street-level' reports from Egypt and is therefore highly enlightening. It was originally published on the blog of the Immanent Frame, a site of the Social Science Research Council in New York.

America in Egypt's Uprising

I have been in Egypt since February 6, 2011, where I have been witnessing events, talking to friends, activists and non-activists, and to the public in Cairo’s streets—and it is not an exaggeration to say that every corner in Egypt talks politics today. What gets covered in these discussions ranges from the role of the army in the transition to a democratically elected civilian government to what kind of new constitution Egypt needs after the revolution, and from counter-revolutions and the role of residual forces from Mubarak’s ruling party and security apparatus in Egypt today to the extent to which Egyptians have successfully freed themselves from a culture of fear.

I have been particularly interested in how the U.S. has been discussed in relation to the revolution. From my observations of events and numerous discussions with others, Egypt’s relationship with the U.S appears, in some ways, to be absent from most of the heated discussions going on today. But upon closer examination, this relationship has been present in the revolution, not only during and after the peak of events—from January 25 to February 11—but also, I would suggest, in the very anti-imperialist underpinnings of the revolution, a revolution that the mainstream American media has miscast as one generated purely internally.

The making of the Egyptian revolution

There is a joke among Egyptian bloggers, that “we Egyptians are the ones who have decided upon a time to make a revolution.” In most media circles, the Egyptian revolution is portrayed as the eighteen days that changed Egypt. The joke, like this portrayal, expresses, of course, a caricatural and ahistorical image of the revolution. Against this perspective, both Hossam El-Hamalway and Rabab ElMahdi argue that the Egyptian revolution has, in fact, been in the making for the past ten years. Many activists have suggested that we cannot explain this revolution unless we look closely at the different waves of protests that have occurred over the last decade. There have been three such waves. The first, which can be characterized as anti-Israeli and anti-imperialist, took place in 2000 and 2003, beginning with mass demonstrations in September 2000, in solidarity with Palestinians during the second intifada, and continuing in 2003, with mass protests against the Anglo-American war. These two major protests were the first in decades and, indeed, the first ever to be staged under Mubarak. (The previous instance was in 1977, with the “bread uprising,” protesting Sadat’s decision to raise the prices of basic food.) A famous slogan that began to circulate during the 2000 demonstration said: “Mubarak is like Sharon: both have many faces.” Young protestors in the streets questioned why the police were attacking them for demonstrating solidarity with Palestinians; they asked, “Are you with us or with the Israeli occupation?” In 2003, protestors were even bolder, chanting: “O’ Mubarak, you coward, you are an agent of America,” in criticism of his complicit role in the Anglo-American war of 2003. Of course, anti-imperialist sentiment in Egypt dates back to the era of Nasser’s era and did not suddenly emerge out of nowhere in 2000 and 2003. In these protests, protesters chanted, “Nasser said before, America is about colonialism.” Also, an activist friend told me that the slogan, “O’ Mubarak, you coward, you are an agent of America” appeared first aimed at Sadat, in opposition to his signing of the Peace Accord with Israel, and then was only modified for Mubarak.

These anti-imperialist and anti-Israeli-occupation sentiments provided a foundation, so to speak, for later rounds of pro-democratic protest. When these early mass protests were met by the repressive police apparatus, many activists from different political forces realized that the issue of empire could not be discussed and dealt with separately from the issue of democracy.

The second wave of protests took place unevenly between 2005 and the outbreak of revolution in 2011. During that time an Egyptian movement for change, Kefayya (Enough), a coalition of different political groups, ranging from Islamists to Marxists, took shape and began to call and protest for democratic reforms. In 2005, pro-democracy activists protested in solidarity with Egyptian judges who were organizing sit-ins calling for democracy and independence of the judiciary. Over the next five years, pro-democracy activists organized numerous sit-ins and protests throughout Egypt and suffered police attacks, harassment, arrest, and prosecution. Then, in 2010, Mohamed Elbaradie, the former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and other activists formed the National Association for Change, which called for radical democratic reform and an end to the state of emergency that had been in effect since 1981.

But from 2006 to 2011, there was also another simultaneous wave of mobilization, which has generally been underrepresented in the Egyptian media, but which has had major significance for human rights and labor activists. This wave consisted of a series of labor strikes and sit-ins described by many unionists and leftists in Egypt as the longest and strongest wave of worker protest since the end of World War II. For example, in December 2006, around 27,000 workers at Egypt’s largest state-owned factory, Al-Mahala Al-Kobra Misr Spinning and Weaving, went on strike after learning that their annual bonus had been cut. Not only was the strike successful in reinstating the bonuses, but it also inspired approximately 104,000 other textile workers across the country to strike for the same demands. In 2008, despite repressive laws banning independent unions, property tax collectors formed an independent union, outside the state-backed and security apparatus-connected Egyptian Federation of Labor Unions, after staging an eleven-day sit-in at the Egyptian Cabinet in December 2007. In April 2008, Al-Mahala city witnessed a mass protest over bread prices. The protest was described by El-Hamalawy as a mini-revolt, because the protesters included not only workers but members of the general public as well, and it ended with protesters tearing down a billboard of Mubarak’s image. Unionists and experts on labor affairs in Egypt estimate that there have been an average of 500 yearly labor protests between 2007 and 2010. The demands of these protests have always centered on social justice and the critique of neo-liberal economic policies. For this reason, I refer to this third wave of protest as the “social justice” wave.

The activists with whom I have spoken in the last three weeks continue to debate which of these waves can be described as the true rehearsal for the Egyptian revolution of 2011. Regardless, they agree that all three waves were significant exercises in preparing and inspiring the youth, activists and non-activists alike, to begin their historic protest on January 25, 2011. In fact, the three waves are not separate. In January 2010, demonstrations took place against Mubarak’s plan to build an underground iron wall between Egypt and Gaza, which activists and political forces saw as further enforcing the siege on Gazans. These demonstrations included banners with slogans such as “Down with the Wall, Down with Mubarak.” The collective impact of the three waves of protest is that Mubarak had become a symbol, not only of dictatorship and attacks on workers and the poor, but also of complicity with imperial interests in the region. Despite some liberal tendencies in Egypt—and within Western media—to portray the protests of the last decade as having been motivated solely by pro-democracy and anti-corruption activism, a more accurate understanding of Egyptians’ protests during this period needs both to recognize the impact of each of these three waves and to understand their connection.

Anti-imperialism in the protest

Though the Egyptian revolution’s most visible mottos focused mainly on democracy, human dignity, and social justice, anti-imperial sentiment was also present in Tahrir Square and as an underlying pillar of the revolution. During the eighteen days of protest, Egyptian analysts emphasized the American administration’s efforts to walk a fine balance between protecting its ally (Mubarak) and claiming its commitment to and respect for the aspirations of the protesting Egyptians. Such efforts at balance were critiqued as another example of America’s imperial pragmatism. Many activists mocked the Egyptian media and the Arabic media in general for their overblown interest in analyzing the U.S. stance. Protesters saw the conflict as one between them and Mubarak, and as about the power of the people, not the stance of the U.S. Indeed, for many protestors, focusing on the U.S. position was only a distraction. Many protesters pointed out that the U.S. administration not only failed to recognize Mubarak’s rule as a dictatorial regime but had also supported the regime’s rigged election and repressive apparatus. American calls for restraint and reform once the revolution began were seen as disrespectful of protestors’ demands; some told me that reform meant nothing and would only give the dictator more room to maneuver and to attack them. “Unarmed protestors,” they said, “and a repressive regime are not equal sides; there is not an equal need for restraint! Pictures of American-made tear gas canisters used in attacks on protesters were circulated online, as were two sentences, particularly amongst Egyptian activists on Twitter and Facebook: “America, we do not hate you because of your freedom, but we hate you because you hate our freedom,” and, “America, you cannot be imperial and claim [to be] promoting democracy at the same time.”

On the ground, protesters’ signs also included anti-imperialist mottos. I saw many banners in which Mubarak was described as a traitor or an agent of America or of imperialism. Sometimes, banners included epithets such as “Gaza’s jailer,” in reference to Mubarak’s role in blocking aid to the Gaza Strip. When Mubarak, in his second speech, proposed to delegate part of his authority to Egyptian chief spy, Omar Suleiman, protesters waved banners denouncing Suleiman’s role in the Gaza siege and in pressuring Palestinians to participate in the so-called peace process. One of the slogans used by many protesters said, “Like Mubarak, we do not accept Suleiman; both are agents of the U.S.” Anti-torture activists in Egypt widely circulated reports about Suleiman’s role in U.S. extraordinary renditions in the context of the War on Terror. Sometimes protestors were very creative in linking economic issues with Mubarak’s role as a protector of U.S. interests in the region—a street vender selling tissues came to protest carrying a sign that read, “Leave, you agent! Under your rule, I survive by selling tissues.”

The irony is that during the revolution, the government-backed media used an accusatory discourse to describe the demonstrators, portraying them as infiltrators and agents of foreign countries, including the U.S. The government-owned television network aired stories—later identified as fabrications—that claimed that demonstrators were trained outside Egypt, and that each was paid $100 (the equivalent of 590 Egyptian pounds) by European and American agents to create chaos and damage the stability of the country. Protesters and independent media responded that the claim lacked any foundation and pointed out that the U.S. actually had no interest of getting rid of Mubarak, who served as one of the main watchdogs of U.S. imperialism in the region. (The government-owned media continued these stories in the last ten days of the protest, but expanded the campaign to suggest that protesters were connected with Hezbollah, Hamas and the Qatari government and Al-Jazeera!) It is important to note that such sensationalist anti-demonstrator stories were spread “deliberately” in the context of the Internet blackout in Egypt, which lasted five days, during which time cell-phone communications were also cut off.

And now . . .

The future of Egyptian-U.S. relations is not at the forefront of the public political agenda today. But many activists and writers have started to talk about changing Egyptian diplomacy and the role of Egypt in the region, moving towards greater autonomy. Activists, in particular, have emphasized Egypt’s need to end its role as a U.S. client state. The Coalition of the Youth for the Revolution declined an invitation to meet U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton when she was in Egypt on March 15, 2011. The main reason for their decision was the U.S.’s support for Mubarak over the last thirty years, and its support of repressive regimes in the region generally. One of the leaders of the Coalition told me, “Only now is the U.S. acting as supportive of our revolution; before, it stood against our demands through its support for Mubarak.”

Some activists have told me that they have concerns about a potential deal between the leaders of the Egyptian army—most of them U.S.-trained—and the U.S. The core of the deal, they say, provides that the U.S. continue its aid to Egypt, and to the Egyptian army in particular, as long as army leaders ensure that the transition of power in Egypt is done in such a way that the Egypt-U.S. partnership is not affected. Not only activists, but also several Egyptian analysts, have suggested that Egypt should revisit the question of U.S. aid. Some representatives from the youth of the revolution, in their meeting with Senator John Kerry, criticized Kerry’s suggestion that Egypt needs U.S. aid in the transitional period to improve its economy. Representatives of the youth told Kerry, we do not want aid that deters Egypt’s independence. Of course, one cannot speculate about the future of the U.S.-Egypt relationship based on anti-imperialist sentiments on the streets alone, and perhaps we should wait to see how the transitional period unfolds. This period will last until the Supreme Council of the Army, which as a collective body holds the authorities of the President and the Parliament, ends with the election of a new Parliament and President.

Is Bradley Manning Obama's "enemy combatant"?

2011-04-12T02:31:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama was elected on a wave of revulsion at the gross human rights and other violations and illegalities of the George W. Bush administrations. Obama pledged to change all that and restore America's global image and standing. He was going to respect the rule of law, promote peace and dignity to all peoples, and outlaw torture of terror suspects. He was, symbolically, showing his commitment to the latter by closing within one year the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. This has not happened; indeed, the administration has re-introduced military tribunals there. In addition, Obama successfully fought a legal attempt to extend constitutional protections to inmates at the Bagram Air Base torture prison.

The treatement meted out to Private Bradley Manning, who is yet to have his day in court and has been found guilty of no offence, is unconstitutional and may constitute torture. The UN is investigating the case, Amnesty is monitoring Manning's conditions, and even the "pro-American regime" of David Cameron has deigned to express its "concerns" at Manning's treatment in a military prison (Manning, it turns out, has a Welsh mother).

The letter reprinted below is signed by some of the most eminent constitutional lawyers in the USA, including a former teacher of Obama's at Harvard, where Obama learned his constitutional law. The letter is significant because it represents the voice of liberal former supporters of the Obama campaign and administration who point up Obama's own background as a constitutional lawyer and teacher.

The harsh conditions of Bradley Manning's detention show up one other fundamental truth: that when a nation commits itself to cruelty and torture abroad, it is only a matter of time before it brings those practices home - to be meted out to its own citizens when they step out of line and challenge the powers that be.

Obama's style is restrained, sober, and moderate in tone. Unlike Sarah Palin and others, he does not call people "al Qaeda" and so on. He uses language with considerable skill. He has called Manning's treatment "appropriate". It is not an understatement to suggest that Manning is Obama's 'enemy combatant' whose personality should be broken down for its demonstration effect to other would-be whistle-blowers.

This letter was published in the New York Review of Books.

Bradley Manning is the soldier charged with leaking US government documents to Wikileaks. He is currently detained under degrading and inhumane conditions that are illegal and immoral.

For nine months, Manning has been confined to his cell for twenty-three hours a day. During his one remaining hour, he can walk in circles in another room, with no other prisoners present. He is not allowed to doze off or relax during the day, but must answer the question “Are you OK?” verbally and in the affirmative every five minutes. At night, he is awakened to be asked again “Are you OK?” every time he turns his back to the cell door or covers his head with a blanket so that the guards cannot see his face. During the past week he was forced to sleep naked and stand naked for inspection in front of his cell, and for the indefinite future must remove his clothes and wear a “smock” under claims of risk to himself that he disputes.

The sum of the treatment that has been widely reported is a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against punishment without trial. If continued, it may well amount to a violation of the criminal statute against torture, defined as, among other things, “the administration or application…of… procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality.”

Private Manning has been designated as an appropriate subject for both Maximum Security and Prevention of Injury (POI) detention. But he asserts that his administrative reports consistently describe him as a well-behaved prisoner who does not fit the requirements for Maximum Security detention. The brig psychiatrist began recommending his removal from Prevention of Injury months ago. These claims have not been publicly contested. In an Orwellian twist, the spokesman for the brig commander refused to explain the forced nudity “because to discuss the details would be a violation of Manning’s privacy.”

The administration has provided no evidence that Manning’s treatment reflects a concern for his own safety or that of other inmates. Unless and until it does so, there is only one reasonable inference: this pattern of degrading treatment aims either to deter future whistleblowers, or to force Manning to implicate Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in a conspiracy, or both.

If Manning is guilty of a crime, let him be tried, convicted, and punished according to law. But his treatment must be consistent with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. There is no excuse for his degrading and inhumane pretrial punishment. As the State Department’s P.J. Crowley put it recently, they are “counterproductive and stupid.” And yet Crowley has now been forced to resign for speaking the plain truth.

The Wikileaks disclosures have touched every corner of the world. Now the whole world watches America and observes what it does, not what it says.

President Obama was once a professor of constitutional law, and entered the national stage as an eloquent moral leader. The question now, however, is whether his conduct as commander in chief meets fundamental standards of decency. He should not merely assert that Manning’s confinement is “appropriate and meet[s] our basic standards,” as he did recently. He should require the Pentagon publicly to document the grounds for its extraordinary actions—and immediately end those that cannot withstand the light of day.

Bruce Ackerman
Yale Law School
New Haven, Connecticut

Yochai Benkler
Harvard Law School
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Additional Signers: Jack Balkin, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Alexander M. Capron, Norman Dorsen, Michael W. Doyle, Randall Kennedy, Mitchell Lasser, Sanford Levinson, David Luban, Frank I. Michelman, Robert B. Reich, Kermit Roosevelt, Kim Scheppele, Alec Stone Sweet, Laurence H. Tribe, and more than 250 others.

Lessons of Empire: War is Permanent

2011-04-01T02:59:00.000-07:00

"There is undoubtedly a profound disillusionment in America with foreign involvement in general. We have carried the burden [of global responsibility] for a generation. In fact, you go back to the beginning of World War II, it doesn't seem to end. Most programs have been sold to Americans with the argument that they would mean an end to exertion. Now we have to convince Americans that there will never be an end to exertion. That's a very difficult problem." (Henry Kissinger, in an interview with James Reston, New York Times, October 1974).

Kissinger, as ever, sums up the problem of aggressive American power: how to convince Americans, brought up to believe that their country is a force for good in the world, who have become disillusioned after a series of wars of aggression in Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Peaceable Americans, who do not want their country interfering abroad in the name of democracy, let alone for oil or other resources, are, according to Kissinger and his ilk, "a very difficult problem".

Around 100 years earlier, Queen Victoria, the empress of India, told Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli: "If we are to maintain our position as a first-rate power, we must, with our Indian Empire and large colonies, be prepared for attacks and wars, somewhere or other CONTINUALLY."

Queen Victoria's use of language "be prepared for attacks and wars" is also instructive: she's referring to anti-colonial movements struggling for freedom against 'liberal imperialism'.

Any struggle that undercuts imperial self-interest is, therefore, defined as an attack, and is an invitation to the imperial power violently to respond.

The sun may have set on the British COLONIAL empire; it has yet to set on its foreign policy establishment's imperial mindset, let alone on that of the world's lone superpower as they choose to intervene in oil-rich Libya and support Saudi armed intervention in Bahrain, home to the US 5th fleet. Meanwhile, Britain has doubled aid to Yemen's moribund regime, and supports US efforts to 'stabilise' military-controlled Egypt.

The real corruption in world affairs lies in its imperial heartland; it's most concentrated right at the very pinnacle of those societies, among its power elites.

US Military Intervention in Libya

2011-03-16T14:24:00.000-07:00

Democracy Won’t be

Delivered by a No-fly Zone

A popular democratic wave is washing across North Africa. In Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Iran and Iraq, millions of people are rejecting authoritarian regimes, demanding their rights, and asserting their democratic will. Despite decades of repressive autocratic, corrupt and dictatorial rule, and frequently in the face of brutal reprisals, people are telling their governments and the world that their desire for self-government, democracy, sovereignty, peace and an end to poverty will no longer be denied.

This has put the U.S. government in an awkward position, for all too often it has been our government that has provided their rulers with the arms, planes, tear gas, riot gear and surveillance equipment that have been used to sustain their authoritarian rule. The utter hypocrisy of U.S. policy is being exposed.

So far the Obama administration has approached this issue with appropriate caution. But Phyllis Bennis at the Institute for Policy Studies warns,

Powerful U.S. voices — including neo-conservative warmongers and liberal interventionists in and out of the administration, as well as important anti-war forces in and out of Congress — are calling on the Obama administration to establish a no-fly zone in Libya to protect civilians.

There is a natural desire on the part of social justice advocates to do whatever can be done to prevent needless bloodshed and to defend democratic forces against the substantially greater military forces loyal to Qaddafi. But the imposition of a no-fly zone in Libya would put the U.S. on a road it has traveled before. That road led to a twelve year military enforced embargo followed by an eight year long war in Iraq that has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and nearly 4500 U.S. troops, while wounding hundreds of thousands of others and displacing more than four million Iraqis.

In Tunisia and Egypt repressive regimes yielded ultimately to the overwhelming will of the people. In both countries, the labor movement played a central role in transforming a popular uprising into a revolution that succeeded in forcing dictators to yield power without protracted violent strife. But that has not been the case in Libya, where the regime of Col. Muammar Qaddafi has clung tenaciously to power and responded with savage ferocity, plunging the nation into civil war.

Elements of the regime, including importantly units and officers of the armed forces, have abandoned Qaddafi to side with the people. But the popular resistance is poorly organized, with no central command or unified leadership, and, importantly, with no tanks, artillery or defence against the Libyan air force.

Some elements of the popular resistance have called for the US and NATO powers to establish a no-fly zone. This call has been echoed by others in the West, including some governments. Libyans are unanimous, however, is clearly rejecting the introduction of any foreign military forces into their country.

Phyllis Bennis reports that human rights lawyer and opposition spokesman Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga was crystal clear: “We are against any foreign intervention... This revolution will be completed by our people.” And Libyan General Ahmad Gatroni, who defected to lead the opposition forces, urged the U.S. to “take care of its own people, we can look after ourselves.”

It is worth recalling that the U.S. also armed and equipped Saddam Hussein’s armed forces, seeking to play Iraq off against Iran, plunging those two countries into a mutually ruinous eight year war that claimed more than a half million lives. It was also the U.S. that armed the mujahedeen guerrillas of Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation. Elements of those guerrilla forces were later reconstituted as Al Qaeda and the Taliban. And we all know where that led!

There is no question that the U.S. has the military means to establish and enforce a no-fly zone in Libya, but as Secretary of Defense Gates has noted, a pre-condition to any successful no-fly zone would require a military assault on Libya’s air defenses, and that would constitute an act of war under international law. It would also result in an untold number of civilian deaths, not to mention the U.S. casualties that would inevitably occur. And it would interject the U.S into the middle of a conflict in yet another Arab nation, provoking even greater anger across the region and around the world.

It is also entirely possible that even with a no-fly zone, the well equipped Libyan Army might prevail with artillery, tanks and other heavy weapons against the lightly armed, poorly organized and largely untrained popular resistance forces. Then the U.S. would be faced with the need to commit ground forces to stave off a defeat of the anti-Qaddafi revolution.

General Wesley Clark (ret.) has learned a thing or two about military interventions. In a lengthy article in the Washington Post (March 12), he recounted the record of U.S. military interventions since the Vietnam War:

A no-fly zone in Libya may seem straightforward at first, but if Gaddafi continues to advance, the time will come for airstrikes, extended bombing and ground troops - a stretch for an already overcommitted force. . . .

Whatever resources we dedicate for a no-fly zone would probably be too little, too late. We would once again be committing our military to force regime change in a Muslim land, even though we can't quite bring ourselves to say it. So let's recognize that the basic requirements for successful intervention simply don't exist, at least not yet: We don't have a clearly stated objective, legal authority, committed international support or adequate on-the-scene military capabilities, and Libya's politics hardly foreshadow a clear outcome.

We should have learned these lessons from our long history of intervention. We don't need Libya to offer us a refresher course in past mistakes.

Phyllis Bennis concludes her own essay with this advice:

The future of Libya and much of the success of the democratic revolutions now underway across the region, stand in the balance. If the Obama administration, the Pentagon, war profiteers and the rest of the U.S. policymaking establishment continue to define U.S. “national interests” as continuing U.S. domination of oil-rich and strategically-located countries and regions, Washington faces a likely future of isolation, antagonism, rising terrorism and hatred.

The democratic revolutionary processes sweeping North Africa and the Middle East have already transformed that long-stalemated region. The peoples of the region are looking for less, not greater militarization of their countries. It is time for U.S. policy to recognize that reality. Saying no to a no-fly zone in Libya will be the best thing the Obama administration can do to begin the process of crafting a new, demilitarized 21st century policy for the U.S. in the newly democratizing Middle East.

Within the social justice movements, it is natural for people to want to come to the aid of a beleaguered people seeking to overthrow an oppressive dictatorship. But good impulses alone are not a basis for making sound policy.

The greatest help we can provide to democratic forces around the world is to end the U.S. role as global cop, global bully and arms merchant to every autocrat, despot, tyrant and authoritarian regime that is willing to do our government’s bidding.

The resources our government now squanders playing super-power to the world should be invested in creating jobs, restoring the social safety net, and meeting the myriad needs of people here and around the world.

Yemenis Protest Against Repressive Regime; Britain Doubles Aid

2011-03-05T00:51:00.000-08:00

Wikileaks Part 2: <br />Yemen’s Al-Qaeda policy

While growing sections of Yemeni society protest against the Saleh regime, demanding that the president quit office immediately, and not in several years' time, Britain's government has committed itself to double aid to the country. Over the next 5 years, British aid is set to increase to over £90 million. At the same time, Britain calls for political reform to make elections "freer and fairer". Considering that President Saleh has been in power since ???, and has concentrated executive power in his own hands, one wonders where the call for "freer and fairer" comes from.

Yemen has been rocked by the Wikileaks cables' revelations of the regime's duplicity in calling for US special forces to attack al Qaeda targets while publicly denying American involvement. Using the "Islamic threat", the Yemeni regime has been buying US weapons with which to defeat its internal opponents most of whom have nothing to do with al Qaeda. The report from the Yemen Times below argues this very point.

The Saleh regime is corrupt, repressive and dictatorial. The foreign aid that Britain has earmarked will go largely into the coffers of high government officials who stand accused of siphoning billions of dollars into foreign bank accounts. And it will generally bolster the current regime.

Wikileaks Part 2:
Yemen’s Al-Qaeda policy

Matt Bigge

Published:31-01-2011

Much has been said in the past week about the potentially troubling diplomatic relations which will result from Wikileaks’ leaked State Department cables... [T]he Yemen cables in particular could affect US national security more tangibly than any others. A recent series of foiled terror plots on US soil originating in Yemen have reinvigorated debate over Obama’s terrorism policy toward al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). And while the leaked cable only confirms what we already knew about Yemen, including its eagerness for US aid (even if it is to be used in ways it was not intended) and the presence of US air strikes against al-Qaeda , how will the public release of these cables affect the United States, Yemen, their relationship and transnational actors who also have a stake in the region?

Middle Eastern governments have always tried to walk a fine line by cooperating with the US behind the scenes to avoid public backlash and Yemen is no exception. The most damning (and oft-quoted) element of the Yemen cables is President Saleh’s “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours” in reassurance to General Patreaus that Yemen is serious about helping the United States monitor and weed out AQAP. However, other parts of the cable confirm that Saleh may have other priorities on his mind such as nearly doubling US foreign assistance to the country and as American Ambassador to Yemen Stephen Seche implies, bolstering the Yemeni military: “Raising a topic that he would manage to insert into almost every item of discussion during the hour and half-long meeting, Saleh requested that the U.S. provide the ROYG with 12 armed helicopters. Possessing such helicopters would allow the ROYG to take the lead in future CT operations, ‘ease’ the use of fighter jets and cruise missiles against terrorist targets, and allow Yemeni Special Operations Forces to capture terrorist suspects and identify victims following strikes…‘We won’t use the helicopters in Sa’ada, I promise. Only against al-Qaeda,’ [Saleh continued].”

While Saleh gives the impression that he holds the same concerns as the United States, Yemen’s characteristic misuse of US military aid and “catch and release” terrorist policies reaffirm that Saleh has different priorities. Former Ambassador to Yemen William Rugh argues that “[Saleh’s] priority, however, is not al-Qaeda but dealing with discontent in the south; the bloody, ongoing rebellion in the north [Sa’ada]; and the complex array of tribal and local interests that threaten his leadership. Yemen’s sagging economy only galvanizes Salih’s critics. At Washington’s insistence, al-Qaeda is on Salih’s list of priorities but he has other existential concerns that trump counterterrorism cooperation with the United States.”

However, with the release of confidential reports, Al-Qaeda may pose more of a threat to Saleh than he originally envisioned as public knowledge of US-Yemeni military cooperation may radicalize Yemenis against their president. Gregory Johnson, an expert on Yemen from Princeton University postulates just this, stating that “in some of the tribal areas where al-Qaida is really attempting to recruit people, having something like this where the president and his ministers are on the record talking about lying and deceiving parliament and the Yemeni public, I think it will have traction. Al-Qaida will be able to use it in the months to come.” If regime security is Saleh’s main concern, then somewhat ironically, he has been emboldening his opposition all along.

Whether news of the leaks and Saleh’s comments reach the Yemeni public remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that AQAP will use the leaks to further their own agenda. In the 1990s, Rugh argues that “Salih calculated that strong action against al-Qaeda and its tribal allies might strengthen his domestic opponents and feared that open cooperation with the United States would validate al-Qaeda’s narrative that Salih was an anti-Muslim American puppet.” This same fear exists today and presents a deterrent to full collaboration with the US, however with al-Qaeda armed with the newly leaked knowledge and poised to act, the Yemeni government, which denies the reports, may find that fighting al-Qaeda is actually in its best interest and that of its most powerful ally.

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Europe's renewed imperialism

2011-02-25T09:55:00.000-08:00

The European Council on Foreign Relations, a shadow of its American counterpart, or rather the elite think tank it seeks to emulate in developing an imperial policy for Europe, is calling for intervention, military and other, into the affairs of sovereign Libya. Whatever one thinks of the protests and uprisings in the Arab world, one thing is clear: a great deal of the problems of those lands rest with European, followed by American, colonialism, the effects and legacies of which continue to haunt those lands.

Below is reproduced a call from the ECFR to intervene in Libya: it represents the dangerous initial stirrings of European-level neo-colonialism.

Briefing: What Europe needs to do on Libya

Europe must act decisively and rapidly to halt Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s murderous behaviour. Failure to do so will condemn many Libyans to their deaths, undermine the nascent revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, and create problems for Europe on issues ranging from migration to terrorism.

In ‘What Europe needs to do on Libya’, ECFR senior policy fellow Daniel Korski outlines the concrete steps that European leaders must take, including:

1. Making it clear that the EU intends to freeze Libya’s assets.

2. Putting military options, including a no-fly zone or an intervention force, on the table

3. Developing support toanti-Gaddafi factions, include assistance to liberated areas and clandestine help. The EU should also support a gathering of Libyan opposition and offer safe haven to Libyan aircraft pilots and other security personnel who refuse to carry out illegal regime orders to attack civilians

4. Calling for an independent investigation into possible breaches of humanitarian law and appointing a War Crimes Coordinator.

Militarised Britain: From Poppies to X Factor to the Premier League

2011-02-25T09:15:00.000-08:00

War may well be the continuation of politics by violent means, as Clausewitz said, but it is by no means obvious in British popular culture.

USBlog has in recent months considered the militarisation of British culture by highlighting the ways in which the annual 'poppy appeal' has incorporated support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; support for those wars on prime-time programmes like X-Factor, as well the ways in which military charities are visiting schools and even nurseries to parade their cause. In each instance, and I'm sure in many others too, war is lifted out of politics - the struggle over who gets what and how - and placed in the domain of the welfare of 'our boys'. By so doing, sympathy and empathy are mobilised behind one side and implicitly against the 'other' side, without examining the nature of the war or the gross imbalance of casualties, military and civilian.

Yesterday's Daily Mail added a new dimension to the issue (24 February 2011). Its sports pages are normally opinionated, dramatic and sensationalist. This is not surprising. In uncharacteristically un-sensational terms, the paper reported that a former premier league footballer, Lee Crooks, has joined the RAF and is about to go to fight in Afghanistan. The article purports to be non-political, and just mere reporting, but notes in its very first sentence that Crooks "is about to move from defence on the pitch to the front line in Afghanistan". By noting Crooks's defensive role as footballer in the same sentence as announcing his move to Afghanistan, it implies that British forces there are engaged in a defensive war, an opinion not shared by everyone.

The article quotes Crooks arguing that football and war are quite similar: Being a soldier and player both require "working as a team, being there for your team-mates and moving forward as a team," Crooks suggested. These must be waht Edmund Burke meant when he referred to the "little platoons" that make for a cohesive social structure. Crooks may be in for a shock.

The British empire was built on the playing fields of Eton - sports made Victorian school boys muscular Christians who would civilise the world. As far back as George Orwell, it was noted that football is war minus the shooting. Countries at war often produce aggressive sports, a consequence of militarised culture. The results are not pretty.

Lee Crooks is not going from playing in defence to defending his country. He is going from a sports field full of aggression to the killing fields of Afghanistan.

Wikileaks: Tim Sebastian Tackles US Wrong-doing Head On

2011-02-18T02:54:00.000-08:00

A recent post on this site noted the stunning silence from the mass media on questioning illegal and lethal acts carried out by American diplomats and military forces, as revealed by Wikileaks over the course of 2010.

Below is a brief exchange during a televised debate in Doha, Qatar, at the end of January, betweem the veteran journalist, Tim Sebastian, and Carl W. Ford, jr., a former CIA analyst, defense and state department assistant secretary and official. During 2001-03, Ford served the Bush administration's State Department as assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research, playing a significant role in crafting the war on terror and the (false) WMD justification for the illegal US invasion of Iraq.

In 2003, Ford joined a consulting firm, Cassidy and associates, that specialised in military issues with special focus on the far east and Middle east. Previously, back in the 1990s, Ford had established his own consulting firm, with a client list that included Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon. He now teaches a course in teaches courses in government decision-making and the theory and practice of intelligence at Georgetown and George Mason universities.

Going by his contribution to the debate and subsequent questioning by Tim Sebastian, Carl Ford remains wedded to the principle that American power is unquestionably good for the world.

Carl W. Ford Jr.

Speaking against the motion (that Wikileaks is good for the world)

CARL FORD
Thank you Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. I came to the debate tonight thinking that most of you would agree that diplomacy is an essential element in international relations and that trust is an important aspect of all diplomatic communications, if for no other reason than the fact that misunderstandings have been a major cause of war and political disputes throughout history. Those who support this motion tonight would have you believe that these principles are no longer important; I hope most of you disagree. Julian (Assange), of course, says Wikileaks' disruptions are justified because he's helping the American people. Apparently he believes that it's his mission to uncover illegal US government activities. He hasn't shown me any yet, any illegal activities, maybe he's saving the best for last, I don't know. But certainly we in the United States are no strangers to misconduct by government officials, but instead of relying on Julian we have independent inspector generals, we have whistleblower laws, we have congressional oversight, we have courts to ensure that our law enforcement and intelligence organisations don't overstep their authorities. I think that the help that Julian is talking about is fixing the US policy that he dislikes, and there are a lot of those. But I think that's a different matter, he's free to speak his mind as often and as loudly as he wants, I don't always agree with what my government says or does either. In the case of Wikileaks however, Julian did far more than speak his mind or express an opinion; he attacked the United States. But it's not news to Julian, he knows full well the consequences of his actions, he wrote about them in a paper he wrote in 2006. Back then Julian was promoting the idea of disrupting communications links between the United States and other countries using leaks, but not to help.

TIM SEBASTIAN
Could you come to a close please.
CARL FORD
But instead to demonstrate that Washington couldn't keep a secret, that it would complicate the free flow of information by governments and would require the executive branch to tighten up its security procedures. Well, he says that Wikileaks' attacks are different this time, because it's for our own good. Well some of you may agree that the United States deserves attacking and applaud the damage Wikileaks has done to us. I, of course, disagree on both counts.

TIM SEBASTIAN
I must ask you to wrap up please.

CARL FORD
But at least it's a legitimate position to take that you protest against American policies, clearly we don't always do everything right. But please, be honest...

TIM SEBASTIAN
Carl Ford, I must bring you to a close here. Thank you you've had well over your time, thank you very much indeed, thank you. You say that Wikileaks hasn't uncovered any illegal activity; you appear to have missed the order from the State Department authorising illegal bugging of offices at the United Nations, and the illegal hacking into delicate information belonging to UN officials. That's certainly illegal activity and the United States hasn't even contested that fact. Isn't that helpful to the world's public to know about that?

CARL FORD
Well I think that if we are bugging the United Nations and I found out about it I would be one of those whistleblowers, and I've been in Intelligence in government for over forty years.

TIM SEBASTIAN
So we're better off knowing about it, thanks to Wikileaks?
CARL FORD
Whistle blowers are necessary and I would be one if I thought that there was some real wrongdoing being done.

TIM SEBASTIAN
Isn't it also instructive that we now know that contrary to their assurances that they didn't keep any record of civilian casualties in Iraq, we now know that out of 109,000 casualties, 65,000 belonged to non-combatants. That's also something that Wikileaks has told us, that's worth knowing too, isn't it?

CARL FORD
We know that they did not publicise those casualties.

TIM SEBASTIAN
They said they didn't have them.
CARL FORD
They knew what they were, they kept close...

TIM SEBASTIAN
So they lied, they lied?

CARL FORD
No, no I think that not everybody...

TIM SEBASTIAN
So Wikileaks has caught them in a lie?

CARL FORD
Not everybody in the field knows exactly what's going on, and what's not going on.

TIM SEBASTIAN
But they said they didn't, now it transpires that they do, it's a straight lie.

CARL FORD
No, if you believe...

TIM SEBASTIAN
You can't have it both ways, you can't be a little bit sure and...

CARL FORD
Well, if it were up to me...

TIM SEBASTIAN
You're either sure or you're not sure.

CARL FORD
Young men and women have already experienced things so that they will never recover in our lifetime, and to believe that somehow war is not horrible and bad things don't happen, there are casualties.

TIM SEBASTIAN
I'm talking about details, I'm talking about details that were lied about, I'm not talking about the horrors of war, we all know war is horrible, which is why we're not supposed to launch it. You either tell the truth about what you know or not; they've caught them in a lie and they've caught them in illegal activity at the United Nations as well. So there are two things that Wikileaks have brought to the attention of the public that are worth having aren't they?

CARL FORD
What you're saying is that you accept that privacy in diplomatic communications is not important.

TIM SEBASTIAN
It's only important if people tell the truth but they lie a lot don't they, so what other chance does the public have to get at it?

CARL FORD
You can't get away with that, you can't get away with. The fact is you're saying that you don't think diplomatic communications of any country should be private.
TIM SEBASTIAN
I'm not saying that, Carl Ford thank you very much indeed.

The US-backed Egyptian Military-Industrial Complex

2011-02-18T01:05:00.001-08:00

Last week USBlog briefly alluded to the commercial and industrial power of the Egyptian armed forces, in addition to its sheer size and repressive capacity. Below is an article that provides far greater detail of the Egyptian military's business empire.

So what? The significance of the evidence provided below is pretty clear: if the armed forces are the vehicle for political reform and 'democratisation', as touted by themselves, and the Obama administration, the character of that 'democracy' is likely to be 'low intensity'. Unless there is a more thorough-going popular revolution in Egypt, it is the US-backed armed forces that will set the terms and conditions, and limits, of political reform. While this may leave the Egyptian business and military elite, and their supporters in Washington DC and Tel Aviv, very happy, it is unlikely to lead to a popular-democratic Egypt.

Egyptian military commands a vast business empire
By Mike Head 17 February 2011

Egypt’s military has been presented by the Obama administration, as well as by the leaders of Egypt’s official “opposition,” such as Mohamed ElBaradei, as the guarantor of an “orderly transition” to a new democratic order. This is false to the core. The generals have a long record of repression against the working class, starting with the court-martial and execution of two textile workers’ strike leaders just a month after the 1952 military coup that inaugurated the Nasser regime (see: “The Egyptian working class moves to the forefront”).

Contrary to the myth of the armed forces’ neutrality, every acute crisis of the military-backed dictatorship has seen troops mobilised to suppress working class discontent. These occasions included the 1977 food riots triggered by the implementation of World Bank and International Monetary Fund-ordered price rises, and an uprising of police conscripts in Cairo and other cities in 1986.

Last August, eight employees of Military Factory 99 were placed on trial—in a military court—for calling a strike. The workers had demanded safer working conditions, as they are formally entitled to do under Egyptian law, after a boiler exploded, killing one civilian worker and injuring six. The strikers were charged with “disclosing military secrets” and “illegally stopping production”. In the end, after a quick trial, three were acquitted and the five others received suspended sentences. The outcome was regarded as lenient, but the military had sent an unmistakeable message. “There are no labor strikes in military society,” a retired army general, Hosam Sowilam, told the New York Times.

In addition to its unabiding commitment to maintain the capitalist order as a whole, Egypt’s officer caste commands its own huge business empire, which has mushroomed since the 1952 coup. Military Factory 99, at Helwan, in Cairo’s south, is a prime example. The plant produces a wide variety of consumer goods—stainless steel pots and pans, fire extinguishers, scales, cutlery—in addition to its primary function of forging metal components for heavy ammunition.
Field Marshal Mohamed Tantawi, a life-long henchman of ousted president Hosni Mubarak, remains both Defence Minister and Minister of Military Production, posts he has held since 1991. That makes him not only the commander-in-chief of the military junta but, in effect, the chief executive officer of a giant military-run commercial enterprise.

Military-run firms hold strong positions in key industries, including food (olive oil, milk, bread and water); cement and gasoline; clothing; kitchen appliances; vehicle production (joint ventures with Jeep to produce Cherokees and Wranglers); resorts and hotels; and construction, in which the military benefits from being able to deploy conscripts during their last six months of service.
Among the range of products sold by military companies are medical equipment, laptops, televisions, sewing machines, refrigerators, butane gas bottles and Egypt’s best-known bottled water brand, Safi. The military businesses do not pay taxes and are immune from government regulation.

The generals also control swathes of public land, which is increasingly being converted into gated communities and resorts for the benefit of the military caste, as well as the rest of Egypt’s obscenely wealthy business elite. Among the resorts is one on the Red Sea at Sharm el-Sheikh, where Mubarak reportedly fled to one of his seaside palaces. Extravagant and well-watered golf courses have become notorious in a country where millions of people have no access to running water.

There are divergent estimates of the size of the military’s business empire—partly because it is illegal in Egypt to report on the military’s activities. Paul Sullivan, a US National Defense University professor, has stated that the military conglomerates probably account for 10 percent to 15 percent of Egypt’s $US210 billion per year economy.
According to US Naval Postgraduate School Professor Robert Springborg, estimates of military control of Egyptian businesses range from 5 percent to 40 per cent. Whatever the exact percentage, officers in the Egyptian military were making “billions and billions” of dollars, Springborg said in a recent interview. He told the Global Research web site: “It’s a business conglomerate, like General Electric. It’s represented in virtually every sector of the economy.”

The Ministry of Military Production alone has 40,000 civilian employees and takes in approximately $345 million a year, according to its head, former General Sayed Meshal. A journalist from the online publication Slate, who interviewed Meshal last year, described the ministry’s “lavish headquarters”. It had “golden handrails” and “fancy custom-made drink counters”. The place was “awash with cash”.

At the pinnacle of this pyramid of wealth stood Mubarak, a former military commander himself, and his family. Their fortune amounts to as much as $70 billion, according to a report by the ABC television network in the United States. The family is believed to own properties in Manhattan, Beverley Hills, California and London, to have large deposits in banks in Britain and Switzerland, and to have invested heavily in hotels and tourist businesses on the Red Sea.

Washington, which is now relying on Tantawi’s military council to restore order, has long been well aware of the venal interests of the generals, who collaborate intimately with the Pentagon in return for military aid and weaponry worth an average of $2 billion per year since 1979. In a 2008 US embassy cable published by Wikileaks, Ambassador Margaret Scobey reported that “analysts perceive the military as retaining strong influence through its role in ensuring regime stability and operating a large network of commercial enterprises”.

Scobey said her sources “opined that the regime gives the six businessmen in the cabinet carte blanche to pursue commercial activities, but that the defense minister can put a hold on any contract for ‘security concerns’.” One source “pointed out that military companies built the modern road to the Ain Souknah Red Sea resorts 90 minutes from Cairo and Cairo University’s new annex. He noted the large amounts of land owned by the military in the Nile Delta and on the Red Sea coast, speculating that such property is a ‘fringe benefit’ in exchange for the military ensuring regime stability and security.”

Scobey reported the existence of “economic and political tensions between the business elite and the military,” but concluded that “the overall relationship between the two still appears to be cooperative, rather than adversarial”. Her cable reviewed the military’s unease at the rise of Mubarak’s son Gamal, who was being groomed to succeed his father as president. She observed that his power base lay in the super-rich layer that had profited from the wholesale privatisation of state enterprises since 2004, rather than the military elite.

Not discussed in the cable, however, was the overriding concern of the military leadership: that the blatant wealth disparity produced by the privatisation process would generate convulsive social unrest. The sell-off of several hundred businesses to the profiteers associated with Gamal Mubarak resulted in the firing of thousands of employees. At the same time, again at the behest of the international financial markets, government subsidies for essential commodities were reduced or eliminated, creating dire poverty and immense popular discontent.

Samer Shehata, an Egyptian academic at Georgetown University told Time that the military had in 2008 pointed to the hundreds of strikes that the post-2004 economic changes had unleashed. “They said this was becoming an issue of national security,” Shehata said. One of the groups organising on Facebook this year took its name, the April 6 Movement, from an April 6, 2008, strike by textile workers in the Nile delta that was brutally suppressed by the regime.

Wikileaks and Egypt: has Obama Got Away With It?

2011-02-13T08:25:00.000-08:00

Wikileaks and Egypt: Has Obama Got Away With It?

There is a crescendo of self-congratulation in the US State Department about the lack of damage to America’s standing from the continuing Wikileaks’ release of secret US embassy cables. Few observers of American power – academic, journalistic or other - disagree. The lack of media interrogation of the Obama administration’s complicity in carrying out illegal and deadly policies abroad, as exposed by Wikileaks, is stunning to observe.

Yet, the case of Egypt advances a clear and damaging thesis that challenges that view: that successive American administrations from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama knowingly financed, armed and propped up a repressive regime directed to keeping its people down at home and undermining Palestinian aspirations for self-determination abroad. Instead, the Hosni Mubarak regime protected Israel and effectively permitted and connived in its successive wars against the Palestinians. Israel, according to secret cables, gave Egypt advanced warning of its war on Gaza in December 2008, and even offered Gaza to Egypt as a prize if Hamas were removed from power. And the Israelis, along with the Americans, were Mubarak’s most fervent supporters until the bitter end when his fate was sealed by the insistent demands of popular protests and dissension within the ranks of the Egyptian armed forces.

Released US embassy cables described Egypt as dominated by corruption and cronyism on a stupendous scale. They detailed the excessive power of the armed forces within Egyptian society, economy and polity. Mubarak was characterised as an egotistical and stubborn dictator, and as actively grooming his son to takeover Egypt after him. The Egyptian military high command was described as taking the ca $1.3 billion paid annually into its coffers from American “aid” as the price of friendship with the United States and its policies of protecting Israel and containing the Palestinians.

Yet, despite the critical character of the message in American embassy cables, there was not a hint of a recommendation that the Mubarak regime should publicly be criticised let alone cut-off by the Americans. Barack Obama, with his Nobel Peace Prize in hand, valued Mubarak virtually till the end of his days as Egypt’s virtual pharoah. Obama described him as a man to be trusted and respected because he ensured stability in the Middle East, a counterweight to Iran. It will be recalled that the late Shah of Iran had received President Jimmy Carter’s blessings and support right up until he was ousted in 1979.

American administrations, including that of Barack Obama, have not just turned a blind eye to the Mubarak regime’s human rights and other violations: they have valued and exploited Egypt’s willingness to crush anyone remotely espousing “Islamic” politics, including the Muslim Brotherhood which is opposed to al Qaeda. American administrations have used Egypt for torturing suspected terrorists for years.

So where now for Egypt and US policy there?

America has invested ca $50 billion in Egypt’s armed forces since 1979. Another $28 billion in non-military aid has been invested there. America is not going to yield Egypt to its own people without a fight. Egypt’s military reportedly controls around 15% of national economic output, worth almost £140 billion. It owns companies in practically every area of national life – from hotels to clubs to banks and other businesses. Its senior officers enjoy lavish lifestyles; even its middle ranked officers retire to lucrative posts in state-owned businesses. The military has finally ousted Mubarak; but it now has direct control of Egypt, even if constitutionally it ought to pass to the leader of parliament should the president resign.

50 years after outgoing President Dwight Eisenhower warned about the rise of a military-industrial complex as a threat to American democracy, the Americans have constructed an even more fearsome complex of military repression, torture, rendition, and capitalist corruption in the leading country in the Arab world. Egypt’s armed forces, at almost 470,000, are the world’s tenth largest, with thousands of tanks, armoured vehicles, fighter jets, attack helicopters and submarines. A far cry from promoting democracy and freedom that is the usual rallying call of American power.

Obama’s policy of supporting corrupt Arab dictators lies in tatters. Despite his credentials as a man of the people and as the harbinger of change, of his claim to understand and empathise with the peoples of the Middle East, and of offering a hand a friendship to Muslim peoples, he has demonstrated the exact opposite. His administration takes its place right alongside post-1945 American administrations that have helped install and prop up military dictatorships whose ultimate virtue is that they support United States policies regardless of the interests of their own peoples.

What the Wikileaks cables have shown is that the brutal facts are coolly recognised and catalogued by America’s diplomatic representatives – or rather their viceroys – in dictatorial regimes. The significant point is, however, is that they are more than happy to continue supporting such vassals because they help maintain American power and interests. Egypt remains in the grip of American power.

Those double standards damage American standing abroad and corrupt the meaning and values of democracy within the United States and its craven western and other allies, regardless of the mainstream media’s stunning silence on the question.

Wikileaks Official I: Nothing to Report?

2011-02-05T04:54:00.000-08:00

It's the 'line' heard everywhere whenever the issue of Wikileaks' publication of secret US embassy cables comes up - from academic conferences to the mass and broadsheet media, and from confidential briefings (official and, therefore, "good" leaks) from the US Department of State and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. "We got away with it" appears to be the line from Anglo-American diplomats and others, echoed in the media - and in an impressive 16 page supplement in today's Guardian newspaper (5 February, 2011).

In the next few posts, USBlog, which has followed the Wikileaks 'story' closely for some weeks, aims to analyse the matter with a view to determining in as balanced a manner as possible, the effects of the Wikileaks cables (both in terms of content but also in terms of their significance as a political issue in its own right) mean for America's global standing.

That they've "got away with it" is the chosen expression is instructive in itself: that the third level of secrecy at which the leaked cables were designated revealed little that damages America's global standing. It's pretty cynical. And it suggests that at the top two levels of secrecy there would be much more damaging material. Hence, the orders issued by the White House to all executive departments in December 2010 to review information security procedures and limit even level 3 information to far fewer than the previous 2.5 million government officials.

That just ca 2500 cables have yet to be published, and that ca 249,000 remain unpublished, is left increasingly unacknowledged. Maybe there's more to come? How representative is what we've seen up to now, even of the 250,000 in the original cache of leaked cables? And how representative are the quarter million leaked cables of the total number of cables? There is an eagerness to close the book on Wikileaks. Indeed, the Guardian's supplement is headed "After Wikileaks". Perhaps the Guardian's new book on the matter is the final word on the subject. They certainly think so.

The cynicism is quite staggering. David Miliband, former foreign secretary (2007-2010), an ex-emperor looking for a role, notes in the Guardian that most diplomats would be glad they got away with it. Yet, did Britain 'get away with it'? He does not address the question of the deal with the Americans first to remove and then to prevent, in the most undignified and cynical manner, the people of the Chagos Islands from returning to their homes after an enforced decades-long expulsion to make way for American military bases. What a wheeze it must have been to designate the islanders home as a marine park and make the whole sordid matter look like an environmental issue. Nor the issue that his government manipulated parliament to permit the Americans to retain cluster bombs, against British and international law, on British soil.

It seems that you "get away" with things by just ignoring them, with media connivance and lack of investigative follow up. (Which is why Wikileaks and others like them will remain significant actors).

Take the matter of William Hague's promise to the Americans of a "pro-American regime" should the Conservatives be returned to power in the may 2010 elections. Surely worth a few questions from the Guardian one would think, even in the House? Going by Prime Minister Cameron's declaration this week that Britain would shun anyone who lacks or rejects "British values", Hague should be called to explain why American values are so attractive that Britain's foreign policy is closely aligned to them. A British regime should really be "pro-British" one would have thought.

Then there's the issue of State Department orders to diplomats to spy on UN officials - including the secretary-general and his staffs - and diplomats, violating international law, specifically the US-UN HQ agreement of 1946 and the Vienna convention of 1961. The CIA's wish list, you may recall, included iris scans, DNA, credit card numbers and statements, encryption codes, finger prints. For sub-saharan Africa, US diplomats were asked to collect military base information, aircraft markings, vehicle licence plates of cars used by Hamas officials, and the like.

All illegal. And met with astonishing silence from Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration, except for relentless war - cyber, financial, words, and legal - on the wikileaks organisation , its founder, and Bradley Manning, in military custody and held under conditions now revealed to be so harsh that the UN and Amnesty International have taken up the case.

Miliband praises those US diplomats who noted the corruption in Tunisia and Egypt: we need more like them, he says. The problem is, David, that those diplomats did not suggest that the US should change it's policies towards those regimes. The Obama administration, following in the footsteps of administrations from Ronald Reagan through the Bushes, had already promised Mubarak $2 billion dollars military aid for 2011.

And one diplomat who did upset the applecart - former Pakistan ambassador Anne Patterson - is now, well, an ex-ambassador. Has US policy to Pakistan's terror-backing regime changed at all? No. Has US policy to Saudi Arabia changed as a result of revelations that they're backing Taliban forces against US troops in Afghanistan? No.

More to follow...

Eisenhower, Lockheed Martin and the Military Industrial Complex Today

2011-01-14T01:15:00.000-08:00

Fifty years ago, on 17 January 1961, US President Dwight Eisenhower warned Americans about the rise of what he called "the military industrial complex" - the enmeshing of the massive military establishment (built during and especially after World War II) with weapons manufacturing corporations. He also noted that American universities had become dominated by government and corporate reserach contract income such that obtaining grants had replaced intellectual curiosity as their raison d'etre. "The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present," he stated.

Below is reprinted part of Eisenhower's speech that is most often quoted as well as its context. There is, in addition, a brief summary of the power of one particular US coporation, Lockheed Martin, to demonstrate the continuing and growing power of the state-corporate nexus.

Eisenhower's warning about the incestuous character of state, academic and coporate power may well have been sincere yet he personified that very nexus. Eisenhower rose through the military ranks to Supreme Commander in Europe and head of NATO, was appointed president of Columbia University after 1946, before running for president in 1952. As president, Eisenhower presided over a massive and growing military budget which was aimed at the "communist threat". As he noted, in a style eerily similar and so easily adapted to today's enemies: "We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method."

Noth only that, the enemy poses a "danger... of indefinite duration... [requiring]... not so much the emotional and trasitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty at stake".

What Eisenhower warned about in one breath was earmarked as a vital necessity in the next.

Extract from Eisenhower's Farewell Address:

"A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society."

Lockheed Martin: From Arms to Surveillance to Promoting Democracy

According to William Hartung, author of a new study of the corporation, "Lockheed Martin doesn't actually run the U.S. government, but sometimes it seems as if it might as well. After all, it received $36 billion in government contracts in 2008 alone, more than any company in history. It now does work for more than two dozen government agencies from the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency. It's involved in surveillance and information processing for the CIA, the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Pentagon, the Census Bureau, and the Postal Service.

Oh, and Lockheed Martin has even helped train those friendly Transportation Security Administration agents who pat you down at the airport. Naturally, the company produces cluster bombs, designs nuclear weapons, and makes theF-35 Lightning (an overpriced, behind-schedule, underperforming combat aircraft that is slated to be bought by customers in more than a dozen countries) -- and when it comes to weaponry, that's just the start of a long list. In recent times, though, it's moved beyond anything usually associated with a weapons corporation and has been virtually running its own foreign policy, doing everything from hiring interrogators for U.S. overseas prisons (including at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq) to managing a private intelligence network in Pakistan and helping write the Afghan constitution.

William D. Hartung, Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex (Nation Books, January 2011).

Wikileaks and the Bush-Obama Transition

2011-01-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

WIKILEAKS AND THE BUSH-OBAMA TRANSITION

The publication of up to 251,000 secret US Embassy cables by the Wikileaks organisation helps address a key question:

To what extent do President Barack Obama’s foreign and national security policies differ from those pursued by President George W. Bush? Has Obama lived up to his promise of “change we can believe in”?

The secret US embassy cables broadly cover the period 2004 to April 2010 (although some stretch back to the 1990s as well). They therefore allow analysis of continuities and change from Bush to Obama. This is interesting and useful because it allows us to compare Obama’s election campaign promises with his performance since taking office. It allows American citizens more clearly to see whether Obama has made a difference and judge his performance, and perhaps vote or otherwise act accordingly, and it allows people outside the US to better understand the realities of American power: that it changes little from one administration to another even when such radically different leaders and parties control the White House. It is useful for non-Americans’ assessments of US power and election manifestoes and declarations.

It should be recalled that authoritative opinion surveys in the US and across the world in the closing years of the Bush administration showed very high levels of US unpopularity around the globe and high levels of American citizen opposition to US global leadership/hegemony, unilateralism, sidelining of the UN, and so on.

A key attitude survey by the University of Maryland at the end of 2010, before the Wikileaks publication of secret embassy cables, showed declining international support for the leadership and policies of Barack Obama. It will be interesting to see post-Wikileaks opinion surveys to consider their effects on US power and global standing.

Secret embassy cables:

1. Predator Drone attacks in Pakistan exposed by the cables: the cables confirmed what was previously believed by many journalists and observers. Indeed, the Obama administration has used drone attacks with greater frequency than had the Bush administration. What is further exposed is that Pakistan’s president and prime minister knew about and supported, but publicly denied, drone attacks. Obama is therefore shown to have stepped up this aspect of the ‘war on terror’. Under Bush, 9 drone attacks from 2004-7 and 33 in 2008; under Obama, there were 53 in 2009, 118 in 2010, and 4 up to now in January 2011 (according to the Drone database maintained by the New America Foundation think tank in Washington, DC.

2. US Special Forces embedded in Pakistan: Obama took that decision in October 2009, according to Bob Woodward, Obama’s Wars (2010); exposed by Wikileaks in December 2010. Bush had not embedded US military units into the Pakistan military – that had been a ‘red-line’ issue with Pakistan’s army.

3. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) was known under Bush to be funding Taliban and other terror groups; embassy cables show continued ISI backing of terror groups fighting US and other NATO troops, and passing of information to warn terror groups of US planned attacks. It was an ISI-supported group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT, meaning ‘Army of the Pure’) that carried out the attacks on Mumbai in November 2008.

The Obama administration continues to support the Pakistani state, including ISI, to the tune of $2 billion p.a. in military aid.

4. Spying on UN leaders and diplomats: in January 2009, according to cables, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered US diplomats to collect information on Ban Ki Moon, secretary-general of the UN, and his secretariat; and on the permanent UNSC representatives, including Britain and France. Information requested included iris scans, DNA, fingerprints, passwords for email and other computer accounts.

It is also the case that Condoleeza Rice, as US secretary of state under Bush, had ordered illegal surveillance of the-then UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, in the run up to the Iraq War of 2003. It will be recalled that a GCHQ ‘whistle-blower’, Katharine Gun, had exposed in 2004 that Condoleeza Rice had asked for British diplomats to spy on Kofi Annan and his staff and had also ‘bugged’ his office. In 2004, Clare Short MP claimed to have read transcripts of Annan’s illegally recorded conversations (BBC News online, 26 Feb 2004).

What the Wikileaks cables suggest is a programme of illegal surveillance that violates the 1946 US-UN HQ agreement and the 1961 Vienna Convention, and which the Obama administration appears to have placed on a far more ambitious basis and scale. In the case of Africa, diplomats were ordered to collect military base location and size information, including aircraft and other vehicular markings and insignia. In relation to Palestine Authority and Hamas, information was requested on mobile telephone numbers, vehicles used, and so on.

5. Saudi Arabia was the site of large financial flows to Taliban, al Qaeda, and other terror groups fighting US and other NATO troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan: this was known under the Bush administration and continues to be the case under Obama, with little achieved. This is exposed in embassy cables, as are funding flows to Taliban etc.. from other US allies in the Gulf, including Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the UAE.

6. Israel: Bush tied the Obama administration to Israel aid by agreeing to provide $30 billion over 10 years from 2008. Despite claims to the contrary, Obama has failed to halt Israel from expanding settlements in disputed territories and continues to guarantee Israel’s “Qualitative Military Edge” over other Middle Eastern powers, including US allies like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Cables reveal this, including the fact that US sells to Egypt and Saudi Arabia weapons to replace previously sold arms, rather than new generation arms, equipment and systems.

On the Goldstone Report on War Crimes in Gaza (late 2008), cables reveal that US officials would continue their efforts to deflect criticism of Israeli actions and would hinder the Report’s progress to the UNSC. US officials also requested Israeli information to further deflect criticism of Israel’s attack on Gaza that left over one thousand Gazans and 13 Israelis dead and caused massive destruction.

7. Yemen: While Bush had no strategy for Yemen’s growing al Qaeda problems, Obama ordered airstrikes against targets that killed over 120 people in two attacks in December 2009. While the Pentagon denied the airstrikes were by US forces, and the Yemeni government claimed they had carried out the attacks, Wikileaks showed that the US was responsible after all, and that the Yemenis had agreed to keep the attacks’ US provenance quiet.

Of course, to the above it is possible to add policies towards Iran have exhibited little change, despite early ‘peace’ feelers. In regard to rendition, Guantanamo, Bagram and secret prisons run by the CIA, little has changed since the Bush administration left office in January 2009. The Wikileaks cables, therefore, add to a growing awareness of the continuities between Obama’s and Bush’s foreign policies, but provide all-important official confirmation of ‘open secrets’ known to journalists and other experts, as well providing significant information to American and other publics.

Americans and Anti-Americanism: US Foreign Policy's to Blame

2010-12-29T07:22:00.001-08:00

Although a little dated, the public opinion report below, by WorldPublicOpinion.org, at the University of Maryland, buttresses arguments presented in USBlog yesterday concerning the sources of "anti-Americanism" or, more accurately, opposition to US foreign policies.

Citing US Department of Defense and Council on Foreign Relations reports, yesterday's post indicated full awareness among US administration officials that Muslims in the Middle East were opposed to US foreign policies in the region and not to American people or American values. Despite that, however, US administration officials continue to treat opponents of US power as motivated by irrational resentment, hatred of US values, or envy. The blogpost also noted that "Anti-Americanism" in the main was viewed by US administrations as an inevitable and bearable cost of American power.

The polling data below indicate the other side of the picture: what Americans think about the reasons why so much of the world holds negative views and images of the United States. The findings complement the data from surveys of overseas opinion: Americans generally believe that negative views of the United States are sourced in American foreign policies. Large majorities also indicate they do not consider negative views to be in the interests of the United States.

US Role in the World

Americans' Assessments of World Public Opinion on the United States

Large majorities believe that the US is viewed negatively by people in other countries and see this as derived primarily from the current US foreign policy not American values. Most see goodwill towards the United States as important for US national security. Most Americans believe that people around the world are growing more afraid that the US will use force against them and that this diminishes US national security and increases the likelihood that countries will pursue WMDs.

This negativity was largely attributed to the Bush foreign policy. Asked in a WPO/KN October 2006 poll whether the way the Bush administration has been conducting US foreign policy, on balance, has increased or decreased "goodwill toward the US", 78% said it had decreased goodwill and just 18% said it had increased.

Americans tend to believe that dislike of the US stems from its policies rather than an inherent dislike of American values. Asked in the October 2006 WPO/KN poll if negative attitudes toward the United States in the Middle East were based mostly on their "dislike of American values" or "dislike of American policies in the Middle East," more than 62% said that dislike of American policies in the region were largely responsible. Only one-third (34%) said that it was dislike of American values.

Negative views of the US concern Americans. A September 2006 Public Agenda survey found 87% saying it that it was important to US national security that "the rest of the world sees the United States positively." A WPO/KN October 2006 poll showed nine out of 10 (87%) saying it is very (47%) or somewhat (40%) important "for people in other countries to feel goodwill toward the United States."

Even when given counter-arguments against viewing goodwill as an important factor, a very large majority continues to affirm its value as a tool for US security, rather than something that would inhibit pursuit of US goals. The November 2006 WPO/KN poll presented respondents with two arguments: 1) "Goodwill toward the US is important in order to obtain cooperation in dealing with important threats to US security, and because...hostility towards the US can lead people to actively work against the US." 2) "Goodwill is not really critical for the US because it is so much stronger than all other countries. Trying to be popular can tie the US's hands and distract the US from pursuing its security." A very large majority-80 percent-rejected the view that the United States was so strong it did not need to be concerned about maintaining other countries' goodwill. Only 17 percent saw goodwill as not critical for US security.

Americans believe that people around the world increasingly view the US as a military threat. The November 2006 WPO/KN poll found that 63% assumed that over the last few years countries around the world have grown more afraid that the United States will use force against them.

A majority views this growing fear of US military power as negative for US security, even when presented the argument, sometimes made in policy circles, that fearing American military power will make other countries more responsive to US preferences. Respondents were asked whether "as a general rule, if leaders of some countries grow more afraid that the US will use military force against them," on balance, this tends to be good for US security because such leaders are "more likely to refrain from doing things the US does not want them to do", or bad for US security "because it makes them seek out new means of protecting themselves from the US, such as acquiring weapons of mass destruction." By a two-to-one margin (63% to 33%), a majority thought that rising fear of US force was bad for US security (WPO/KN November 2006).

When asked, in a later question, “if leaders of some countries grow more afraid that the US will use military force against them, this tends to increase or decrease the likelihood that countries will try to acquire weapons of mass destruction,” a very large 80 percent said it increased the likelihood foreign governments would pursue WMD.

Anti-Americanism and Public Diplomacy

2010-12-28T08:39:00.000-08:00

Anti-Americanism is a label used with some extravagance and frequency but is rarely worn as a badge of honour. It is a pejorative label applied by one's opponents: it indicates that the individual voicing an opinion critical of US policies or leaders is biased, prejudiced, irrational. The label is designed to close off debate. The-then UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, you will recall, levelled the "anti-American" charge at Lib Dems' leader Nick Clegg during one of the televised debates ahead of the May 2010 general election. Julian Assange, head of the Wikileaks organisation, is currently the World’s Number One "Anti-American" although, today, that label appears insufficient to some, like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, who call Assange a "terrorist" and "enemy combatant".

It is a significant matter that “anti-Americanism” is almost invariably seen by scholars and US administration officials, by definition, as an irrational, unreasonable or prejudiced response to American culture. This is so much the case that even Francis Fukuyama, who accused Neocons of not recognizing that American policies must take part of the responsibility for generating opposition to the US, actually labels the phenomenon as “anti-American”. That is, it is embedded in the very language that is used to categorize all opposition to the US as irrational, even when an individual might actually hold a reasoned differing view.

They hate our values and resent our success. This is the most conventional explanation of opposition to US policies.

Very occasionally, however, the nearly-unthinkable appears in print from within the inner sanctum of US power (this is not a reference to leaked secret cables etc…). A report a few years back from the US Defense Science Board (Task Force on Strategic Communication, 2004) was very explicit. It noted that American public diplomacy could only be effective if weighed in the context of actual US policies, “conflicts of interest, cultural differences, memories…. [that] shape perceptions and limit the effectiveness of strategic communication.” It also recognized that Muslims’ perceptions of the United States were overwhelmingly negative, citing polls showing that Muslims saw the US as trying to weaken Islam and to dominate the Muslim world. The Report further argued that among Muslim masses there was “no yearning-to-be-liberated-by-the-US groundswell…. except to be liberated perhaps from what they see as apostate tyrannies that the U.S. so determinedly promotes and defends.” The Report went on to argue that “Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom’, but rather they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support of Israel and against Palestinian rights… and support for… tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf States.” The idea that America is bringing democracy to the region was seen as “self-serving hypocrisy… [because]… in the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering.”

Put simply, the Defense Science Board Report concluded, the US has “a fundamental problem of credibility. Simply, there is none – the United States today is without a working channel of communication to the world of Muslims and of Islam.”

As Osama Siblani, publisher of America’s largest Arab-American newspaper, argued, “They [the US] could have the prophet Muhammed doing public relations and it wouldn’t help.” The Obama effect, while real enough, has not prevented high levels of Muslim dissatisfaction with US policies.

But the dominant view in the foreign policy elite mind set, hardwired and unalterable, is the fundamental belief in the rightness of America’s cause and its right to use its power however and whenever it deems necessary to maintain a preponderance of power and to prevent the emergence of rivals. As a Council on Foreign Relations report noted, the “United States must further broaden and sharpen the message and the messengers we use to persuade the peoples of the world of the justness of our cause,” and not permit “the foreign opinion tail to wag the dog of American foreign policy.”

This raises a key question: if extending or at least consolidating its power is the principal purpose of US foreign policy, could anti-Americanism be seen as a cost worth bearing? Opposition to United States’ foreign policies has been high for decades in the Middle East and south Asia, and moderately or very high in parts of Europe. If anti-Americanism increases as a result of the post-9-11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, especially among populations that already oppose or “hate” America, does it really matter? After all, the “costs” of Muslims’ opposition to American support of Israel have been borne for decades. This point is, in fact, implied in the Council on Foreign Relations report in which they recommend public diplomacy officers to get involved in foreign policy-making not in order to “change its [America’s] policies to suit others’ wishes… [but to make Washington]… aware of the cost of [resulting] anti-Americanism….”

This clearly suggests that cost-benefit analyses are being applied to foreign policy, much as they routinely are to domestic issues, and that the administration may consider the costs of “anti-Americanism” bearable.

Yet, American administrations continue to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into public diplomacy to convince the world of the justice of its cause. Why?

There are two logics that appear to determine administrations’ efforts to “combat” anti-Americanism. The first logic is domestic opinion – media, Congress, and public – demanding action from the White House to curb rising hostility to the United States, the self-evidently “good” country. The second logic, however, is the logic of viewing anti-Americanism as an absorbable cost, too low normally to matter in the world of power politics. The two logics would suggest the policies rolled out to combat anti-Americanism are likely to be, despite the fanfare, superficial, lacking consistency and coordination, unsystematic, inefficiently administered, and relatively cheap. They are followed largely to mollify public opinion, Congress, media critics, and the political opposition, rather than as a serious attempt to solve the problem:

That would require modification or abandonment of US policies and is therefore unthinkable.

Frankie Boyle and X Factor: How Balanced is our Media

2010-12-25T02:19:00.001-08:00

When the X Factor - the British mass entertainment talent show - featured their tribute to British soldiers serving and wounded in Afghanistan, the show went out to millions of viewers at peak time. Heroic, stoical, self-sacrificing, patriotic, tragically wounded - that's how the item portrayed the soldiers. Worthy of admiration and charitable donations.

At the time of that broadcast, USBlog pointed out that the issue was not that the soldiers were not deserving of any sympathy or admiration for that matter, but that hero status was being bestowed without thought to the character of the war, and the fact that several hundreds of thousands of Afghans had been killed and wounded in the war there and no mention of that was made nor hinted at. X Factor nailed its political colours to the mast: WE look after our own and we have no concern for anyone else.

A few nights ago, on Channel 4 and late at night, the comedian Frankie Boyle, in characteristically forthright and uncompromising style, argued that when it came to the relative worth of human life, there was no equality. As reported, he stated in relation to the Afghanistan War that "Basically, we are murdering a load of shepherds. What gets me is our callousness as a society when we read out our dead on the news first, because our lives are more important. Other people's aren't worth as much."

The controversy is over what he said next, apparently in the tone and style of a TV newsreader: "A bomb went off in Kandahar today, killing two British servicemen, three UN relief workers and a whole bunch of pakis." The media storm is over the world "pakis".

USBlog agrees that the term - "pakis", a catch-all term used by many to refer to all peoples of south Asia - is offensive. But as used by Boyle, in the voice of a newsreader, use of the term is not only warranted but necessary. It expresses an essential truth that respectable media should sit up and listen to: where does BBC 'balance' go when deaths and casualties are reported and how they are reported. Boyle got it absolutely right - there is no balance: the truly valued human lives are counted in precise numbers, have names, parents, partners, and children. They have a face. Their bodies arrive home, they have funerals. They were somebody.

Typically, the political controversy is over the use of a term: it's not polite. The essential message that Boyle was sending - which so few are willing to do at the height of a deadly war that has attained the status of a TV soap opera - seems to have been drowned out: open your eyes and hearts and see that this war is a tragedy for everyone, not just for the handful of 'our' boys who have been killed or wounded.

Boyle is the one who used a racist term to get his message across: the real, deeper, and endemic racism lies in the routine of British and American, and no doubt other nations', everyday life: in the institutionalised unequal distribution of sympathy and value of human life.