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How US claims about Syria became media facts

JamieSW — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:32:49 +0000

In any conflict, warring parties strive to convince the public that justice is on their side. The most effective way of doing this is through the media. It is imperative that journalists cast a critical eye on information they receive to avoid becoming unwitting tools in the propaganda war. In particular, they should not report claims as facts.

There were several fundamental failings in the British press coverage of the recent US raid into Syria. For example, Richard White in the Sun and the Independent correspondent Patrick Cockburn both reported as fact that the raid killed Abu Ghadiya, an alleged al-Qaida figure who smuggled fighters into Iraq.

Similarly, the Times diplomatic correspondent Catherine Philp reported as fact that American commandos entered Syria and fought “a brief gun battle with Abu Ghadiyah and members of his cell”.

Such news justifies the raid to readers because the target was important enough to violate the sovereignty of another country. However, Abu Ghadiya’s death, and the fight against him, were uncorroborated US claims. The news was not identified by the reporters as coming from American sources.

Furthermore, the Independent and Sun did not publish concise, polite letters I had written pointing this out. However, the Daily Telegraph diplomatic editor David Blair responded promptly, politely and commendably to my email questioning why he reported Abu Ghadiya’s death as fact:

“Thank you very much for your email. The point you make is entirely valid, and I have amended the web version of my story accordingly. You might have noticed that the print version is entirely different, and did not make the particular claim that you raised. What happened was that the web version was updated by someone unknown to me, who inserted that late at night, so we have corrected that mistake…Thank you for bringing this to my attention.”

Reporting of the US raid included reminders of Israel’s bombing, last year, of what it claimed was a nuclear site (a claim Syria vehemently denies). Despite Israel’s claim being unproved, it was reported by some as fact. Again, this may encourage readers to see the bombing as a necessary means of halting nuclear proliferation in a volatile region. At fault were an anonymous piece in the Daily Mail, and a Guardian editorial. Guardian analyst Simon Tisdall accounted for this, describing the target as “a supposed nuclear facility”, though here, too, Syria’s denial was absent. The Guardian published my letter pointing this out. The Mail did not.

Worse, the tabloid article stated:

“Syria is believed to have continued with its nuclear programme by following Iran’s lead and scattering its nuclear development programme around several sites in order to make it difficult to thwart with a single strike.”

The article does not identify who believes this, which would have been very useful because not only is it devoid of evidence, but in the eight years that I have been monitoring British media coverage [.pdf] of the Arab world, including Syria, I do not recall ever coming across such a claim. It certainly did not appear elsewhere in British press coverage of the US raid, nor after Israel’s bombing.

Another claim reported as fact, by the Times diplomatic correspondent Catherine Philp, was that the Syrian border is “the route in for 90 per cent of Iraq’s foreign jihadists”. After I requested her source for this statistic, she cited a report by the Combating Terrorism Center, which analysed documents seized by US forces from the so-called Sinjar cell of al-Qaida in Iraq. However, the document states: “The CTC cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of these records”, which are “inherently imperfect”. It added:

“Readers should be aware that analyzing data captured on a battlefield is fraught with risk. Some of the personnel records were filled out incompletely or improperly, some may have been lost by al-Qa’ida’s personnel in Iraq, and some may have been accidentally lost or destroyed by US forces…Readers and researchers should be wary of conclusions drawn solely on the basis of these records.”

Philp herself pasted below her email the following from the document: “Most of the fighters in the Sinjar Records do not explain the route they took to Iraq.” She told me she did not state her source “because the number is a very widely accepted one”. However, the other mainstream news outlets that reported the statistic at the time of its release (the Independent and New York Times) stated the source.

Philp told me that “al-Qaeda’s documents indicate that 603 fighters came through Syria, a figure which accounts for 90 per cent of the estimated total foreign fighters in Iraq”. However this estimate came, as she told me, from the US military. Philp did not reply to my email stating all of the above.

Obama - Wiping the Slate Clean

JamieSW — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:28:32 +0000

Appearance and Reality in the Relaunch of Brand America

In 1997, the British media filled with talk of “historic” change. Blair’s victory that year “bursts open the door to a British transformation,” the Independent declared. (Neal Ascherson, ‘Through the door he can begin to create a freer land,’ The Independent, May 4, 1997)

A Guardian leader saluted the nation: “Few now sang England Arise, but England had risen all the same.” (Leader, ‘A political earthquake,’ The Guardian, May 2, 1997)

The editors predicted that, by 2007, Blair’s triumph would be seen as “one of the great turning-points of British political history… the moment when Britain at last gave itself the chance to construct a modern liberal socialist order.” (Ibid)

The Observer assured readers that the Blair government would create “new worldwide rules on human rights” and implement “tough new limits on arms sales.” (http://www.antiwar.com/orig/pilger.php?articleid=5063)

This, after all, was the dawn of Blair’s “ethical” foreign policy.

It was a dawn of the dead – Blair left behind him the almost unimaginable horror of Iraq and Afghanistan.

A rare poll conducted by Ipsos last January of 754 Iraqi refugees in Syria found that “every single person interviewed by Ipsos reported experiencing at least one traumatic event in Iraq prior to their arrival in Syria.” (http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/iraq?page=news&id=479616762)

UNHCR estimated that one in five of those registered with the agency in Syria over the previous year were classified as “victims of torture and/or violence.” The survey showed that fully 89 per cent of those interviewed suffered depression and 82 per cent anxiety. This was linked to terrors endured before they fled Iraq – 77 per cent of those interviewed reported being affected by air bombardments, shelling or rocket attacks. Eighty per cent had witnessed a shooting… and so on. (Ibid)

John Pilger was a lonely voice in 1997 warning that Blair was a dangerous fraud, a neocon in sheep’s clothing. As Pilger later pointed out, the media could hardly plead ignorance

“Blair’s Vichy-like devotion to Washington was known: read his speeches about a new order led by America. His devotion to Rupert Murdoch, who flew him and Cherie Booth around the world first class, was known. His devotion to an extreme neoliberal Thatcherite economics was known…” (John Pilger, Blair’s bloody hands,’ March 4, 2005; http://www.antiwar.com/orig/pilger.php?articleid=5063)

Over the past two weeks – one decade and three wars later – the same media have been insisting, as one, that US president-elect Barrack Obama is another “new dawn”. A Guardian leader observed:

“They did it. They really did it. So often crudely caricatured by others, the American people yesterday stood in the eye of history and made an emphatic choice for change for themselves and the world…

“Today is for celebration, for happiness and for reflected human glory. Savour those words: President Barack Obama, America’s hope and, in no small way, ours too.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/06/barackobama-uselecti…)

In the Guardian‘s news section, Oliver Burkeman described the victory as “historic, epochal, path breaking”. But there was more:

“Just being alive at a time when it’s so evident that history is being made was elating and exhausting.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/05/uselections2008-barackobama)

In 2003, the Guardian‘s foreign editor, Ed Pilkington, told us:

“We are not in the business of editorialising our news reports.” (Email, November 15, 2003)

Someone forgot to tell Burkeman, indeed the entire Guardian news team. At times like these, the media’s claims to balanced coverage seem to belong to a different universe. Over the last two weeks, the public has been subjected to a one-way delusional deluge by the media. The propaganda is such that comments made by independent US presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, appear simply shocking:

“What we’re seeing is the highest level of resignation and apathy and powerlessness I’ve ever seen. We’re not talking about hoopla. We’re not talking about ‘hope’. We’re not talking about rhetoric. We’re not talking about ‘rock star Obama’. We’re talking about the question that is asked everywhere I go: ‘What is left for the American people to decide other than their own personal lives under more restrictive circumstances year after year?’ And the answer is: almost nothing.” (Interview, RealNews.com, November 4; http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&It…)

Nader says of Obama: “This is show business what you’re seeing.” The crucial point: “Obama doesn’t like to take on power.” (Ibid)

But our media, passionately committed to ‘balance’ though they claim to be, are not interested. Their view (or so they claim): Obama’s victory is a wonderful, transformational moment for the world.

The message is enhanced by precisely the abandonment of any pretence of impartiality. This might be termed the ‘Get Real!’ stratagem of propaganda swamping. The suggestion is that the truth is so obvious, so marvellous, that it is churlish to be concerned with balance. When the whole media system is screaming at us to be overjoyed, something is wrong – life is just not that straightforward.

The same version of events has been repeated right across the media. The Times‘s leading warmonger under Bush-Blair-Brown, Gerard Baker, commented: “there haven’t been many days preceded by more energy and freighted with much greater historic significance than this one”. (Baker, ‘Amid the silence, citizens will make history with their sacred rite,’ The Times, November 4, 2008)

The BBC’s Justin Webb wrote:

“On every level America will be changed by this result – its impact will be so profound that the nation will never be the same.” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/justinwebb/)

David Usborne gushed for the non-editorialising news pages of the Independent:

“As tears wetted a thousand cheeks in the Chicago crowd, it was clear that the significance of Mr Obama’s victory may take some while to sink in.” (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/barack-obama-wins-his-p…)

How to communicate the impact?

“Call it the demise of cynicism or the end of apathy. The country that pretends to be the standard-bearer of the democracy and presumes, indeed, to export it to the other countries around the world was living up to its own standards.”

Jon Snow of Channel 4 News did not disappoint:

“Hello history (to use the word of the times). What a staggering and indescribable moment this is. Barack Obama’s graceful acceptance of what had seemed both inevitable and impossible is up there equalling any political event since the downing of the Berlin Wall and the release of Nelson Mandela.” (Snowmail, November 5, 2008)

And the basis for this staggeringly important moment?

“Even after so many months of speech-making it’s still not clear what are the concrete changes that may now ensue and in particular, there are some big foreign policy areas where Obama is not promising a hugely different tack from Bush…” (Ibid)

As we will see below, the amazing fact is that this eruption of media hype is based on essentially nothing. Obama has had little to say about what he will do, and what he has said has been depressing for anyone hoping for genuine change. Matthew Parris summed it up in the Times:

“Here we have a handsome, dashing and intelligent man, a man with generous instincts and a silver tongue; but a man with no distinctive plan for government that he has seen fit to share with us; a daring opportunist; somebody we may one day judge as a sort of Tony Blair with brains. And here we go again, all over again, hook, line and sinker.” (Matthew Parris, ‘Calm down! He’s not President of the World,’ The Times, November 8, 2008)

The former Europe minister and arch-Blairite, Denis MacShane, also unwittingly supplied a note of caution:

“I shut my eyes when I listen to this guy [Obama] and it could be Tony. He is doing the same thing that we did in 1997.” (Tom Baldwin, ‘Blair team look in mirror of history,’ The Times, November 8, 2008)

Obama And Iraq

As discussed above, the media’s propaganda swamping on Obama – of which we have sampled only a fraction – is based on almost nothing at all. Tariq Ali commented on Democracy Now!:

“As for what the policies are going to be, the situation is pretty depressing. I mean, Obama, during his campaign, didn’t promise very much, basically talked in clichés and synthetic slogans like ‘change we can believe in.’ No one knows what that change is. In foreign policy terms, during the debates, what he said was basically a continuation of the Bush-Cheney policies. And in relation to Afghanistan, what he said was worse than McCain…” (http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/6/president_elect_obama_and_the_futu…)

Andrew Rawnsley wrote in the Observer:

“Iraq and Afghanistan are the sharp end of the partnership between Britain and the United States. Senior members of the British government quite candidly confess: ‘We don’t have a particularly clear view about what they want to do.’” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/09/obama-administration…)

And yet, in the face of Obama’s silence, and flat rejection of progressive policies, the media has sought to portray him as an all-new “dawn”. Thus, Jonathan Freedland wrote in his open letter to Obama:

“You have promised to… end the war in Iraq.” (Freedland, ‘A few thoughts on how to handle the world’s most potent political weapon,’ The Guardian, November 5, 2008)

In the same newspaper, Julian Borger described Obama’s goals: “US troops will be pulled out of Iraq in the next 16 months…” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/05/uselections2008-barackobama6)

A Times leader asked: “How quickly can the United States military withdraw from Iraq?” (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article5084156….)

We doubt any journalist on the Times actually believes Obama is intending to withdraw US troops from Iraq (in the intended meaning of the term).

In the Guardian Jonathan Steele supplied a more realistic appraisal:

“... his position contains massive inconsistencies… he has not repudiated the war on terror. Rather, he insists that by focusing excessively on Iraq, the Bush administration ‘took its eye off the ball’. The real target must be Afghanistan and if Osama bin Laden is spotted in Pakistan, bombing must be used there too.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/06/barack-obama-war-on-...)

Steele commented on the number of troops Obama is planning to keep in Iraq:

Obama – Hawk

John Pilger – who was right about Blair in 1997 and who is surely right about Obama now – also rejects the mainstream consensus:

“Like all serious presidential candidates, past and present, Obama is a hawk and an expansionist. He comes from an unbroken Democratic tradition, as the war-making of presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter and Clinton demonstrates.” (http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=492)

Obama, after all, has supported Colombia’s “right to strike terrorists who seek safe-havens across its borders.” (http://www.newstatesman.com/media/2008/06/pilger-obama-truly-bush) He has promised to continue America’s fierce economic strangulation of Cuba. He has promised to support an “undivided Jerusalem” as Israel’s capital.

In August, Obama said he would be willing to attack inside Pakistan with or without approval from the Pakistani government:

“If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.” (http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0132206420070801)

He has also said: “We will kill Bin Laden. We will crush al-Qaida.” (http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,24464976-912,00.html)

ZNet’s Michael Albert commented last week:

“My guess is, sadly, that within one week, literally one week, Obama’s staff and cabinet choices will make decisively evident that without mass activism forcing new outcomes, change will stop at the surface. I fervently hope I am wrong.” (Albert, ‘Obama Mania?’, ZNet, November 7, 2008)

Albert appears to have been vindicated. Vice-president-elect, Joe Biden, is a pro-war Zionist. Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, helped push through NAFTA and favoured the war on Iraq. Alexander Cockburn writes of him:

“He’s a former Israeli citizen, who volunteered to serve in Israel in 1991 and who made brisk millions in Wall Street. He is a super-Likudnik hawk, whose father was in the fascist Irgun in the late Forties, responsible for cold-blooded massacres of Palestinians.” (www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11072008.html)

In a co-authored book, Emanuel wrote:

“We need to fortify the military’s ‘thin green line’ around the world by adding to the U.S. Special Forces and the Marines, and by expanding the U.S. army by 100,000 more troops.” (Ibid)

Nader comments on Obama:

“What he’s basically doing so far is giving the Clinton crowd a second chance. Rahm Emanuel? He’s the worst of Clinton. Spokesman for Wall Street, Israel, globalization.” (Ibid)

Conclusion – Relaunching The Brand

We are to believe that the US political system that Ralph Nader accurately describes as “a two-party dictatorship in thraldom to giant corporations,” has produced a staggeringly different, progressive individual. And yet Nader has described how he was himself locked out of the election. He was not allowed to participate in the televised debates and lack of media coverage consigned his campaign to oblivion. He wrote to Obama:

“Far more than Senator McCain, you have received enormous, unprecedented contributions from corporate interests, Wall Street interests and, most interestingly, big corporate law firm attorneys… Why, apart from your unconditional vote for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, are these large corporate interests investing so much in Senator Obama? Could it be that in your state Senate record, your U.S. Senate record and your presidential campaign record (favoring nuclear power, coal plants, offshore oil drilling, corporate subsidies including the 1872 Mining Act and avoiding any comprehensive program to crack down on the corporate crime wave and the bloated, wasteful military budget, for example) you have shown that you are their man?” (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10809)

It is no accident that the entire media system is so fervently announcing “historic” change. The American and British political brands have been badly battered and bloodied by utter disaster in Afghanistan and Iraq, and by the fiscal chaos of the “credit crunch”. The insanity of greed-driven militarism enforcing catastrophic ‘solutions’ has become all too obvious, as has the provision of socialism for the rich and capitalism for the rest of us.

And so the American political brand must be rebirthed, resold, relaunched as a fresh start under new management.

We are being put through a crash-course in “Learning to love America again,” as the Telegraph put it. (Iain Martin, ‘The election of Barack Obama,’ Daily Telegraph, November 6, 2008)

A leader in the Times on November 5 could hardly have stated the message more clearly:

“The American nation will replenish the confidence that it has lately lost. In the eyes of the world, the slate will be clean and the pretext, always spurious, for anti-Americanism has been removed.” (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article5084156….)

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Let the Quartet Die

JamieSW — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 10:57:22 +0000

One of the great hopes and subsequent disappointments in modern Middle Eastern diplomacy has been the “Quartet” of four major international players that was supposed to monitor, shepherd and promote Palestinian-Israeli peace-making during the past five years. The group – comprised of Russia, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations – has not only failed to advance the peace process since its establishment in 2002; astoundingly, it has also whittled away the political credibility and impact of two of those parties – the EU and UN.

Now, not surprisingly, a coalition of 21 respected international aid agencies working on the ground in Palestine has openly criticized the shortcomings of the Quartet for failing in its mission and leaving the diplomatic arena dangerously leaderless.

The agencies – including Oxfam, Save the Children, Care, Christian Aid and World Vision – said that in five of the ten main areas the Quartet had identified to improve Palestinians’ daily life conditions, the situation has actually deteriorated. The situation also has worsened, rather than improved, for most Palestinians since the Annapolis peace process was launched last November. It added that the Quartet has not held Israel accountable for continuing to build settlements on occupied land, and that travel restrictions on Palestinians has also increased.

Christian Aid director Daleep Mukarji noted that nearly a year after the Annapolis process was launched, “we are seeing exponential settlement growth, additional check-points and – because of this – further economic stagnation. The Quartet is losing its grip on the Middle East peace process.”

Things could have been very different had the Quartet been a truly impartial and decisive instrument of peace-making. In retrospect, the Quartet was another fig leaf designed to hide American dominance of a diplomatic process that was driven primarily by Israeli interests. This was initially visible in the Quartet’s habit of merely issuing verbal statements criticizing Israeli settlement expansion but doing nothing about it, while acting with more force against the Palestinians.

The epitome of that double standard was the Quartet’s position supporting the Israeli response to the Hamas parliamentary elections victory in early 2006. It refused to deal with Hamas until the latter accepted the conditions Israel and the United States laid down. It did nothing of equal magnitude to demand that Israel, for its part, also respect international law and UN resolutions and stop using excessive violence against Palestinians.

In recent years, I raised the issue of the Quartet’s ineffectiveness and pro-Israeli tilt several times with EU and UN officials, asking them why they did not simply withdraw from an institution that had proved ineffective. Their response was uniformly limp and unimpressive: They argued it was better to be inside the Quartet trying to influence and temper the ideological pro-Israel tilt of the United States. That goal has proven to be an illusion.

Not surprisingly, a dishonest institution like the Quartet named as its special envoy former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Diplomatic Olympics Gold Medal Winner for Political Fraudulence.

The Quartet keeps on meeting, and doing nothing, while conditions deteriorate for most Palestinians, and Israel continues to expand its theft and colonization of Palestinian land. The EU and the UN were once trusted mediators and impartial actors who truly worked for the best interests of Israelis and Arabs alike. Today, they have lost that aura of fairness and confidence, leaving the Middle East dangerously lacking in powerful international actors who enjoy both credibility and impact.

The damning report by the 21 aid agencies should be taken seriously by the EU and the UN, who should consider the consequences of their continuing to provide cover for Israeli colonialism and its American guardian. The EU and the UN should quickly announce that the Quartet was a valiant attempt that failed, and they should withdraw immediately, to prevent any more damage to their own reputations and ability to play constructive roles in the region.

Their withdrawal would send powerful signals to all concerned that American-Israeli charades will not be allowed to define the diplomacy of all other potential actors in the region. The Quartet was a good idea in principle – a powerful body of leading global powers that would push Israelis and Palestinians alike to adhere to their commitments and move to a negotiated peace agreement. In practice, it failed because it was not sincere, serious or impartial.

International aid agencies at least have the self-respect and courage to say this out loud. The EU and the UN would do well to follow suit, and regain a modicum of their own dignity in the process. Truth and honesty still carry weight, and should be exercised now and then to counter the prevailing agents of dishonesty that try to bludgeon us with their brute force.

The Middle East Quartet: A Progress Report

JamieSW — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:39:55 +0000

Editor’s note: Below is the Executive Summary of the report, which was published on September 25. The full report is available here (.pdf).

Executive Summary

The humanitarian crisis in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) continues (see ‘The Gaza Strip: A Humanitarian Implosion’).1 Its population of 3.7 million people, 52 per cent of whom are children, struggle for their basic needs.2 Palestinian women, children, and men are increasingly dependent on aid as their livelihoods are destroyed. The only sustainable solution to the crisis is a comprehensive peace settlement between Israelis and Palestinians based on international law. As humanitarian and development and human rights organisations, we believe that immediate steps can and must be taken to relieve suffering, as well as to ensure that a peace agreement is eventually reached.

As this report demonstrates, the lack of progress on key goals calls the Quartet’s current approach into question. In its Berlin statement, the Quartet [comprising the U.S., EU, UN and Russia] expressed the,

“urgent need for more visible progress on the ground in order to build confidence and support progress in the negotiations launched in Annapolis”.

This “visible progress” has not materialised. Analysis of the reality on the ground demonstrates that in five of the ten areas in which the Quartet has laid down clear recommendations, there has been either no progress or an actual deterioration in the situation. Clearly, a new approach is warranted. Moreover, the Quartet’s capacity to encourage positive developments has been weakest in the three areas where progress is now most urgent: settlements, lifting obstacles to movement and access, and bringing an end to the blockade of Gaza. The Middle East Quartet, comprising Russia, USA, EU, and UN, identified 2008 as a crucial year for the Middle East Peace Process (MEPP) and the period in which to realise agreements made at the Annapolis Conference on 22 November 2007.3 Quartet members committed to assisting parties to meet their specific obligations and to promoting a just, comprehensive, and lasting settlement of the conflict in the Middle East.4 The deadline for an agreement by the end of 2008 is now looming and seems unlikely to be met. Indeed, the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, stated: ‘so far there has been no achievement in the negotiations… I cannot say that there has been an agreement on a single issue. The gap between the sides is very large.”5

The Quartet’s meeting in New York [this took place on Sept. 26] comes at a critical moment for the Quartet to demonstrate that it can play an effective role in bringing peace to the Middle East. This report outlines the Quartet’s own recommendations across six areas that it considered to be of vital importance for the broader peace process. It assesses the impact that limited progress has had on the daily lives of Palestinians and Israelis. The Quartet’s Berlin statement provides a clear picture of the progress needed and, as the most recent declaration of the Quartet, will be used as a basis for this report.6 The statement, like this report, focuses on settlements, access and movement, Gaza, Palestinian security sector reform, donor pledges, and the revival of private sector activity in the oPt.

The Quartet has rightly emphasised that progress in key areas is the only way to prevent further deterioration in the everyday lives of Palestinians and Israelis and in the overall political process itself. The Quartet’s meeting in New York provides an opportunity to re-group, recommit, and decide on additional steps that can be taken to ensure that parties comply with their obligations under the roadmap and international law. This report provides recommendations to Quartet members on how best to respond to ensure urgently needed progress. Unless there is a swift and dramatic improvement, it will be necessary to question what the future is for the Middle East Quartet.

Settlements: Despite efforts by Quartet members to signal strong opposition to continued settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, there has been a marked acceleration in construction, and no serious attempts by the Israeli authorities to dismantle outposts. Settlements, outposts, and the infrastructure that serves them, illegal in international law, devastate the Palestinian economy and the daily lives of ordinary Palestinians. While the Quartet can be commended for raising the issue of settlements and outposts, there has been a marked failure to hold the Israeli authorities to their obligations under the roadmap and international law. This highlights the urgent need to go beyond rhetoric and adopt concrete measures to ensure that Israeli authorities comply with their obligations under international law.

Access and Movement: The Quartet has failed in its efforts to secure the removal of checkpoints and other obstacles to access and movement for people and goods that would enable Palestinians to see a tangible improvement in their daily lives. There is no ‘new reality’ in the West Bank; the economy continues to stagnate, and the blockade of Gaza continues. The failure of the Quartet in this area will lead to further impoverishment and economic decline. It may also constitute a fatal threat to the broader peace process.

Gaza: Despite violations on both sides, the agreement on cessation of violence endures and there have been marked improvements in security for Israelis and Gazans alike.7 However, normal civilian life in Gaza has not resumed. The Quartet has been unable to end Gaza’s isolation and facilitate adequate flows of humanitarian and commercial goods (consistent with the Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA)). There have been increased supplies of fuel to Gaza, but these supplies are not yet steady or sufficient. Despite their efforts, the Quartet has failed to prompt the immediate resumption of stalled UN and other donor projects. Overall, progress in Gaza falls far short of the Quartet’s own stated recommendations. Despite its recognition of the urgency of the situation, the actions taken by the Quartet have been insufficient to kick-start meaningful changes on the ground.

Comprehensive Palestinian Security Sector Reform: The introduction of an EU-trained Palestinian police force across the West Bank is reported to be beginning to deliver tangible and much-needed improvements in the stability of life across the West Bank. Nonetheless, concerns among Palestinian civilians about their personal security are said to remain. The focus on the rule of law for Palestinians, while welcome, has paid inadequate attention to human rights in the reform process.

Donor Pledges: The Quartet Representative has been successful in securing substantial funding pledges. This impressive aptitude for fundraising has not yet led to the prompt delivery of projects, nor improved the lives of Palestinian women, children, and men for the better. The Quartet has not ensured that all donors make good on their pledges, in large part because the absence of demonstrable progress and real change in key areas – particularly settlements, access and movement, and Palestinian reconciliation – has made greater financial assistance ineffective. By adopting a twin-track approach, the Quartet has committed itself to achieving success in both promoting removal of obstacles to Palestinian economic development and increasing investment in Palestinian growth. Failure on one track, particularly the first,seriously undermines prospects for the other.

Private Sector Progress: The Quartet Representative has had isolated successes in implementing a small number of the agreed projects aimed at boosting the private sector. Most notable are his efforts to enable the allocation of frequencies to the second Palestinian mobile telephone operator in the oPt. However, a holistic approach to private sector development is required. There has been almost no progress in alleviating obstacles to access and movement needed to stimulate private sector activity and invigorate the Palestinian economy. Without this, the Quartet Representative will continue to be frustrated in his efforts to improve the daily lives of Palestinians while de-development of the Palestinian economy will continue to increase.

Read the full report here (.pdf).

List of signatories:

CAFOD, CARE Deutschland-Luxemburg; CARE France; CARE Nederland; CARE Norge; CARE Ősterreich; CARE International UK, Christian Aid, DanChurchAid, diakonia, Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN), medico international, Medicos del Mundo; Oxfam International, Save the Children UK; Save the Children Sweden, United Civilians for Peace (a coalition of Dutch organizations: Oxfam Novib, Cordaid, ICCO and IKV Pax Christi), World Vision Jerusalem.

1. Available at www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/downloads/oxfam_gaza_lowres.pdf.
2. See www.unicef.org/infobycountry/oPt_statistics.html.
3. See Quartet Statements of 24 June 2008, 2 May 2008, and 17 December 2007 at www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2008/jun/106215.htm, www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2008/may/104319.htm, and www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2007/dec/97671.htm.
4. See Quartet Statement at Annapolis Conference on 27 November 2008 at www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2007/nov/95667.htm and President Bush, ‘Joint Understanding read by President Bush at the Annapolis Conference’ 27 November
2007 and speech at www.state.gov/p/nea/rls/rm/2007/95695.htm.
5. Mahmoud Abbas quoted in Haaretz, Sunday 14 September 2008 at www.haaretz.com.
6. See Quartet Statements of 24 June 2008, 2 May 2008, and 17 December 2007 at www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2008/jun/106215.htm, www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2008/may/104319.htm, and www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2007/dec/97671.htm.
7. The terminology ‘cessation of violence’ is used in this report as the generally accepted wording of the agreement by the UN.

The end of capitalism, and other questions

JamieSW — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 09:40:12 +0000

“So, we should be really, really wary of this claim that we’re hearing that free market ideology is dead, that this marks the end of, you know, of capitalism. You know, I’m sorry, that is not the case. It may be going dormant for a little while to rationalize these massive bailouts, but it will come roaring back, and the crisis that is being deepened right now through these bailouts will be invoked for even more radical deregulation, privatization, tax cuts and so on. ” – Naomi Klein

As the Anglo-American banking system goes into meltdown, all sorts of unlikely people are beginning to ask, ‘is this the end of capitalism?’ A couple of weeks ago it would have been ideological treason to so much as think such a beastly thing. Now, with ancient financial institutions keeling over everywhere you look, the question is cropping up all over the corporate media.

So what’s the answer? Well the answer’s ‘no’. Or if you want me to flesh that out a bit, the answer’s ‘no, now get a grip’. But really, the problem lies with the question. There are other questions we should be asking, but I’ll come on to that later. For now, lets look at what’s wrong with asking ‘is this the end of capitalism?’

What do we mean, or what do most people understand, by the term ‘capitalism’? Practically every economy you can think of is one where commercial activity occurs, where there are goods and resources which are privately owned and that are bought and sold for profit. Alongside this private sector sits a public sector where, in democratic countries, resources are owned by the public as a whole and distributed according to decisions made by their elected government. Pure capitalism, and pure socialism, remain purely theoretical.

Across the world, what you invariably have are mixed public-private economies where the debate is about which sector of the economy is responsible for the distribution of which resources, and how those responsibilities will be discharged (e.g, to what extent should the private sector play a role in the provision of education and healthcare?). That’s by no means an insignificant debate, but we should be clear on what that debate is about. It is not about whether or not we have the buying and selling of private property or whether or not we have capitalism. The debate is about what kind of capitalism we have in a democracy: which version of capitalism and what mixture of public and private economic activity will produce the end results valued and desired by a society organised on democratic principles.

Different countries strike the balance in different ways. As I’ve noted previously, the Nordic model has been far more successful than the Anglo-American neoliberal model in maximising the well-being of the population. The crisis of the last few weeks was born of the deregulated financial markets characteristic of neoliberal economies, wherein unrestrained greed drove debt to be managed in an increasingly reckless way – one which was proven conclusively to be unsustainable as the last of the pure investment banks on Wall St disappeared.

This is a serious malfunction of one version, not any and all versions, of capitalism. The collapse of institutions like Lehmann Brothers and the dangers of sub-prime mortgage lending don’t necessarily say very much about the forms of capitalism practiced in other countries. Neoliberals like to talk about their version of economics as though it is synonymous with capitalism itself, hence the talk of capitalism failing, but pretending there are no alternatives is just a neat way of sidestepping debates about what kind of capitalism societies should opt for.

Not only is the end of capitalism itself not occurring, it is not even being called for, at least not in any meaningful way. Only an infinitesimal minority on the left advocate the total abolition of all private property and commercial transactions. I hesitate to use the word ‘advocate’ because advocacy involves setting out serious proposals, and I’ve yet to see any serious proposal that explains how a non-capitalist society is going to be brought about. By that I mean a plan that describes in all the necessary fine detail how we get from here to there, dealing effectively with all the obstacles in the way. A plan that explains how we persuade the public to accept our proposed non-capitalist society, bring to power a government willing to effect the plan, and then enact the massive transformative program needed to entirely eradicate commercial activity and introduce a vast array of new social structures, habits and forms of interaction. Even if a workable plan of this kind, with a desirable end product, was formulated (I don’t completely rule that out) it would take many, many decades to implement. Such a plan does not exist, as far as I’m aware, even amongst those whose opposition to capitalism is the strongest.

No one, therefore, is proposing the end of capitalism itself in any serious way. For the most part, what’s called ‘socialism’ is just a take on how mixed public-private economies should be organised, rather than a total rejection of capitalism itself. Even the Venezuelan government, as it proclaims its mission to pioneer “21st Century Socialism”, allowed the private sector of the economy to grow relative to the public sector during its first decade in office.

Similarly, even the most swivel-eyed free-market extremists don’t advocate, in any serious way, the total abolition of the public sector and its replacement with pure capitalism. In fact, even in the neo-liberal citadels of Britain and America, the rigours of the free market are often quietly avoided and the state called upon for assistance. Think no-bid contracts for Halliburton in Iraq. Think of the UK arms industry’s incestuous links with government, where ministers on overseas trips (including the Prime Minister) practically act as salesmen for the likes of British Aerospace. Think of how the US economy boomed in the post war era, in no small part due to government defence budgets socialising research costs for technologies that were subsequently turned over to the private sector for profit; like aeronautics, computers and even the internet. Those who say they advocate the free market have very little to say about the nanny state when its nursemaiding the rich. Only when it attends to the needs of the public are objections raised.

The debate that occurs between left and right on economics is not between absolute socialism or absolute capitalism but between democracy and private power. The left does not oppose globalisation [.pdf], or even capitalism for the most part. What it takes issue with is a particular form of global economic integration that privileges the demands of private power and undermines the role of the democratic public sphere. The right does not object (aside from in rhetoric) to a role for the state within the economy, provided that role is to serve the needs of elites rather than those of the population.

So the real question, in the midst of the Anglo-American banking crisis of 2007-2008, is how our version of capitalism is now going to be reformed, and specifically where the power will lie. We need not expect, as Naomi Klein points out here, that neoliberalism will automatically be replaced by some benevolent form of social democracy. On the contrary, state-corporate elites are already moving to exploit the political conditions created by the crisis to extend the same neoliberal model that caused the financial collapse.

In her recent book “The Shock Doctrine”, Klein describes how the neoliberalisation of economies (privatisation, deregulation, stripping away of public programmes etc) has often been rammed through the legislative process in times of crisis. This is because while the public often opposes these measures, crisis situations offer policymakers brief moments when democracy can be suspended or circumvented while people are disorientated by shock and briefly willing to acquiesce to “firm leadership”.

Klein points out that this is exactly what is happening now in the US, in respect of the emergency economic measures formulated by the Bush administration. What is being not so much proposed as demanded is a 0.7 trillion dollar buy-up, by the US taxpayer, of all the toxic and often worthless securities that have caused the current financial meltdown. It is demanded that no democratic, administrative or judicial oversight be applied to this process. It is demanded that legislators approach this in a “bipartisan” fashion and pass the measures quickly (that’s political language for not arguing and doing what the President tells you – now). The measures are being drawn up and will be enacted by people like Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson who, as head of Goldman Sachs, did so much to promote the reckless practices that caused the ‘Nightmare on Wall St’. In summary, the same people who wrecked the US economy are now demanding that the traumatised and fearful taxpayer gives them 0.7 trillion dollars to clean up the mess they made and hold them harmless from the consequences of their actions, no arguments and no questions asked.

You could call it crawling to the nanny state and begging for a hand-out. Klein, with perhaps a little more accuracy, calls it a “stick-up”. Either way, its not the free market, but it is very neoliberal.

Klein also warns that this is just the first stage. The US is already deeply in debt, and this bailout will make matters much worse if passed in its proposed form. The usual corporate lobbyists, think tanks and Friedmanite academics will then take that opportunity to demand that the books be balanced. This might involve chipping away at unnecessary public programmes like healthcare, education, public housing etc etc, while the essentials, like Washington’s gargantuan military (which costs more than the rest of the planet’s military spending combined) go entirely untouched. It might involve tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy. It will certainly involve exploiting the situation to push measures that serve the interests of the most powerful sections of society which, rather than theoretical “free markets”, is what neoliberalism is really about.

The scenario in the UK is only slightly different. Social democratic instincts still flicker in some corners of the political class. But despite Gordon Brown’s recent rhetorical tilt towards the left, New Labour remains a classic party of neoliberalism, and the Conservative party likely to succeed them in government by 2010 is even more so. In spite of current events, neoliberals could well dominate the policy debate on how to deal with the economic crisis on this side of the Atlantic.

Klein quotes neoliberal don Milton Friedman describing in candid terms how his disciples should use the Shock Doctrine to push forward their policies. “Only a crisis, actual or perceived,” he says, ”produces real change. And when the crisis occurs, the change depends on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to keep the ideas ready until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable”. An example is Chile in the 1970s, where Friedman had to wait until after a military coup had taken place to find a government willing to enact his policy prescriptions, which had been overwhelmingly rejected in earlier democratic elections.

The collapse of Western financial markets, whose devastating effects are only beginning to be felt, does not mark the end of capitalism, and may perversely only mark the acceleration of neoliberism out from the ashes of its own bonfire of the vanities into new and yet more dangerous territory. That depends entirely on who wins the current debate on what emergency measures should be taken and how the system should be reformed long-term. The neoliberals, led by Secretary Paulson, are keen to avoid that debate. Those who oppose them should note this, because it betrays the neoliberals’ fear, even expectation, that this is an argument they would lose. Our task is to ensure that the shock of the past few weeks is not exploited by its authors, but instead that its lessons are learnt and that failed economic models are replaced by something more just and sustainable. In formulating our own proposals, for the immediate and the longer term, we can begin by pointing to the more successful capitalist systems in place in other countries, and take things from there.

Victory in Iraq? Not so much

JamieSW — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:35:40 +0000

“They create a desolation and call it ‘peace’” – Tacitus

US Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin last week accused Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama of failing to recognise the “coming victory in Iraq“. What’s the nature of this “victory” that Palin’s talking about? Has the US finally won the Iraq War?

Not so much.

For the last few months its been taken as read by many in the political mainstream that the “surge” of extra US troops into Iraq “worked” in quelling the violence that had been reaching cataclysmic levels by late 2006. In fact, this is a vast over-simplification, if not a self-serving lie put about by the war’s supporters. A number of other factors have contributed to bringing down the levels of daily killings (which still remain extraordinarily high). The “surge” is merely one of these, at best is possibly the least of them, and at worst has in some respects been a countervailing force.

The principal factors behind the decline in violence are:

the unilateral ceasefire of Moqtada al-Sadr’s anti-occupation Shia militia;

the decision made by nationalist Sunni insurgents, before the “surge” was conceived of, to concentrate their fire on the extremist “al-Qaeda” elements amongst them that had been responsible for the major attacks on Shia civilians; and

the fact that the civil war in Baghdad has essentially played itself out, with Sunnis and Shia respectively expelled from mixed communities, the two groups divided, and no more ‘sectarian cleansing’ to be done (the outcome being a net win for the Shia forces).

Let’s look at each of these in turn.

The Mahdi Army ceasefire may have been called with one eye on the coming influx of US troops, but it was still a unilateral decision. The fact is that Moqtada al Sadr continues to defy the US, five years after the occupiers set out to “kill or capture” him; as we saw in March when attempts to go after his Mahdi Army met with humiliating defeat. The US always wanted al-Sadr out of the way. By now, he’s more powerful than ever. No US “victory” here.

Then there’s the decision of Sunni nationalist insurgents to turn on al Qaeda, i.e. the foreign religious extremists who had come to Iraq to wage jihad both on the US and the Shia population. This has been hugely significant, and one cannot discount the effect of the US decision to stop fighting these nationalists guerrillas (who were always the bulk of the insurgency) and to pay them to concentrate on fighting and killing off al Qaeda. But the Sunni backlash against the religious extremists was not a US invention. It began as far back as 2005, and US backing for the movement was as much a pragmatic recognition that (a) it could not defeat the nationalist insurgency and (b) only those nationalists could defeat al Qaeda. Paying people to stop shooting at you and to instead fight some other people that you can’t beat either is not in anyone’s definition of “victory” as far as I’m aware.

And as for the third and possibly most important factor – the final Shia victory in the sectarian “Battle of Baghdad” which saw mixed neighbourhoods purged and thousands driven out of their homes – this is not merely a question of the US not being able to take credit for the relative peace that came after the civil war burnt itself out. No small amount of blame attaches to the US military itself for these gruesome events. As Michael Schwartz has argued in this indispensible analysis of the “surge” in Baghdad, US tactics may actually have facilitated the sectarian cleansing and effective Shia takeover. Either way, violence appears to have petered out in large part because one group of armed thugs achieved victory over the other, at massive cost to the civilian population, and not because the US stepped in as peacekeeper to enforce an early end to the fighting.

So the US mostly isn’t fighting the Shia nationalists anymore because the Shia nationalists stood down of their own accord. It mostly isn’t fighting the Sunni nationalists any more because (a) its paying them to fight Al Qaeda instead (which they were already doing) and (b) it couldn’t beat them anyway, so its had to learn to live with them. It isn’t fighting Al Qaeda anymore because its paying the Sunni nationalists to do that for it, since it couldn’t beat Al Qaeda itself. And the Sunni and Shia aren’t fighting each other anymore (or are doing so a lot less) because that battle’s (mostly) over (at least in Baghdad) and the Shia won. The case for saying that US “surge” has “worked” and that Washington can soon declare “victory” is, therefore, a little on the thin side.

What’s also misguided is the related insinuation that Iraq has become in some way peaceful. Iraq is still one of the most violent places in the world, with levels of daily killing equivalent to those of the Lebanese civil war. Last month at least 360 civilians were killed and more than 470 wounded in violence. Adjust that for the size of the total population and you’re talking about the equivalent of 800 plus British deaths and over a thousand injuries in political/military violence over 31 days. Imagine that occurring in a Soviet-occupied United Kingdom, while Kremlin leaders prattle on about “victory” and “success”. And remember that these are just the deaths that journalists and officials know about and are able to verify.

Yes, things aren’t as bad in Iraq as they were in 2006. But the fact that the blood now washes up to your waist, as opposed to your neck, doesn’t make Iraq something other than a bloodbath. Demanding that people accept some of the worst levels of violence on earth as some sort of good news story displays a pretty low regard for human life on Palin’s part.

The people best placed to judge the success of US military strategy are those who have to live with it on a daily basis: the Iraqi public. They don’t get interviewed at length by the major news networks, or write op-eds for the Washington Post, but their opinions are relevant nonetheless. By March 2008, when this [.pdf] poll was taken, it was already close to being conventional wisdom in the West that the “surge had worked”. Clearly a lot of Iraqis hadn’t received the memo.

The poll asks whether the “surge” has helped in the five areas where beneficial effects were promised: security where troop levels have increased, security in other areas, conditions for political dialogue, the ability of the Iraqi government to operate, and the pace of economic development. On each of those areas, the proportion of Iraqis saying the “surge” had been beneficial ranged between 21 and 36 per cent. Between 42 and 53 per cent said it has made things worse. The balance was made up by those saying it had made no difference. So in each area, between 63 and 79 per cent of Iraqis say the “surge” had made things worse or made no difference. That’s between 63 and 70 per cent in the case of security and 79 per cent in the case of political reconciliation (the latter of which we’re given to understand was the overall purpose of the “surge”).

Of course, the real aim of the “surge” was for the US to get Iraq properly under its control, not to perform an act of altruism or humanitarian relief work from which it has nothing to gain for itself, though that is exactly how the “surge” has been described, practically without exception, in our media and amongst our politicians. The question of whether it is for one country to forcibly place another country under its control, for its own purposes and against the wishes of majority of people in the latter country, is hardly one that should be ignored – though it has been. In any event, the “surge” appears to have failed in this respect. With the Iraqi government apparently now moving to reject the US demand for a permanent military presence and privileged access to oil reserves, the real reason for the 2003 invasion. What was supposed to be an US-client government in Baghdad now thumbs its nose at Washington and sidles up to, of all people, the Iranians. Do Palin and McCain really call that success, even on their own warped terms? Apparently dishonesty and greed now battle it out with rank stupidity for control of the United States government.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq devastated the country, driving well over 4 million Iraqis out of their homes (or around one in every six of the population) and killing perhaps a million (or around one in every twenty-nine of the population) according to the best estimates available. The refugees included many of Iraq’s former professional classes, driven into poverty and marginalisation in neighbouring countries, their children into malnutrition, their daughters into prostitution. Those left behind fare little better, be they the maimed, the bereaved, the unemployed, the impoverished, the imprisoned or the tortured. Nothing can erase the suffering that has taken place over the last five years, or return the hundreds of thousands of dead to their loved ones. This tsunami of grief was delivered to Iraq by an aggressive war of choice, instigated under a cloak of propaganda and straightforward lying, that was aimed at no more lofty a goal than the acquisition of greater wealth and power. To talk of “victory” in Iraq is obscene, as indeed is any reaction from anyone in Britain and America other than outright cringing shame.

Yet not only is it a commonly accepted truth, here and in the US, that the “surge has worked”, but early backers of the “surge” are now lauded as wise sages of military and foreign policy. A little over a year ago John McCain’s bid for the White House was seen as little more than the quixotic last gasp of a failed militarist, his approval rating for the Republican candidate languishing in the single digits. McCain’s subsequent political resurrection rested almost entirely on the notion that “the surge worked”, as he had doggedly insisted it would, and it is in many ways to this misapprehension that we can attribute the now present danger of a McCain-Palin Presidency from January 2009, with all the chilling prospects that raises for the United States and the world.

London Protesters Demand an End to US Coups

JamieSW — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:44:36 +0000

Scores of solidarity campaigners picketed the US embassy in London on Wednesday night before a huge rally at the National Union of Journalists head office to demand an end to US interference in Latin America.

Responding to ongoing coup attempts in Bolivia and Venezuela, NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear said that it was ironic that he was protesting outside the US embassy when its government had nationalised more of its economy in the last few days than Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had in the last decade.

“The US is standing up for privilege, for the interest of the few against the interest of the many and will go to any length to achieve it,” he stormed.

“It will go to the lengths that it did in Chile and will drown the revolution in blood if it gets the opportunity,” referring to the CIA-orchestrated coup against Salvadore Allende 35 years ago.

“But there is one big difference – we are prepared, we have learned the lessons and we are already organised.”

The 100-strong crowd chanted “No More Coups” and waved colourful solidarity banners as embassy workers left for the day.

Dozens of people made speeches in English and Spanish, with some making the point that, in the dying days of US President Bush’s regime, many people thought that he would attack Iran – yet it was clear that Latin America was the real target.

Loud cheers went up whenever speakers brought up the expulsion the US ambassador in Bolivia because of his links to coup-plotters and Venezuela doing the same in solidarity, with cries of “Yankee go home” filling Grosvenor Square.

At the NUJ headquarters, Bolivian ambassador Maria Beatriz Souviron explained how the traditional political system in Bolivia had been swept away with the election of Evo Morales.

“He has given people hope for the first time. There has not just been a change in who controls the state, but also a change in culture in a country that has been racist for so long.”

Bolivia Solidarity Campaign organiser Amancay Colque, who helped organise the actions with Hands Off Venezuela, brought harrowing news from the northern state of Pando, where the far-right governor threatened to split from Bolivia and had paid mercenaries to machine-gun rural workers loyal to Morales.

She explained how the elite was fuelling racism to try to divide Bolivians and that, in the right’s eastern stronghold of Santa Cruz, it was now impossible for an Aymara or Quechua indigenous Bolivian to walk down the street without being attacked.

John McDonnell MP pointed out that “what is happening is not a personal attack on Morales or Chavez but an attack on the seeds of socialism that they are spreading.

“What the US is terrified of is the prospect that socialism will catch light all across the Americas, so of course it has to go on the attack. But it is exactly for this moment that solidarity campaigns exist.”

Venezuelan charge d’affaires Felix Plasencia said that he was “honoured to stand with Bolivia as all Latin America struggles for dignity, sovereignty and independence. We have finally thrown off the US Monroe Doctrine that treated us as their ‘backyard’ for 200 years.

“The aim now is to extend this people’s power throughout Latin America and the solidarity shown to Bolivia as it fights back against counter-revolutionaries is a significant step in uniting our countries,” he added to great applause.

Iraq: image and reality

JamieSW — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:26:29 +0000

Has Iraq finally turned the corner? George Bush certainly wants us to think so. And at first sight, his arguments look convincing. Large sections of the country – including the capital city Baghdad and the restive Anbar province in the west – are being handed over to the Iraqi army.

The Shia insurgency led by Moqtada al-Sadr has been contained and demobilised, while Sunni resistance fighters have been rebranded as “awakening councils” and now cooperate with US occupation forces.

The US can point to a tenfold decline in attacks on its troops from a peak of 2,000 a month in summer 2006. There has also been a marked fall in the numbers of civilian casualties from its peak of 3,500 a month in early 2007.

The US is now confidently predicting that it will finally be able to start drawing down its troops. The “surge”, Bush’s gamble to stabilise the occupation, is being paraded as a success.

But in fact Iraq is poised to enter a new era of instability – and the US is finding itself trapped by a series of dirty deals that are coming back to haunt it.

Foremost among these is the deal the US hoped it could forge with the Shia‑dominated Iraqi government.

This deal, known as the “status of forces agreement”, would have granted the US the right to stage military operations inside Iraq without Iraqi government approval, and the right to launch wars on other countries from permanent bases on Iraqi soil.

But progress towards the agreement has been grindingly slow. Talks on Iraq’s oil resources, electoral reform and amnesties for members of Saddam Hussein’s regime have all stalled.

Meanwhile the Kurds are blocking constitutional reforms that will claw back the autonomy granted to them in the earlier phase of the occupation.

Trapped by allies

The main problem for the US is that it has found itself trapped in an alliance with an Iraqi government that wants to shake free from its control. Iraq’s prime minister Nouri al-Maliki has also declared that he is not bound by US promises to Sunnis and Kurds.

Maliki’s legitimacy rests on the authority of Shia religious institutions represented by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and on cooperation with the Iranian government to reign in Sadr’s Shia resistance forces.

In return both Sistani and Iran want Maliki to block key US demands in the status agreement, force the US to set a firm date for the withdrawal of combat troops, and prevent the US from using Iraq as a base for an attack on Iran.

For now it looks as if Maliki’s gamble is paying off. In April this year the Iraqi government launched an offensive on Sadr’s Mahdi Army in Basra and the Sadr City neighbourhood of Baghdad.

After several days of fierce fighting, the Iraqi army fell apart, swapped sides or went home. But on the verge of a major military victory – and much to the dismay of his supporters – Sadr called a halt to the uprising under instructions from the Iranians.

Today Sadr is a virtual prisoner in Iran. He travelled there ostensibly on a pilgrimage to the religious city of Qom in order to study for key religious exams. It is now widely accepted that he is being kept under house arrest by the Iranian authorities. Under pressure from Iran, Sadr has ordered his armed supporters to disband.

Sadr has occupied a contradictory position inside Iraq. When his movement was part of a nationwide insurrection, his popularity and power grew across all sections of society.

But he lost control over many of his supporters when Shia areas came under fierce sectarian attacks from elements of the Sunni insurgency.

Some joined the sectarian conflict, driving Sunnis out of mixed neighbourhoods. Others defected to Maliki’s coalition, while a third section attempted to hold together the unity forged during the national uprising that exploded in April 2004.

Sadr was eventually able to demobilise the sectarian gangs within his organisation – but the damage had already been done. He was declared an enemy and an agent of Iran by the majority of Sunni resistance organisations. Isolated from the wider insurgency, Sadr’s fighters found themselves standing alone against the full might of US firepower.

Resistance

As a prisoner of Iran, Sadr’s hands are tied. But his supporters are not defeated. His last instructions ordered the Mahdi Army to change its name, and for his supporters to bury their weapons and avoid military confrontations for now.

Maliki and the US are relying on the goodwill of Iran to hold back the Shia resistance. But this could all unravel if the US presses ahead with its threat of war against Iran.

A second problem for the US rests with a deal it forged with Sunni resistance organisations.

In the summer of 2007 a large section of the Iraqi resistance inside Sunni areas called off its military campaign. It agreed to cooperate with the occupation to drive out fighters loyal to Al Qaida – who, despite their opposition to US imperialism, launched attacks on Shia Muslims that they considered to be “apostates”.

The Al Qaida elements were always a minority inside the resistance in Iraq, but their campaign of suicide bombings directed against US forces made them a potent enemy.

But the areas liberated from US control by the Sunni resistance found themselves transformed into bases from which Al Qaida launched a murderous campaign against Shias. The results were disastrous – thousands of innocent people were killed in mass sectarian slaughters.

Areas that had been models of Shia-Sunni unity saw each turning against the other. Haifa Street in central Baghdad was transformed from a front line between the resistance and occupation into one pitting Shia forces against Sunni ones.

The tactics and aims of Al Qaida alienated vast numbers of Iraq’s Sunni Muslims, many of whom had close ties with Shias. Soon sections of the Sunni resistance began to turn on them.

The US, faced with a withering guerrilla campaign, resolved to make peace with Sunni insurgents. Secret talks were held in Jordan where the US pledged to halt its attacks on Sunni areas in return for resistance helping to expel fighters allied to Al Qaida.

As news of the talks leaked out Al Qaida declared an all-out war on other Sunni resistance organisations. At the peak of the insurgency they demanded that all Sunni organisations accept their leadership. Key resistance leaders were assassinated, among them the head of the influential 1920 Revolution Brigades.

Meanwhile the US recognised the formation of the “awakening councils” and turned the former insurgents into their new allies. Over 100,000 of these former resistance fighters were paid $300 a month to attack Al Qaida rather than US troops.

Within a few months Al Qaida forces found themselves isolated and in full flight. Thus the US was able to buy peace in key Sunni regions.

But problems for the US are stacking up rapidly. The former Sunni fighters were given promises that they would be incorporated into Iraqi security forces. Maliki has now declared those promises worthless.

And last week the US announced that it would halt the $300 payments from 1 October. Meanwhile the Iraqi government has declared the “awakening councils” to be an illegal militia and ordered their arrest.

Sunni leaders have been dismayed by these developments. They boycotted the recent ceremony marking the US’s official withdrawal from Anbar – and they are refusing to cooperate with the Iraqi government. The US is taking a dangerous gamble by cutting its new allies loose in this manner.

Ethnic conflicts

Finally, Iraq faces the prospect of open‑ended ethnic confrontations between Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds in the north of the country. At stake is Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city that is one of the biggest material prizes in Iraq – beneath it lies a huge oil reserve.

Kurdish parties swept to power in northern Iraq on the back of the US invasion, backed by their Peshmerga guerrilla army, originally built to fight Saddam’s regime. These parties hoped their alliance with the US would allow them to fulfil a long-cherished desire for independence.

The regional Kurdish authorities have signed separate oil deals, imposed distinct laws, and operate their own judiciary, police and army.

But the Kurdish region is hopelessly surrounded by hostile forces. To the north lies Turkey, a key US ally that fears Kurdish independence could trigger secessionist moves by its large Kurdish minority.

To its east lies Iran, which fears the Kurdish region will become a staging post for the US to foster a rebellion among its own Kurdish minority. And to the south lies the Iraqi government, which wants to re-establish control over the oil-rich regions of the north.

Now the Kurds are finding out that the US considers them expendable. As part of the concessions made by the US to both Shia and Sunni groups, the tentative moves towards Kurdish autonomy will be reversed.

The looming struggle over Kirkuk could trigger a protracted ethnic struggle in a region that has until now escaped the full horrors of the Iraq war. Dozens of Kurdish demonstrators were killed last month when they stormed the offices of a Turkmen party.

This protest followed a suicide bomb attack on Kurds. And the Iraqi government is refusing to organise a referendum on the status of Kirkuk that had been promised by the US.

So behind the veneer of success lie deep and dangerous problems for the US occupation of Iraq. It has created precarious alliances with Shia, Sunni and Kurdish forces, playing them off against each other to foment sectarian divisions and head off a unified national resistance movement

But now it finds itself hostage to events that it had lost control over long ago. Iraq remains a quagmire for the US – and its occupation remains in a permanent state of crisis.

A murderous theatre of the absurd

JamieSW — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:19:16 +0000

Try to laugh, please. The news is now officially parody and a game for all the family to play.

First question: Why are “we” in Afghanistan? Answer: “To try to help in the country’s rebuilding programme.” Who says so? Huw Edwards, the BBC’s principal newsreader. What wags the Welsh are.

Second question: Why are “we” in Iraq? Answer: To “plant a western-style open democracy”. Who says so? Paul Wood, the former BBC defence correspondent, and his boss Helen Boaden, director of BBC News. To prove her point, Boaden supplied Medialens.org with 2,700 words of quotations from Tony Blair and George W Bush. Irony? No, she meant it.

Take Andrew Martin, divisional adviser at BBC Complaints, who has been researching Bush’s speeches for “evidence” of noble democratic reasons for laying to waste an ancient civilisation. Says he: “The ‘D’ word is not there, but the phrase ‘united, stable and free’ [is] clearly an allusion to it.” After all, he says, the invasion of Iraq “was launched as ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’”. Moreover, says the BBC man, “in Bush’s 1 May 2003 speech (the one on the aircraft carrier) he talked repeatedly about freedom and explicitly about the Iraqi transition to democracy . . . These examples show that these were on Bush’s mind before, during and after the invasion.”

Try to laugh, please.

Laughing may be difficult, I agree, given the slaughter of civilians in Afghanistan by “coalition” aircraft, including those directed by British forces engaged in “the country’s rebuilding programme”. The bombing of civilian areas has doubled, along with the deaths of civilians, says Human Rights Watch. Last month, “our” aircraft slaughtered nearly 100 civilians, two-thirds of them children between the ages of three months and 16 years, while they slept, according to eyewitnesses. BBC television news initially devoted nine seconds to the Human Rights Watch report, and nothing to the fact that “less than peanuts” (according to an aid worker) is being spent on rebuilding anything in Afghanistan.

As for the notion of a “united, stable and free” Iraq, consider the no-bid contracts handed to the major western oil companies for ownership of Iraq’s oil. “Theft” is a more truthful word. Written by the companies themselves and US officials, the contracts have been signed off by Bush and Nouri al-Maliki, “prime minister” of Iraq’s “democratic” government that resides in an air-conditioned American fortress. This is not news.

Try to laugh, please, while you consider the devastation of Iraq’s health, once the best in the Middle East, by the ubiquitous dust from British and US depleted uranium weapons. A World Health Organisation study reporting a cancer epidemic has been suppressed, says its principal author. This has been reported in Britain only in the Glasgow Sunday Herald and the Morning Star. According to a study last year by Basra University Medical College, almost half of all deaths in the contaminated southern provinces were caused by cancer.

Try to laugh, please, at the recent happy-clappy Nurembergs from which will come the next president of the United States. Those paid to keep the record straight have strained to present a spectacle of choice. Barack Obama, the man of “change”, wants to “build a 21st-century military . . . to stay on the offensive everywhere”. Here comes the new Cold War, with promises of more bombs, more of the militarised society with its 730 bases worldwide, on which Americans spend 42 cents of every tax dollar.

At home, Obama offers no authentic measure that might ease America’s grotesque inequality, such as basic health care. John McCain, his Republican opponent, may well be a media cartoon figure – the fake “war hero” now joined with a Shakespeare-banning, gun-loving, religious fanatic – yet his true significance is that he and Obama share essentially the same dangerous prescriptions.

Thousands of decent Americans came to the two nominating conventions to express the dissenting opinion of millions of their compatriots who believe, with good cause, that their democracy is evaporating. They were intimidated, arrested, beaten, pepper-gassed; and they were patronised or ignored by those paid to keep the record straight.

In the meantime, Justin Webb, the BBC’s North America editor, has launched a book about America, his “city on a hill”. It is a sort of Mills & Boon view of the rapacious system he admires with such obsequiousness. The book is called Have a Nice Day.

Try to laugh, please.

Afghanistan: on the cliff-edge

JamieSW — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:01:57 +0000

Many sober analysts of the war in Afghanistan expected a military offensive by the Taliban in the early months of 2008. They also suspected that Taliban paramilitaries would avoid major confrontations with foreign forces, out of awareness of the overwhelming firepower that these could launch even on quite small groups. They expected instead an extension of the use of small raids, improvised roadside-bombs and suicide-attacks.

In the event these tactics have indeed been widely used. But the increased level of Taliban activity has been expressed in many other ways as well. They have included a closely coordinated assault on a prison in Kandahar that released hundreds of Taliban detainees; an attack on the Serena international hotel in the heart of Kabul on 14 January; the bombing of the Indian embassy there on 7 July; and a major increase in attacks on transport links (see “The global economic war“, 14 August 2008).

This widening of targets is serious enough for American, British and other military commanders. What has really surprised them, however, has been the ability of Taliban and other militias to engage in significant conventional military attacks. One of these, on 13 July, killed nine United States troops in a newly established but isolated base in Kunar province; another, on 19 August, killed ten French soldiers in Sar0bi (Surobi) district, only fifty kilometres east of Kabul. The deteriorating situation in Afghanistan had even before these assaults been reflected in the redeployment of a full aircraft-carrier battle-group led by the USS Abraham Lincoln to the Indian Ocean to bring its planes within range of southern Afghanistan.

The result is to provide the US with far more airpower. In addition, the group’s flagship has offered itself as a venue for high-level diplomacy: top US and Pakistani military commanders (including Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs-of-staff ,and General Ashfaq Kayani, the Pakistan army’s chief-of-staff) met on the USS Abraham Lincoln on 26 August to analyse the security crisis in Afghanistan and Pakistan itself – without, it seems, a positive result (see Pauline Jelinek, “Pentagon brass meet with Pakistanis on carrier“, Associated Press, 28 August 2008).

By the last week of August 2008, the total US military death-toll in Afghanistan has reached 580; as many as 105 have been killed in 2008 alone, including sixty-five in May-July, the worst period since the war started in October 2001 (see Jason Straziuso, “US deaths reach 101 for the year in Afghanistan“, Associated Press, 25 August 2008).

Across the border in Pakistan, there were credible reports of an expanding Taliban/al-Qaida training system, with new camps established in the border districts (see “Afghanistan: state of siege“, 10 July 2008). Some limited Pakistani army actions had very little effect (see Jane Perlez & Pir Zubair Shah, “Pakistani Taliban Repel Government Offensive“, New York Times, 10 August 2008), while sixty-four people were killed in a double bombing of one of Pakistan’s largest munitions factories (see Jane Perlez, “64 in Pakistan Die in Bombing at Arms Plant“, New York Times, 22 August 2008).

An argument of force

There is now a developing consensus that Taliban militias, along with warlord groups and al-Qaida paramilitaries, have considerably expanded their influence across much of southern and southeastern Afghanistan, with Taliban/al-Qaida elements also gaining control of large areas of western Pakistan close to the Afghan border (see Jason Straziuso, “U.S. Losing Edge in Afghanistan, Experts Fear“, AP/Arizona Republic, 25 August 2008). A deep concern over the vulnerability of the major military supply-routes from the Pakistani port of Karachi through to Kabul has been compounded by a Russian threat to suspend its agreement with Nato for transit of military materials through its own territory (see Jeremy Page, “Russian Threat to Nato Supply Route In Afghanistan“, Times, 26 August 2008).

The coalition’s reliance on air-power has resulted in further civilian casualties. Around 700 Afghan civilians have been killed in January-August 2008; the worst such incident being on 21 August when, according to United Nations sources, at least sixty children and thirty adults were killed in a US air- raid (see Jon Boone, “UN confirms 90 civilians killed in Afghanistan air strikes“, Financial Times, 27 August 2008. Meanwhile, Taliban units are now operating close to Kabul, and have advanced to secure control of parts of Kandahar (see Carlotta Gall, “Taliban Gain New Foothold in Afghan City“, New York Times, 27 August 2008).

From the Pentagon’s perspective, what is to be done? Most of the foreign forces in Afghanistan are under Nato control in the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf); but this is largely under the leadership of the United States, and the overall war in Afghanistan is dominated by US planning and support. Britain, together with Canada and the Netherlands, may be heavily involved in counter-insurgency operations, but they are relatively small actors in a scene where the Pentagon is the driving-force.

Thus, the views of Washington are decisive: and the overwhelming judgment there – across the political spectrum – is that Afghanistan is now the central focus of the “war on terror”. The John McCain and Barack Obama camps each take the view that there must be a substantial increase in the use of military force in Afghanistan, especially if some limited withdrawals from Iraq become possible (see Godfrey Hodgson, “America’s foreign-policy election“, 28 August 2008).

A game of consequence

Thus, the bottom-line is that there is only one answer to the Taliban revival, the revitalisation of al-Qaida, and even the jihadist presence in western Pakistan: the application of intense military force. There is simply no other way.

This has three key consequences. The first is that the more force that is applied in Afghanistan the greater the risk not just of civilian casualties but of creating an environment in which the foreign military presence is seen more and more as an occupation. There are already well over 60,000 foreign troops in the country, with the majority engaged in combat. Moreover, civilian deaths are causing such controversy that Kabul’s political class is trying to distance itself from the United States. As a military build-up intensifies in late 2008, there is a strong risk that the perception of occupation will extend well beyond the Taliban and other militias together with their immediate supporters.

The second consequence is that the more a perception of western occupation grows, the more likely it is that the opposing forces take on a perspective of global jihad. Most previous resistance to foreign forces, as against the Soviets in the 1980s, was grounded in nationalist or ethnic sentiment rather than being part of a global movement. Over the past year there have been clear signs that Taliban militias in conjunction with the al-Qaida movement and paramilitaries that have travelled from north Africa, the middle east and central Asia have increasingly seen their insurgency as elements in just such a movement.

Moreover, the impulses of sympathy with these radical forces are fuelled by the detailed reporting by al-Jazeera and other media outlets of the many civilian victims of western air-strikes and other calamities in Afghanistan. This ensures that Muslims across the rest of the world are , just as Iraq has done so over the past five years. Muslims across the rest of the world are becoming as aware of what is happening in Afghanistan as they have been regarding Iraq since 2003 (see “Afghanistan in an amorphous war“, 19 June 2008).

The third consequence is the state of Pakistan, where political instability and the resignation of Pervez Musharraf entails a decrease in United States influence over actions in the border districts. Many of these districts are independent of Islamabad’s control, paramilitary training-camps are operating, supplies readily pass through to Afghanistan, and supportive populations provide a stream of recruits to the cause across the border (see Eric Schmitt, “Top military officials discuss violence along Pakistani border“, International Herald Tribune, 28 August 2008). Almost all military analysts agree that the subjugation of the Taliban and associated warlords in Afghanistan is impossible as long as this situation continues. The al-Qaida leadership has also sufficiently reconstituted itself in western Pakistan to be able once more to exert influence even beyond the middle east and southwest Asia (see “Al-Qaida’s afterlife“, 29 May 2008).

A bitter harvest

The impact of these developments on the United States is to increase the conviction that to win the war in Afghanistan requires the application of greater force there and an acceptance that at some stage the US will have to intervene forcefully in western Pakistan (see Peter Spiegel & Josh Meyer, “U.S. Debates Going After Militants in Pakistan“, Los Angeles Times, 23 August 2008). There are alternatives, including an acceptance of the need to engage systematically with some of the less radical militia elements, but these are simply not on Washington’s agenda. Thus a more intense and more extensive war seems likely between now and early 2010, with the likelihood that this is just what the al-Qaida movement wants.

In 2003, a few analysts warned that occupying Iraq would lead to an intense and dangerous conflict that would serve as a jihadist combat training-zone of great value to the al-Qaida movement (see, for example, “A thirty-year war“, 4 April 2003). That was indeed the outcome; and an American insistence on remaining in Iraq – whatever the Nouri al-Maliki government may want – means that Iraq may yet come to the fore in this role again. For now, though, the focus moves on – or more correctly, back – to Afghanistan.

When the nineteen hijackers perpetrated the 9/11 atrocities, the al-Qaida movement no doubt expected that the United States would occupy Afghanistan and could be vanquished there in a war of grinding attrition, just as the Soviets had been. In the event, to terminate the Taliban regime the Pentagon cleverly used air-power, special forces and a rearming of the Northern Alliance rather than a direct occupation.

Even then, this seemed to be too easy. One of the earliest columns in this series suggested that: “...an apparent US victory achieved before the end of the year may, in reality, be just a further stage in a longer-term civil war in Afghanistan. This is supported by the likelihood that many Taliban and al-Qaida units have already crossed the border into north-west Pakistan, where there is substantial local support for their position…” (see “The ninth week of the war“, 4 December 2001).

Now that a direct occupation of Afghanistan has evolved and is set to expand, there is the added complication of deep insecurity across the border in Pakistan. Only two months away from the eighth year of the start of the Afghan war – and following their recent setbacks in Iraq – Osama bin Laden and the other elements of the al-Qaida leadership may well be looking forward to a new era in their conflict with their “far enemy”. Iraq has to an extent served its purpose, but Afghanistan may now come to overshadow even that bitter and costly conflict.