Lately I have become accustomed to saying to my students that we all live in fields of lies. It is lies that give us grounds for doing what we do. In that sense we live by faith -- faith that the stories we tell ourselves are true and authenticated, irrefutable; the reality is often otherwise. Indeed, the real world we encounter is reasonably well encompassed by the lies we tell ourselves; the lies work more or less OK most of the time. Only rarely do events so starkly break into our consciousness as to force us to question what we have taken for granted. The killing of a radio reporter's three daughters by Israeli shells just before he was to give an on-air update of affairs in Gaza was such an event. It seems to have challenged the comfortable consciousness of many Israelis, but not all. Even then a young Israeli soldier's mother took it for granted that the reporter's house was attacked for good reason. She assumed that reporter's family deserved the attack. Here is McClachy's report on the incident, apparently unreported by some of the other papers. RLC [Click on the title for the source]
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Sun, Jan. 18, 2009
Israeli fire killed interviewee's 3 daughters just before airtime
Dion Nissenbaum
January 19, 2009 01:00:36 AM
TEL HASHOMER, Israel - For many Israeli television viewers, Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish was the disembodied Palestinian voice on their nightly news that brought them first-hand telephone accounts of the fighting in Gaza.
Over the past 23-days, the Palestinian doctor had described a harrowing life in Gaza as Israeli air strikes, tanks and artillery repeatedly pounded the isolated Mediterranean strip.
On Friday night, when Israel's Channel 10 prepared to check in with Abuelaish as hopes for a cease-fire began to become reality, viewers were gripped as a personal tragedy played out live on their evening news.
Minutes before Channel 10 went on the air, an Israeli strike had hit the doctor's home in Gaza, killing three of his daughters. A niece also was killed. When an Israeli reporter reached Abuelaish during the newscast, the doctor was frantically trying to save their lives.
"My god, my girls," Abuelaish wailed on the telephone as he pleaded with Israeli journalist Shlomi Eldar for help. "Shlomi, can't anybody help us?"
In what may be remembered as one of the most emotionally-charged events of the devastating 23-day-old Israeli military campaign in Gaza, the Palestinian doctor's family calamity touched a nerve.
The Israeli public has been grappling for days with the cloudy ethical questions raised by the strikes on Gaza. Abuelaish made real the abstract moral quandary about fighting adversaries hiding in the densely-populated cities.
Channel 10 quickly mobilized. Eldar and his colleagues tapped their Israeli military contacts and helped spirit Abuelaish, one of his surviving daughters, and other family members into Israel for emergency medical treatment.
The injured were taken to the Chaim Sheba Medical Center, where Abuelaish, one of the rare Gaza residents allowed to work in Israel, conducts research.
The story was jarring. The Israeli government actively sought to restrict coverage from Gaza as a way to prevent heart-wrenching tales like Abuelaish from overwhelming the reasons behind Israel's campaign to destabilize Hamas.
Israel barred reporters from freely entering Gaza during the entire military campaign, and Israeli government officials unapologetically backed the policy.
"There is an unequal war going on there between a power and a terror organization, and the only way to hurt us is to get those images to hurt us in the battlefield of public opinion," Danny Seaman, the head of Israel's Government Press Office, said last week before the strike on Abuelaish's home. "In that sense, the less pictures coming out helping them the better."
But Abuelaish's story unfolded live on Israel's evening news.
And emotions boiled over again on Saturday when Abuelaish spoke to reporters the hospital.
"Why did they kill them?" an inconsolable Abuelaish told journalists. "Give me a reason."
The doctor's appeals were too much for Levona Stern, a 55-year-old Israeli mother of three boys who had served in the military.
As Abuelaish wept, Stern began angrily shouting at the Palestinian doctor and the reporters gathered around to hear his tale.
Without knowing the story, Stern accused Abuelaish of storing weapons in his home, an accusation that has not been made by the Israeli military.
"What's wrong with you, have you all gone crazy?" Stern shouted as people tried to hold her back. "My son is in the paratroopers, who knows what you had inside your home, nobody is talking about that. Nobody is talking. Who knows what kind of weapons were in your house; so what if he's a doctor? The soldiers knew exactly. They had weapons inside the home, you should be ashamed."
The Israeli military said it is looking into the incident, one of many that has drawn condemnation from the international community and calls for Israel to be investigated for committing possible war crimes.
In a preliminary review, the Israeli military said that its forces were responding to fire from, or near, Abuelaish's five-story apartment building.
Abuelaish dismissed the story as fiction and appealed to the Israeli military to give him an honest reason why his daughters are dead.
"If they have morals, if they have courage, they should say the truth," he said Sunday while taking a break from looking after his 17-year-old daughter, Shata. "That they made a mistake. Because there is no other way: By mistake or intentionally. No other way. No excuses."
Abuelaish couldn't hold back tears every time a new person called to grieve with the Palestinian doctor who spent 15 years working a gynecologist in Israel.
"They were soldiers for peace," Abuelaish said of his daughters, who had taken part in co-existence programs with Israeli children over the years. "Why did they kill this hope?"
In a telephone interview Sunday from her Herzliya home, Stern said she felt sorry for Abuelaish, but could not accept the possibility that Israeli soldiers might have mistakenly killed the Palestinian doctor's children.
"I don't believe our soldiers would shoot for no reason," said Stern. "I know how sensitive we are to human life, but war is war - and civilians get killed."
Abuelaish, who speaks Hebrew, English and Arabic, said he was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from his Israeli friends.
"I will never change the way I believe," he said. "There is no other way but for us to live in peace, with justice and respect for human rights. The military way proved its failure years ago. And still we haven't learned the lessons."
Monday, January 19, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
A letter from the grave: The cost of revealing affairs as one finds them.
Steve Coll has just published in the New Yorker a notice of the assassination of a journalist in Sri Lanka, Lasantha Wickramatunga. Coll reproduces in full the letter written by Wickramatunga for publication in case he is assassinated.
What this report reminds us of is how precious authentic information is. We take journalists for granted and often we don't like them because they don't cover a story the way we think they should or that reveals details that offend. But journalism is one of the enduring great ministries to the world, a service and if done right, in a society like Sri Lanka's and many other societies, a dangerous even sacrificial ministry.
We can give thanks for the zeal of this faithful public servant, who sought as he best knew how to tell the story as he found it. We grieve with and for all those who were close to him and who have lost someone they knew and loved. But we need to grieve for ourselves also because we cannot estimate how much might have been revealed if Wickramatunga had lived.
So how valuable is an authentic report in a society at war? How valuable is a story told among folks who cannot bear for it to be revealed?
I deliberately avoid here the word "truth" in order to recognize how problematic all reports are in a complex world -- but when one's life is at stake in the telling of a story, that story has to be considered precious beyond reckoning. [Click on the title above to link to the source.]
New Yorker January 12, 2009
Steve Coll: Letter from the Grave
Last Thursday, Lasantha Wickramatunga, who was fifty-two years old and the editor of a Sri Lankan newspaper called the Sunday Leader, was assassinated on his way to work by two gunmen riding motorcycles. The Leader’s investigative reporting had been fiercely critical of the government and of the conduct of its war against Tamil separatists; Wickramatunga had been attacked before. He knew that he was likely to be murdered and so he wrote an essay with instructions that it be published only after his own death. Some mutual friends in the region sent a copy to me today. Read it in full below. It is like nothing else you will read today, that I promise.
A very brief bit of context: Sri Lanka’s government, drawing support from the island’s Sinhalese ethnic majority, has been at war since the nineteen-eighties with various militant separatist groups representing the country’s Tamil ethnic minority. In recent years, the war has narrowed to a contest between government troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and others. The L.T.T.E. purports to speak for the aspirations of Tamil civilians, but it has conducted its campaign with child soldiers, suicide bombers, and other horrors. For its part, the Sri Lankan government has arranged for the disappearance and murder of uncounted numbers of Tamils, just as it “disappeared” and murdered thousands of its own Sinhalese citizens during an earlier period of counterinsurgency.
The country’s current president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is referred to in Wickramatunga’s essay, came to power emphasizing human rights and reform but has more recently pursued a military solution to his L.T.T.E. problem. Sri Lankan troops have lately marched deep into Tamil territory under a heavy veil of media censorship. Local journalists have been accused of disloyalty to the war, which has inspired or created a pretext for attacks against them and their offices. Wickramatunga believed that he would be killed, and the Sri Lankan government would be responsible for his murder.
According to media reports from Sri Lanka, the government has condemned Wickramatunga’s murder and ordered an investigation. Sri Lankan journalists and others today staged a silent march in Colombo, the capital, to protest his killing. Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based group devoted to protecting journalists, issued a statement about Wickramatunga’s murder that said, “President Mahinda Rajapaksa, his associates and the government media are directly to blame because they incited hatred against him and allowed an outrageous level of impunity to develop as regards violence against the press.”
Here is his essay:
No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honor to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.
I have been in the business of journalism a good long time. Indeed, 2009 will be The Sunday Leader’s 15th year. Many things have changed in Sri Lanka during that time, and it does not need me to tell you that the greater part of that change has been for the worse. We find ourselves in the midst of a civil war ruthlessly prosecuted by protagonists whose bloodlust knows no bounds. Terror, whether perpetrated by terrorists or the state, has become the order of the day. Indeed, murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty. Today it is the journalists, tomorrow it will be the judges. For neither group have the risks ever been higher or the stakes lower.
Why then do we do it? I often wonder that. After all, I too am a husband, and the father of three wonderful children. I too have responsibilities and obligations that transcend my profession, be it the law or journalism. Is it worth the risk? Many people tell me it is not. Friends tell me to revert to the bar, and goodness knows it offers a better and safer livelihood. Others, including political leaders on both sides, have at various times sought to induce me to take to politics, going so far as to offer me ministries of my choice. Diplomats, recognizing the risk journalists face in Sri Lanka, have offered me safe passage and the right of residence in their countries. Whatever else I may have been stuck for, I have not been stuck for choice.
But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre and security. It is the call of conscience.
The Sunday Leader has been a controversial newspaper because we say it like we see it: whether it be a spade, a thief or a murderer, we call it by that name. We do not hide behind euphemism. The investigative articles we print are supported by documentary evidence thanks to the public-spiritedness of citizens who at great risk to themselves pass on this material to us. We have exposed scandal after scandal, and never once in these 15 years has anyone proved us wrong or successfully prosecuted us.
The free media serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself sans mascara and styling gel. From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant one. But while you may grumble in the privacy of your armchair, the journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great risk to themselves. That is our calling, and we do not shirk it.
Every newspaper has its angle, and we do not hide the fact that we have ours. Our commitment is to see Sri Lanka as a transparent, secular, liberal democracy. Think about those words, for they each has profound meaning. Transparent because government must be openly accountable to the people and never abuse their trust. Secular because in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society such as ours, secularism offers the only common ground by which we might all be united. Liberal because we recognize that all human beings are created different, and we need to accept others for what they are and not what we would like them to be. And democratic… well, if you need me to explain why that is important, you’d best stop buying this paper.
The Sunday Leader has never sought safety by unquestioningly articulating the majority view. Let’s face it, that is the way to sell newspapers. On the contrary, as our opinion pieces over the years amply demonstrate, we often voice ideas that many people find distasteful. For example, we have consistently espoused the view that while separatist terrorism must be eradicated, it is more important to address the root causes of terrorism, and urged government to view Sri Lanka’s ethnic strife in the context of history and not through the telescope of terrorism. We have also agitated against state terrorism in the so-called war against terror, and made no secret of our horror that Sri Lanka is the only country in the world routinely to bomb its own citizens. For these views we have been labeled traitors, and if this be treachery, we wear that label proudly.
Many people suspect that The Sunday Leader has a political agenda: it does not. If we appear more critical of the government than of the opposition it is only because we believe that - pray excuse cricketing argot - there is no point in bowling to the fielding side. Remember that for the few years of our existence in which the UNP was in office, we proved to be the biggest thorn in its flesh, exposing excess and corruption wherever it occurred. Indeed, the steady stream of embarrassing exposes we published may well have served to precipitate the downfall of that government.
Neither should our distaste for the war be interpreted to mean that we support the Tigers. The LTTE are among the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organizations ever to have infested the planet. There is no gainsaying that it must be eradicated. But to do so by violating the rights of Tamil citizens, bombing and shooting them mercilessly, is not only wrong but shames the Sinhalese, whose claim to be custodians of the dhamma is forever called into question by this savagery, much of which is unknown to the public because of censorship.
What is more, a military occupation of the country’s north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens, deprived of all self respect. Do not imagine that you can placate them by showering “development” and “reconstruction” on them in the post-war era. The wounds of war will scar them forever, and you will also have an even more bitter and hateful Diaspora to contend with. A problem amenable to a political solution will thus become a festering wound that will yield strife for all eternity. If I seem angry and frustrated, it is only because most of my countrymen - and all of the government - cannot see this writing so plainly on the wall.
It is well known that I was on two occasions brutally assaulted, while on another my house was sprayed with machine-gun fire. Despite the government’s sanctimonious assurances, there was never a serious police inquiry into the perpetrators of these attacks, and the attackers were never apprehended. In all these cases, I have reason to believe the attacks were inspired by the government. When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.
The irony in this is that, unknown to most of the public, Mahinda and I have been friends for more than a quarter century. Indeed, I suspect that I am one of the few people remaining who routinely addresses him by his first name and uses the familiar Sinhala address oya when talking to him. Although I do not attend the meetings he periodically holds for newspaper editors, hardly a month passes when we do not meet, privately or with a few close friends present, late at night at President’s House. There we swap yarns, discuss politics and joke about the good old days. A few remarks to him would therefore be in order here.
Mahinda, when you finally fought your way to the SLFP presidential nomination in 2005, nowhere were you welcomed more warmly than in this column. Indeed, we broke with a decade of tradition by referring to you throughout by your first name. So well known were your commitments to human rights and liberal values that we ushered you in like a breath of fresh air. Then, through an act of folly, you got yourself involved in the Helping Hambantota scandal. It was after a lot of soul-searching that we broke the story, at the same time urging you to return the money. By the time you did so several weeks later, a great blow had been struck to your reputation. It is one you are still trying to live down.
You have told me yourself that you were not greedy for the presidency. You did not have to hanker after it: it fell into your lap. You have told me that your sons are your greatest joy, and that you love spending time with them, leaving your brothers to operate the machinery of state. Now, it is clear to all who will see that that machinery has operated so well that my sons and daughter do not themselves have a father.
In the wake of my death I know you will make all the usual sanctimonious noises and call upon the police to hold a swift and thorough inquiry. But like all the inquiries you have ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one, too. For truth be told, we both know who will be behind my death, but dare not call his name. Not just my life, but yours too, depends on it.
Sadly, for all the dreams you had for our country in your younger days, in just three years you have reduced it to rubble. In the name of patriotism you have trampled on human rights, nurtured unbridled corruption and squandered public money like no other President before you. Indeed, your conduct has been like a small child suddenly let loose in a toyshop. That analogy is perhaps inapt because no child could have caused so much blood to be spilled on this land as you have, or trampled on the rights of its citizens as you do. Although you are now so drunk with power that you cannot see it, you will come to regret your sons having so rich an inheritance of blood. It can only bring tragedy. As for me, it is with a clear conscience that I go to meet my Maker. I wish, when your time finally comes, you could do the same. I wish.
As for me, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I walked tall and bowed to no man. And I have not travelled this journey alone. Fellow journalists in other branches of the media walked with me: most of them are now dead, imprisoned without trial or exiled in far-off lands. Others walk in the shadow of death that your Presidency has cast on the freedoms for which you once fought so hard. You will never be allowed to forget that my death took place under your watch. As anguished as I know you will be, I also know that you will have no choice but to protect my killers: you will see to it that the guilty one is never convicted. You have no choice. I feel sorry for you, and Shiranthi will have a long time to spend on her knees when next she goes for Confession for it is not just her owns sins which she must confess, but those of her extended family that keeps you in office.
As for the readers of The Sunday Leader, what can I say but Thank You for supporting our mission. We have espoused unpopular causes, stood up for those too feeble to stand up for themselves, locked horns with the high and mighty so swollen with power that they have forgotten their roots, exposed corruption and the waste of your hard-earned tax rupees, and made sure that whatever the propaganda of the day, you were allowed to hear a contrary view. For this I - and my family - have now paid the price that I have long known I will one day have to pay. I am - and have always been - ready for that. I have done nothing to prevent this outcome: no security, no precautions. I want my murderer to know that I am not a coward like he is, hiding behind human shields while condemning thousands of innocents to death. What am I among so many? It has long been written that my life would be taken, and by whom. All that remains to be written is when.
That The Sunday Leader will continue fighting the good fight, too, is written. For I did not fight this fight alone. Many more of us have to be - and will be - killed before The Leader is laid to rest. I hope my assassination will be seen not as a defeat of freedom but an inspiration for those who survive to step up their efforts. Indeed, I hope that it will help galvanise forces that will usher in a new era of human liberty in our beloved motherland. I also hope it will open the eyes of your President to the fact that however many are slaughtered in the name of patriotism, the human spirit will endure and flourish. Not all the Rajapakses combined can kill that.
People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted. An example that has inspired me throughout my career in journalism has been that of the German theologian, Martin Niemoller. In his youth he was an anti-Semite and an admirer of Hitler. As Nazism took hold in Germany, however, he saw Nazism for what it was: it was not just the Jews Hitler sought to extirpate, it was just about anyone with an alternate point of view. Niemoller spoke out, and for his trouble was incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945, and very nearly executed. While incarcerated, Niem0ller wrote a poem that, from the first time I read it in my teenage years, stuck hauntingly in my mind:
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.
What this report reminds us of is how precious authentic information is. We take journalists for granted and often we don't like them because they don't cover a story the way we think they should or that reveals details that offend. But journalism is one of the enduring great ministries to the world, a service and if done right, in a society like Sri Lanka's and many other societies, a dangerous even sacrificial ministry.
We can give thanks for the zeal of this faithful public servant, who sought as he best knew how to tell the story as he found it. We grieve with and for all those who were close to him and who have lost someone they knew and loved. But we need to grieve for ourselves also because we cannot estimate how much might have been revealed if Wickramatunga had lived.
So how valuable is an authentic report in a society at war? How valuable is a story told among folks who cannot bear for it to be revealed?
I deliberately avoid here the word "truth" in order to recognize how problematic all reports are in a complex world -- but when one's life is at stake in the telling of a story, that story has to be considered precious beyond reckoning. [Click on the title above to link to the source.]
New Yorker January 12, 2009
Steve Coll: Letter from the Grave
Last Thursday, Lasantha Wickramatunga, who was fifty-two years old and the editor of a Sri Lankan newspaper called the Sunday Leader, was assassinated on his way to work by two gunmen riding motorcycles. The Leader’s investigative reporting had been fiercely critical of the government and of the conduct of its war against Tamil separatists; Wickramatunga had been attacked before. He knew that he was likely to be murdered and so he wrote an essay with instructions that it be published only after his own death. Some mutual friends in the region sent a copy to me today. Read it in full below. It is like nothing else you will read today, that I promise.
A very brief bit of context: Sri Lanka’s government, drawing support from the island’s Sinhalese ethnic majority, has been at war since the nineteen-eighties with various militant separatist groups representing the country’s Tamil ethnic minority. In recent years, the war has narrowed to a contest between government troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and others. The L.T.T.E. purports to speak for the aspirations of Tamil civilians, but it has conducted its campaign with child soldiers, suicide bombers, and other horrors. For its part, the Sri Lankan government has arranged for the disappearance and murder of uncounted numbers of Tamils, just as it “disappeared” and murdered thousands of its own Sinhalese citizens during an earlier period of counterinsurgency.
The country’s current president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is referred to in Wickramatunga’s essay, came to power emphasizing human rights and reform but has more recently pursued a military solution to his L.T.T.E. problem. Sri Lankan troops have lately marched deep into Tamil territory under a heavy veil of media censorship. Local journalists have been accused of disloyalty to the war, which has inspired or created a pretext for attacks against them and their offices. Wickramatunga believed that he would be killed, and the Sri Lankan government would be responsible for his murder.
According to media reports from Sri Lanka, the government has condemned Wickramatunga’s murder and ordered an investigation. Sri Lankan journalists and others today staged a silent march in Colombo, the capital, to protest his killing. Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based group devoted to protecting journalists, issued a statement about Wickramatunga’s murder that said, “President Mahinda Rajapaksa, his associates and the government media are directly to blame because they incited hatred against him and allowed an outrageous level of impunity to develop as regards violence against the press.”
Here is his essay:
No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honor to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.
I have been in the business of journalism a good long time. Indeed, 2009 will be The Sunday Leader’s 15th year. Many things have changed in Sri Lanka during that time, and it does not need me to tell you that the greater part of that change has been for the worse. We find ourselves in the midst of a civil war ruthlessly prosecuted by protagonists whose bloodlust knows no bounds. Terror, whether perpetrated by terrorists or the state, has become the order of the day. Indeed, murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty. Today it is the journalists, tomorrow it will be the judges. For neither group have the risks ever been higher or the stakes lower.
Why then do we do it? I often wonder that. After all, I too am a husband, and the father of three wonderful children. I too have responsibilities and obligations that transcend my profession, be it the law or journalism. Is it worth the risk? Many people tell me it is not. Friends tell me to revert to the bar, and goodness knows it offers a better and safer livelihood. Others, including political leaders on both sides, have at various times sought to induce me to take to politics, going so far as to offer me ministries of my choice. Diplomats, recognizing the risk journalists face in Sri Lanka, have offered me safe passage and the right of residence in their countries. Whatever else I may have been stuck for, I have not been stuck for choice.
But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre and security. It is the call of conscience.
The Sunday Leader has been a controversial newspaper because we say it like we see it: whether it be a spade, a thief or a murderer, we call it by that name. We do not hide behind euphemism. The investigative articles we print are supported by documentary evidence thanks to the public-spiritedness of citizens who at great risk to themselves pass on this material to us. We have exposed scandal after scandal, and never once in these 15 years has anyone proved us wrong or successfully prosecuted us.
The free media serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself sans mascara and styling gel. From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant one. But while you may grumble in the privacy of your armchair, the journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great risk to themselves. That is our calling, and we do not shirk it.
Every newspaper has its angle, and we do not hide the fact that we have ours. Our commitment is to see Sri Lanka as a transparent, secular, liberal democracy. Think about those words, for they each has profound meaning. Transparent because government must be openly accountable to the people and never abuse their trust. Secular because in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society such as ours, secularism offers the only common ground by which we might all be united. Liberal because we recognize that all human beings are created different, and we need to accept others for what they are and not what we would like them to be. And democratic… well, if you need me to explain why that is important, you’d best stop buying this paper.
The Sunday Leader has never sought safety by unquestioningly articulating the majority view. Let’s face it, that is the way to sell newspapers. On the contrary, as our opinion pieces over the years amply demonstrate, we often voice ideas that many people find distasteful. For example, we have consistently espoused the view that while separatist terrorism must be eradicated, it is more important to address the root causes of terrorism, and urged government to view Sri Lanka’s ethnic strife in the context of history and not through the telescope of terrorism. We have also agitated against state terrorism in the so-called war against terror, and made no secret of our horror that Sri Lanka is the only country in the world routinely to bomb its own citizens. For these views we have been labeled traitors, and if this be treachery, we wear that label proudly.
Many people suspect that The Sunday Leader has a political agenda: it does not. If we appear more critical of the government than of the opposition it is only because we believe that - pray excuse cricketing argot - there is no point in bowling to the fielding side. Remember that for the few years of our existence in which the UNP was in office, we proved to be the biggest thorn in its flesh, exposing excess and corruption wherever it occurred. Indeed, the steady stream of embarrassing exposes we published may well have served to precipitate the downfall of that government.
Neither should our distaste for the war be interpreted to mean that we support the Tigers. The LTTE are among the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organizations ever to have infested the planet. There is no gainsaying that it must be eradicated. But to do so by violating the rights of Tamil citizens, bombing and shooting them mercilessly, is not only wrong but shames the Sinhalese, whose claim to be custodians of the dhamma is forever called into question by this savagery, much of which is unknown to the public because of censorship.
What is more, a military occupation of the country’s north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens, deprived of all self respect. Do not imagine that you can placate them by showering “development” and “reconstruction” on them in the post-war era. The wounds of war will scar them forever, and you will also have an even more bitter and hateful Diaspora to contend with. A problem amenable to a political solution will thus become a festering wound that will yield strife for all eternity. If I seem angry and frustrated, it is only because most of my countrymen - and all of the government - cannot see this writing so plainly on the wall.
It is well known that I was on two occasions brutally assaulted, while on another my house was sprayed with machine-gun fire. Despite the government’s sanctimonious assurances, there was never a serious police inquiry into the perpetrators of these attacks, and the attackers were never apprehended. In all these cases, I have reason to believe the attacks were inspired by the government. When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.
The irony in this is that, unknown to most of the public, Mahinda and I have been friends for more than a quarter century. Indeed, I suspect that I am one of the few people remaining who routinely addresses him by his first name and uses the familiar Sinhala address oya when talking to him. Although I do not attend the meetings he periodically holds for newspaper editors, hardly a month passes when we do not meet, privately or with a few close friends present, late at night at President’s House. There we swap yarns, discuss politics and joke about the good old days. A few remarks to him would therefore be in order here.
Mahinda, when you finally fought your way to the SLFP presidential nomination in 2005, nowhere were you welcomed more warmly than in this column. Indeed, we broke with a decade of tradition by referring to you throughout by your first name. So well known were your commitments to human rights and liberal values that we ushered you in like a breath of fresh air. Then, through an act of folly, you got yourself involved in the Helping Hambantota scandal. It was after a lot of soul-searching that we broke the story, at the same time urging you to return the money. By the time you did so several weeks later, a great blow had been struck to your reputation. It is one you are still trying to live down.
You have told me yourself that you were not greedy for the presidency. You did not have to hanker after it: it fell into your lap. You have told me that your sons are your greatest joy, and that you love spending time with them, leaving your brothers to operate the machinery of state. Now, it is clear to all who will see that that machinery has operated so well that my sons and daughter do not themselves have a father.
In the wake of my death I know you will make all the usual sanctimonious noises and call upon the police to hold a swift and thorough inquiry. But like all the inquiries you have ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one, too. For truth be told, we both know who will be behind my death, but dare not call his name. Not just my life, but yours too, depends on it.
Sadly, for all the dreams you had for our country in your younger days, in just three years you have reduced it to rubble. In the name of patriotism you have trampled on human rights, nurtured unbridled corruption and squandered public money like no other President before you. Indeed, your conduct has been like a small child suddenly let loose in a toyshop. That analogy is perhaps inapt because no child could have caused so much blood to be spilled on this land as you have, or trampled on the rights of its citizens as you do. Although you are now so drunk with power that you cannot see it, you will come to regret your sons having so rich an inheritance of blood. It can only bring tragedy. As for me, it is with a clear conscience that I go to meet my Maker. I wish, when your time finally comes, you could do the same. I wish.
As for me, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I walked tall and bowed to no man. And I have not travelled this journey alone. Fellow journalists in other branches of the media walked with me: most of them are now dead, imprisoned without trial or exiled in far-off lands. Others walk in the shadow of death that your Presidency has cast on the freedoms for which you once fought so hard. You will never be allowed to forget that my death took place under your watch. As anguished as I know you will be, I also know that you will have no choice but to protect my killers: you will see to it that the guilty one is never convicted. You have no choice. I feel sorry for you, and Shiranthi will have a long time to spend on her knees when next she goes for Confession for it is not just her owns sins which she must confess, but those of her extended family that keeps you in office.
As for the readers of The Sunday Leader, what can I say but Thank You for supporting our mission. We have espoused unpopular causes, stood up for those too feeble to stand up for themselves, locked horns with the high and mighty so swollen with power that they have forgotten their roots, exposed corruption and the waste of your hard-earned tax rupees, and made sure that whatever the propaganda of the day, you were allowed to hear a contrary view. For this I - and my family - have now paid the price that I have long known I will one day have to pay. I am - and have always been - ready for that. I have done nothing to prevent this outcome: no security, no precautions. I want my murderer to know that I am not a coward like he is, hiding behind human shields while condemning thousands of innocents to death. What am I among so many? It has long been written that my life would be taken, and by whom. All that remains to be written is when.
That The Sunday Leader will continue fighting the good fight, too, is written. For I did not fight this fight alone. Many more of us have to be - and will be - killed before The Leader is laid to rest. I hope my assassination will be seen not as a defeat of freedom but an inspiration for those who survive to step up their efforts. Indeed, I hope that it will help galvanise forces that will usher in a new era of human liberty in our beloved motherland. I also hope it will open the eyes of your President to the fact that however many are slaughtered in the name of patriotism, the human spirit will endure and flourish. Not all the Rajapakses combined can kill that.
People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted. An example that has inspired me throughout my career in journalism has been that of the German theologian, Martin Niemoller. In his youth he was an anti-Semite and an admirer of Hitler. As Nazism took hold in Germany, however, he saw Nazism for what it was: it was not just the Jews Hitler sought to extirpate, it was just about anyone with an alternate point of view. Niemoller spoke out, and for his trouble was incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945, and very nearly executed. While incarcerated, Niem0ller wrote a poem that, from the first time I read it in my teenage years, stuck hauntingly in my mind:
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.
Russia's natural inclination for hegemony in Central Asia
The report today on the feud between Russia and Ukraine suggests that the real issues have more to do with hegemony in the region than economics. It is hard for the "nationalists" in Russia, heirs of the Soviet legacy, to accept the independence of Ukraine: "they will never accept the notion of Ukrainians, nearly half of whom are ethnic Russians, as members of an independent, Western-oriented state." It is in this sense that it can be said that this affair is a continuation of the Georgian War. It is not merely Ukraine and Georgia, either: it is the wider world of "independent states" in Central Asia who can scarcely avoid the influence of the northern Bear. [Click on the title for a link to the source.]
New York Times, January 14, 2009
Memo From Moscow: Gas Dispute Runs Deeper Than Pipes, Experts Say
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
MOSCOW — The feud between Russia and Ukraine over natural gas prices and transit fees has left large swaths of Europe without heat. Yet, what is baffling is that the dispute has always seemed overly technical and easily resolved, if there was the slightest desire on either side. After all, both countries stand to profit from selling fuel to Europe.
The latest agreement collapsed Tuesday, in a familiar cacophony of complaints and countercomplaints, and again over a seemingly trivial issue. With European Union monitors along the pipeline to make sure that Ukraine did not divert any gas for its own use, Russia agreed to resume shipments to Europe.
But rather than repressuring the Ukrainian pipeline system for exports, Russia’s gas monopoly, Gazprom, ordered a single test shipment to see if it would pass through Ukraine to Europe, through a pipeline that was being used to supply the Ukrainian city of Odessa. Ukrainian authorities refused, saying they did not want to cut supplies to their own people, and Russia again halted shipments — not, some experts believed, reluctantly.
Political experts say that neither side is motivated to settle the dispute, because it has never been about the stated issues. Instead, it has been a proxy for far more fundamental and insoluble matters, particularly Ukraine’s 2004 turn to the West in the “Orange Revolution,” which deeply shook Russia’s nationalists.
“The Russian side is appealing to a lot of technical details to explain why it still wants the conflict to go on,” Vladimir S. Milov, president of the Institute of Energy Policy in Moscow and a former deputy energy minister of Russia, said in a telephone interview.
“It’s very clear to see the desire to pressure the Ukrainian politicians, and pressure them that if they continue to pursue a pro-Western course and not adhere to the rules imposed by Moscow on the post-Soviet space, they will face difficulties,” he said.
Nationalists in Moscow could swallow the loss of the Baltic states and Russia’s former colonies in Central Asia, but they will never accept the notion of Ukrainians, nearly half of whom are ethnic Russians, as members of an independent, Western-oriented state, and potentially in NATO, no less.
Some other analysts point to the aftermath of last summer’s Georgian conflict as another sticking point, noting that after the war Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, had claimed a “privileged sphere of influence” over former Soviet states.
“This is a continuation of the Russian-Georgian war, only by other means,” Grigory N. Perepelitsa, director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, an arm of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, said in a telephone interview. “There it was tanks, here it is gas.”
This time, though, Europe is suffering as well, with hundreds of thousands of people in southeastern Europe living without heat for six days and factories shutting down in several countries.
[more in the source article]
New York Times, January 14, 2009
Memo From Moscow: Gas Dispute Runs Deeper Than Pipes, Experts Say
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
MOSCOW — The feud between Russia and Ukraine over natural gas prices and transit fees has left large swaths of Europe without heat. Yet, what is baffling is that the dispute has always seemed overly technical and easily resolved, if there was the slightest desire on either side. After all, both countries stand to profit from selling fuel to Europe.
The latest agreement collapsed Tuesday, in a familiar cacophony of complaints and countercomplaints, and again over a seemingly trivial issue. With European Union monitors along the pipeline to make sure that Ukraine did not divert any gas for its own use, Russia agreed to resume shipments to Europe.
But rather than repressuring the Ukrainian pipeline system for exports, Russia’s gas monopoly, Gazprom, ordered a single test shipment to see if it would pass through Ukraine to Europe, through a pipeline that was being used to supply the Ukrainian city of Odessa. Ukrainian authorities refused, saying they did not want to cut supplies to their own people, and Russia again halted shipments — not, some experts believed, reluctantly.
Political experts say that neither side is motivated to settle the dispute, because it has never been about the stated issues. Instead, it has been a proxy for far more fundamental and insoluble matters, particularly Ukraine’s 2004 turn to the West in the “Orange Revolution,” which deeply shook Russia’s nationalists.
“The Russian side is appealing to a lot of technical details to explain why it still wants the conflict to go on,” Vladimir S. Milov, president of the Institute of Energy Policy in Moscow and a former deputy energy minister of Russia, said in a telephone interview.
“It’s very clear to see the desire to pressure the Ukrainian politicians, and pressure them that if they continue to pursue a pro-Western course and not adhere to the rules imposed by Moscow on the post-Soviet space, they will face difficulties,” he said.
Nationalists in Moscow could swallow the loss of the Baltic states and Russia’s former colonies in Central Asia, but they will never accept the notion of Ukrainians, nearly half of whom are ethnic Russians, as members of an independent, Western-oriented state, and potentially in NATO, no less.
Some other analysts point to the aftermath of last summer’s Georgian conflict as another sticking point, noting that after the war Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, had claimed a “privileged sphere of influence” over former Soviet states.
“This is a continuation of the Russian-Georgian war, only by other means,” Grigory N. Perepelitsa, director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, an arm of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, said in a telephone interview. “There it was tanks, here it is gas.”
This time, though, Europe is suffering as well, with hundreds of thousands of people in southeastern Europe living without heat for six days and factories shutting down in several countries.
[more in the source article]
Sunday, January 11, 2009
The gas deal with Russia: In extremity: forget blame.
The agreement between Russia and Ukraine on gas prices reveals how powerful Russia's position is over Europe: The Europeans dependent on this gas supply were, in this severe winter, "unnerved as lights blinked out and homes went cold in some of the new member states of the union in Eastern Europe." As this article reports, “the situation has gone so far that they stopped being interested in who is to blame,” ... “Now we’re talking about preserving trust in a large supplier and a large transit country.” Russia, despite its own problems of population decline, enjoys a strategic position: supplier of vital resources (oil, gas) for Europe. And soon it will be a vital source of fossil fuel resources for the populations of the Far East, for China's growth rate is still one of the highest in the world. Pipelines west, pipelines east: Russia at the center, along with client states in Central Asia like Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, whose natural resources are similarly vital to their neighbors.
Here are two articles from the New York Times today that reveal how powerful are the conditions of exigency: people in distress make deals, sometimes very costly ones. So what are the prospects over the long haul?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/world/europe/11russia.html?hp
NYTimes January 11, 2009
Ukraine and Russia Sign Deal Over Gas
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
MOSCOW — Russia and Ukraine took a major step toward resolving a dispute over natural gas that has left large parts of Europe without heat or fuel for days, signing an agreement with the European Union to establish independent monitors of pipelines, officials said early Sunday.
The agreement was a precondition set by Russian energy officials to turn on the gas flow again. Russia shut off the valves on Thursday after an extended dispute with Ukraine over pricing and accusations of stealing gas from the export pipelines.
It may be days before relief comes to European countries down the line from Ukraine, especially Poland and Bulgaria, which have suffered greatly without heating fuel in the bitter winter weather. Even if Russia immediately turns on the flow, it would take about three days to repressurize the European natural gas pipeline system and restore full service, experts said. And the underlying price dispute has still not been resolved.
Still, the agreement was the first major progress in days of tough negotiations.
The breakthrough started on Saturday, when the Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolanek, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, met for hours of talks with Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia outside Moscow and secured Russia’s agreement. Mr. Topolanek then flew to Kiev, Ukraine, late that night to meet with Ukrainian leaders.
Early Sunday, Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko of Ukraine emerged from talks with Mr. Topolanek to say her country had signed the protocol. On the Russian side, Ilya Y. Kochevrin, executive director of the export arm of Russia’s natural gas company, Gazprom, confirmed in a telephone interview that an agreement had been reached.
Mr. Topolanek was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying that now, “Nothing prevents the deployment of monitoring teams and renewal of gas transit.”
Mr. Topolanek and other European officials, clearly unnerved as lights blinked out and homes went cold in some of the new member states of the union in Eastern Europe, had been pressing hard for a settlement in recent days.
In his opening remarks to Mr. Putin, Mr. Topolanek said his colleagues in Europe were interested in restoring gas flow rather than placing blame for the shut-off. The matter is deeply entangled in former Soviet politics and Russia’s assertions of a new and dominant role in the region.
“Indeed, the situation has gone so far that they stopped being interested in who is to blame,” Mr. Topolanek said, according to a Russian government transcript of the meeting. “Now we’re talking about preserving trust in a large supplier and a large transit country.”
Russian authorities maintain that Ukraine began siphoning from pipelines some of the Russian natural gas intended for export to Europe and has been using it to meet internal demand since Russia halted supplies to Ukraine on Jan. 1 because of a dispute over pricing.
Angered that Ukraine was circumventing its fuel embargo and and accusing its leaders of interrupting exports to paying customers farther west, Moscow halted all shipments to Europe via Ukrainian territory. That was unfortunate for European consumers, as about one-fifth of all the natural gas burned in Europe passes through the pipelines. Ukraine denied that it had withdrawn gas from the lines.
Ukraine rejected an earlier version of the monitoring protocol, saying the structure was too cumbersome and would delay the deployment of monitors. It was unclear early Sunday what specific changes had been made, if any, to meet those concerns.
Under the agreement finalized Sunday, Ukraine and Russia would accept observers on their territory, said Mr. Kochevrin, the export director for Gazprom.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
===============
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/weekinreview/11barry.html?ref=todayspaper
NYTimes January 11, 2009
A Crossroad for Russia and America
By ELLEN BARRY
MOSCOW — In August of last year, a new Russia presented itself to the world. From the battlefield of Georgia, the message said: We are no longer seeking the good opinion of the West. The new taste for confrontation was seen by many as a byproduct of oil and gas wealth, which had given Russia’s leaders the confidence to risk international isolation. In the title of a book he published in April, the scholar Marshall Goldman offered a one-word explanation: “Petrostate.”
That thesis may have a short shelf life. Russian leaders, no longer hoping to make the ruble an international reserve currency, now face a confluence of disasters: The price of a barrel of oil has slid below $40, shares of Gazprom fell 76 percent in a year and more than a quarter of Russia’s cash reserves have been spent shoring up the ruble.
But does that mean we can expect a thaw between Russia and America?
The question arises at a moment of high tension. The deadlock between Russia and Ukraine on gas prices has drawn in all of Europe; violence in Georgia could flare up again. Barack Obama’s Russia policymakers are taking office under the pressure of unfolding events.
Henry Kissinger, who was in Moscow last month, is offering the hopeful view that the global financial crash could lead to “an age of compatible interests.” But others see the crisis pushing Russia in the opposite direction. So there are two paths:
SCENARIO 1: COOPERATION In the global financial collapse, as Alexander Rahr of Germany’s Council on Foreign Relations put it: “We have all become weaker. We have all become poorer.” So, pressed by domestic concerns, both sides pare back their foreign ambitions. Washington slows its timetable on NATO expansion and missile defense; Russia defers the dream of recapturing the Soviet “privileged sphere of influence.” Leaders in Moscow present this to the public as a victory.
The logic here is straightforward: A cash-strapped Russia would need Western money and technology to develop its energy fields. State monopolies would seek foreign partners, and bare-knuckled power grabs like Russia’s past moves against BP and Shell Oil would look counterproductive. The “battle of ideas” within the Kremlin, as Igor Y. Yurgens, an adviser to President Dmitri A. Medvedev, describes it, would turn away from “isolation, seclusion, imperial instincts” and toward long-term partnership with the West.
“If we take care of the crisis by isolating ourselves, if we don’t learn the lessons from what is already being done, then the fate of Russia can be the repetition of the fate of the U.S.S.R.,” Mr. Yurgens said. “I don’t think we are stupid enough.”
SCENARIO 2: RETRENCHMENT AND NATIONALISM “Less resources means more selfish behavior,” as Sergei A. Markov, director of the Institute of Political Studies in Moscow, has said. In this case, Russia finds itself facing internal dissent and the threat of regional separatism, and lacking large piles of oil money to disburse in hopes of keeping control. Forced to fight for their own survival, political leaders tailor their policies to domestic public opinion. They focus on an external enemy — the United States, which leaders have already blamed for Russia’s financial crisis, and with whom Russia is already deeply irritated over the prospect of American military influence reaching Ukraine.
By this logic, it would be absurd to cede ground to the West now, after the long-awaited taste of satisfaction that Russians got in Georgia. Many Russians see the August war as a restoration of Russia’s rightful place in world events — a product not of oil wealth, but of the Russian society’s recovery from the Soviet collapse.
“Russia has returned, period,” said Vyacheslav A. Nikonov, president of the Kremlin-aligned Polity Foundation. “That will not change. It will not get back under the table.”
WHICH scenario is more likely? To begin, it is clear that Russian authorities are preparing to defend their political power. After presenting himself to the world as a liberal modernizer, President Medvedev has prioritized one major reform — lengthening the presidential term to six years. Last week, he signed a law eliminating jury trials for “crimes against the state,” and pending legislation would expand the definition of treason.
The authorities are nervous, it seems. Mr. Medvedev, in his State of the Nation speech, sent a barbed warning to “those who seek to provoke tension in the political situation.” And last month, riot police were sent 6,000 miles from Moscow to Vladivostok, where hundreds of people were protesting automobile tariffs, The Associated Press reported. “I just think they don’t trust what they can’t control,” said Clifford Kupchan of the Eurasia Group, a global risk-consulting firm based in New York. “Their instinctive reflex is to clamp when faced with uncertainty.”
The first scenario, in which economic considerations dictate a more subdued foreign policy, requires conditions that may not exist. In the government, economic liberals might challenge hardliners. The constituencies who might back them up are ones that fell silent during the boom.
“People in epaulets who feel they are middle class, people in bureaucracy who feel they are middle class, they could be part of this coalition,” Mr. Yurgens said. “Whether this coalition will be strong enough, I have no way of knowing.”
These days, Stephen Sestanovich, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, sees signs of “policy confusion” as Moscow’s leaders adjust to Russia’s sudden economic slide. Moscow has allowed the Georgia crisis to subside, but has escalated tensions over gas with Ukraine.
The choice the elites face, Mr. Sestanovich said, is whether to keep talking in ways that make them look like “angry risk-takers and disturbers.”
“Is that still their real view of themselves, and of the appropriate policy in a time of crisis?” he said. “It may be. But I’m not sure, and I don’t think they are.”
The United States has real interests in a cooperative Russia; it wants help in curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and NATO needs more supply routes into Afghanistan. And with Mr. Obama’s arrival in the White House, there seems room for compromise on two big Russian concerns: possible NATO expansion to Ukraine and Georgia, and the plan to station missile-defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.
But in the deep freeze of a Moscow January, the gains of August are still thrilling. When Mr. Putin went on television last week to cut gas shipments to Ukraine — retaliation, he said, for thefts from Russia’s pipeline — who could miss the glint of satisfaction at another tough-guy stance? Foreign policy emits an energy that goes far beyond mere economics, and the new year will call for all the resources Moscow can muster. To a Russia intent on reclaiming great-power status, there may be something elemental about resisting America.
“It’s just the way things are,” said Mr. Nikonov, whose grandfather, Vyacheslav Molotov, was Stalin’s foreign minister. Searching his memory for periods of warmth between the two countries, Mr. Nikonov came up with two: March and April of 1917, and August through December of 1991.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Here are two articles from the New York Times today that reveal how powerful are the conditions of exigency: people in distress make deals, sometimes very costly ones. So what are the prospects over the long haul?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/world/europe/11russia.html?hp
NYTimes January 11, 2009
Ukraine and Russia Sign Deal Over Gas
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
MOSCOW — Russia and Ukraine took a major step toward resolving a dispute over natural gas that has left large parts of Europe without heat or fuel for days, signing an agreement with the European Union to establish independent monitors of pipelines, officials said early Sunday.
The agreement was a precondition set by Russian energy officials to turn on the gas flow again. Russia shut off the valves on Thursday after an extended dispute with Ukraine over pricing and accusations of stealing gas from the export pipelines.
It may be days before relief comes to European countries down the line from Ukraine, especially Poland and Bulgaria, which have suffered greatly without heating fuel in the bitter winter weather. Even if Russia immediately turns on the flow, it would take about three days to repressurize the European natural gas pipeline system and restore full service, experts said. And the underlying price dispute has still not been resolved.
Still, the agreement was the first major progress in days of tough negotiations.
The breakthrough started on Saturday, when the Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolanek, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, met for hours of talks with Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia outside Moscow and secured Russia’s agreement. Mr. Topolanek then flew to Kiev, Ukraine, late that night to meet with Ukrainian leaders.
Early Sunday, Prime Minister Yulia V. Tymoshenko of Ukraine emerged from talks with Mr. Topolanek to say her country had signed the protocol. On the Russian side, Ilya Y. Kochevrin, executive director of the export arm of Russia’s natural gas company, Gazprom, confirmed in a telephone interview that an agreement had been reached.
Mr. Topolanek was quoted by Agence France-Presse as saying that now, “Nothing prevents the deployment of monitoring teams and renewal of gas transit.”
Mr. Topolanek and other European officials, clearly unnerved as lights blinked out and homes went cold in some of the new member states of the union in Eastern Europe, had been pressing hard for a settlement in recent days.
In his opening remarks to Mr. Putin, Mr. Topolanek said his colleagues in Europe were interested in restoring gas flow rather than placing blame for the shut-off. The matter is deeply entangled in former Soviet politics and Russia’s assertions of a new and dominant role in the region.
“Indeed, the situation has gone so far that they stopped being interested in who is to blame,” Mr. Topolanek said, according to a Russian government transcript of the meeting. “Now we’re talking about preserving trust in a large supplier and a large transit country.”
Russian authorities maintain that Ukraine began siphoning from pipelines some of the Russian natural gas intended for export to Europe and has been using it to meet internal demand since Russia halted supplies to Ukraine on Jan. 1 because of a dispute over pricing.
Angered that Ukraine was circumventing its fuel embargo and and accusing its leaders of interrupting exports to paying customers farther west, Moscow halted all shipments to Europe via Ukrainian territory. That was unfortunate for European consumers, as about one-fifth of all the natural gas burned in Europe passes through the pipelines. Ukraine denied that it had withdrawn gas from the lines.
Ukraine rejected an earlier version of the monitoring protocol, saying the structure was too cumbersome and would delay the deployment of monitors. It was unclear early Sunday what specific changes had been made, if any, to meet those concerns.
Under the agreement finalized Sunday, Ukraine and Russia would accept observers on their territory, said Mr. Kochevrin, the export director for Gazprom.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
===============
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/weekinreview/11barry.html?ref=todayspaper
NYTimes January 11, 2009
A Crossroad for Russia and America
By ELLEN BARRY
MOSCOW — In August of last year, a new Russia presented itself to the world. From the battlefield of Georgia, the message said: We are no longer seeking the good opinion of the West. The new taste for confrontation was seen by many as a byproduct of oil and gas wealth, which had given Russia’s leaders the confidence to risk international isolation. In the title of a book he published in April, the scholar Marshall Goldman offered a one-word explanation: “Petrostate.”
That thesis may have a short shelf life. Russian leaders, no longer hoping to make the ruble an international reserve currency, now face a confluence of disasters: The price of a barrel of oil has slid below $40, shares of Gazprom fell 76 percent in a year and more than a quarter of Russia’s cash reserves have been spent shoring up the ruble.
But does that mean we can expect a thaw between Russia and America?
The question arises at a moment of high tension. The deadlock between Russia and Ukraine on gas prices has drawn in all of Europe; violence in Georgia could flare up again. Barack Obama’s Russia policymakers are taking office under the pressure of unfolding events.
Henry Kissinger, who was in Moscow last month, is offering the hopeful view that the global financial crash could lead to “an age of compatible interests.” But others see the crisis pushing Russia in the opposite direction. So there are two paths:
SCENARIO 1: COOPERATION In the global financial collapse, as Alexander Rahr of Germany’s Council on Foreign Relations put it: “We have all become weaker. We have all become poorer.” So, pressed by domestic concerns, both sides pare back their foreign ambitions. Washington slows its timetable on NATO expansion and missile defense; Russia defers the dream of recapturing the Soviet “privileged sphere of influence.” Leaders in Moscow present this to the public as a victory.
The logic here is straightforward: A cash-strapped Russia would need Western money and technology to develop its energy fields. State monopolies would seek foreign partners, and bare-knuckled power grabs like Russia’s past moves against BP and Shell Oil would look counterproductive. The “battle of ideas” within the Kremlin, as Igor Y. Yurgens, an adviser to President Dmitri A. Medvedev, describes it, would turn away from “isolation, seclusion, imperial instincts” and toward long-term partnership with the West.
“If we take care of the crisis by isolating ourselves, if we don’t learn the lessons from what is already being done, then the fate of Russia can be the repetition of the fate of the U.S.S.R.,” Mr. Yurgens said. “I don’t think we are stupid enough.”
SCENARIO 2: RETRENCHMENT AND NATIONALISM “Less resources means more selfish behavior,” as Sergei A. Markov, director of the Institute of Political Studies in Moscow, has said. In this case, Russia finds itself facing internal dissent and the threat of regional separatism, and lacking large piles of oil money to disburse in hopes of keeping control. Forced to fight for their own survival, political leaders tailor their policies to domestic public opinion. They focus on an external enemy — the United States, which leaders have already blamed for Russia’s financial crisis, and with whom Russia is already deeply irritated over the prospect of American military influence reaching Ukraine.
By this logic, it would be absurd to cede ground to the West now, after the long-awaited taste of satisfaction that Russians got in Georgia. Many Russians see the August war as a restoration of Russia’s rightful place in world events — a product not of oil wealth, but of the Russian society’s recovery from the Soviet collapse.
“Russia has returned, period,” said Vyacheslav A. Nikonov, president of the Kremlin-aligned Polity Foundation. “That will not change. It will not get back under the table.”
WHICH scenario is more likely? To begin, it is clear that Russian authorities are preparing to defend their political power. After presenting himself to the world as a liberal modernizer, President Medvedev has prioritized one major reform — lengthening the presidential term to six years. Last week, he signed a law eliminating jury trials for “crimes against the state,” and pending legislation would expand the definition of treason.
The authorities are nervous, it seems. Mr. Medvedev, in his State of the Nation speech, sent a barbed warning to “those who seek to provoke tension in the political situation.” And last month, riot police were sent 6,000 miles from Moscow to Vladivostok, where hundreds of people were protesting automobile tariffs, The Associated Press reported. “I just think they don’t trust what they can’t control,” said Clifford Kupchan of the Eurasia Group, a global risk-consulting firm based in New York. “Their instinctive reflex is to clamp when faced with uncertainty.”
The first scenario, in which economic considerations dictate a more subdued foreign policy, requires conditions that may not exist. In the government, economic liberals might challenge hardliners. The constituencies who might back them up are ones that fell silent during the boom.
“People in epaulets who feel they are middle class, people in bureaucracy who feel they are middle class, they could be part of this coalition,” Mr. Yurgens said. “Whether this coalition will be strong enough, I have no way of knowing.”
These days, Stephen Sestanovich, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, sees signs of “policy confusion” as Moscow’s leaders adjust to Russia’s sudden economic slide. Moscow has allowed the Georgia crisis to subside, but has escalated tensions over gas with Ukraine.
The choice the elites face, Mr. Sestanovich said, is whether to keep talking in ways that make them look like “angry risk-takers and disturbers.”
“Is that still their real view of themselves, and of the appropriate policy in a time of crisis?” he said. “It may be. But I’m not sure, and I don’t think they are.”
The United States has real interests in a cooperative Russia; it wants help in curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and NATO needs more supply routes into Afghanistan. And with Mr. Obama’s arrival in the White House, there seems room for compromise on two big Russian concerns: possible NATO expansion to Ukraine and Georgia, and the plan to station missile-defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.
But in the deep freeze of a Moscow January, the gains of August are still thrilling. When Mr. Putin went on television last week to cut gas shipments to Ukraine — retaliation, he said, for thefts from Russia’s pipeline — who could miss the glint of satisfaction at another tough-guy stance? Foreign policy emits an energy that goes far beyond mere economics, and the new year will call for all the resources Moscow can muster. To a Russia intent on reclaiming great-power status, there may be something elemental about resisting America.
“It’s just the way things are,” said Mr. Nikonov, whose grandfather, Vyacheslav Molotov, was Stalin’s foreign minister. Searching his memory for periods of warmth between the two countries, Mr. Nikonov came up with two: March and April of 1917, and August through December of 1991.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
The movement of Iranian funds through secretive means
Iran holds a kind of pivotal position in the Middle East/Central Asia. The Iranians are not Arab and yet aspire to making their country the hegemon of the Arab Middle East. They are Iranian and Turkish in cultural background, with a long historical/cultural connection with Central Asia where various dialects of Persian and Turkish are still spoken [although most of those speakers are Sunni, not Shia like most Iranians]. The effect for the Iranians is a marginal position in respect to the various political blocs of the region. In fact most of their neighbors distrust Iran's activities. In a sense, Iran has no friends; only those created by themselves [Hizbollah] or those whose loyalty has to be bought [Hamas]. Because of Iran's relatively large population and wealth everyone has an interest in what the Iranian leaders are doing. The following article on Iranian moneys moving through American banks reveals how interlinked the financial systems are among the banks around the world, and how Iran seems to have funded some of its operations. And also how vulnerable we all are to abuses of advantage and to distortions of information that can be created by those in strategic positions in the financial sector. The article reveals things that the world is just coming to know: what is it that the world does not know about the funding of various other dangerous enterprises? [Click on the title for the source.]
NYTimes: January 10, 2009
Iran Moved Billions via U.S. Banks
By VIKAS BAJAJ and JOHN ELIGON
Iranian banks illegally shifted billions of dollars through American financial institutions in recent years, and authorities suspect some of the money may have been used to finance Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.
Details of the illicit transfers came to light on Friday when New York State and federal authorities announced that a large British bank had agreed to pay $350 million to settle accusations that it had helped the Iranian banks hide the transactions.
The British bank, the Lloyds TSB Group, “stripped” information that would have identified the transfers in order to deceive American financial institutions, which are barred from doing business with Iranian banks, Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, said. Lloyds acknowledged its conduct and agreed to turn over detailed records of the transactions.
“They went to great lengths to obliterate any identification,” Mr. Morgenthau said.
The district attorney’s office was still investigating nine major banks that might be engaging in similar conduct, but prosecutors declined to name them. Mr. Morgenthau said, however, that money in one transaction was used to buy a large amount of tungsten, an ingredient for making long-range missiles. He said he suspected that other funds might have been used to finance Iran’s nuclear program.
In the current case, investigators were unsure what the money was used for, said Daniel J. Castleman, the chief assistant district attorney. The stripping made it impossible to determine where the money was going, he said. “We don’t know of any money that has gone to any terrorist organizations, individuals or anything like that,” he said.
Lloyds has agreed to examine all of the transactions it stripped to try to determine where the money was headed. In all, Lloyds hid the source of billions of dollars that passed through the United States, prosecutors said. Lloyds also hid transfers from banks in Sudan, which are also banned from doing business with American institutions.
Half of the $350 million Lloyds has agreed to pay will go to the federal government and the rest to Mr. Morgenthau’s office, which will divide the money between the city and the state.
Mr. Morgenthau said he hoped the money, the largest financial penalty his office has ever collected, would provide a boost to tight city and state budgets.
Although prosecutors did not identify specific individuals at Lloyds responsible for the fraud, Mr. Castleman said, “It was a systemic, wide-ranging scheme." The training manual given to employees of Lloyds even included a section on how to strip transactions, prosecutors said.
Banks in several nations are banned from doing business with American institutions, but the United States is particularly concerned about Iran, which it says finances terrorists and runs an illicit nuclear weapons program. Iran denies those accusations.
The investigation into Lloyds goes back to 2006. It was conducted jointly by Mr. Morgenthau’s office and the Justice Department, with the assistance of the Treasury and banking regulators.
According to a deferred prosecution agreement, Lloyds handled $300 million of Iranian transfers and $20 million of Sudanese transfers that ended at American banks. Mr. Morgenthau said billions of dollars of transactions went through American banks but ended outside the country.
Several employees in Lloyds’ international payment processing unit in London removed from the bank’s central system orders from certain foreign banks, according to the agreement released Friday by Mr. Morgenthau’s office. Employees struck out identifying information about the originating banks on printed copies of the payment instructions, which someone then re-entered into the payments system. When American banks received the transfers, they seemed to have originated at Lloyds.
Worried that they might be violating American law, senior officials at Lloyds stopped the stripping operation for Iranian banks in 2004, but transfers from Sudan were stripped as recently as 2007.
Under the agreement between Lloyds and Mr. Morgenthau, no employees, officers or the bank will be charged with a crime unless evidence emerges that the bank or its employees and officers knew that specific transfers were sent to or by terrorist groups or “proliferators of weapons of mass destruction.” The agreement lasts for two years.
In recent years, officials in the Treasury have stepped up a campaign to have foreign banks sever links with Iranian banks, which they accuse of providing support for groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, in addition to financing Iran’s own nuclear ambitions.
In November, the Treasury barred American financial institutions from handling certain money transfers for Iranian interests that had been previously allowed, closing what it described at the time as the “the last general entry point for Iranian banks.” Certain exceptions are still allowed for humanitarian aid and remittances.
In December, federal authorities moved to seize the assets of the Assa Corporation, which the Treasury says is a front for Bank Melli, Iran’s largest bank. Assa owns a stake in a Midtown Manhattan office tower.
Mr. Morgenthau’s office had been investigating ties between the Iranian government and Assa and a related entity, the Alavi Foundation, since 2006. Mr. Morgenthau said evidence unearthed in that investigation led his office to inquire about money transfers made through Lloyds.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
NYTimes: January 10, 2009
Iran Moved Billions via U.S. Banks
By VIKAS BAJAJ and JOHN ELIGON
Iranian banks illegally shifted billions of dollars through American financial institutions in recent years, and authorities suspect some of the money may have been used to finance Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.
Details of the illicit transfers came to light on Friday when New York State and federal authorities announced that a large British bank had agreed to pay $350 million to settle accusations that it had helped the Iranian banks hide the transactions.
The British bank, the Lloyds TSB Group, “stripped” information that would have identified the transfers in order to deceive American financial institutions, which are barred from doing business with Iranian banks, Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, said. Lloyds acknowledged its conduct and agreed to turn over detailed records of the transactions.
“They went to great lengths to obliterate any identification,” Mr. Morgenthau said.
The district attorney’s office was still investigating nine major banks that might be engaging in similar conduct, but prosecutors declined to name them. Mr. Morgenthau said, however, that money in one transaction was used to buy a large amount of tungsten, an ingredient for making long-range missiles. He said he suspected that other funds might have been used to finance Iran’s nuclear program.
In the current case, investigators were unsure what the money was used for, said Daniel J. Castleman, the chief assistant district attorney. The stripping made it impossible to determine where the money was going, he said. “We don’t know of any money that has gone to any terrorist organizations, individuals or anything like that,” he said.
Lloyds has agreed to examine all of the transactions it stripped to try to determine where the money was headed. In all, Lloyds hid the source of billions of dollars that passed through the United States, prosecutors said. Lloyds also hid transfers from banks in Sudan, which are also banned from doing business with American institutions.
Half of the $350 million Lloyds has agreed to pay will go to the federal government and the rest to Mr. Morgenthau’s office, which will divide the money between the city and the state.
Mr. Morgenthau said he hoped the money, the largest financial penalty his office has ever collected, would provide a boost to tight city and state budgets.
Although prosecutors did not identify specific individuals at Lloyds responsible for the fraud, Mr. Castleman said, “It was a systemic, wide-ranging scheme." The training manual given to employees of Lloyds even included a section on how to strip transactions, prosecutors said.
Banks in several nations are banned from doing business with American institutions, but the United States is particularly concerned about Iran, which it says finances terrorists and runs an illicit nuclear weapons program. Iran denies those accusations.
The investigation into Lloyds goes back to 2006. It was conducted jointly by Mr. Morgenthau’s office and the Justice Department, with the assistance of the Treasury and banking regulators.
According to a deferred prosecution agreement, Lloyds handled $300 million of Iranian transfers and $20 million of Sudanese transfers that ended at American banks. Mr. Morgenthau said billions of dollars of transactions went through American banks but ended outside the country.
Several employees in Lloyds’ international payment processing unit in London removed from the bank’s central system orders from certain foreign banks, according to the agreement released Friday by Mr. Morgenthau’s office. Employees struck out identifying information about the originating banks on printed copies of the payment instructions, which someone then re-entered into the payments system. When American banks received the transfers, they seemed to have originated at Lloyds.
Worried that they might be violating American law, senior officials at Lloyds stopped the stripping operation for Iranian banks in 2004, but transfers from Sudan were stripped as recently as 2007.
Under the agreement between Lloyds and Mr. Morgenthau, no employees, officers or the bank will be charged with a crime unless evidence emerges that the bank or its employees and officers knew that specific transfers were sent to or by terrorist groups or “proliferators of weapons of mass destruction.” The agreement lasts for two years.
In recent years, officials in the Treasury have stepped up a campaign to have foreign banks sever links with Iranian banks, which they accuse of providing support for groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, in addition to financing Iran’s own nuclear ambitions.
In November, the Treasury barred American financial institutions from handling certain money transfers for Iranian interests that had been previously allowed, closing what it described at the time as the “the last general entry point for Iranian banks.” Certain exceptions are still allowed for humanitarian aid and remittances.
In December, federal authorities moved to seize the assets of the Assa Corporation, which the Treasury says is a front for Bank Melli, Iran’s largest bank. Assa owns a stake in a Midtown Manhattan office tower.
Mr. Morgenthau’s office had been investigating ties between the Iranian government and Assa and a related entity, the Alavi Foundation, since 2006. Mr. Morgenthau said evidence unearthed in that investigation led his office to inquire about money transfers made through Lloyds.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
New intelligence on the Iranian nuclear project: What was it for?
Iran has been claiming that its interest in developing nuclear capability is for domestic purposes, especially for the time when its oil supply will be giving out. The New York Times has published a selection from David Sanger's book on the challenges for Obama that reveals the intrigues of intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program. And it tacitly reveals how little the western countries [including Israel] actually know.
New York Times
January 11, 2009
U.S. Rejected Aid for Israeli Raid on Iranian Nuclear Site
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON — President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran’s suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials.
White House officials never conclusively determined whether Israel had decided to go ahead with the strike before the United States protested, or whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel was trying to goad the White House into more decisive action before Mr. Bush left office. But the Bush administration was particularly alarmed by an Israeli request to fly over Iraq to reach Iran’s major nuclear complex at Natanz, where the country’s only known uranium enrichment plant is located.
The White House denied that request outright, American officials said, and the Israelis backed off their plans, at least temporarily. But the tense exchanges also prompted the White House to step up intelligence-sharing with Israel and brief Israeli officials on new American efforts to subtly sabotage Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, a major covert program that Mr. Bush is about to hand off to President-elect Barack Obama.
This account of the expanded American covert program and the Bush administration’s efforts to dissuade Israel from an aerial attack on Iran emerged in interviews over the past 15 months with current and former American officials, outside experts, international nuclear inspectors and European and Israeli officials. None would speak on the record because of the great secrecy surrounding the intelligence developed on Iran.
Several details of the covert effort have been omitted from this account, at the request of senior United States intelligence and administration officials, to avoid harming continuing operations.
The interviews also suggest that while Mr. Bush was extensively briefed on options for an overt American attack on Iran’s facilities, he never instructed the Pentagon to move beyond contingency planning, even during the final year of his presidency, contrary to what some critics have suggested.
The interviews also indicate that Mr. Bush was convinced by top administration officials, led by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, that any overt attack on Iran would probably prove ineffective, lead to the expulsion of international inspectors and drive Iran’s nuclear effort further out of view. Mr. Bush and his aides also discussed the possibility that an airstrike could ignite a broad Middle East war in which America’s 140,000 troops in Iraq would inevitably become involved.
Instead, Mr. Bush embraced more intensive covert operations actions aimed at Iran, the interviews show, having concluded that the sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies were failing to slow the uranium enrichment efforts. Those covert operations, and the question of whether Israel will settle for something less than a conventional attack on Iran, pose immediate and wrenching decisions for Mr. Obama.
The covert American program, started in early 2008, includes renewed American efforts to penetrate Iran’s nuclear supply chain abroad, along with new efforts, some of them experimental, to undermine electrical systems, computer systems and other networks on which Iran relies. It is aimed at delaying the day that Iran can produce the weapons-grade fuel and designs it needs to produce a workable nuclear weapon.
Knowledge of the program has been closely held, yet inside the Bush administration some officials are skeptical about its chances of success, arguing that past efforts to undermine Iran’s nuclear program have been detected by the Iranians and have only delayed, not derailed, their drive to unlock the secrets of uranium enrichment.
Late last year, international inspectors estimated that Iran had 3,800 centrifuges spinning, but American intelligence officials now estimate that the figure is 4,000 to 5,000, enough to produce about one weapon’s worth of uranium every eight months or so.
While declining to be specific, one American official dismissed the latest covert operations against Iran as “science experiments.” One senior intelligence official argued that as Mr. Bush prepared to leave office, the Iranians were already so close to achieving a weapons capacity that they were unlikely to be stopped.
Others disagreed, making the point that the Israelis would not have been dissuaded from conducting an attack if they believed that the American effort was unlikely to prove effective.
Since his election on Nov. 4, Mr. Obama has been extensively briefed on the American actions in Iran, though his transition aides have refused to comment on the issue.
Early in his presidency, Mr. Obama must decide whether the covert actions begun by Mr. Bush are worth the risks of disrupting what he has pledged will be a more active diplomatic effort to engage with Iran.
Either course could carry risks for Mr. Obama. An inherited intelligence or military mission that went wrong could backfire, as happened to President Kennedy with the Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba. But a decision to pull back on operations aimed at Iran could leave Mr. Obama vulnerable to charges that he is allowing Iran to speed ahead toward a nuclear capacity, one that could change the contours of power in the Middle East.
An Intelligence Conflict
Israel’s effort to obtain the weapons, refueling capacity and permission to fly over Iraq for an attack on Iran grew out of its disbelief and anger at an American intelligence assessment completed in late 2007 that concluded that Iran had effectively suspended its development of nuclear weapons four years earlier.
That conclusion also stunned Mr. Bush’s national security team — and Mr. Bush himself, who was deeply suspicious of the conclusion, according to officials who discussed it with him.
The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate, was based on a trove of Iranian reports obtained by penetrating Iran’s computer networks.
Those reports indicated that Iranian engineers had been ordered to halt development of a nuclear warhead in 2003, even while they continued to speed ahead in enriching uranium, the most difficult obstacle to building a weapon.
The “key judgments” of the National Intelligence Estimate, which were publicly released, emphasized the suspension of the weapons work.
The public version made only glancing reference to evidence described at great length in the 140-page classified version of the assessment: the suspicion that Iran had 10 or 15 other nuclear-related facilities, never opened to international inspectors, where enrichment activity, weapons work or the manufacturing of centrifuges might be taking place.
The Israelis responded angrily and rebutted the American report, providing American intelligence officials and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with evidence that they said indicated that the Iranians were still working on a weapon.
While the Americans were not convinced that the Iranian weapons development was continuing, the Israelis were not the only ones highly critical of the United States report. Secretary Gates, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said the report had presented the evidence poorly, underemphasizing the importance of Iran’s enrichment activity and overemphasizing the suspension of a weapons-design effort that could easily be turned back on.
In an interview, Mr. Gates said that in his whole career he had never seen “an N.I.E. that had such an impact on U.S. diplomacy,” because “people figured, well, the military option is now off the table.”
Prime Minister Olmert came to the same conclusion. He had previously expected, according to several Americans and Israeli officials, that Mr. Bush would deal with Iran’s nuclear program before he left office. “Now,” said one American official who bore the brunt of Israel’s reaction, “they didn’t believe he would.”
Attack Planning
Early in 2008, the Israeli government signaled that it might be preparing to take matters into its own hands. In a series of meetings, Israeli officials asked Washington for a new generation of powerful bunker-busters, far more capable of blowing up a deep underground plant than anything in Israel’s arsenal of conventional weapons. They asked for refueling equipment that would allow their aircraft to reach Iran and return to Israel. And they asked for the right to fly over Iraq.
Mr. Bush deflected the first two requests, pushing the issue off, but “we said ‘hell no’ to the overflights,” one of his top aides said. At the White House and the Pentagon, there was widespread concern that a political uproar in Iraq about the use of its American-controlled airspace could result in the expulsion of American forces from the country.
The Israeli ambassador to the United States, Sallai Meridor, declined several requests over the past four weeks to be interviewed about Israel’s efforts to obtain the weapons from Washington, saying through aides that he was too busy.
Last June, the Israelis conducted an exercise over the Mediterranean Sea that appeared to be a dry run for an attack on the enrichment plant at Natanz. When the exercise was analyzed at the Pentagon, officials concluded that the distances flown almost exactly equaled the distance between Israel and the Iranian nuclear site.
“This really spooked a lot of people,” one White House official said. White House officials discussed the possibility that the Israelis would fly over Iraq without American permission. In that case, would the American military be ordered to shoot them down? If the United States did not interfere to stop an Israeli attack, would the Bush administration be accused of being complicit in it?
Admiral Mullen, traveling to Israel in early July on a previously scheduled trip, questioned Israeli officials about their intentions. His Israeli counterpart, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, argued that an aerial attack could set Iran’s program back by two or three years, according to officials familiar with the exchange. The American estimates at the time were far more conservative.
Yet by the time Admiral Mullen made his visit, Israeli officials appear to have concluded that without American help, they were not yet capable of hitting the site effectively enough to strike a decisive blow against the Iranian program.
The United States did give Israel one item on its shopping list: high-powered radar, called the X-Band, to detect any Iranian missile launchings. It was the only element in the Israeli request that could be used solely for defense, not offense.
Mr. Gates’s spokesman, Geoff Morrell, said last week that Mr. Gates — whom Mr. Obama is retaining as defense secretary — believed that “a potential strike on the Iranian facilities is not something that we or anyone else should be pursuing at this time.”
A New Covert Push
Throughout 2008, the Bush administration insisted that it had a plan to deal with the Iranians: applying overwhelming financial pressure that would persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear program, as foreign enterprises like the French company Total pulled out of Iranian oil projects, European banks cut financing, and trade credits were squeezed.
But the Iranians were making uranium faster than the sanctions were making progress. As Mr. Bush realized that the sanctions he had pressed for were inadequate and his military options untenable, he turned to the C.I.A. His hope, several people involved in the program said, was to create some leverage against the Iranians, by setting back their nuclear program while sanctions continued and, more recently, oil prices dropped precipitously.
There were two specific objectives: to slow progress at Natanz and other known and suspected nuclear facilities, and keep the pressure on a little-known Iranian professor named Mohsen Fakrizadeh, a scientist described in classified portions of American intelligence reports as deeply involved in an effort to design a nuclear warhead for Iran.
Past American-led efforts aimed at Natanz had yielded little result. Several years ago, foreign intelligence services tinkered with individual power units that Iran bought in Turkey to drive its centrifuges, the floor-to-ceiling silvery tubes that spin at the speed of sound, enriching uranium for use in power stations or, with additional enrichment, nuclear weapons.
A number of centrifuges blew up, prompting public declarations of sabotage by Iranian officials. An engineer in Switzerland, who worked with the Pakistani nuclear black-marketeer Abdul Qadeer Khan, had been “turned” by American intelligence officials and helped them slip faulty technology into parts bought by the Iranians.
What Mr. Bush authorized, and informed a narrow group of Congressional leaders about, was a far broader effort, aimed at the entire industrial infrastructure that supports the Iranian nuclear program. Some of the efforts focused on ways to destabilize the centrifuges. The details are closely held, for obvious reasons, by American officials. One official, however, said, “It was not until the last year that they got really imaginative about what one could do to screw up the system.”
Then, he cautioned, “none of these are game-changers,” meaning that the efforts would not necessarily cripple the Iranian program. Others in the administration strongly disagree.
In the end, success or failure may come down to how much pressure can be brought to bear on Mr. Fakrizadeh, whom the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate identifies, in its classified sections, as the manager of Project 110 and Project 111. According to a presentation by the chief inspector of the International Atomic Energy Agency, those were the names for two Iranian efforts that appeared to be dedicated to designing a warhead and making it work with an Iranian missile. Iranian officials say the projects are a fiction, made up by the United States.
While the international agency readily concedes that the evidence about the two projects remains murky, one of the documents it briefly displayed at a meeting of the agency’s member countries in Vienna last year, from Mr. Fakrizadeh’s projects, showed the chronology of a missile launching, ending with a warhead exploding about 650 yards above ground — approximately the altitude from which the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was detonated.
The exact status of Mr. Fakrizadeh’s projects today is unclear. While the National Intelligence Estimate reported that activity on Projects 110 and 111 had been halted, the fear among intelligence agencies is that if the weapons design projects are turned back on, will they know?
David E. Sanger is the chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times. Reporting for this article was developed in the course of research for “The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power,” to be published Tuesday by Harmony Books.
New York Times
January 11, 2009
U.S. Rejected Aid for Israeli Raid on Iranian Nuclear Site
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON — President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran’s suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials.
White House officials never conclusively determined whether Israel had decided to go ahead with the strike before the United States protested, or whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel was trying to goad the White House into more decisive action before Mr. Bush left office. But the Bush administration was particularly alarmed by an Israeli request to fly over Iraq to reach Iran’s major nuclear complex at Natanz, where the country’s only known uranium enrichment plant is located.
The White House denied that request outright, American officials said, and the Israelis backed off their plans, at least temporarily. But the tense exchanges also prompted the White House to step up intelligence-sharing with Israel and brief Israeli officials on new American efforts to subtly sabotage Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, a major covert program that Mr. Bush is about to hand off to President-elect Barack Obama.
This account of the expanded American covert program and the Bush administration’s efforts to dissuade Israel from an aerial attack on Iran emerged in interviews over the past 15 months with current and former American officials, outside experts, international nuclear inspectors and European and Israeli officials. None would speak on the record because of the great secrecy surrounding the intelligence developed on Iran.
Several details of the covert effort have been omitted from this account, at the request of senior United States intelligence and administration officials, to avoid harming continuing operations.
The interviews also suggest that while Mr. Bush was extensively briefed on options for an overt American attack on Iran’s facilities, he never instructed the Pentagon to move beyond contingency planning, even during the final year of his presidency, contrary to what some critics have suggested.
The interviews also indicate that Mr. Bush was convinced by top administration officials, led by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, that any overt attack on Iran would probably prove ineffective, lead to the expulsion of international inspectors and drive Iran’s nuclear effort further out of view. Mr. Bush and his aides also discussed the possibility that an airstrike could ignite a broad Middle East war in which America’s 140,000 troops in Iraq would inevitably become involved.
Instead, Mr. Bush embraced more intensive covert operations actions aimed at Iran, the interviews show, having concluded that the sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies were failing to slow the uranium enrichment efforts. Those covert operations, and the question of whether Israel will settle for something less than a conventional attack on Iran, pose immediate and wrenching decisions for Mr. Obama.
The covert American program, started in early 2008, includes renewed American efforts to penetrate Iran’s nuclear supply chain abroad, along with new efforts, some of them experimental, to undermine electrical systems, computer systems and other networks on which Iran relies. It is aimed at delaying the day that Iran can produce the weapons-grade fuel and designs it needs to produce a workable nuclear weapon.
Knowledge of the program has been closely held, yet inside the Bush administration some officials are skeptical about its chances of success, arguing that past efforts to undermine Iran’s nuclear program have been detected by the Iranians and have only delayed, not derailed, their drive to unlock the secrets of uranium enrichment.
Late last year, international inspectors estimated that Iran had 3,800 centrifuges spinning, but American intelligence officials now estimate that the figure is 4,000 to 5,000, enough to produce about one weapon’s worth of uranium every eight months or so.
While declining to be specific, one American official dismissed the latest covert operations against Iran as “science experiments.” One senior intelligence official argued that as Mr. Bush prepared to leave office, the Iranians were already so close to achieving a weapons capacity that they were unlikely to be stopped.
Others disagreed, making the point that the Israelis would not have been dissuaded from conducting an attack if they believed that the American effort was unlikely to prove effective.
Since his election on Nov. 4, Mr. Obama has been extensively briefed on the American actions in Iran, though his transition aides have refused to comment on the issue.
Early in his presidency, Mr. Obama must decide whether the covert actions begun by Mr. Bush are worth the risks of disrupting what he has pledged will be a more active diplomatic effort to engage with Iran.
Either course could carry risks for Mr. Obama. An inherited intelligence or military mission that went wrong could backfire, as happened to President Kennedy with the Bay of Pigs operation in Cuba. But a decision to pull back on operations aimed at Iran could leave Mr. Obama vulnerable to charges that he is allowing Iran to speed ahead toward a nuclear capacity, one that could change the contours of power in the Middle East.
An Intelligence Conflict
Israel’s effort to obtain the weapons, refueling capacity and permission to fly over Iraq for an attack on Iran grew out of its disbelief and anger at an American intelligence assessment completed in late 2007 that concluded that Iran had effectively suspended its development of nuclear weapons four years earlier.
That conclusion also stunned Mr. Bush’s national security team — and Mr. Bush himself, who was deeply suspicious of the conclusion, according to officials who discussed it with him.
The assessment, a National Intelligence Estimate, was based on a trove of Iranian reports obtained by penetrating Iran’s computer networks.
Those reports indicated that Iranian engineers had been ordered to halt development of a nuclear warhead in 2003, even while they continued to speed ahead in enriching uranium, the most difficult obstacle to building a weapon.
The “key judgments” of the National Intelligence Estimate, which were publicly released, emphasized the suspension of the weapons work.
The public version made only glancing reference to evidence described at great length in the 140-page classified version of the assessment: the suspicion that Iran had 10 or 15 other nuclear-related facilities, never opened to international inspectors, where enrichment activity, weapons work or the manufacturing of centrifuges might be taking place.
The Israelis responded angrily and rebutted the American report, providing American intelligence officials and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with evidence that they said indicated that the Iranians were still working on a weapon.
While the Americans were not convinced that the Iranian weapons development was continuing, the Israelis were not the only ones highly critical of the United States report. Secretary Gates, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said the report had presented the evidence poorly, underemphasizing the importance of Iran’s enrichment activity and overemphasizing the suspension of a weapons-design effort that could easily be turned back on.
In an interview, Mr. Gates said that in his whole career he had never seen “an N.I.E. that had such an impact on U.S. diplomacy,” because “people figured, well, the military option is now off the table.”
Prime Minister Olmert came to the same conclusion. He had previously expected, according to several Americans and Israeli officials, that Mr. Bush would deal with Iran’s nuclear program before he left office. “Now,” said one American official who bore the brunt of Israel’s reaction, “they didn’t believe he would.”
Attack Planning
Early in 2008, the Israeli government signaled that it might be preparing to take matters into its own hands. In a series of meetings, Israeli officials asked Washington for a new generation of powerful bunker-busters, far more capable of blowing up a deep underground plant than anything in Israel’s arsenal of conventional weapons. They asked for refueling equipment that would allow their aircraft to reach Iran and return to Israel. And they asked for the right to fly over Iraq.
Mr. Bush deflected the first two requests, pushing the issue off, but “we said ‘hell no’ to the overflights,” one of his top aides said. At the White House and the Pentagon, there was widespread concern that a political uproar in Iraq about the use of its American-controlled airspace could result in the expulsion of American forces from the country.
The Israeli ambassador to the United States, Sallai Meridor, declined several requests over the past four weeks to be interviewed about Israel’s efforts to obtain the weapons from Washington, saying through aides that he was too busy.
Last June, the Israelis conducted an exercise over the Mediterranean Sea that appeared to be a dry run for an attack on the enrichment plant at Natanz. When the exercise was analyzed at the Pentagon, officials concluded that the distances flown almost exactly equaled the distance between Israel and the Iranian nuclear site.
“This really spooked a lot of people,” one White House official said. White House officials discussed the possibility that the Israelis would fly over Iraq without American permission. In that case, would the American military be ordered to shoot them down? If the United States did not interfere to stop an Israeli attack, would the Bush administration be accused of being complicit in it?
Admiral Mullen, traveling to Israel in early July on a previously scheduled trip, questioned Israeli officials about their intentions. His Israeli counterpart, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, argued that an aerial attack could set Iran’s program back by two or three years, according to officials familiar with the exchange. The American estimates at the time were far more conservative.
Yet by the time Admiral Mullen made his visit, Israeli officials appear to have concluded that without American help, they were not yet capable of hitting the site effectively enough to strike a decisive blow against the Iranian program.
The United States did give Israel one item on its shopping list: high-powered radar, called the X-Band, to detect any Iranian missile launchings. It was the only element in the Israeli request that could be used solely for defense, not offense.
Mr. Gates’s spokesman, Geoff Morrell, said last week that Mr. Gates — whom Mr. Obama is retaining as defense secretary — believed that “a potential strike on the Iranian facilities is not something that we or anyone else should be pursuing at this time.”
A New Covert Push
Throughout 2008, the Bush administration insisted that it had a plan to deal with the Iranians: applying overwhelming financial pressure that would persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear program, as foreign enterprises like the French company Total pulled out of Iranian oil projects, European banks cut financing, and trade credits were squeezed.
But the Iranians were making uranium faster than the sanctions were making progress. As Mr. Bush realized that the sanctions he had pressed for were inadequate and his military options untenable, he turned to the C.I.A. His hope, several people involved in the program said, was to create some leverage against the Iranians, by setting back their nuclear program while sanctions continued and, more recently, oil prices dropped precipitously.
There were two specific objectives: to slow progress at Natanz and other known and suspected nuclear facilities, and keep the pressure on a little-known Iranian professor named Mohsen Fakrizadeh, a scientist described in classified portions of American intelligence reports as deeply involved in an effort to design a nuclear warhead for Iran.
Past American-led efforts aimed at Natanz had yielded little result. Several years ago, foreign intelligence services tinkered with individual power units that Iran bought in Turkey to drive its centrifuges, the floor-to-ceiling silvery tubes that spin at the speed of sound, enriching uranium for use in power stations or, with additional enrichment, nuclear weapons.
A number of centrifuges blew up, prompting public declarations of sabotage by Iranian officials. An engineer in Switzerland, who worked with the Pakistani nuclear black-marketeer Abdul Qadeer Khan, had been “turned” by American intelligence officials and helped them slip faulty technology into parts bought by the Iranians.
What Mr. Bush authorized, and informed a narrow group of Congressional leaders about, was a far broader effort, aimed at the entire industrial infrastructure that supports the Iranian nuclear program. Some of the efforts focused on ways to destabilize the centrifuges. The details are closely held, for obvious reasons, by American officials. One official, however, said, “It was not until the last year that they got really imaginative about what one could do to screw up the system.”
Then, he cautioned, “none of these are game-changers,” meaning that the efforts would not necessarily cripple the Iranian program. Others in the administration strongly disagree.
In the end, success or failure may come down to how much pressure can be brought to bear on Mr. Fakrizadeh, whom the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate identifies, in its classified sections, as the manager of Project 110 and Project 111. According to a presentation by the chief inspector of the International Atomic Energy Agency, those were the names for two Iranian efforts that appeared to be dedicated to designing a warhead and making it work with an Iranian missile. Iranian officials say the projects are a fiction, made up by the United States.
While the international agency readily concedes that the evidence about the two projects remains murky, one of the documents it briefly displayed at a meeting of the agency’s member countries in Vienna last year, from Mr. Fakrizadeh’s projects, showed the chronology of a missile launching, ending with a warhead exploding about 650 yards above ground — approximately the altitude from which the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was detonated.
The exact status of Mr. Fakrizadeh’s projects today is unclear. While the National Intelligence Estimate reported that activity on Projects 110 and 111 had been halted, the fear among intelligence agencies is that if the weapons design projects are turned back on, will they know?
David E. Sanger is the chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times. Reporting for this article was developed in the course of research for “The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power,” to be published Tuesday by Harmony Books.
Friday, January 09, 2009
Leon Panetta, the new conscience of the CIA
Thanks to anti-war.com for their publication of the article by Ray McGovern on Leon Panetta as “Conscience for the CIA”. Panetta has long been opposed to torture. And here is a detail of his past most of us didn’t know:
“As for integrity, this is nothing new for Leon Panetta. As head of President Richard Nixon's Office of Civil Rights, he insisted on enforcing laws to protect minorities even under pressure from Nixon to get in line with the Republican "southern strategy" of neglecting civil rights. Rather than buckle to these demands, Panetta resigned and later became a Democrat.”
[Click on the title for a link to the source article.]
“As for integrity, this is nothing new for Leon Panetta. As head of President Richard Nixon's Office of Civil Rights, he insisted on enforcing laws to protect minorities even under pressure from Nixon to get in line with the Republican "southern strategy" of neglecting civil rights. Rather than buckle to these demands, Panetta resigned and later became a Democrat.”
[Click on the title for a link to the source article.]
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Infrastructure and the possibilities of Central Asian integration
Afghan News Network is saying what we have heard from other sources, that the US and others are trying to establish new routes of access into Afghanistan, to support the American project there. The improvement of transport and communications technology in Central Asia could change the alignment of interests in Asia. Worth watching. Of course politics can always intervene, and often has.
Officials: new NATO routes to Afghanistan likely 8. January 2009, 12:27
By SLOBODAN LEKIC, Associated Press Writer
BRUSSELS, Belgium – Talks aimed at setting up alternative supply routes to the Khyber Pass for U.S. and other NATO forces fighting in Afghanistan are at an advanced stage, officials said Thursday.
The issue is one of growing urgency because of intensifying attacks by pro-Taliban guerrillas on the mountain pass, which links Pakistan and Afghanistan and is the main supply route the soldiers use. Finding alternative routes also is critical as the U.S. troop deployment to Afghanistan is expected to as much as double this year to 60,000.
Last week, Pakistan reopened the pass after closing it for three days during a military offensive against pro-Taliban militants. Authorities said the operation was a success, but a similar offensive in June failed to curtail attacks.
In Brussels on Thursday, a NATO official said diplomatic efforts are nearing conclusion on setting up new routes for U.S. and NATO military supplies that will likely pass through Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
In Washington, a U.S. military official said the proposed land routes would be used as occasional alternatives to the Khyber Pass, or to carry heavier loads if the pass is closed again.
Sensitive military items such as ammunition and armored vehicles for the 62,000 Western troops in landlocked Afghanistan are normally sent in on military aircraft. Land routes are mainly used for other supplies such as food, the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the issue.
The Khyber Pass has been a critical trade and military gateway between Pakistan and Afghanistan for centuries, but like much of western Pakistan it has been besieged by the Taliban, including attacks on cargo trucks.
Moscow agreed last year to let the NATO alliance use its territory to resupply Western forces fighting in Afghanistan. But talks with Central Asian nations bordering Afghanistan have been more protracted than expected.
At issue are flyover rights and at least one rail link near the Afghan border just north of the Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif, where the German contingent has a large military base, the NATO official said.
Military experts have proposed extending the existing railroad line from Uzbekistan to Mazar-e-Sharif. That would eliminate the need to transfer supplies from the rail cars to trucks to haul them into Afghanistan.
Individual NATO members such as Germany and France already use the so-called northern route to supply their forces in Afghanistan on the basis of bilateral agreements with Russia and the Central Asian states. But the alliance as a whole still relies on the route from Pakistan's port of Karachi and through the Khyber Pass.
Kurt Volker, U.S. ambassador to NATO, said Thursday that the alliance would welcome the opening of more routes to Afghanistan.
"The idea is not to replace routes through Pakistan, but to create alternate routes to provide for greater flexibility," Volker said.
Officials: new NATO routes to Afghanistan likely 8. January 2009, 12:27
By SLOBODAN LEKIC, Associated Press Writer
BRUSSELS, Belgium – Talks aimed at setting up alternative supply routes to the Khyber Pass for U.S. and other NATO forces fighting in Afghanistan are at an advanced stage, officials said Thursday.
The issue is one of growing urgency because of intensifying attacks by pro-Taliban guerrillas on the mountain pass, which links Pakistan and Afghanistan and is the main supply route the soldiers use. Finding alternative routes also is critical as the U.S. troop deployment to Afghanistan is expected to as much as double this year to 60,000.
Last week, Pakistan reopened the pass after closing it for three days during a military offensive against pro-Taliban militants. Authorities said the operation was a success, but a similar offensive in June failed to curtail attacks.
In Brussels on Thursday, a NATO official said diplomatic efforts are nearing conclusion on setting up new routes for U.S. and NATO military supplies that will likely pass through Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
In Washington, a U.S. military official said the proposed land routes would be used as occasional alternatives to the Khyber Pass, or to carry heavier loads if the pass is closed again.
Sensitive military items such as ammunition and armored vehicles for the 62,000 Western troops in landlocked Afghanistan are normally sent in on military aircraft. Land routes are mainly used for other supplies such as food, the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the issue.
The Khyber Pass has been a critical trade and military gateway between Pakistan and Afghanistan for centuries, but like much of western Pakistan it has been besieged by the Taliban, including attacks on cargo trucks.
Moscow agreed last year to let the NATO alliance use its territory to resupply Western forces fighting in Afghanistan. But talks with Central Asian nations bordering Afghanistan have been more protracted than expected.
At issue are flyover rights and at least one rail link near the Afghan border just north of the Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif, where the German contingent has a large military base, the NATO official said.
Military experts have proposed extending the existing railroad line from Uzbekistan to Mazar-e-Sharif. That would eliminate the need to transfer supplies from the rail cars to trucks to haul them into Afghanistan.
Individual NATO members such as Germany and France already use the so-called northern route to supply their forces in Afghanistan on the basis of bilateral agreements with Russia and the Central Asian states. But the alliance as a whole still relies on the route from Pakistan's port of Karachi and through the Khyber Pass.
Kurt Volker, U.S. ambassador to NATO, said Thursday that the alliance would welcome the opening of more routes to Afghanistan.
"The idea is not to replace routes through Pakistan, but to create alternate routes to provide for greater flexibility," Volker said.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Brian Downing's reflections on the future for Afghanistan
Asia Times today includes a highly reflective article by Brian M. Downing. What we feel confident about is that without Pakistan’s help there will be no solution of the problem in Afghanistan, but also without a major reconfiguration of responsibility in Afghanistan’s government there will be no resolution to the current problems. Downing is at least informed and opinionated. I wonder, though, if anybody in the American government is listening.
[Click on the title for a link to the source page.]
South Asia Jan 8, 2009
Surging towards stalemate in Afghanistan
By Brian M Downing
The United States will soon double the number of its troops in Afghanistan from about 30,000 to 60,000, and several other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries will also up their troop levels.
The move comes with little surprise and considerable bipartisan support in the US, but with little public discussion of the aims and likely outcomes. Evocative as the move is with similar events in Iraq that are generally (though perhaps uncritically) credited with bringing stability there, it is hoped that a similar outcome will come about in Afghanistan, where the situation has deteriorated badly while US attention has been focused on Iraq and Iran.
The troop surge in Afghanistan will strengthen defenses around major cities such as Kabul, Jalalabad, Gardez and Kandahar, countering the Taliban's infiltration and growing presence in city neighborhoods. (Though Afghan guerrilla movements are thought rural, during the war with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, the mujahideen were able to operate in many cities, especially Kandahar.)
Presently, the Taliban use their infiltration of cities to gather intelligence, send out bombing operations and make their presence otherwise felt through intimidation of officials and establishing an alternate government. Two years ago, Taliban bombings were remarkably ineffectual, killing only the bomber in about half of the attacks. In recent months, however, their campaign has demonstrated increased skill in the deadly trade. In time, they will seek to turn Afghan cities into Fallujahs and Baghdads.
The surge will allow for more sweep operations in rural areas where the Taliban have been spreading and consolidating. Such operations will halt and hopefully reverse the unfavorable momentum that has been underway for several years. Halting that momentum is critical, as many Pashtun and other tribes are beginning to see the Taliban as a likely victor with whom they must come to terms, sooner or later. Yet there is evidence that even a few non-Pashtun tribes in the geographic center, including Tajiks and Hazaras, are choosing to do so sooner rather than later.
It is crucial to stave off the drift toward reducing the US/NATO presence to a series of enclaves surrounded by a Taliban-controlled countryside - a state of affairs especially pronounced in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand and in several eastern provinces as well.
Anti-Taliban tribes along the supply routes from Pakistan will welcome sweeps as removing pressure on them, though the Taliban might simply move operations to the Pakistani side of the frontier and seek to isolate US/NATO forces from that side of the frontier. Sweeps will also provide the opportunity for greater village security on which counter-insurgency programs depend. This is essential if there is any hope of detaching the populace from the Taliban and engaging them with the Hamid Karzai government. At present, the Taliban are able to move freely in and out of many villages to impose their own form of security and justice, both of which are becoming acceptable to a war-weary people.
A doubling of US troop levels, however, will entail at least as many problems as advantages. More US troops will add to the growing perception that US/NATO forces are no longer there to help them, rather they are an occupying force like the Persians, British and Russians before them, and as such they are to be treated as the others were.
The same perception, regardless of Western forces' actual intentions, will resonate in much of the Islamic world, where hostility to the US is strong and attributing imperialist motives requires little evidence or promulgation. After the collapse of Iraq as the central theater of operations, many Islamist fighters now see Afghanistan as the setting for defeating the US. The various insurgent groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan have already drawn additional international fighters including Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs. Reports state that a number of al-Qaeda fighters have left Iraq for the more promising campaign to the east.
More US/NATO sweeps in contested areas may push the Taliban off balance, but they can cause troubles as well. Many village chieftains complain that such operations bring fighting and attendant ills to areas that had not endured serious warfare in years. In other words, they see US/North Atlantic Treaty Orginization (NATO) efforts to oust the Taliban - not the Taliban itself - as the cause of fighting, destruction, stray ordnance and death.
Thousands more US troops raises the question of their suitability for the intricate and frustrating nature of counter-insurgency warfare. Most if not all will be regular infantry units, which are neither trained for nor suited to counter-insurgency operations and as such are not as politically adroit as the Taliban, who have been conducting a form of such operations for many years now.
More useful in this regard are special forces, which are trained in negotiating with chieftains, attending to village needs and otherwise garnering local support. Regular infantry troops rely on extensive use of massive firepower - a way of war that has been with the US military for generations and has become a veritable instinct in non-commissioned officers and officers. It has led to considerable success over the years, but also to notable failures where it alienated civilian populaces.
Though developments in Iraq have somewhat disabused the US of relying on massive firepower, US forces in Afghanistan, when under heavy sustained fire, revert to form and call in artillery and air strikes - and do so far more readily than would British, French, Canadian and other NATO troops. The consequences are reduced US casualties and a number of guerrilla casualties, but often a great deal of civilian casualties and damage to villages.
Recent Taliban tactics indicate awareness of this, as guerrillas now attack a position in a populated area, such as a police station, wait for US firepower to rain down, then withdraw to sanctuaries, confident that the damage will turn villagers against the US - a confidence that has not led to general disappointment. Furthermore, US battlefield intelligence is poor, leading to high casualties as misdirected ordnance falls on hapless civilians, not canny guerrillas.
Despite the tightest discipline and the inculcation of respect for local nationals among US infantry, many of whom are on their fifth or sixth combat tour, it is likely that a small but significant percentage of soldiers have become hostile to the people of the region - Islamist or not, pro-Taliban or not, armed or not.
More troops will require more supplies to be delivered into the remote, landlocked country, most of which come through Pakistan. Aside from the increase in US troops, there are plans to vastly increase the size of the Afghan army, which of course will be mainly supplied from outside.
The US army excels at logistics; it is their greatest strength. However, Pakistan is deteriorating badly, endangering supply lines from the port of Karachi. The Pakistani Taliban have recently inflicted a great deal of damage on convoys and depots near Peshawar and moved into the Khyber Agency where local (Afridi) tribesmen have thus far not been hostile to the West, though perhaps because they benefit from the traffic.
To the west, in Balochistan province of Pakistan, the Afghan Taliban and Baloch insurgents have increased their power and may soon endanger supplies from Karachi that flow into southern Afghanistan through Quetta. (Oddly, the US is supporting kindred Baloch insurgents a few hundred kilometers away in Iran.)
Another source of concern is the large Pashtun refugee population in Karachi, which could strike at supplies even before they are brought to the choke points near Peshawar and Quetta. The US is preparing alternate land routes into Afghanistan stretching from the Caucasus across much of Central Asia. These routes are lengthy to say the least, but secure at present.
The lines of communication from Pakistan are not yet lost. The Pakistani military and civilian government might come to realize that if they lose control of supply routes, their usefulness to the long-time American benefactor becomes negligible. Pakistan will become a chaotic, isolated, failing state offering little support and presenting great danger.
The Pakistani Taliban have recently allowed convoys to pass into Afghanistan in exchange for tribute. So for the US/NATO to receive supplies, they must pay the forces that the supplies are designated to be used against - a Catch-22 situation that perhaps only Joseph Heller could have foreseen or appreciated.
Iran is unlikely to feel comfortable with 30,000 more US troops to its east, though it might be somewhat mollified by their leaving its west. Atmospherics and confusion in Washington notwithstanding, Iran has been helpful in stabilizing post-Saddam Hussein Iraq by restraining the fractious Shi'ite parties and reining in the murderous militias. Iran also aided in ousting the Taliban in 2001, supports the Karzai government and contributes to development and security programs in western Afghanistan. Their continued help in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be taken for granted.
It is impossible to place the advantages and disadvantages of increasing the number of US troops onto scales and then determine the outcome. However, a rapid, fundamental change in the situation along the lines of the one that took place in Iraq is unlikely. The surge, at least in the next year or so, more likely aims to stave off defeat and bring a measure of security on which counter-insurgency and tribal diplomacy can be pursued.
The surge in Afghanistan may set the stage for a form of conflict whose name will never be officially uttered but which might be coming - a war of attrition. The US and NATO will seek to inflict high casualties on the Taliban and their allies in the expectation of bringing about greater tribal allegiance to the US/NATO side, and eventually also bringing about a political settlement with less ideologically driven Taliban lieutenants. Such a settlement would likely entail autonomy in southern and parts of eastern Afghanistan, despite the social order that would be imposed there.
Brian M Downing is the author of several works of political and military history, including The Military Revolution and Political Change and The Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam. He can be reached at brianmdowning@gmail.com.
(Copyright 2009 Brian M Downing.)
[Click on the title for a link to the source page.]
South Asia Jan 8, 2009
Surging towards stalemate in Afghanistan
By Brian M Downing
The United States will soon double the number of its troops in Afghanistan from about 30,000 to 60,000, and several other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries will also up their troop levels.
The move comes with little surprise and considerable bipartisan support in the US, but with little public discussion of the aims and likely outcomes. Evocative as the move is with similar events in Iraq that are generally (though perhaps uncritically) credited with bringing stability there, it is hoped that a similar outcome will come about in Afghanistan, where the situation has deteriorated badly while US attention has been focused on Iraq and Iran.
The troop surge in Afghanistan will strengthen defenses around major cities such as Kabul, Jalalabad, Gardez and Kandahar, countering the Taliban's infiltration and growing presence in city neighborhoods. (Though Afghan guerrilla movements are thought rural, during the war with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, the mujahideen were able to operate in many cities, especially Kandahar.)
Presently, the Taliban use their infiltration of cities to gather intelligence, send out bombing operations and make their presence otherwise felt through intimidation of officials and establishing an alternate government. Two years ago, Taliban bombings were remarkably ineffectual, killing only the bomber in about half of the attacks. In recent months, however, their campaign has demonstrated increased skill in the deadly trade. In time, they will seek to turn Afghan cities into Fallujahs and Baghdads.
The surge will allow for more sweep operations in rural areas where the Taliban have been spreading and consolidating. Such operations will halt and hopefully reverse the unfavorable momentum that has been underway for several years. Halting that momentum is critical, as many Pashtun and other tribes are beginning to see the Taliban as a likely victor with whom they must come to terms, sooner or later. Yet there is evidence that even a few non-Pashtun tribes in the geographic center, including Tajiks and Hazaras, are choosing to do so sooner rather than later.
It is crucial to stave off the drift toward reducing the US/NATO presence to a series of enclaves surrounded by a Taliban-controlled countryside - a state of affairs especially pronounced in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand and in several eastern provinces as well.
Anti-Taliban tribes along the supply routes from Pakistan will welcome sweeps as removing pressure on them, though the Taliban might simply move operations to the Pakistani side of the frontier and seek to isolate US/NATO forces from that side of the frontier. Sweeps will also provide the opportunity for greater village security on which counter-insurgency programs depend. This is essential if there is any hope of detaching the populace from the Taliban and engaging them with the Hamid Karzai government. At present, the Taliban are able to move freely in and out of many villages to impose their own form of security and justice, both of which are becoming acceptable to a war-weary people.
A doubling of US troop levels, however, will entail at least as many problems as advantages. More US troops will add to the growing perception that US/NATO forces are no longer there to help them, rather they are an occupying force like the Persians, British and Russians before them, and as such they are to be treated as the others were.
The same perception, regardless of Western forces' actual intentions, will resonate in much of the Islamic world, where hostility to the US is strong and attributing imperialist motives requires little evidence or promulgation. After the collapse of Iraq as the central theater of operations, many Islamist fighters now see Afghanistan as the setting for defeating the US. The various insurgent groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan have already drawn additional international fighters including Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs. Reports state that a number of al-Qaeda fighters have left Iraq for the more promising campaign to the east.
More US/NATO sweeps in contested areas may push the Taliban off balance, but they can cause troubles as well. Many village chieftains complain that such operations bring fighting and attendant ills to areas that had not endured serious warfare in years. In other words, they see US/North Atlantic Treaty Orginization (NATO) efforts to oust the Taliban - not the Taliban itself - as the cause of fighting, destruction, stray ordnance and death.
Thousands more US troops raises the question of their suitability for the intricate and frustrating nature of counter-insurgency warfare. Most if not all will be regular infantry units, which are neither trained for nor suited to counter-insurgency operations and as such are not as politically adroit as the Taliban, who have been conducting a form of such operations for many years now.
More useful in this regard are special forces, which are trained in negotiating with chieftains, attending to village needs and otherwise garnering local support. Regular infantry troops rely on extensive use of massive firepower - a way of war that has been with the US military for generations and has become a veritable instinct in non-commissioned officers and officers. It has led to considerable success over the years, but also to notable failures where it alienated civilian populaces.
Though developments in Iraq have somewhat disabused the US of relying on massive firepower, US forces in Afghanistan, when under heavy sustained fire, revert to form and call in artillery and air strikes - and do so far more readily than would British, French, Canadian and other NATO troops. The consequences are reduced US casualties and a number of guerrilla casualties, but often a great deal of civilian casualties and damage to villages.
Recent Taliban tactics indicate awareness of this, as guerrillas now attack a position in a populated area, such as a police station, wait for US firepower to rain down, then withdraw to sanctuaries, confident that the damage will turn villagers against the US - a confidence that has not led to general disappointment. Furthermore, US battlefield intelligence is poor, leading to high casualties as misdirected ordnance falls on hapless civilians, not canny guerrillas.
Despite the tightest discipline and the inculcation of respect for local nationals among US infantry, many of whom are on their fifth or sixth combat tour, it is likely that a small but significant percentage of soldiers have become hostile to the people of the region - Islamist or not, pro-Taliban or not, armed or not.
More troops will require more supplies to be delivered into the remote, landlocked country, most of which come through Pakistan. Aside from the increase in US troops, there are plans to vastly increase the size of the Afghan army, which of course will be mainly supplied from outside.
The US army excels at logistics; it is their greatest strength. However, Pakistan is deteriorating badly, endangering supply lines from the port of Karachi. The Pakistani Taliban have recently inflicted a great deal of damage on convoys and depots near Peshawar and moved into the Khyber Agency where local (Afridi) tribesmen have thus far not been hostile to the West, though perhaps because they benefit from the traffic.
To the west, in Balochistan province of Pakistan, the Afghan Taliban and Baloch insurgents have increased their power and may soon endanger supplies from Karachi that flow into southern Afghanistan through Quetta. (Oddly, the US is supporting kindred Baloch insurgents a few hundred kilometers away in Iran.)
Another source of concern is the large Pashtun refugee population in Karachi, which could strike at supplies even before they are brought to the choke points near Peshawar and Quetta. The US is preparing alternate land routes into Afghanistan stretching from the Caucasus across much of Central Asia. These routes are lengthy to say the least, but secure at present.
The lines of communication from Pakistan are not yet lost. The Pakistani military and civilian government might come to realize that if they lose control of supply routes, their usefulness to the long-time American benefactor becomes negligible. Pakistan will become a chaotic, isolated, failing state offering little support and presenting great danger.
The Pakistani Taliban have recently allowed convoys to pass into Afghanistan in exchange for tribute. So for the US/NATO to receive supplies, they must pay the forces that the supplies are designated to be used against - a Catch-22 situation that perhaps only Joseph Heller could have foreseen or appreciated.
Iran is unlikely to feel comfortable with 30,000 more US troops to its east, though it might be somewhat mollified by their leaving its west. Atmospherics and confusion in Washington notwithstanding, Iran has been helpful in stabilizing post-Saddam Hussein Iraq by restraining the fractious Shi'ite parties and reining in the murderous militias. Iran also aided in ousting the Taliban in 2001, supports the Karzai government and contributes to development and security programs in western Afghanistan. Their continued help in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be taken for granted.
It is impossible to place the advantages and disadvantages of increasing the number of US troops onto scales and then determine the outcome. However, a rapid, fundamental change in the situation along the lines of the one that took place in Iraq is unlikely. The surge, at least in the next year or so, more likely aims to stave off defeat and bring a measure of security on which counter-insurgency and tribal diplomacy can be pursued.
The surge in Afghanistan may set the stage for a form of conflict whose name will never be officially uttered but which might be coming - a war of attrition. The US and NATO will seek to inflict high casualties on the Taliban and their allies in the expectation of bringing about greater tribal allegiance to the US/NATO side, and eventually also bringing about a political settlement with less ideologically driven Taliban lieutenants. Such a settlement would likely entail autonomy in southern and parts of eastern Afghanistan, despite the social order that would be imposed there.
Brian M Downing is the author of several works of political and military history, including The Military Revolution and Political Change and The Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam. He can be reached at brianmdowning@gmail.com.
(Copyright 2009 Brian M Downing.)
A new political bloc in the Middle East?
Memri reports that a series of meetings took place last August and September between representatives of Syria, Iran, and Turkey in an effort to form a strategic bloc. Interesting idea that could be significant. The articles cited by Memri say that Turkey has given up on its attempts to be recognized as part of Europe. Of course Syria has needed a partner, and Iran has made no bones about wanting to be the hegemon on the Middle East. So, it seems that these three countries are trying to form a bloc. Interesting, but one wonders how likely it is that they will hold together, given the under-the-surface differences among them. Turkey is mainly Sunni, even if nominal; Iran is Twelver Shiite; Syria’s dominant family are Alawite. Worth tracking.
[Click on the title for a link to Memri site.]
[Click on the title for a link to Memri site.]
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Obama's appointments for justice department: Good news
McClatchy Washington Bureau published a commentary on Obama’s nominees for justice that signal a major shift, for which we can be most thankful. The new appointees seem committed to reversing the Bush policy of allowing [or ordering] torture tactics on our prisoners. Some telling statements:
On the appointment of Dawn Johnson: "One of the refreshing things about Dawn Johnsen's appointment is that she's almost a 180-degree shift from John Yoo and David Addington and (Vice President) Dick Cheney".
The Justice Department has yet to fully regain its image of independence since allegations of political influence mired the agency in scandal in 2007, leading to the resignations of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and about a dozen other department and White House officials.
"It's clear that the Department of Justice has been savaged by the Bush administration and has been profoundly disgraced," . . . . "It's going to be a major task to rehabilitate it."
Obama's picks contrast with Bush's selection of Gonzales, who lacked Justice Department experience. Since stepping down as attorney general in September 2007, Gonzales has yet to find a job.
[Click on the title for a link to McClatchy]
On the appointment of Dawn Johnson: "One of the refreshing things about Dawn Johnsen's appointment is that she's almost a 180-degree shift from John Yoo and David Addington and (Vice President) Dick Cheney".
The Justice Department has yet to fully regain its image of independence since allegations of political influence mired the agency in scandal in 2007, leading to the resignations of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and about a dozen other department and White House officials.
"It's clear that the Department of Justice has been savaged by the Bush administration and has been profoundly disgraced," . . . . "It's going to be a major task to rehabilitate it."
Obama's picks contrast with Bush's selection of Gonzales, who lacked Justice Department experience. Since stepping down as attorney general in September 2007, Gonzales has yet to find a job.
[Click on the title for a link to McClatchy]
Shanghai Cooperation Organization, emerging powerhouse
Project Syndicate has just published a commentary by Marcel De Haas on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, stressing the importance of the organization for world affairs. It seems to be one of the key organizations to influence affairs in Greater Central Asia. If we want to track the course of affairs in Greater Central Asia we can't ignore the SCO.
No one seems to have noticed Central Asia's waking giant
By Marcel De Haas
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) brings together almost half the world's population. Several members own nuclear weapons, many are big energy suppliers, and the grouping includes some of the world's fastest growing economies. Yet few outside Central Asia have heard much about it.
The SCO emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet Union in 1996. Today, its members are Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, while Mongolia, Iran, Pakistan and India are observers. Since its launch, the SCO's military exercises have become increasingly ambitious. The SCO is also beginning to work together in the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime.
Until recently, the SCO's members addressed energy issues only bilaterally. But, in order to coordinate energy strategies and strengthen energy security, last year the organization launched a club that unites energy-producing and energy-consuming states, transit countries, and private companies. The SCO promotes free trade, too, and aims to build essential infrastructure while also harmonizing customs systems and tariffs.
Yet cooperation within the SCO remains focused on national rather than collective objectives. Thus, for example, at the SCO summit in August, Russia did not get the support of other members regarding the Georgia conflict.
These diverging objectives make it hard to believe that the SCO will ever evolve into an Eastern version of NATO. True, its members have held joint military exercises and have expressed a desire to build the SCO into a more mature security organization. But the SCO still lacks many essential elements of a full-grown NATO-style security organization.
It makes sense for the West, particularly the European Union, to seek cooperation with the SCO, as this would also help counter Russia's attempts to use it as a tool for its anti-Western policies. It would also prevent the SCO from turning into a militarized entity.
These may look like negative reasons for the EU to engage with the SCO, but there are also ample positive reasons for encouraging cooperation. Europe needs energy supplies from Central Asia, and Central Asia needs European investment.
Another sphere of mutual interest is Afghanistan. At present, the EU offers financial support to the Afghan government and helps to train its police and judiciary. The SCO has established a contact group with Afghanistan. Both sides want to do more, and they might be able to make a greater impact by working together rather than separately. The EU has money and the SCO organization, most of whose members border Afghanistan, has trained personnel and direct experience in the region.
Cooperation with NATO also looks strategically wise. Given China's importance in both military and economic matters, growing energy and trade relations between Central Asia and the West, and the reasonable assumption that Central Asia's security will continue to have great significance for Western security, cooperation between the SCO, the EU, and NATO looks inevitable. This is all the more true in view of the common security threats faced by NATO and the SCO in Central Asia, such as Al-Qaeda and Taliban-sponsored terrorism and drug trafficking.
But both NATO and the SCO have so far hesitated to engage in closer contact. It is hard to discern whether NATO has any opinion at all about the SCO. At best, NATO seems to regard it as being neither a problem nor an opportunity.
Reaching out to the SCO would certainly seem to support NATO's stated objectives. After 9/11, the alliance came to the conclusion that threats may need to be dealt with on a worldwide basis, which explains NATO's presence in Afghanistan. As a part of this global strategy, NATO strengthened its relations with partners elsewhere, including in Southeast Asia which is the SCO's chief area of responsibility.
Perhaps inevitably, the SCO - and Russia and China as its leading members - regards NATO's increased presence in the region with some mistrust. As long as NATO remains reluctant to enter into a dialogue with the SCO, such a cautious attitude will linger, and may even intensify. Consideration also needs to be given, therefore, to the establishment of a NATO-China Council, along the lines of the NATO-Russia Council, and to the creation of arrangements that would facilitate greater cooperation with the SCO as a whole.
Such cooperation would not bridge the main differences between SCO members and the West over issues like democratization and human rights. Cooperation would also need to comprise much more than mere joint policy development, and should involve the practical pursuit of mutually beneficial, smaller-scale ad hoc projects. NATO and the SCO could work together on neutralizing anti-personnel mines in Afghanistan, as well as other possible types of confidence-building measures, such as joint police training and counter-narcotics operations.
If security cooperation is to be a success, politically sensitive issues should be avoided, with the emphasis squarely on practical measures. This approach would serve the interests of the EU, NATO, the SCO's members, and, not least, Afghanistan.
Marcel de Haas is a senior researcher at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Clingendael. THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with Project Syndicate (c) (www.project-syndicate.org).
No one seems to have noticed Central Asia's waking giant
By Marcel De Haas
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) brings together almost half the world's population. Several members own nuclear weapons, many are big energy suppliers, and the grouping includes some of the world's fastest growing economies. Yet few outside Central Asia have heard much about it.
The SCO emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet Union in 1996. Today, its members are Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, while Mongolia, Iran, Pakistan and India are observers. Since its launch, the SCO's military exercises have become increasingly ambitious. The SCO is also beginning to work together in the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime.
Until recently, the SCO's members addressed energy issues only bilaterally. But, in order to coordinate energy strategies and strengthen energy security, last year the organization launched a club that unites energy-producing and energy-consuming states, transit countries, and private companies. The SCO promotes free trade, too, and aims to build essential infrastructure while also harmonizing customs systems and tariffs.
Yet cooperation within the SCO remains focused on national rather than collective objectives. Thus, for example, at the SCO summit in August, Russia did not get the support of other members regarding the Georgia conflict.
These diverging objectives make it hard to believe that the SCO will ever evolve into an Eastern version of NATO. True, its members have held joint military exercises and have expressed a desire to build the SCO into a more mature security organization. But the SCO still lacks many essential elements of a full-grown NATO-style security organization.
It makes sense for the West, particularly the European Union, to seek cooperation with the SCO, as this would also help counter Russia's attempts to use it as a tool for its anti-Western policies. It would also prevent the SCO from turning into a militarized entity.
These may look like negative reasons for the EU to engage with the SCO, but there are also ample positive reasons for encouraging cooperation. Europe needs energy supplies from Central Asia, and Central Asia needs European investment.
Another sphere of mutual interest is Afghanistan. At present, the EU offers financial support to the Afghan government and helps to train its police and judiciary. The SCO has established a contact group with Afghanistan. Both sides want to do more, and they might be able to make a greater impact by working together rather than separately. The EU has money and the SCO organization, most of whose members border Afghanistan, has trained personnel and direct experience in the region.
Cooperation with NATO also looks strategically wise. Given China's importance in both military and economic matters, growing energy and trade relations between Central Asia and the West, and the reasonable assumption that Central Asia's security will continue to have great significance for Western security, cooperation between the SCO, the EU, and NATO looks inevitable. This is all the more true in view of the common security threats faced by NATO and the SCO in Central Asia, such as Al-Qaeda and Taliban-sponsored terrorism and drug trafficking.
But both NATO and the SCO have so far hesitated to engage in closer contact. It is hard to discern whether NATO has any opinion at all about the SCO. At best, NATO seems to regard it as being neither a problem nor an opportunity.
Reaching out to the SCO would certainly seem to support NATO's stated objectives. After 9/11, the alliance came to the conclusion that threats may need to be dealt with on a worldwide basis, which explains NATO's presence in Afghanistan. As a part of this global strategy, NATO strengthened its relations with partners elsewhere, including in Southeast Asia which is the SCO's chief area of responsibility.
Perhaps inevitably, the SCO - and Russia and China as its leading members - regards NATO's increased presence in the region with some mistrust. As long as NATO remains reluctant to enter into a dialogue with the SCO, such a cautious attitude will linger, and may even intensify. Consideration also needs to be given, therefore, to the establishment of a NATO-China Council, along the lines of the NATO-Russia Council, and to the creation of arrangements that would facilitate greater cooperation with the SCO as a whole.
Such cooperation would not bridge the main differences between SCO members and the West over issues like democratization and human rights. Cooperation would also need to comprise much more than mere joint policy development, and should involve the practical pursuit of mutually beneficial, smaller-scale ad hoc projects. NATO and the SCO could work together on neutralizing anti-personnel mines in Afghanistan, as well as other possible types of confidence-building measures, such as joint police training and counter-narcotics operations.
If security cooperation is to be a success, politically sensitive issues should be avoided, with the emphasis squarely on practical measures. This approach would serve the interests of the EU, NATO, the SCO's members, and, not least, Afghanistan.
Marcel de Haas is a senior researcher at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations, Clingendael. THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with Project Syndicate (c) (www.project-syndicate.org).
Monday, January 05, 2009
An earnest appeal for peace from Pakistan
I received the following appeal for peace from S. A. Rehman, who gives his address as merely “Pakistan”. I reproduce it here to emphasize that such views are not solitary in that part of the world. Most of us have forgotten that there was a serious non-violent peace movement among the Pushtuns of Pakistan in the last years of the British rule: Khudai Khidmatgar, led by Abdul Gaffar Khan. They lasted for a time into the Pakistan era. [Mukulika Banerjee. 2001. The Pathan Unarmed: Opposition and Memory in the North West Frontier. Santa Fe: SAR Press]
From: S.A.Rehman SUB: OUR RESPONSIBILITY IN REFORMING SOCIETY
Dear Brothers & Sisters,
It Is Not Enough To Be Good; One Must Also Show The Right Path To Others Who Might Otherwise Do Evil. God Almighty brought us into existence, endowed us with millions of blessings, granted us uncountable sorts of eatables, provided us modes of relief, respite and adornment so that we could live a comfortable life. As there is no order greater than that of God, therefore, we should get a complete knowledge of His directives and spend our life according to His will, and should not follow the path forbidden by Him. And we should be grateful to Him every moment for the blessings He has bestowed on us.
You know that to eliminate all kinds of vices from the world and to promote good is the responsibility of every person. Everyone amongst us is a caretaker and is responsible for his subordinates on the Day of Judgment. Rulers will be answerable for the citizens of their state, every family head will be accountable for the members of his family and will be asked as to what he did for their reformation, education and better life. He will be asked as to whether he forbid them from adopting the bad ways, and helped them in leading a pious life or not.
The world history reveals that until the people performed the task of commanding the others to do good and barring them from doing evil, the pious people remained dominant in those societies and there was peace and tranquility and satanic forces were subdued. But, when this collective responsibility was designated only to clerics, and the common people ignored this task, in spite of the efforts of the clerics, waywardness spread quickly. A wave of offenses, terrorism, tyranny, evils, sins, ignorance and anarchy engulfed almost every segment of life. Disorder, commotion and chaos were on the rise in the world society, wrecking the peace of all mankind.
The world is facing disaster upon disaster every day and people are expecting a major catastrophe. The deeds that have been forbidden by God are being committed openly. The evils are increasing, while the virtues are fading out gradually. Tyranny, oppression and carnage are going on, liars and cheats are overcoming. Terrorism, bribery, corruption, evil, nudity, vulgarity and wickedness have assaulted the world. It seems we have reached inferno before the Last Day. History tells us that such a situation arises when people are being cursed by God.
It is feared that members of the previous generations will be accountable for their individual deeds on the Day of Judgment, but present generation will be thrown as a whole into hell after a collective prosecution, because the nobles of this generation remained as silent spectators instead of restraining the Wrongdoers, Terrorists and Separatists from committing, cruelty, sins and misdeeds.
The Divine punishment to an ancient civilization seconds this fear. There were three groups during that period. One was of knaves, the second was of the people who did good deeds but did not halt the disobedient from transgression. The third group was of the people who followed the Divine doctrines as well as restrained others from disobeying them. When God cursed the nation, the people exempted from this torment were those who had been observing the limits fixed by their Master and were stopping others from wrongdoing as well.
There is another but similar happening. The residents of a town had been engulfed by an ocean of sins. However, there was a noble man who was always busy in worshipping God, but he did not bother about persuading others to give up their bad ways. When God ordered the angels to destroy the town, He said: " Overturn the town on the person who was anxious to save himself from the Divine Punishment, but was not endeavoring to save others from it".
I advise the virtuous people of the world that they should not only depend upon their prayers to save themselves from the Divine Punishment; rather they should lead the Evil Doers and followers of Satan who have gone astray, to the right path. They should undertake this task against Evil Doers with full determination. Only then will their virtues and prayers save them from the Divine Punishment.
S.A.Rehman
Peace Activist
PAKISTAN
From: S.A.Rehman
Dear Brothers & Sisters,
It Is Not Enough To Be Good; One Must Also Show The Right Path To Others Who Might Otherwise Do Evil. God Almighty brought us into existence, endowed us with millions of blessings, granted us uncountable sorts of eatables, provided us modes of relief, respite and adornment so that we could live a comfortable life. As there is no order greater than that of God, therefore, we should get a complete knowledge of His directives and spend our life according to His will, and should not follow the path forbidden by Him. And we should be grateful to Him every moment for the blessings He has bestowed on us.
You know that to eliminate all kinds of vices from the world and to promote good is the responsibility of every person. Everyone amongst us is a caretaker and is responsible for his subordinates on the Day of Judgment. Rulers will be answerable for the citizens of their state, every family head will be accountable for the members of his family and will be asked as to what he did for their reformation, education and better life. He will be asked as to whether he forbid them from adopting the bad ways, and helped them in leading a pious life or not.
The world history reveals that until the people performed the task of commanding the others to do good and barring them from doing evil, the pious people remained dominant in those societies and there was peace and tranquility and satanic forces were subdued. But, when this collective responsibility was designated only to clerics, and the common people ignored this task, in spite of the efforts of the clerics, waywardness spread quickly. A wave of offenses, terrorism, tyranny, evils, sins, ignorance and anarchy engulfed almost every segment of life. Disorder, commotion and chaos were on the rise in the world society, wrecking the peace of all mankind.
The world is facing disaster upon disaster every day and people are expecting a major catastrophe. The deeds that have been forbidden by God are being committed openly. The evils are increasing, while the virtues are fading out gradually. Tyranny, oppression and carnage are going on, liars and cheats are overcoming. Terrorism, bribery, corruption, evil, nudity, vulgarity and wickedness have assaulted the world. It seems we have reached inferno before the Last Day. History tells us that such a situation arises when people are being cursed by God.
It is feared that members of the previous generations will be accountable for their individual deeds on the Day of Judgment, but present generation will be thrown as a whole into hell after a collective prosecution, because the nobles of this generation remained as silent spectators instead of restraining the Wrongdoers, Terrorists and Separatists from committing, cruelty, sins and misdeeds.
The Divine punishment to an ancient civilization seconds this fear. There were three groups during that period. One was of knaves, the second was of the people who did good deeds but did not halt the disobedient from transgression. The third group was of the people who followed the Divine doctrines as well as restrained others from disobeying them. When God cursed the nation, the people exempted from this torment were those who had been observing the limits fixed by their Master and were stopping others from wrongdoing as well.
There is another but similar happening. The residents of a town had been engulfed by an ocean of sins. However, there was a noble man who was always busy in worshipping God, but he did not bother about persuading others to give up their bad ways. When God ordered the angels to destroy the town, He said: " Overturn the town on the person who was anxious to save himself from the Divine Punishment, but was not endeavoring to save others from it".
I advise the virtuous people of the world that they should not only depend upon their prayers to save themselves from the Divine Punishment; rather they should lead the Evil Doers and followers of Satan who have gone astray, to the right path. They should undertake this task against Evil Doers with full determination. Only then will their virtues and prayers save them from the Divine Punishment.
S.A.Rehman
Peace Activist
PAKISTAN
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Worrisome levels of ethical collapse: Portent of the future?
Many eminently notable indications of dishonest and even cruel policies by public figures in high places have come to light in the recent past (one place to see more than enough is Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos). We wonder what an emerging world will be like if this kind of behavior continues among those in power. It is impossible to predict the future, which is by definition an impenetrable fog, but a few serious disciplines, notably economics, have developed in the attempt to establish sign posts that can, even if unclearly, be seen through the fog ahead. For those of us who worry about the trends in ethical behavior it is more precarious, but we never cease to wonder, to speculate on the basis of what is going on among us at the moment. Some thoughts.
A recent issue of the New York Review reports on issues of enduring importance for our understanding of the kind of ethical world that may be in store. Alan Rusbridger, editor of the The Guardian, explains how elaborate, intricate, even convoluted devices of great corporations veil strategies of tax evasion that are unfair if not illegal. “Tax avoidance is a growth industry, with global accountancy firms and boutique tax avoidance specialists devising strategies for sheltering companies from tax through ingenious offshore arrangements, tax havens, registration in multiple jurisdictions, complex derivative instruments, restructuring, and charging for intellectual property” [Jan 15,09, p 57]. Given that tax avoidance is still considered a legitimate strategy for businesses, illegitimate strategies are difficult and costly to identify and prosecute. That is – what is crucial for the public – the intricacies of tax evasion restrain and resist the ability of a free press (to say nothing of the government) to track and expose criminal evasion. Rusbridger says that “the advanced tax planning undertaken today by most global companies is as intelligible to the average person as particle physics” [p58], and he quotes the admission of the managing editor of the Financial Times: “financial journalists … don’t really understand this stuff, and they join a long list of people that starts with bank regulators, central ban regulators and money managers.”
Rusbridger was actually recounting the story of The Guardian’s struggle with Tesco, a huge British based corporation, that had sued the paper for liable in the most complaint-friendly liable court in the world, London. He explains that the costs of protection from liable claims are so great as to restrain serious journalistic inquiry into corporate tax evasion. In Britain, in fact, “it is fairly safe to predict that almost no British paper will investigate in any detail how companies today increasingly fund and structure their overseas expansion with an eye to avoiding tax.” In the mean time the British government estimates that “thousands of major companies” are unfairly (and thus illegally) avoiding tax obligations through elaborate evasion schemes.
All the more reason to encourage journalism – and government service -- that helps enforce transparency.
But when those at the highest rungs of the government ladder put into practice regulations that betray their public responsibility we are in even greater danger of entering a future whose structures could become repressive of the weak and vulnerable. The glaring example of abuse of power that in fact offends the public sensibility [and thus must be masked by the power elite] is of course the practice of torture by the current administration. Although practiced illegally before George W. Bush, it was his administration that made it legal, or at least claimed to have made it illegal. It is now clear on the basis of many accounts [for example, Philippe Sands, 2008, Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values.] that those at the highest levels of authority authorized it, notably of course Secretary of Defense Richard Rumsfeld, number three in Department of Defense Douglas Feith, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Gen. Richard Myers, and many others under their authority; and in the White House the Vice President himself, who has admitted to endorsing the abuse of prisoners, as well as Chief Counsel to the President Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo, and others. But then, when the practice of torture came to light, known to the public these officials were supposed to represent, not one of them took responsibility: that allowed the regular troops, who were in fact only doing as they were told, to take the rap.
I would like to believe that the George W. Bush administration was the nadir of ethical collapse in this country's history. We all hope for a more upright leadership in the future, but what we have just seen, and what so many human beings have endured because of these irresponsible actions, is a warning. Betrayal of the public trust is always a possibility, given our human frailty. There is a continuing need for courageous reporting on the truth as it is found, not as those in power would like it be reported. I pray that the world will be spared another round of power abuse such as the world has just endured.
[A note of irony: Washington has expressed concern that some inmates released from Guantanamo could be tortured or persecuted if they were returned to their home countries.(BBC News, Re Canberra rejects appeal to take US prisoners, 3 January 2009)]
A recent issue of the New York Review reports on issues of enduring importance for our understanding of the kind of ethical world that may be in store. Alan Rusbridger, editor of the The Guardian, explains how elaborate, intricate, even convoluted devices of great corporations veil strategies of tax evasion that are unfair if not illegal. “Tax avoidance is a growth industry, with global accountancy firms and boutique tax avoidance specialists devising strategies for sheltering companies from tax through ingenious offshore arrangements, tax havens, registration in multiple jurisdictions, complex derivative instruments, restructuring, and charging for intellectual property” [Jan 15,09, p 57]. Given that tax avoidance is still considered a legitimate strategy for businesses, illegitimate strategies are difficult and costly to identify and prosecute. That is – what is crucial for the public – the intricacies of tax evasion restrain and resist the ability of a free press (to say nothing of the government) to track and expose criminal evasion. Rusbridger says that “the advanced tax planning undertaken today by most global companies is as intelligible to the average person as particle physics” [p58], and he quotes the admission of the managing editor of the Financial Times: “financial journalists … don’t really understand this stuff, and they join a long list of people that starts with bank regulators, central ban regulators and money managers.”
Rusbridger was actually recounting the story of The Guardian’s struggle with Tesco, a huge British based corporation, that had sued the paper for liable in the most complaint-friendly liable court in the world, London. He explains that the costs of protection from liable claims are so great as to restrain serious journalistic inquiry into corporate tax evasion. In Britain, in fact, “it is fairly safe to predict that almost no British paper will investigate in any detail how companies today increasingly fund and structure their overseas expansion with an eye to avoiding tax.” In the mean time the British government estimates that “thousands of major companies” are unfairly (and thus illegally) avoiding tax obligations through elaborate evasion schemes.
All the more reason to encourage journalism – and government service -- that helps enforce transparency.
But when those at the highest rungs of the government ladder put into practice regulations that betray their public responsibility we are in even greater danger of entering a future whose structures could become repressive of the weak and vulnerable. The glaring example of abuse of power that in fact offends the public sensibility [and thus must be masked by the power elite] is of course the practice of torture by the current administration. Although practiced illegally before George W. Bush, it was his administration that made it legal, or at least claimed to have made it illegal. It is now clear on the basis of many accounts [for example, Philippe Sands, 2008, Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values.] that those at the highest levels of authority authorized it, notably of course Secretary of Defense Richard Rumsfeld, number three in Department of Defense Douglas Feith, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Gen. Richard Myers, and many others under their authority; and in the White House the Vice President himself, who has admitted to endorsing the abuse of prisoners, as well as Chief Counsel to the President Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo, and others. But then, when the practice of torture came to light, known to the public these officials were supposed to represent, not one of them took responsibility: that allowed the regular troops, who were in fact only doing as they were told, to take the rap.
I would like to believe that the George W. Bush administration was the nadir of ethical collapse in this country's history. We all hope for a more upright leadership in the future, but what we have just seen, and what so many human beings have endured because of these irresponsible actions, is a warning. Betrayal of the public trust is always a possibility, given our human frailty. There is a continuing need for courageous reporting on the truth as it is found, not as those in power would like it be reported. I pray that the world will be spared another round of power abuse such as the world has just endured.
[A note of irony: Washington has expressed concern that some inmates released from Guantanamo could be tortured or persecuted if they were returned to their home countries.(BBC News, Re Canberra rejects appeal to take US prisoners, 3 January 2009)]
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