UN Security Council to hold Mali talks
(Agence France-Presse, January 14, 2013)
The UN Security Council enters talks on the Mali conflict Monday, with the major powers broadly supporting France's military intervention in the crisis.
France has said the council's first meeting since its troops went into battle against Islamist guerrillas will serve to inform the panel's 14 other members of latest events and "exchange views" on the situation.
The council and the regional organizations, the African Union and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), are most concerned about when African troops can get to Mali to support the country's enfeebled army, diplomats said.
The council has unanimously passed three resolutions on Mali, highlighting international concern about the rebels and Al-Qaeda linked groups who took over the northern part of the African country last March. Resolution 2085, adopted in December, authorized the deployment of a proposed 3,300 strong African force.
No one has questioned the legality of France's move, launched after Mali's interim president asked for "military" assistance.
Among the council's other permanent members, the United States and Britain are providing logistical help to the French forces. Russia and China, meanwhile, have signaled they do not oppose France's blitz against the guerrillas to counter an Islamist offensive into government territory.
"China condemns the recent military attack by anti-government forces in Mali, and has noted that, at the request of the Malian government, relevant countries and regional organizations have sent ground forces and military aircraft to help fight the rebel army," China's foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Monday in Beijing.
Mali conflict: UN backs France's military intervention
(Mark Doyle, BBC News, January 14, 2013)
All members of the UN Security Council have backed France's military intervention in Mali to fight Islamist rebels, officials have said.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he hoped the intervention would help restore "Mali's constitutional order and territorial integrity".
Thousands of African troops are due to join Malian and French forces to help push back the rebels' offensive.
France intervened on Friday after the Islamists began advancing southwards.
French authorities said they had feared that the rebels would march on the capital, Bamako, creating a grave security threat for the wider region.
On Monday, the Security Council convened in New York for an emergency meeting at France's request.
After the meeting, France's UN ambassador Gerard Araud said his country had the "understanding and support" of the 14 other Security Council members.
But he added that France also wanted the deployment of a West African force to happen "as quickly as possible".
France has no intention of keeping forces in Mali: Hollande
(Agence France-Presse, 15 January 2013)
French President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday that his government does not intend to keep forces in Mali, but will remain until security is restored and "terrorists" eliminated.
"France has no intention of staying in Mali, but we have an objective, that is when we leave there should be security in Mali, a legitimate authority, an electoral process and no more terrorists threatening the integrity of the country," Hollande told reporters in Dubai.
Hollande said the intervention was aimed at ending attacks by Islamists, securing the capital and restoring the territorial integrity of the west African nation.
"We have three objectives for our intervention," he said -- "ending terrorists attacks," as well as "securing Bamako where we have thousands of citizens and helping Mali to restore its territorial integrity."
The French president said the United Arab Emirates, where he was on a scheduled state visit, backs the intervention and will provide "humanitarian aid, as well as material, financial and possibly military support."
French forces have, since Friday, been supporting an offensive by Malian government troops against Islamist rebels who have controlled the north of the desert country since April 2012.
The military intervention has driven Islamists fighters from their strongholds in the north but the rebels on Monday pushed farther into the government-held south, seizing the town of Diabaly, 400 kilometres (250 miles) from the capital.
Amid Conflict, Poverty Is the Reality for Most Malians
(by John Campbell, The Council on Foreign Relations, January 16, 2013)
With attention focused on radical Islamists, a dysfunctional government in Bamako, and the French military intervention, it is easy to overlook that for most Malians, to stay alive is, in itself, often a struggle. To cite a few illustrative statistics from the CIA World FactBook, the country’s birthrate and infant mortality rate are the second highest in the world. Infant mortality exceeds 10 percent. Life expectancy at birth is among the shortest in the world. More than 10 percent of the population is nomadic; in the north, that percentage is far higher. With climate change and the Sahara desert creeping ever southward, life for rural and nomadic populations in the north is getting worse; even at the best of times. Drought is now a common reality. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, citing Malian statistics, about a quarter of the population faces severe food insecurity. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has appealed to international donors for U.S.$214 million for Mali; it has received U.S.$76.3 million.
The current round of fighting makes the misery worse. Very often the popular response is flight–to anywhere else. Oxfam estimates that 30,000 so far have fled since the French began their campaign last week. They join some 345,000 previously internally and externally displaced persons due to the ongoing unrest. The Catholic Information Service for Africa, citing non-governmental organizations in Mali, estimates that the number of displaced persons could reach 700,000. Already it estimates that about a third of Mali’s population of more than fifteen million is affected by the interrelated crises involving food availability, nutrition, and military conflict.
This extreme privation plays a major, if often hidden, role in refugee flows and the availability of children to fight as soldiers (often the only means of obtaining a meal). The deteriorating situation likely also encourages the religious millenarianism that underlies amputations and stonings.
The UN high commissioner for refugees has primary responsibility for the care of displaced persons. He has asked international donors for U.S.$123 million to fund its Malian operations. So far, only 63 percent of that, U.S.$77.4 million, has been contributed.
The funding shortfalls for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the UN high commissioner of refugees together amounts to around U.S.$183.3 million. In a wartime environment, that is peanuts to most nations and international donors. But, it is also the difference between life and death for huge numbers of people.
In Mali town, militants are gone but challenges for French remain
( Sudarsan Raghavan, The Washington Post, January 21, 2013)
Soon after French forces landed in Mali, radical fighters swept into this dusty hamlet of mud houses and red dirt, and for five days last week their presence stood as a potent symbol of defiance.
The fighters went house to house, residents said, telling people not to fear. The militants insisted that they were targeting only “white guys and Malian soldiers,” though they later beat local Christians.
At makeshift checkpoints, they searched anyone they suspected of being a spy. They occupied houses, both to sleep and to hide weapons. They looted medicine from the hospital and stole chickens from residents.
In some cases, women were ordered to cover their faces, and men were told not to smoke. But the militants did not impose the harsh brand of Islamic law they have elsewhere in Mali, suggesting that they knew their takeover of Diabaly would be temporary.
It was: By Monday, French soldiers were on patrol here and the rebels had retreated. But a visit to Diabaly, the first by Western journalists since the militant takeover, revealed the challenges that await France and its allies as they try to beat back a violent Islamist movement that has split this country in two.
Many of the obstacles have become predictable for any conventional army waging a counterinsurgency, but they are no less daunting for their familiarity. They suggest a long campaign ahead in a country that has traditionally been seen as a backwater but has suddenly been thrust into the center of an escalating war between Western forces and Africa’s Islamist extremists.
During their short stay, the militants thoroughly infiltrated Diabaly, residents said, turning this desert town of 24,000 into a sprawling human shield.
“They placed big guns on the roof to target airplanes,” said Suleiman Dambele, 56, a veterinarian, pointing in the direction of a nearby house in his neighborhood.
Residents said French airstrikes, while precise, landed uncomfortably close to the homes of civilians.
Barnabe Dakou, 63, and his family were sleeping when an airstrike destroyed two rebel pickup trucks in the street outside their home. Shrapnel sliced through the walls, injuring Dakou and his 40-year-old son, Francois. Outside, the trucks were burning, and the bodies of two militants lay near a door. The family huddled together the rest of the night. In the morning, they fled Diabaly.
“We took nothing with us,” Francois Dakou recalled. “We just ran.”
The extremist takeover of wide swaths of Mali has been nearly a year in the making. In March, Islamist fighters took advantage of a military coup and a rebellion by Tuareg separatists to sweep across the country’s northern half. They soon pushed out the secular separatists and implemented a harsh interpretation of Islamic law that included public amputations, stonings and whippings.
The Islamists are made up of three groups, including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb — the terror network’s West and North Africa wing — an offshoot of which took responsibility for last week’s hostage crisis in neighboring Algeria, which left at least 37 foreigners dead.
After the Islamists advanced southward on Jan. 10, seizing the town of Konna, France launched a surprise military intervention aimed at stopping them. Together with Mali’s government and a pan-African military force, the French say they are determined to drive Islamist fighters from the country.
But the militants were undeterred by France’s entry into the war. Despite a campaign of French airstrikes, they moved southward through Mali or Mauritania and entered Diabaly on Jan. 14.
Residents of Diabaly, which is only about 250 miles northeast of the nation’s capital, said Malian soldiers clashed with the militants but then retreated from the area. Although Malian military officials have said that French special forces were also in Diabaly fighting the militants, residents said they did not see any French soldiers until days later.
Residents said no civilians were killed in the airstrikes, despite their proximity to civilian areas. And even those who were injured appeared to accept the strikes as the only way to drive out the rebels, who had fled by Saturday morning.
“If we were not bombed, [the militants] would have killed all of us, and they would have stayed in Diabaly,” said Barnabe Dakou, who returned with his family on Saturday. The charred carcasses of the two destroyed trucks remained outside his house.
On Monday, French soldiers walked the town, securing areas where the rebels had stored weapons. Malian soldiers stood near their vehicles. Even after the rebel withdrawal Saturday, it had taken more than 48 hours to enter Diabaly because of concerns about snipers.
Destruction inflicted by the militants was most visible inside a church. A wooden cross was broken in two. The militants had fired bullets into the roof. Bible pages lay ripped on the concrete floor.
Raphael Dembele, a member of the town’s Christian minority, said the militants had beaten a group of Christians and told them they were no longer allowed to practice their religion. “They said: ‘This is the American way. We don’t need it,’ ” Dembele recalled.
Most of the Christians who fled last week have yet to return.
Muslims, too, are apprehensive. Residents said they didn’t want the soldiers, especially the French, to leave Diabaly. The militants, many believe, are hiding in a nearby forest.
“We are uneasy,” said Amadou Traore, 36, a butcher. “They can easily come back.”
The terrible urgency of Syria
(Richard Cohen | The Washington Post | January 24, 2013)
There are two kinds of wars, we are told - wars of choice and wars of necessity. The former is to be avoided and the latter fought with appropriate reluctance. World War II was a good and necessary war but Vietnam was not. The war in Iraq was a matter of choice (also of imbecility) but Afghanistan was not - although it now may be. Wars can change over time. The one in Syria certainly has. It has gone from a war of choice to a war of necessity that President Obama did not choose to fight. A mountain of dead testifies to his mistake.
More than 60,000 people have been killed, most of them civilians. An estimated 650,000 refugees have fled across Syria's various borders, about 142,000 to Jordan alone. They live in miserable conditions, soaked and frozen by the chilling rains of the Mediterranean winter, caked in mud. Children have died. More children will die.
The war threatens to destabilize a whole region. The Kurds in Syria's north are restless. The Palestinians, refugees in Syria from their one-time homeland, are refugees yet again in Jordan. Lebanon is awash with Syrians, fellow Muslims but often of a different sort. The ethnic nitroglycerin of that country - an unstable mixture of Sunnis and Shiites, various Christians and Druze - looks increasingly fragile. All Lebanese are mental census takers: Has their group increased or decreased and what does it mean?
And what of Bashar al-Assad, the unimpressive son of a frighteningly impressive father? Will he seek exile in Moscow, possibly rooming with that vulgarian, Gerard Depardieu? Not likely. Assad will retreat to the Alawite redoubt in northern Syria and the slaughter will continue. Bloodbath will follow bloodbath, a settling of scores from the recent past, the distant past and - just for good measure - the imagined future: Kill before you can be killed. It's the earliest form of hedging.
I am talking about a misery that beggars description. I am talking of infants dying of dysentery and the old taking one last feeble step. I am talking about barbarity that always accompanies civil war and I am talking, finally, of a catastrophe that could have been avoided. A little muscle from NATO, which is to say the United States, could have put an end to this thing early on. The imposition of a no-fly zone, as was done in Libya, would not only have grounded Syrian airplanes and helicopters but would have convinced the military and intelligence services early on that Assad was doomed and the outcome was not in doubt. Early on there were places he could have gone.
But the White House was resolute in its irresolution. A presidential campaign was on and it was no time for foreign adventures. Iraq was winding down; with any luck, Afghanistan would too. The United States had no dog in the Syrian fight and, besides, Washington - in an admission of incompetence - could not tell the good guys from the bad guys. Waiting cleared things up. Now the bad guys (jihadists and others) are more in control and the moderates have, as moderates usually do, lost out to radicals. Procrastination, as well as the prospect of one's hanging, clarifies the mind.
In retrospect, this was a war of necessity. It was necessary to avoid a regional calamity, the spread of more violence to Lebanon and Iraq. It was necessary to avoid a humanitarian disaster; great suffering that could have been avoided or at least mitigated. It was necessary to take a stand against barbarity because this is - is it not? - a basic obligation. It was necessary to intervene because we could do so at very little cost. To do what you can when you can might not have the Metternichian ring of a Great Strategic Doctrine, but it has the force of common sense. It is both compelling and workable. We are talking, simply, of saving lives.
It was necessary, finally, because the thugs of this world must not only be held accountable by the world community, they must know they will be held accountable by the world community. The indiscriminate shelling of cities and towns must not be tolerated. The purposeful killing of journalists must not be tolerated. The people of any country are not chattel to be treated any way their government wants. This - a furious sense of moral indignation - must return to American foreign policy and be the centerpiece of Obama's second term. This is no longer a matter of choice. It is a necessity.
On Syria: What to Do in 2013
(by Richard Falk, Foreign Policy Journal, January 21, 2013)
I took part last week in an illuminating conference on Syria sponsored by the new Center of Middle East Studies that is part of the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. This Center has been recently established, and operates under the excellent leadership of Nader Hashemi and Danny Postel, who previously together edited the best collection of readings on the Green Revolution in Iran published under the title THE PEOPLE RELOADED.
The conference brought together a mixture of Syrian specialists, Syrian activists, and several of us with a more general concern about conflict in the region, as well as with human rights and as participants in the heated debates of recent years about the virtues and vices of ‘humanitarian intervention’, what is now being called ‘Responsibility to Protect’, or ‘R2P’, in UN circles and among liberals. I came to the gathering with a rather strong disposition to present myself as a confirmed R2P skeptic, regarding it as a cynical geopolitical euphemism for what Noam Chomsky labeled as ‘military humanism’ in the context of the controversial NATO Kosovo War of 1999. Ever since the Vietnam War, I have viewed all Western claims to use force in the post-colonial non-West with suspicion. I support presumptions in favor of non-intervention and self-determination, both fundamental norms of international law. But I left the conference dissatisfied with my position that nothing more could or should be done at the international level to help end the violence in Syria or to assist the struggle of the Syrian people. I became convinced that human solidarity with the ordeal of the Syrian people was being deeply compromised by the advocacy of passivity in the face of the criminality of the Damascus government, although what to do that is genuinely helpful remains extremely difficult to discern.
In the immediate background of the debate on Syrian policy are the bad memories of stealth diplomacy used by the United States and several European partners in March 2011 to gain UN Security Council backing for the establishment of a No Fly Zone to protect the beleaguered and endangered population of the Libyan city of Benghazi. What ensued from the outset of the UN authorized mission in Libya was a blatant disregard of the limited mandate to protect the population of a city from a threatened massacre. In its place, the NATO undertaking embarked on a concerted regime-changing NATO mission that ended with the unseemly execution of the Libyan dictator. What NATO purported to do was not only oblivious to Libya’s sovereignty, but was unmistakably a deliberate and dramatic extension of the authorized mission that understandably infuriated the autocrats in Moscow. A case could certainly have been made that in order to protect the Libyan people it was necessary to rid the country of the Qaddafi regime, but such an argument was never developed in the Security Council debate, and would never have been accepted. Against such a background, the wide gap between what was approved by the UN Security Council vote and what was done in breach of the mandate was perceived as a betrayal of trust in the setting of the Security Council, particularly by those five governments opposed to issuing a broader writ for the intervention, governments that had been deceptively induced to abstain on the ground that the UN authorization of force was limited to a single one-off protective, emergency mission.
Global diplomacy being what it is and was, there should be no surprise, and certainly no condescending self-righteous lectures delivered by Western diplomats, in reaction to the rejectionist postures adopted by Russia and China throughout the Syrian crisis. Of course, two wrongs hardly ever make a right, and do not here. NATO’s flagrant abuse of the UN mandate for Libya should certainly not be redressed at the expense of the Syrian people. In this respect, it is lamentable that those who shape policy in Moscow and Beijing are displaying indifference to the severity of massive crimes of humanity, principally perpetrated by the Assad government, as well as to the catastrophic national and regional effects of a continuing large-scale civil war in Syria. The unfolding Syrian tragedy, already resulting in more than 60,000 confirmed deaths, one million refugees, as many as 3 million internally displaced, a raging famine and daily hardships and hazards for most of the population, and widespread urban devastation, seems almost certain to continue in coming months. There exists even a distinct possibility of an intensification of violence as a deciding battle for control of Damascus gets underway in a major way. Minimally responsible behavior by every leading government at the UN would under such circumstances entail at the very least a shared and credible willingness to forego geopolitical posturing, and exert all possible pressure to bring the violence to an end.
Some suggest that an effect of this geopolitical gridlock at the UN is causing many Syrians to sacrifice their lives and put the very existence of their country in jeopardy. This kind of ‘compensation’ for NATO’s ultra virus behavior in Libya is morally unacceptable and politically imprudent. At the same time, it is hardly reasonable to assume that the UN could have ended the Syrian strife in an appropriate way if the Security Council had been able to speak with one voice. It both overestimates the capabilities of the UN and under appreciates the complexity of the Syrian struggle. Under these circumstances it is also diversionary to offload the frustrations associated with not being able to do anything effective to help the rebel forces win quickly or to impose a ceasefire and political process on the stubborn insistence by Russia and China that a solution for Syria must not be based on throwing Assad under the bus.
The Syrian conflict seems best interpreted as a matter of life or death not only for the ruling regime, but for the entire Alawite community (estimated to be 12% of the Syrian population of about 23 million), along with their support among Syria’s other large minorities (Christian 10%, Druze 3%), and a sizable chunk of the urban business world that fears more what is likely to follow Assad than Assad himself. Given these conditions, there is little reason to assume that a unified posture among the permanent members of the Security Council would at any stage in the violent months have had any realistic prospect of bringing the Syrian parties to drop their weapons and agree to risk a compromise. The origins of the crossover from militant anti-regime demonstrations to armed insurgency is most convincingly traced back to the use of live ammunition by the governing authorities and the armed forces against demonstrators in the city of Daraa from March 15, 2012 onwards, resulting in several deaths. Many in the streets of Daraa were arrested, with confirmed reports of torture and summary execution, and from this point forward there has been no credible turning away from violence by either side. Kofi Annan, who resigned as Special Envoy for the UN/Arab League in late January 2013, indicated his displeasure with both external actors, criticizing Washington for its insistence that any political transition in Syria must be preceded by the removal of Bashar al-Assad from power, a precondition that seems predicated on an insurgent victory rather than working for a negotiated solution.
Without greater diplomatic pressure from both geopolitical proxies, the war in Syria is likely to go on and on, with disastrous results. There has never been a serious willingness to solve the problems of Syria by an American-led attack in the style of Iraq 2003. For one thing, an effective intervention and occupation in a country the size of Syria, especially if both sides have significant levels of support as they continue to have, would be costly in lives and resources, uncertain in its overall effects on the internal balance of forces, and involve an international commitment that might last more than a decade. Especially in light of Western experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, neither Washington nor Europe, has the political will to undertake such an open ended mission, especially when the perceived strategic interests are ambiguous and the political outcome is in doubt. Besides, 9/11 has receded in relevance, although still insufficiently, and the Obama foreign policy, while being far too militaristic, is much less so than during the presidency of George W. Bush.
Another approach would be to press harder for an insurgent victory by tightening sanctions on Syria or combining a weapons embargo on the regime with the supply of weapons to the opposition. This also seems difficult to pull off, and highly unlikely to bring about a positive outcome even if feasible. It is difficult to manage such an orchestration of the conflict in a manner that is effective, especially when there are strong proxy supporters on each side. Furthermore, despite much external political encouragement, especially by Turkey, the anti-Assad forces have been unable to generate any kind of leadership that is widely acknowledged either internally or externally, nor has the opposition been able to project a shared vision of a post-Assad Syria. The opposition is clearly split between secular and Islamist orientations, and this heightens the sense of not knowing what to expect what is being called ‘the day after.’ We have no reliable way of knowing whether escalating assistance to the rebels would be effective, and if so, what sort of governing process would emerge in Syria, and to what extent it would be abusive toward those who directly and indirectly sided with the government during the struggle.
Under such circumstances, seeking a ceasefire and negotiations between the parties still seems like the most sensible alternative among an array of bad options. This kind of emphasis has guided the diplomatic efforts of the UN/Arab League Special Envoys—first Kofi Annan, and now Lakhdar Brahimi—but so far producing only disillusionment. Neither side seems ready to abandon the battlefield, partly because of enmity and distrust, and partly because it still is unwilling to settle for anything less than victory. For diplomacy to have any chance of success would appear require both sides to entertain seriously the belief that a further continuation of the struggle is more threatening than ending it. Such a point has not been reached, and is not in sight.
Despite the logic behind these failed efforts, to continue to pin hopes on this passive diplomacy under UN auspices seems problematic. It grants the governing Assad regime time and space to continue to use means at its disposal to destroy its internal enemy, relying on high technology weaponry and indiscriminate tactics on a vast scale that are killing and terrifying far more civilians than combatants. Bombarding residential neighborhoods in Syrian cities with modern aircraft and artillery makes the survival of the regime appear far more significant for the rulers than is any commitment to the security and wellbeing of the Syrian people and even the survival of the country as a viable whole. It is deeply delegitimizing, and is generating a growing chorus of demands for indicting the Assad leadership for international crimes even while the civil war rages on. This criminal behavior expresses such an acute collective alienation on the part of the Damascus leadership as to forfeit the normal rights enjoyed by a territorial sovereign. These normal rights include the option of using force in accord with international humanitarian law to suppress an internal uprising or insurgency, but such rights do not extend to the commission of genocidal crimes of the sort attributable to the Assad regime in recent months. Although it must be admitted that the picture is complicated by the realization that not all of the criminal wrongdoing is on the regime side, yet the great preponderance is. The rebel forces, to be sure, are guilty of several disturbing atrocities. This is sad and unfortunate, as well as politically confusing so far as taking sides is concerned. Overall, it adds to the victimization of the people of Syria that is reaching catastrophic proportions because it makes more difficult the mobilization of international support for concerted action.
Essentially, the world shamelessly watches the Syrian debacle in stunned silence, but it is fair to ask what could be done that is not being done? So far no credible pro-active international scenario has emerged. There are sensible suggestions for establishing local ceasefires in the considerable areas in the countryside under the control of rebel forces, for supplying food and medical supplies to the population by means of protected ‘humanitarian corridors,’ and for taking steps to improve the woeful lot of Syrian refugees currently facing inadequate accommodations and unacceptable hardships in Lebanon and Jordan. Such steps should be taken, but are unlikely to hasten or alter outcome of the conflict. Can more be done?
I would further recommend a broad policy of support for civil society activists within Syria and outside who are dedicated to a democratic inclusive governing process that affirms human rights for all, and promises constitutional arrangements that will privilege no one ethnic or religious identity and will give priority to the protection of minorities. There are encouraging efforts underway by networks of Syrian activists, working mainly from Washington and Istanbul, to project such a vision as a program in the form of a Freedom Charter that aspires to establish a common platform for a future beneficial for all of Syria’s people. The odds of success for this endeavor of politics from below seem remote at present for these activist undertakings, but they deserve our support and confidence. As often is the case when normal politics are paralyzed, the only solution for a tragic encounter appears to be utopian until it somehow materializes and becomes history. This dynamic was illustrated by the benign unraveling of South African apartheid in the early 1990s against all odds, and in opposition to a consensus among experts that expected emancipation of the victims of apartheid to come, if at all, only through success in a long and bloody war.
Another initiative that could be taken, with great positive potential, but against the grain of current of Western and especially American geopolitics, would be to take the Iran war option off the table. Such a step would almost certainly have major tension-reducing effects in relation to regional diplomacy, and would be a desirable initiative to take quite independent of the Syrian conflict. The best way to do this would be to join with other governments in the region, including Iran, to sponsor a comprehensive security framework for the Middle East that features a nuclear weapons free zone, with an insistence that Israel join in the process. Of course, for the United States to advocate such moves would be to shake the foundations of its unconditional endorsement of whatever Israel favors and does, and yet it would seem over time even to be of greater benefit to Israeli security than an engagement in a permanent struggle to maintain Israeli military dominance in the region while denying the right of self-determination to the Palestinian people. If American leaders could finally bring themselves to serve the national interest of the United States by acting as if the peace and security of Israel can only be achieved if the rights of the Palestinian people under international law are finally realized it would have many likely positive effects for the Middle East and beyond. As matters now stand, the dismal situation in the region is underscored by the degree to which such prudent proposals remain in the domain of the unthinkable, and are kept outside the disciplined boundaries of ‘responsible debate.’
If the imagination of the political is limited to the ‘art of the possible’ then constructive responses to the Syrian tragedy seem all but foreclosed. Only what appears to be currently implausible has any prospect of providing the Syrian people and their nation with a hopeful future, and we need the moral fortitude to engage with what we believe is right even if we cannot demonstrate that it will prevail in the end.
Now we are immersed in world-wide responsibilities; and our weakness has grown into strength. Our culture knows little of the use and the abuse of power; but we have to use power in global terms. Our idealists are divided between those who would renounce the responsibilities of power for the sake of preserving the purity of our soul and those who are ready to cover every ambiguity of good and evil in our actions by the frantic insistence that any measure taken in a good cause must be unequivocally virtuous. We take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization. We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect disinterestedness in its exercise, nor become complacent about particular degrees of interest and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimatized. Communism is a vivid object lesson in the monstrous consequences of moral complacency about the relation of dubious means to supposedly good ends.
Our culture knows little of the use and the abuse of power;
Every morning, I have what's called the PDB—presidential daily briefing—and our intelligence and national security teams come in here and they essentially brief me on the events of the previous day. And very rarely is there good news. And a big chunk of my day is occupied by news of war, terrorism, ethnic clashes, violence done to innocents. And what I have to constantly wrestle with is where and when can the United States intervene or act in ways that advance our national interest, advance our security, and speak to our highest ideals and sense of common humanity.
And as I wrestle with those decisions, I am more mindful probably than most of not only our incredible strengths and capabilities, but also our limitations. In a situation like Syria, I have to ask, can we make a difference in that situation? Would a military intervention have an impact? How would it affect our ability to support troops who are still in Afghanistan? What would be the aftermath of our involvement on the ground? Could it trigger even worse violence or the use of chemical weapons? What offers the best prospect of a stable post-Assad regime? And how do I weigh tens of thousands who've been killed in Syria versus the tens of thousands who are currently being killed in the Congo?
Those are not simple questions. And you process them as best you can. You make the decisions you think balance all these equities, and you hope that, at the end of your presidency, you can look back and say, I made more right calls than not and that I saved lives where I could, and that America, as best it could in a difficult, dangerous world, was, net, a force for good.
Mali: a global wound
(By Abdullah Antepli, Professor of Islamic Studies, Duke University, January 28, 2013)
One of the international developments that I have been following with great pain and disappointment is what has been going on in northern Mali since early 2012. For those who are not paying too much attention, here is a brief summary: Mali, a former French colony, is a West African nation that had often been cited as a democratic model in that region. Since last January, several Tuareg and Arab insurgent groups, many of them heavily armed, have been fighting a campaign against the Malian government for independence for northern Mali, an area known also as Azawad.
By April 2012, these various insurgent groups gained enormous success against government troops and gained control of more than half of the country. As the conflict continued, some of the insurgent groups, which are made up of radical extremists and linked to the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, seized power and declared a so-called Sharia law, implementing their understanding of the Islamic state. The international community, led mainly by the French army, finally acted and, in partnership with the weak Malian army, has been conducting a military campaign against these insurgent groups. This military intervention has been successful so far, but many in the international community believe that the problem is far from being solved.
In recent decades, we have seen this tragedy multiple times in other parts of the world. This cancer of so-called religious extremism and violence has shown its ugly and disgusting face in the Taliban’s Afghanistan, Somalia and more. This deadly disease, needless to say, is anything but Islamic, and finds its way to socially, economically, culturally and intellectually devastated parts of the world and waits for the right time to strike. When we finally feel we killed all the snakes and closed all the snake holes in any given area, we see the emergence of the same despicable, poisonous cobra rising up somewhere else on the world map.
I do not believe in absolute passivism, and I am in favor of using force when it’s necessary—so long as it is done by ethical, moral armies to end violence and injustice. I also endorse and agree with the recent French military intervention in northern Mali and am hoping that it will successfully weed out these terrorists. However, I don’t think humanity can win this battle and get cured of this ugly threat of extremism and violence only through military means. What we are fighting—as destructive and as troubling as it may be to most of us—is an idea, and we cannot wipe out ideas and ideologies with our physical power only.
What I see in our fight against terrorism and radical extremism is the same fatal defect that I see in our medical and health care world. We invest trillions of dollars, not to mention unbelievable amounts of time, energy and human investment, for the treatment of many diseases when we do not spend even a tiny percentage of that money and effort for the preventative measures. We wait until people get really sick and then provide the costly treatment when we could have spent much less had we committed to preventing the same sickness.
If the global community even reacts, it only does so once things get out of control, as we once again saw in Mali. Only after the virus of terrorism takes its roots and gains strength do you see the global powers scratching their heads and wondering what to do. I do not know what it will take for us to learn the mistakes and failures of our past struggles in dealing with radical extremism and violence. I wonder how many more countries and societies will be destroyed before we stop repeating too-little, too-late policies. More importantly, what will it take for us to stop wasting our time and energy in shallow and counter-productive blah-blahs and get our act together?
Until we invest in drying the wetlands, which keep producing these terrorists, killing the mosquitoes through expensive and costly wars will not get us anywhere. We, the global community, have to address the root causes of terrorism and invest heavily in improving the immune system of societies, which are vulnerable and weak in the face of this challenge. Otherwise, Al-Qaeda or similar evil beings will continue to find more safe havens and ruin more precious lives.
The liberal dilemma
(January 28, 2013 by Irfan Husain, Dawn.com)
These are testing times for liberals. Opposed to military interventions, dictatorships and religious extremism, they are faced with a dilemma each time there is a western attack on a despot or a jihadi terror group.
This moral conundrum raised its head again recently when France launched an attack against heavily armed Al Qaeda-linked militants who had seized control of vast tracts of northern Mali, and had begun to move towards Bamako, the capital city. Many Muslims expressed concern about yet another western attack against a group of fellow believers. Even pragmatic western observers questioned the French move after the deadly hostage-taking at In Amenas, a gas facility in Algeria.
They point to the vastness of the territory, and the ease with which the terrorists can blend in with the local population. And clearly, there is no stomach for an extended French presence in the region; nor, indeed, are there any offers of military assistance from France’s Nato allies. All the US and the UK have provided is intelligence-sharing and logistics support. A few hundred troops from ECOWAS countries have been committed, but even these contingents from the West African region began arriving after the French initiative. For months, their leaders had been dithering about intervening.
So, given all these uncertainties about the long-term effectiveness of the French-led move, how justified is it? Indeed, Algerian officials have been quick to blame the intervention in Mali for the In Amenas attack. Although there is some truth in this, the fact is that the assault on the gas facility had weeks of planning behind it, and was not simply a spontaneous reaction to the Mali intervention.
However, anybody doubting the need for this action only has to watch a recent CNN report on refugees from the area captured by the Islamists. In one segment, two young men with their right hands amputated are interviewed on camera. Perhaps ‘amputated’ is inaccurate: the victims had their hands hacked off for alleged theft. After a quick so-called trial, the men were dragged to a square, and had their limbs slashed off without any anaesthesia.
For me, this evil act is justification enough for any kind of intervention that would stop these savages from imposing their will on the hapless people of Mali. Understandably, tens of thousands of them — Muslims and non-Muslims alike — have fled the area and are now eking out a miserable existence in refugee camps.
As soon as these thugs seized control of northern Mali, they unleashed a reign of terror in the name of Islamic Shariah law. Women have been forced indoor, ancient Muslim libraries and shrines — earlier designated as World Heritage Sites — have been destroyed, hands amputated and people flogged.
The slowly evolving consensus on the principle of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) has been severely tested over the last year. From Libya to Syria, and now in Mali, foreign — mostly western — governments have intervened directly or indirectly to protect local populations from abusive, despotic leaders.
These interventions have, in the minds of many Muslims, seemed to be part of an anti-Islam campaign that has seen the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the drone attacks in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. It is certainly true that all these campaigns have had the unintended consequence of increasing militancy and terrorism.
And yet, apart from the own-goal that was the invasion of Iraq, what were the alternatives? Should vicious rulers and terrorist groups have the freedom to brutalise their own people, and wage war on others with impunity? If sundry gangs of killers establish their bases on our soil, should they not be pursued and eliminated? And if the state does not possess the means or the will, and these criminals attack others from their sanctuaries, do not their targets have the right to retaliate?
Many human rights activists in Pakistan and abroad have expressed their outrage over drone attacks, citing the civilian casualties that often accompany these precision operations. However, people forget that terrorists deliberately hide behind civilians, often forcing them to provide them shelter. In some cases, greedy landlords charge foreign militants exorbitant rents.
In Mali as in Pakistan, these killers are waging war against the state to seize power. And sadly, in wars, civilians caught up in the crossfire often suffer. In terms of numbers, however, we need to remember that far, far more civilians, soldiers and policemen have been deliberately murdered by these terrorists than the accidental victims of the drone campaign. Many of the victims of these jihadis have been beheaded and mutilated.
Of course we should never draw a moral equivalence between the actions of criminals and the response from legally constituted governments that are signatories to international agreements on sovereignty and the conduct of war. In an ideal world, the crimes of terrorists cannot justify similar acts authorised by the state.
But we live in a violent world, and a state’s first duty is to protect its citizens. When fighting against a foe that despises concepts like the respect for human life and universally accepted norms of justice, can the state afford the luxury of conducting warfare under the Geneva Conventions?
There is no easy answer to this moral dilemma. Thus far, Pakistan’s many gangs of extremists have benefited from the ambivalence in the government and the wider society towards them. All too often, they are let off by a frightened, ineffective judiciary. And the army and the government both search for an elusive consensus on waging war against these groups. Their increasing confidence and strength should therefore not surprise anybody.
However, other states have not been afraid to take off the gloves while combating these terrorists at home and abroad. We might question the human rights implications of many of the laws they have enacted to protect themselves, and the actions they have taken to take the fight to the jihadis. But we need to recognise that when faced with a ruthless enemy, we cannot afford to conduct business as usual. Hard times call for hard decisions.
The harsh reality is that we can’t have it both ways: we cannot use normal laws and methods to combat remorseless foes who think nothing of hacking off heads and hands. Ultimately, it’s either them or us.
Israeli 'air strike on convoy on Syria-Lebanon border'
Israel's Iron Dome defence system has been deployed near Haifa
Israeli jets have attacked a convoy on the Syria-Lebanon border, unnamed security sources in the region have told news agencies.
The attack came as Israel voiced fears that Syrian missiles and chemical weapons could fall into the hands of militants such as Lebanon's Hezbollah.
It is not clear what the convoy was carrying, but the latest reports suggest it was attacked inside Syria.
Israel did not comment. Syrian state media said a military site was bombed.
Sana news agency quoted an army statement which said: "Israeli fighter jets violated our airspace at dawn today and carried out a direct strike on a scientific research centre in charge of raising our level of resistance and self-defence."
The centre, in Jamraya northwest of the capital Damascus, was damaged in the attack, state TV said.
The US State Department has also refused to comment on the reported attacks.
BBC Middle East correspondent Wyre Davies says none of the reports can be verified, although some well-placed diplomats and military sources say they would not be surprised if Israel had acted, given the recent instability in Syria.
The Lebanese military and internal security forces have not officially confirmed the reports, but say there has been increased activity by Israeli warplanes over the country in the past week, and particularly in recent hours.
Iran threat
One report suggested there were fears in Israel that Syria and Hezbollah would take advantage of the overcast weather conditions to send weaponry across the border.
The Associated Press quoted a US official as saying the strike hit a convoy of lorries carrying Russian-made SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles.
A Lebanese army spokesman denied there had been any attack on Lebanese territory, according to L'Orient Le Jour newspaper. Others said an attack took place near the town of Zabadani in southern Syria.
Correspondents say an attack on the Syrian side would cause a major diplomatic incident, as Iran has said it will treat any Israeli attack on Syria as an attack on itself.
The attack came days after Israel moved its Iron Dome defence system to the north of the country.
Correspondents say Israel fears that Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah could obtain anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, thus strengthening its ability to respond to Israeli air strikes.
Israel has also joined the US in expressing concern that Syria's presumed chemical weapons stockpile could be taken over by militant groups.
Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom told Israeli radio on Sunday that any sign that Syria was losing its grip on the weapons could lead to Israeli action, even a pre-emptive strike.
Analysts say Israel believes Syria received a battery of SA-17s from Russia after an alleged Israeli air strike in 2007 that destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor.
The US government said in 2008 that the reactor was "not intended for peaceful purposes".
