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Some Links And An Open Thread
A few links and an open thread:
- Democracy's failures, 2010 – Guardian
- Why the Rich Are Getting Richer – Foreign Affairs
- End human rights imperialism now – Guardian
- How WikiLeaks Enlightened Us in 2010 – CBSnews
- STOP OPERATION CAST LEAD 2 — A New Year’s Message for 2011 – Richard Falk
- 2001. 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010,
2011 seen as make-or-break year for Afghan mission – LA Times
Found this on the Boston Globe's Big Picture Afghanistan series. The caption to it says:
Taliban fighters man a checkpoint in an undisclosed location in Nangarhar province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan on Dec. 13, 2010. A Taliban commander on the ground said that they were checking the traffic looking for people working for the Afghan government, for non-governmental organizations or who work at the US military bases.
Noticed the machine gun? It is a M 240 widely used by the U.S. military. Funny how that interesting little fact didn't make it into the caption …
kinzer has always been problematic in that regard, defending u.s. clients, so his endorsement of the (brutal) kagame dictatorship is hardly surprising in that regard. you may recall that chomsky & herman highlighted his work as a textbook illustration of their propaganda model in the seminal book manufacturing consent.
for example, as chomsky writes
one of the things that Edward Herman and I did in Manufacturing Consent was to just look at the sources that reporters go to. In a part that I wrote, I happened to be discussing Central America, so I went through fifty articles by Stephen Kinzer of the New York Times beginning in October 1987, and just asked: whose opinions did he try to get? Well, it turns out that in fifty articles he did not talk to one person in Nicaragua who was pro-Sandinista. Now, there’s got to be somebody — you know, Ortega’s mother, somebody’s got to be pro-Sandinista. Nope, in fact, everybody he quotes is anti-Sandinista.
Well, there are polls, which the Times won’t report, and they show that all of the opposition parties in Nicaragua combined had the support of only 9 percent of the population. But they have 100 percent of Stephen Kinzer — everyone he’s found supports the opposition parties, 9 percent of the population. That’s in fifty articles.
ed herman put out a nice little book w/ david peterson in 2010 titled the politics of genocide that builds on a framework for analysis both herman & chomsky first put forth in their 1973 book counter-revolutionary violence: bloodbaths in fact and propaganda. that earlier book grouped bloodbaths into four categories – constructive, benign, nefarious and mythical – based on “how bloodbaths are evaluated by the U.S. political establishment and its media, depending on who is responsible for carrying them out.” “Those bloodbaths carried out by the United States itself or that serve immediate and major U.S. interests are Constructive; those carried out by allies or clients are Benign; and those carried out by U.S. target states are Nefarious and (sometimes) Mythical.”
this new book uses that same framework for analysis to look into the politics of genocide, and, though short, it’s concise, well-documented, and has an excellent chapter on kagame and the genocides in rwanda and the d.r.c.
as they write in their introduction:
In an amazing “end of impunity” set of coincidences, it turns out that all fourteen of the ICC’s indictments through mid-2009 had been issued against black Africans from three countries (the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and the Sudan), while carefully excluding Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, perhaps the most prolific tandem of killers to rule on the African continent during the current era, but highly valued clients of the West. Indeed, Kagame especially is an adored figure throughout much of the West, feted as a great liberator and statesman…
Further into the book,
Very big lies about Rwanda are now institutionalized and are part of the common (mis)understanding in the West. In reality, Paul Kagame is one of the great mass murderers of our time. Yet, thanks to the remarkable myth structure that surrounds him, he enjoys immense popularity with his chief patron in Washington, the image of this big-time killer transmuted into that of an honored savior deserving strong Western support. … A more recent hagiography by Stephen Kinzer portrays Kagame as the founding father of a New Africa. It is “one of the most amazing untold stories of the modern history of revolution,” as Kinzer explains it, because Kagame overthrew a dictatorship, stopped a genocide, and turned Rwanda into “one of the great stars” of the continent, with Western investment and favorable PR flowing. In fact, what Kagame overthrew was a multiethnic, power-sharing, coalition government; what Kagame imposed was a Tutsi-dominated dictatorship; and what Kagame turned Rwanda and the whole of Central Africa into was a rolling genocide that is still ongoing – but it is true that he is a shining “star” in the Western firmament and its propaganda system.
In Samantha Power’s view, and in accord with this same myth structure, “The United States did almost nothing to try to stop [the Hutu genocide],” but instead “stood on the sidelines” – “bystanders to genocide.” But this is doubly false. What the United States and its Western allies (Britain, Canada, and Belgium) really did was sponsor the U.S.-trained Kagame, support his invasion of Rwanda from Uganda and massive ethnic cleansing prior to April 1994, weaken the Rwandan state by forcing an economic recession and the RPF’s penetration of the government and throughout the country, and then press for the complete removal of UN troops because they didn’t want UN troops to stand in the way of Kagame’s conquest of the country, even though Rwanda’s Hutu authorities were urging the dispatch of more UN troops.
and so on. we’ve written many times here over the years on this event and the following atrocities in the congo, so no need to rehash all of that now. relatedly, one of the other links b draws attention to – how wikileaks enlightened us in 2010 – points out the cable that collects all sites vital to u.s. national interests, w/ congo, the country, leading the list.
Posted by: b real | Jan 3 2011 5:37 utc | 5
The ability of the insurgent forces to grow or at least maintain their numbers of fighters shows the depth of its roots in the population and is a clear indicator that for every one fighter NATO kills, a new one will take up his role. This from the WaPo:
Taliban strength unaffected by allied surge
BRUSSELS — A massive effort by U.S. and NATO forces – including offensives in the insurgent heartland and targeted assassinations of rebel leaders – has failed to dent Taliban numerical strength over the past year, according to military and diplomatic officials.
A NATO official said this week that the alliance estimates current number of insurgent fighters at up to 25,000, confirming figures provided earlier by several military officers and diplomats.
That number is the same as a year ago, before the arrival of an additional 40,000 U.S. and allied troops, and before the alliance launched a massive campaign to restore government control in Helmand province and around the city of Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan.
The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has kept official figures of enemy strength under wraps throughout the nine-year war. But non-U.S. military assessments have tracked the growth of the Taliban from about 500 armed fighters in 1993 to 25,000 in early 2010.
“These are rough estimates, because they’re not just standing around to be counted,” said the NATO official who could not be named in line with standing regulations.
The Taliban are pitted against about 140,000 ISAF troops – two-thirds of them Americans – and over 200,000 members of the government’s security forces. This gives the allies a numerical advantage of at least 12:1 – one of the highest such ratios in modern guerrilla wars. At the height of the Vietnam War, the U.S. and its allies had an advantage of between 4-5 to 1 over their Communist foes. […]
Other specialists note that NATO’s announcement regarding withdrawal by 2014 has locked the alliance into an endgame that limits its options. This gives the Taliban a clear goal: survival over the next 18-24 months, when the drawdown will be well under way.
Nate Hughes, director of military analysis at Stratfor, a global intelligence company, said the U.S. and NATO strategy – to weaken the rebels and force them to negotiate with the government – was unlikely to succeed in time.
“The West certainly doesn’t have the staying power to defeat the Taliban and reshape the country by 2014, he said. “The Taliban can fall back and basically wait out the NATO forces.”
And that’s what seems to be happening in the North, where US/German troops are trying to pacify the insurgency. Maj. Gen. Fritz has a pretty upbeat view about how things are developing. From a US DoD news transcript:
[…]
Q: Is the Taliban expanding its activity in the north? And are — is — are levels of violence increasing, or is the opposite the case?
GEN. FRITZ: I think the influence of the Taliban is diminishing, definitely. And as we said, they are leaving the area. If they don’t leave, they were killed. They were handing themselves over to us — this is what Colonel Mulholland mentioned — by the reintegration program. So they are simply giving up.
[…]
Q: What evidence do you have that any serious type Taliban commanders and others are actually prepared to give up? Are you just talking about very low-level people who are coming and handing over their arms?
GEN. FRITZ: I mean, I can only talk about the Taliban leaders here in our — in our region. And so I’m talking about the low and the medium level, I think. And these people are really — a lot of them are giving up; they’re coming with their — with their soldiers, if you like, or with their — with the members of their troops. It might be 10. It might — been 15 or more, sometimes. And they are obviously they’re giving up.
My impression is that also these people, they are war tired on the one hand, and on the other hand, they are — they really get a feeling that they’re on loser street.
Q: But when they come, what do you give to them to convince them that they should swap sides, as it were?
GEN. FRITZ: I mean, there are two programs we can offer. The one is the APRP, the Afghan Peace and Reconciliation Program, and the other one is the ALP program, the Afghan Local Police Program. Both programs have as a precondition that all these people are registered, that they are telling clearly that they agree on the Afghan constitution, on the Afghan law, that they accept GIRoA as authorities. Then they have to hand over their weapons they were registered, the people were registered. We are checking as good as we can whether there are really criminals among them.
And then they can go into the programs. What concerns the reintegration program, they can learn a civilian job, I would say, they could get a — maybe a teacher, whatever they like, on the one hand. On the other hand, they can join the Afghan Local Police Program, so they can join the local police, which is a special program. And I think, Sean, if you like, you can comment on that in a little bit more detail.
[…]
Q: This is Al Pessin with VOA. Can you give us some numbers as well as what the percentages are of these Taliban who have surrendered?
GEN. FRITZ: I mean you can only give, from my point of view, a percentage if you know exactly what 100 percent is. What we can say is in terms of real figures, there are groupings coming to us — they might be 20, they might be more than 20. Very, very — actually, currently we have a group which would like to come to us in the Takhar province — we are talking about 36 men. In the other provinces it might be more. And this is what we expect to come. And this equals exactly the size of the group they are fighting in. You know, these are not battalions which are coming. They fight in groups, as I have already said, between 10, 15, 20 maybe more, maybe thirty or forty. But that is what we see on the radar on our bases.
[…]
Q: I haven’t heard the program described as a reintegration program before. Maybe that’s just my ignorance, but do you see it — do you use it primarily as a reintegration program, ie. to bring former fighters back into loyalty to the government, or is anyone eligible — any tribe, any region, eligible to offer up individuals to serve as ALP personnel?
GEN. FRITZ: Well, I think, first of all what concerns the reintegration program, it is really a program to bring people back into society, so to speak. You remember at the beginning I said my impression is that the people are war tired. It is the population — and I think there is a lot of the Taliban fighters. And, I mean, the best what can happen is really they give up, they go back to the village they are from, and they joining the reintegration program. And the job training they get, the vocational training is very good. And also the community, the village they go to, they get some money to support them into these programs. So they are — both sides — it’s a win-win situation.
In the medium- and long-term, I think this is exactly what we need. I mean, if the foot soldiers, so to speak, are leaving the Taliban, the Taliban leaders to where — who should the Taliban leaders fight with? […]
I am not sure what to make of his statements, but having lower level Taliban fighters handing themselves in, rejoin their villages and tribes, receive vocational training and a job, possibly with the local police, seems like not a bad tactic if you are in it for the long haul, like the Taliban. Building the human resource pool for the future.
Posted by: Juan Moment | Jan 7 2011 12:50 utc | 23
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