Month: July 2011

A new expose from the Nation by Jeremy Scahill detailing the CIA’s same, old dirty tricks is certainly troubling. Candidate Obama assured the American public that extrajudicial actions by the CIA and Defense Department were a thing of the past. Transparency, much like hope and change, were buzz words that were constantly used to show everybody that the era of Bush was over. A new ethical era was to take hold in the White House, and would be anchored by Nancy Pelosi’s vow to oversee a Congress of integrity.

Just as Obama campaigned to make the most sweeping changes when it came to the realm of foreign policy (Guantanamo Bay, ending the war in Iraq, ending torture, etc.), it was in foreign policy that he became the most like Bush. In fact, many would argue that Obama has not only continued many of Bush’s odious practices, but has institutionalized all of these practices because of his refusal to change course.

While the secret prison that was discussed in length surely was troubling, it almost seems like the least of worries when compared to some of the statements made by officials concerning future plans for Somalia. And yes, that comparison still holds for a prison “infested with bedbugs and mosquitoes” that result in prisoners getting “rashes” prompting them to “scratch themselves incessantly.” These prisoners, who like at other covert rendition sites run a high chance of being completely innocent, “described the cells as windowless and the air thick, moist and disgusting.” Additionally, torture and perpetual interrogation are commonplace. Again, I don’t wish to trivialize the significance of yet another secret prison site, but there are much more troublesome plans in the future for Somalia:

During his confirmation hearings in June to become the head of the US Special Operations Command, Vice Admiral William McRaven said, “From my standpoint as a former JSOC commander, I can tell you we were looking very hard” at Somalia. McRaven said that in order to expand successful “kinetic strikes” there, the United States will have to increase its use of drones as well as on-the-ground intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations. “Any expansion of manpower is going to have to come with a commensurate expansion of the enablers,” McRaven declared. The expanding US counterterrorism program in Mogadishu appears to be part of that effort.

The neverending “War on Terror” knows no bounds or limitations. Wherever and whenever, if there is even so much as a perceived threat, then a new theatre in the war could be opened. Al-Shabaab is currently the aggressor du jour, competing for the spotlight with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

And just like enhanced interrogation was the Newspeak of yesteryear, so today is “kinetic.” No, drone strikes that kill dozens is not indicative of a war. Nor are recon missions and surveillance. It’s just the new style of diplomacy, albeit bloody, messy and in the dark.

What’s even more frightening is that McRaven is already talking about bringing in more diplomats (read: special ops, surveillance, and all different kinds of boots on the ground). The only way that such an operation would ever be able to take off, naturally, is with a little kickback to the military industrial complex in the form of “enablers.”

Later on, if a Congressional hearing is ever scheduled to review the covert operations in Somalia (don’t hold your breath), the chickenhawks and policymakers can use justification by quoting Abdulkadir Moallin Noor, the minister of state for the presidency, “We need more; otherwise, the terrorists will take over the country.” I hate to break it to Noor, but the 30 square miles that the Somali “government” controls in Mogadishu is hardly what I would call a sterling record.

It is this statement from Noor that succinctly summarizes everything that is wrong with American foreign policy. Surely, Al Shabaab is dangerous to Somalis. It would be foolish to deny that their hardline Islamism and ruthless attacks on innocent civilians is problematic. But why should the US be concerned? Why should more money be poured into a far off land only to achieve minimal, if any results?

The American public will continue to hear the trite justification that Somalia is becoming a safe haven for terrorists or that terrorism, no matter where, must be fought at all cost. But before the United States begins yet another doomed military adventure, Washington ought to remember that Al-Shabaab has only once launched an attack outside of Somalia.

The target: Uganda. The justification: foreign intervention.

Over at Econlog, Arnold Kling directs us to this interesting and much needed article arguing that the IMF has “outlived its purpose.” Excerpt:

The IMF’s business model sabotages properly functioning capitalism, victimizing ordinary people while benefiting the elites. Do we need international agencies to enable irresponsible–verging on immoral–borrowing and lending? Instead of dreaming up too-clever-by-half schemes to stumble through crises after they happen, why not just stop imprudent banks from accommodating foreign borrowing by feckless governments?

The piece is good in its entirety, so do read it.

One of the many reasons IMF/World Bank policies tend to exacerbate the problems that countries experiencing this Arab Spring face and have faced is because they help legitimate the state officials of Arab tyrannies (so long as the U.S. legitimates them too) by (1) implementing doomed Keynesian booster-programs and (2) orchestrating top-down policies that these tyrants then use to their advantage. I blogged a bit about this back in May, but here is Austin Mackell at the Guardian in the same month:

The new loans being negotiated for Egypt and Tunisia will lock both countries into long-term economic strategies even before the first post-revolution elections have been held. Given the IMF’s history, we should expect these to have devastating consequences on the Egyptian and Tunisian people.

[The IMF] would rather make backroom deals with Mubarak-appointed finance minister, Samir Radwan, and the generals currently running Egypt who are themselves members of an the economic elite that sees its privilege threatened by the approach of democracy.

Mackell discredits himself by citing the economically illiterate Naomi Klein later in the piece, but it is important to note the overlap here. Those opposed to the Western imperialism that has in many ways held back the entire region should rightly oppose the economic technocrats attempting to pull the levers from their outfits at the IMF and World Bank. And those who understand that economies free from the white-knuckled grip of these dictatorships (again, many propped up by the U.S.) would empower and improve the lives of these populations should oppose what these international economic agencies do, which is falsely branded as imposing free market policies.

Jeremy Scahill’s excellent report at The Nation magazine exposes secret CIA prisons which confine uncharged individuals in terribly inhumane conditions without access to legal council, a Somali intelligence agency supported and trained by the CIA, and on the ground operations conducted by the Joint Special Operations Command. All of this intervention into the lawless Somali country is done unilaterally and kept largely secret from Congress and the American people. Excerpt:

As part of its expanding counterterrorism program in Somalia, the CIA also uses a secret prison buried in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters, where prisoners suspected of being Shabab members or of having links to the group are held. Some of the prisoners have been snatched off the streets of Kenya and rendered by plane to Mogadishu. While the underground prison is officially run by the Somali NSA, US intelligence personnel pay the salaries of intelligence agents and also directly interrogate prisoners. The existence of both facilities and the CIA role was uncovered by The Nation during an extensive on-the-ground investigation in Mogadishu. Among the sources who provided information for this story are senior Somali intelligence officials; senior members of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG); former prisoners held at the underground prison; and several well-connected Somali analysts and militia leaders, some of whom have worked with US agents, including those from the CIA. A US official, who confirmed the existence of both sites, told The Nation, “It makes complete sense to have a strong counterterrorism partnership” with the Somali government.

The CIA presence in Mogadishu is part of Washington’s intensifying counterterrorism focus on Somalia, which includes targeted strikes by US Special Operations forces, drone attacks and expanded surveillance operations. The US agents “are here full time,” a senior Somali intelligence official told me. At times, he said, there are as many as thirty of them in Mogadishu, but he stressed that those working with the Somali NSA do not conduct operations; rather, they advise and train Somali agents.

Not only does this add further credence to the claim that the Obama administration is conducting an additional war (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen?) in Somalia, but it demonstrates how irreparably disconnected the Executive’s war prerogatives are from Congress, the courts, the American people, or any form of checks, transparency, or accountability under the law. Libya is to some extent unique in that the operations were publicly announced and conducted with a level of international support; and we’ve seen the, albeit limited, backlash against such broad interpretations of presidential war-making powers. These secret engagements in Somalia are not even publicly announced, giving the Obama administration and its secret army and intelligence services full reign to do whatever they want. Additionally, such covert, embedded operations like the one in Somalia have many more entangled unintended consequences and blowback potential, which has already arisen, as Scahill reports:

In the eighteen years since the infamous “Black Hawk Down” incident in Mogadishu, US policy on Somalia has been marked by neglect, miscalculation and failed attempts to use warlords to build indigenous counterterrorism capacity, many of which have backfired dramatically. At times, largely because of abuses committed by Somali militias the CIA has supported, US policy has strengthened the hand of the very groups it purports to oppose and inadvertently aided the rise of militant groups, including the Shabab. Many Somalis viewed the Islamic movement known as the Islamic Courts Union, which defeated the CIA’s warlords in Mogadishu in 2006, as a stabilizing, albeit ruthless, force. The ICU was dismantled in a US-backed Ethiopian invasion in 2007. Over the years, a series of weak Somali administrations have been recognized by the United States and other powers as Somalia’s legitimate government. Ironically, its current president is a former leader of the ICU.

Current American intervention in Somalia, as documented by Scahill and others, is therefore troublesome on two levels. On the one hand, the lawlessness of the rendition program in Somalia and neighboring countries, the criminally harsh and negligent treatment that suffering detainees endure without charge or trial, and the reliably inhumane behavior of the Somali agents the CIA supports and trains all create serious human suffering and contribute to a very ugly humanitarian crisis there. These are crimes which are unlikely to ever be accounted for. On the other hand, the demonstrated history of these policies leading to additional security threats and destabilizing circumstances serves to further indict U.S. national security planners for engaging in policies that have the predictable result of further endangering American citizens and further entrenching the U.S. in dangerous countries and groups. Again, with no accountability.

The case of Manadel al-Jamadi, the Abu Ghraib prisoner who in 2003 was hung from his arms twisted behind his back, beaten, and tortured to death at the hands of U.S. interrogators in Iraq, is in the news again. AP reports:

A CIA officer who oversaw the agency’s interrogation program at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and pushed for approval to use increasingly harsh tactics has come under scrutiny in a federal war crimes investigation involving the death of a prisoner, witnesses told The Associated Press.

Steve Stormoen, who is now retired from the CIA, supervised an unofficial program in which the CIA imprisoned and interrogated men without entering their names in the Army’s books.

The so-called “ghosting” program was unsanctioned by CIA headquarters. In fact, in early 2003, CIA lawyers expressly prohibited the agency from running its own interrogations, current and former intelligence officials said. The lawyers said agency officers could be present during military interrogations and add their expertise but, under the laws of war, the military must always have the lead.

Yet, in November 2003, CIA officers brought a prisoner, Manadel al-Jamadi, to Abu Ghraib and, instead of turning him over to the Army, took him to a shower stall. They put a sandbag over his head, handcuffed him behind his back and chained his arms to a barred window. When he leaned forward, his arms stretched painfully behind and above his back.

This is the first I’ve heard of any significant, even somewhat high-level prosecutions against those interrogators who committed crimes and oversaw the torture regimes in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, or Bagram. This is an interesting case because the particulars make it easy for the government and military to employ their time honored “bad apple” routine (clear themselves from blame or prosecution by isolating their crimes within a set of “bad apples” who went their own way to commit crimes despite the path of righteousness that the superiors took). Apparently, under the umbrella of CIA officer Mr. Stormoen, a system of torture and inhumane treatment took place that circumvented officially sanctioned CIA/U.S. government policy. It is convenient, to say the least, for the politics of the situation because to the extent this is true it will appear to absolve Bush (and Obama) administration officials implicated in the post-9/11 torture regime, as well as make them seem like card-carrying-rule-of-law types.

It is important to note that, while the case of al-Jamadi is one of the most well-known cases of homicide at U.S. prison sites (partially due to the famous picture of U.S. soldiers and interrogators smiling and flashing thumbs up next to Jamadi’s lifeless, swollen body) it is hardly the only case. Salah Ahmed Al-Salami, Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi, and Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani all died at Guantanamo on June 9, 2006. Commanders at Guantanamo as well as a subsequent U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service report claimed they were all suicides, despite the evidence that these authorities were engaged in a massive cover up to hide the fact that these three men, who had never been charged with any crime, were murdered in U.S. custody. Indeed, an estimated 100 detainees have died during interrogations, in many cases showing signs of brutal torture which led to their passing. This is just one of many pieces of the puzzle which illustrate just how systematic and officially sanctioned were these policies.

The pity of this case is that it again draws attention to the fact that the extra-legal torture and abuse was perpetrated by high-level officials and approved by our highest governing authorities, as opposed to this shopworn “bad apple” excuse. At the very least those authorities instituted a murky legal environment where such treatment was inevitable. This warrants a serious investigation and prosecution of the highest reaches of the Bush administration. But not only has Obama decreed such “looking back” not take place, he has continued the abuse and outlawry himself.

Some will view this prosecution of Stormoen as a first step or as some commendable victory for human rights accountability and so forth. But the way it is being prosecuted and framed will reinforce the impenetrable protective legal bubble surrounding the highest officials most responsible for such crimes. That any prosecution is taking place at all will simply lead to more praise and impunity for the Bush and Obama administration officials.

Lebanon and Israel are becoming even more hostile to one another in disputes over natural gas deposits in the Mediterranean. The recent hostilities are due to maritime borders that were approved by Israel’s cabinet and sent to the United Nations for approval. This prompted a response from the Lebanese:

‘The new border as proposed by Israel cuts through Lebanon’s economic zone,’ said Lebanon’s Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour.

‘Israel’s new measures will create more tension in the region and will threaten peace and security,’ Mansour told reporters. He added that Lebanon would also refer the issue to the United Nations.

Lebanon’s president Michel Suleiman warned against any ‘unilateral decisions Israel may take on maritime borders which would be a breach of international law.’

As both countries are still technically at war and diplomatic relations have been severed, there are no legitimate channels through which Israel and Lebanon can directly resolve the dispute. While Lebanon is yet to threaten any military action, Israel has already done so. When the fields were first discovered, National Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau said, “We will not hesitate to use our force and strength to protect not only the rule of law but the international maritime law.” Almost speaking preemptively, Landau added, “Whatever we find, they will have something to say. That’s because they’re not challenging our findings and so-called occupation of the sea. Our very existence here is a matter of occupation for them. These areas are within the economic waters of Israel.”

As a map of the natural gas shows, the deposits are quite literally on the borders of the two countries were they extended out to sea. The catch, however, is whether or not a Lebanese or Israeli map is used. An Israeli map would extend its northern border from west of Metula out to the Mediterranean, whereas a Lebanese map would would extend the Israeli border from Rosh Hanrika out towards the Mediterranean.

The deposits are significant, estimated to be worth around $40 billion. Israel has started the ball rolling early and is already establishing infrastructure to exploit the deposits while Lebanon has barely done anything. With so much money at stake, as well as hostile relations between the two countries, there runs the risk of a flare up between Israel and Lebanon.

 

Recent reports of Iranian “interference” in Iraq again note a central tendency in imperial culture: we own the world. The talk about Iraqi Shiites using Iranian weapons to fight their American occupiers (which is by no means an established fact) was first, but then the other day there were all these warnings about how Iranian forces trespassed across the Iraqi border. It was treated in the American press as if a foreign army had marched onto the American homeland. But then, that is precisely how the imperial mindset perceives it: Iraq qualifies as our land because, after all, it’s here on planet Earth. Since we own the world, our jurisdiction extends throughout the globe and anywhere we see unwelcome feet it’s the equivalent of unwelcome feet on the Texas borderland or traversing Cape Cod. Of course, nobody sees the 50,000 U.S. military troops, down from 170,000 at one point, (not to mention contractors) as foreign troops. Our army is always indigenous, because we own the world.

And this “waiting game” about an Iraqi decision on U.S. troop withdrawal seems rather superficial to me. To speculate, I think it is likely that the U.S. is pressuring the Iraqi leadership to “decide” on a continued U.S. military presence there. Rather absent from the propaganda in the American media about the withdrawal is what everyday Iraqis think about the ongoing U.S. occupation. To everyone directly involved in the decision making on this issue, public opinion is irrelevant. Good polls asking them directly can be found (last hyperlink), but nothing very recent to my knowledge. This latest Iraqi public opinion poll, however, shows that large majorities believe the country is going in the wrong direction and that only 2 percent think increased U.S. military patrols are a good option to improve security.

Much of the short term mission in Iraq has been achieved, and the longterm mission – to keep a contingent force there forever, as we have in many other countries around the world – seems to me to be in the works. After all, you don’t build the world’s largest and most expensive U.S. Embassy (which fully opened only in 2009) if you plan to leave. If only we could get the Iraqis to realize that our troops are never foreign.