Month: January 2013

A year ago, the video of US Marines urinating on Afghan corpses surfaced on the internet and shocked most viewers. This week, in the trial proceedings for the Marines’ court-martial, it was revealed that the viral video was one of 12 such videos investigators found filmed that day depicting US Marines “behaving inappropriately.”

The judge in the case was presented with a DVD containing all of the videos. It is 20-minutes long.

This shouldn’t be too surprising to anyone that has managed to divorce themselves from the sterilized depiction of war and its warriors that is constantly propagandized in America. At the time the video became viral, McClatchy reported that Afghans aren’t surprised by the fact that US Marines were urinating on dead Afghans.

“I know a lot of horrible things happen in the south and nobody but the locals know about it,” Jamal Karimi, 32, told McClatchy. “Such things happen all the time, and people talk about it but media hardly report them.”

No matter how many times such dehumanizing behavior on the part of US troops is revealed to the public, the mantra that they are rare exceptions is hardly penetrated. At the time of the release of the urination video, Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Kendra N. Hardesty said in a statement, “The actions portrayed are not consistent with our core values and are not indicative of the character of the Marines in our Corps.”

But as I wrote at the time:

When disgusting photographs of smiling U.S. soldiers proudly standing next to dead Abu Ghraib detainees were released, Americans were basically told to hide their eyes, buy their yellow ribbon bumper stickers and rest assured the incident would be investigated. When news broke 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, Americans were told this was the exception and that the war is still just. When the 5th Stryker Brigade in Kandahar – aka “Kill Team” – slaughtered Afghan children for the fun of it, took celebratory pictures next to their corpses, and mutilated their bodies for evidence of their trophy kill, again Americans were expected to buy into the “bad apple” excuse and forge ahead with the support our troops mantra. When American troops forced Afghan civilians to march ahead of them on roads believed to have been filled with bombs and landmines planted by insurgents, Americans were told it would be investigated and promptly looked away.

The point is not that every single U.S. soldier is the type to urinate on the faces of the dead or hunt Afghan children for sport. Rather, the point is that war invades and contaminates the humanity of individuals. And the context of war abroad while Americans sit safely at home pressures people to ignore its brutality in favor of “patriotism.”

All that said, perhaps the most despicable aspect of the war in Afghanistan is not that soldiers do ugly things; it’s that the soldiers shouldn’t be there to begin with.

Today is the 52nd anniversary of what is perhaps the most important and prophetic farewell address of any US president. Eisenhower’s warning of the unwarranted influence of the military-industrial complex in the councils of government was sound advice, although sadly ignored.

View the entirety of the speech here.

Conn Hallinan has an important piece at Foreign Policy in Focus called Militarizing Latin America: Four More Years. Excerpt:

As it has in Africa and Asia, the Obama administration has militarized its foreign policy vis-à-vis Latin America. Washington has spread a network of bases from Central America to Argentina. Colombia now has seven major bases, and there are U.S. military installations in Honduras, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, and Belize. The newly reactivated Fourth Fleet prowls the South Atlantic. Marines are in Guatemala chasing drug dealers. Special Forces are in Honduras and Colombia. What are their missions? How many are there? We don’t know because much of this deployment is obscured by the cloak of “national security.”

The military buildup is coupled with a disturbing tolerance for coups. When the Honduran military and elites overthrew President Manuel Zelaya in 2009, rather than condemning the ouster, the Obama administration lobbied—albeit largely unsuccessfully—for Latin American nations to recognize the illegally installed government. The White House was also silent about the attempted coup against leftist Rafael Correa in Ecuador the following year, and has refused to condemn the “parliamentary” coup against the progressive president of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, the so-called “Red Bishop.”

And as Dana Frank recently noted in Foreign Affairs, this is a familiar policy for the US:

The situation brings back haunting memories of other U.S. involvements in Latin America. Washington has a dark track record of supporting military coups against democratic governments and then funneling money to repressive regimes. In 1964, the United States backed a military coup in Brazil; in 1973, it supported a military coup headed by Augusto Pinochet in Chile; and during the 1980s, it threw millions of dollars at the leaders in El Salvador. All of these U.S.–backed governments ruled with enormous brutality.

Obama continues to use the ridiculous and failed drug war as a pretext to prop up ugly, military regimes with horrible human rights records throughout Latin America. Washington has also very often directed these governments on how to approach their domestic “security problems,” which invariably means that the approach is militarized. This has led to some very bloody results in places like Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Colombia, and elsewhere. Hallinan continues:

The drug war has been an unmitigated disaster, as an increasing number of Latin American leaders are concluding. At least 100,000 people have been killed or disappeared in Mexico alone, and the drug trade is corrupting governments, militaries and police forces from Bolivia to the U.S. border. And lest we think this is a Latin American problem, several Texas law enforcement officers were recently indicted for aiding and abetting the movement of drugs from Mexico to the U.S.

The Obama administration should join the growing chorus of regional leaders who have decided to examine the issue of legalization and to de-militarize the war against drugs. Recent studies have demonstrated that there is a sharp rise in violence once militaries become part of the conflict and that, as Portugal and Australia have demonstrated, legalization does not lead to an increase in the number of addicts.

In Obama’s next four years as President, these trends appear to be continuing. Experts expect more reliance on special operations forces, a greater spy presence, and greater use of drones in the region

One of the central demands of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in order for him to keep playing ball with the US, was to gain full control over all Afghan prisons after US forces drawdown in 2014. The Obama administration reluctantly agreed to this demand and has been slowly transferring prisoners to Afghan controlled prisons.

The New York Times reports today that the US military “has suspended the transfer of detainees to some Afghan prisons out of concern over continuing human rights abuses and torture.”

First of all, there has been a record of abuse at both US-controlled and Afghan-controlled prisons, and it has been largely ignored by the US. Talk of swapping control of prisoners really picked up in early 2012 when an Afghan investigative commission accused the US military of abusing detainees in the Bagram prison facilities. Detainees interviewed by the investigators spoke of being held in freezing cold cells, forced nudity, physical abuse, and extended isolation. Most of the 3,000 or so detainees in Bagram had been physically abused, hadn’t been charged, had seen no evidence against them, and had no right to be represented by a lawyer. As Attorney for Human Rights First Daphne Eviatar said in a CBS interview, “It’s worse than Guantanamo, because there are fewer rights.”

And then there are the Afghan prisons. Back in October, the United Nations released a report which found that detainees in Afghan-controlled prisons are hung from the ceilings by their wrists, severely beaten with cables and wooden sticks, have their toenails torn off, are treated with electric shock, and even have their genitals twisted until they lose consciousness. The study, which covered 47 facilities sites in 22 provinces, found “a compelling pattern and practice of systematic torture and ill-treatment” during interrogation by U.S.-supported Afghan authorities. And they weren’t all alone: both U.S. and NATO military trainers and counterparts have been working closely with these authorities, consistently supervising the detention facilities and funding their operations.

In addition to supposed US concern about an increase in abuse at Afghan-controlled prisons, the Times reports, “the American-led coalition said that it had asked the Afghan government to investigate allegations of torture by Afghan Local Police units that have been trained and advised by American Special Operations forces.”

“Afghan military forces and police that operate effectively and with respect for human rights are central to the success of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan,” Commander Bill Speaks, a Pentagon spokesman on Afghan policy, told the Times.

Really? The US is concerned with American-trained Afghan forces having respect for human rights? They sure haven’t demonstrated that.

Back in September 2011, Human Rights Watch released a report detailing the widespread human rights abuses being committed by the Afghan Local Police, and how neither Washington or Kabul are holding them accountable or changing policy in light of the crimes. The report “documents serious abuses, such as killings, rape, arbitrary detention, abductions, forcible land grabs, and illegal raids by irregular armed groups in northern Kunduz province and the Afghan Local Police (ALP).”

The ALP has been accused of “beating teenage boys and hammering nails into the feet of one boy,” although no arrests were made. “In April,” the report documents, “four armed ALP members in Baghlan abducted a 13-year-old boy on his way home from the bazaar and took him to the house of an ALP sub-commander, where he was gang raped.” The ALP consistently raids Afghan homes, steal personal belongings, beat residents, and illegally detains Afghans.

Yet in  March 2011, General Petraeus told the US Senate that the ALP is “arguably the most critical element in our effort to help Afghanistan develop the capacity to secure itself.” This is America’s version of “respect for human rights.”

This story is indicative of how detrimental the US military adventure in Afghanistan has been. Afghans are stuck between an abusive military occupation by a foreign power, a corrupt, brutal regime backed by a foreign power, and a ruthless militant insurgency that has been bolstered through a decade of guerrilla warfare. Anyone who thinks staying in Afghanistan one day longer is a recipe for altering this course isn’t looking at the facts.

I see my colleague John Glaser has taken to the hustings to once again express his skepticism of All Things Hagel. He’s convinced that our boy Chuck has “flipped and flopped like a fish out of water” in response to the Other Chuck’s (Chuck Schumer, that is) interrogation. His evidence? A Los Angeles Times story which he quotes at this point: “According to Schumer …” So we are getting the story second-hand.

Another reason to be skeptical of Glaser’s skepticism: among Hagel’s alleged mortal sins is the assertion by Schumer that “Hagel promised to make planning military options against Iran his ‘top priority,'” a prospect that, on the surface, seems ominous — unless one looks at what sort of “option” it might be. For Hagel has said that air strikes will not suffice, and that we’ll need at least 100,000 troops on the ground in any conflict with the Iranians. In short, it will be another Iraq — only worse.

“Make planning military options against Iran his ‘top priority'”? I say go for it, Chuck. Because, given his grim prognosis, it’s hard  to imagine the President will go for it.

As for disavowing his previous support for opening negotiations with Hamas: since this was never a possibility, it’s hard to be disappointed. On sanctions: it’s not within the Pentagon’s purview to make policy on this issue, and so — again — this is simply not relevant.

Glaser misses the real point of the Hagel nomination fight, and it is this: a victory for Hagel would be a huge defeat for the War Party, which has gone after Hagel hammer and tongs. That in and of itself would strike a big blow for peace. Why this is so hard to understand is … hard to understand. As one of the commenters on John’s post put it:

“The ONLY thing that matters is that Hagel stops Netanyahu and the Israel Lobby from an attack on Iran – THAT’S IT. It’s a ‘single issue’ “

Exactly.

Much was supposedly riding on Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) decision about whether to support Obama’s nomination for Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel. Schumer is a big supporter of Israel and a shameless foreign policy hawk, and Hagel’s past positions – like, being willing to criticize Israel and advocating diplomacy over belligerence on Iran – deeply troubled him.

So the two Chucks decided to meet, so that both could be reassured of the other’s political good faith. How it apparently turned out is that Hagel flipped and flopped like a fish out of water. The Los Angeles Times explains:

According to Schumer, Hagel promised to make planning military options against Iran his “top priority,” if confirmed, disavowed a past call to open negotiations with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, and said further unilateral U.S. sanctions against Iran may be necessary — positions that are seemingly at odds with stances the former Nebraska lawmaker has previously taken.

Hagel also told Schumer he regretted once using the term “Jewish lobby” to refer to Israel supporters in Washington and promised to work for “on-time delivery” of F-35 fighters and other military equipment to Israel, the statement said.

…”I know some will question whether Senator Hagel’s assurances are merely attempts to quiet critics as he seeks confirmation to this critical post. But I don’t think so. Senator Hagel realizes the situation in the Middle East has changed, with Israel in a dramatically more endangered position than it was even five years ago. His views are genuine, and reflect this new reality,” Schumer said.

I wrote last week that it was unlikely Hagel immediately abandoned his political views once Obama nominated him. But this explicit disavowal of almost every one of his positions is just foul. Either Hagel is willing to verbally placate nearly anyone for his own political career, or he is actually shifting his views for the sake of his political career. I’m not sure which is worse.