Month: February 2013

Shadi Hamid, of the Brookings Institution, thinks “we have overlearned the lessons” of Iraq and unfairly let it inform decisions about whether to intervene militarily in Syria:

The memory of the Iraq War obviously looms large. The war, itself, was one of the greatest strategic blunders in the recent history of American foreign policy. But its legacy is proving just as damaging, leading to a series of mistakes that we are likely to regret in due time. There would have been much more willingness to intervene in Syria if we hadn’t intervened in Iraq.

…As [Steven] Cook pointed out in another piece, fundamental questions of morality and philosophy are what, in part, separate proponents and opponents of intervention. “Is it a morally superior position,” Cook asks, “to sit by as people are being killed rather than take action that will kill people, but nevertheless may end up saving lives as well?” The question here, then, isn’t whether it will work, but will it be worth it?

No, the question is still whether it will work. At least that’s one question. As for Cook, his query is formulated all wrong. While it’s no fun to sit by while other people are being killed, Americans are primarily responsible for their own actions, not the actions of others. Furthermore, Cook’s moral plea rests completely on that final phrase: “may end up saving lives as well.” That’s not a very sturdy precept on which to wage war, and it presumes the US government actually cares about people being slaughtered rather than about furthering its own interests in the Middle East.

The more relevant moral and philosophical question that Hamid and Cook ought to be asking is, given the US government’s history of supporting outright slaughter in the hundreds of thousands by the worst kind of dictatorships, how can it be the proper instrument to remedy the situation in Syria?

Hamid ridicules those opponents of intervention who have asked pragmatic questions – “Today, it is fashionable to play technocrat and ask ‘what works?'” – but these are the most important questions. To not ask them, or to leave them unanswered, is to suggest the US march obliviously back into another disastrous war in the Middle East.

So what are the options for military intervention in Syria? A no-fly zone would require American airpower to disable Syria’s, but the Assad regime’s “anti-aircraft capabilities are located in or near urban areas, which means that significant civilian casualties could result from any attempt to eliminate them,” explained Marc Lynch of George Washington University in testimony before a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee back in April.

How about a so-called safe-zone? “Creating and protecting a safe area in Syria would…require a significant and lengthy investment of troops and resources, and would not likely hasten Assad’s collapse,” Lynch added.

Continue reading “‘Syria is Not Iraq’ – Right, It’s Worse”

The US-led sanctions on Iran are strangling the economy: unemployment is high, inflation is rampant, prices of food and other basic necessities are becoming prohibitively expensive. Washington claims the sanctions are meant to punish and coerce the Iranian government, but it’s just making ordinary people suffer.

Well known by now is the fact that the sanctions have also had the effect of blocking much needed medicine for the sick, putting literally millions of lives at risk, according to the Charity Foundation for Special Diseases, a non-government organization in Iran supporting six million patients.

The Iranian Mothers for Peace forum sent an open letter to Mr. Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary General, and Dr. Margaret Chan, the Director General of the World Heath Organization to try to bring attention to the blocking of vital medicines into Iran due to harsh US-led economic sanctions. Read it below:

Dear Dr. Margaret Chan,

As you know, the illegal and inhumane actions led by the US and the EU, targeting the country and the population of Iran, with the stated intention to put pressure on the government of Iran, have intensified in the past two years and increasingly harsher sanctions are imposed almost on a monthly basis.

The regulations governing these inhumane and arbitrary sanctions are executed with such strict inflexibility that Iran is now excluded from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) and the sanctions on banking transactions are preventing Iran from even purchasing its needed medical supplies and instruments.

On the other hand, to avoid suspicion for dealing with Iran, the European banks are fearful not to engage in any kind of financial transactions with Iran and, therefore, in practice, refuse any transfer of payment for medical and health-related items and raw materials needed for the production of domestic pharmaceutical drugs, even payment for well-recognized drugs for the treatment of Special Diseases, which are not of dual use.

Madam Director,

Are you aware that while American and European soldiers’ lives in Afghanistan are being saved by Iranian anti-snake venom potions and medication, Iranian hemophilic children, cancer patients, and those suffering diabetes, under the pretext of the execution of ‘smart sanctions’, are being deprived of their lifeline medication and face death or irreversible disability?

We ask you: What could possibly be the intended target of the wealthy and powerful US and European statesmen’s ‘targeted’ and ‘smart’ sanctions but to destroy the physical and psychological health of the population through the increase of disease and disability?

Madam Director,

We respectfully request from you and from all the relevant international bodies, especially, the World Health Organization and human rights organizations, to act according to their humanitarian and legal responsibilities, and demand the American and European countries leading sanctions on Iran to urgently create the necessary mechanism for opening financial transactions and letters of credit to facilitate the purchase of medicine for Iranian patients.

The right to health and access to medical treatment and medication is one of the fundamental human rights anywhere in the world.  Please do not allow the killing of our sick children, beloved families, and fellow Iranians from the lack of medicine, caught in instrumental policies of coercion and power.

Update: From the Cato Institute, here’s a graph showing the value of the Iranian rial hitting an all time low.

The top officials in the Bush administration were not ones to let the law get in their way. If they wanted to torture and detain people beyond what any conceivable interpretation of US law, even in Guantanamo, could allow, they were going to do it.

The solution, they found, was extraordinary rendition, a program where individuals were sent to other countries with unscrupulous governments so they could do the dirty work of tormenting detainees and depriving them of due process.

According to a new report by the Open Society Justice Initiative, the CIA rendered at least 136 individuals and at least 54 governments around the world participated in the program. Many of these people were completely innocent, something the CIA’s Office of Inspector General called  “erroneous renditions” in their investigation of the program.

Read of the report in the New York Times here. Read it in full here.

Below are 20 findings covered in the report, provided by Open Society:

1. At least 136 individuals were reportedly extraordinarily rendered or secretly detained by the CIA and at least 54 governments reportedly participated in the CIA’s secret detention and extraordinary rendition program; classified government documents may reveal many more.

2. A series of Department of Justice memoranda authorized torture methods that the CIA applied on detainees. The Bush Administration referred to these methods as “enhanced interrogation techniques.” “Enhanced interrogation techniques” included “walling” (quickly pulling the detainee forward and then thrusting him against a flexible false wall), “water dousing,” “waterboarding,” “stress positions” (forcing the detainee to remain in body positions designed to induce physical discomfort), “wall standing” (forcing the detainee to remain standing with his arms outstretched in front of him so that his fingers touch a wall five four to five feet away and support his entire body weight), “cramped confinement” in a box, “insult slaps,” (slapping the detainee on the face with fingers spread), “facial hold” (holding a detainee’s head temporarily immobile during interrogation with palms on either side of the face), “attention grasp” (grasping the detainee with both hands, one hand on each side of the collar opening, and quickly drawing him toward the interrogator), forced nudity, sleep deprivation while being vertically shackled, and dietary manipulation.

3. President Bush has stated that about a hundred detainees were held under the CIA secret detention program, about a third of whom were questioned using “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

4. The CIA’s Office of Inspector General has reportedly investigated a number of “erroneous renditions” in which the CIA had abducted and detained the wrong people. A CIA officer told the Washington Post: “They picked up the wrong people, who had no information.  In many, many cases there was only some vague association” with terrorism.

5. German national Khaled El-Masri was seized in Macedonia because he had been mistaken for an Al Qaeda suspect with a similar name. He was held incommunicado and abused in Macedonia and in secret CIA detention in Afghanistan. On December 13, 2012, the European Court of Human Rights held that Macedonia had violated El-Masri’s rights under the European Convention on Human Rights, and found that his ill-treatment by the CIA at Skopje airport in Macedonia amounted to torture.

Continue reading “20 Facts About Extraordinary Rendition, Torture, and Secret Detention”

Efforts to ban the military from sponsoring NASCAR cars on the grounds that they are a waste of money and simply don’t work have so far been foiled, with efforts to add a ban to military spending bill being removed after the fact. Controversy around it was enough to convince the Army to scrap their sponsorship deal.

Not so with the Air Force, however, which has announced it is going to keep sponsoring the No. 43 car as part of their “strategic marketing” strategy. Discussing the decision, Col. Marcus Johnson says that NASCAR events are attended by “the type of recruits that we look to attract.”

The No. 43 car is sponsored by Air Force, Best Buy and Valvoline. It hasn’t won a race since 1999.

Israeli officials loudly and eagerly condemn the right of return as it relates to Palestinians stuck in multi-generational refugee camps across the region, but the Israeli government itself recognizes the right of return, if you’re a member of the right religion.

According to reports, Israeli NGOs have been eagerly tracking down distant relatives of Jewish people who used to live in East Jerusalem before 1948. Under Israeli law, Jews who lived in “enemy territory” and left before it became occupied territory in 1967 can reclaim their land, evicting any Palestinians who are living there. If they are no longer alive, the NGO can get their heirs to sign over Palestinian homes and neighborhoods to them for settlements.

This exact same right to reclaim lost property is denied to Arabs expelled before 1948, and likewise Israel explicitly refuses to recognize any property rights at all in certain parts of the West Bank, namely the parts where Palestinians own land that settlements are built on.

In the US and Israel, there is an obsession with Iran as this grave threat and their secret nuclear weapons program (which doesn’t exist) as Israel’s death knell. In order to believe this incredible tale, one must accept the claim that Iran’s leaders are suicidal maniacs who don’t respond to the deterrent factor that has informed every nuclear and non-nuclear state since the end of WWII.

As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said to Congress last year, Iran’s leaders are “apocalyptic” and would drop nuclear bombs on Israel as soon as they have the chance because they’re not scared of the inevitable retaliation.

Deterrence worked with the Soviets, because every time the Soviets faced a choice between their ideology and their survival, they chose their survival.

But deterrence may not work with the Iranians once they get nuclear weapons.

There’s a great scholar of the Middle East, Prof. Bernard Lewis, who put it best. He said that for the Ayatollahs of Iran, mutually assured destruction is not a deterrent, it’s an inducement.

This ignores so much history that it’s hard to know where to start. But here’s one possible starting point:

The Times of Israel: Iran reportedly refuses Assad request to hit back at Israel

Israel preemptively bombed Syria in a dangerous strike that could easily be considered an unprovoked act of war. Iran is Syria’s main ally, but Assad’s request that Iran help retaliate was faced with stiff refusal. Not only does Iran appear deterred by Israel’s (and the US’s) exponentially more capable military, but they are even restrained in cases of Israeli aggression. Never mind an unprovoked Iranian attack at their earliest opportunity to obliterate Israel – Iran won’t even retaliate when they have the opportunity.