Month: April 2013

(via Charles Davis)

A meticulously documented report on post-9/11 torture and interrogation from The Constitution Project, a legal research and advocacy group, concludes that “it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture” and that US officials in the highest echelons of government are the ones responsible for it.

“The sweeping, 577-page report says that while brutality has occurred in every American war, there never before had been ‘the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after 9/11 directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody,'” The New York Times reports.

The report is comprehensive and is critical both of the Bush administration’s conduct and of the Obama administration’s, which blocked efforts to get a full account of the torture programs.

The full document can be read here, but I did want to point out one short excerpt as an example of how detailed and hard-hitting it is. In the context of extraordinary renditions, a program in which detainees would be sent to authoritarian governments to be tortured, the report reminds us of something that was reported long before but is worth making note of again:

[Egyptian army general] Omar Suleiman’s personal relationship with the United States was cited by DOS as “probably the most successful element of the [U.S.-Egypt] relationship.” 41 On one reported occasion, when the CIA “asked for a DNA sample from a relative of Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Suleiman offered the man’s whole arm instead.”

Remember, Suleiman is the man that the Obama administation picked to succeed Mubarak after popular protests unseated the long-standing US-backed dictator.

Note the lingering fallout from the post-9/11 history of torture: the Obama administration is at least indirectly responsible for ongoing torture of detainees in Afghanistan and currently has 166 prisoners in Gitmo serving indefinite detention – many of whom have been cleared for release and are starving themselves as a form of protest against their injustice. One reason for the massive expansion of the drone war under Bush’s successor is that detention and torture are too messy – so Obama has learned that killing them is the way to go.

I’ve held back on writing something about the Boston Marathon bombings because there is little to comment on about the actual incident before something is known about the perpetrators. But here are a few reflections on the public reaction to the attack.

Selective Empathy

As many people have already pointed out, the collective empathy that Americans feel for victims of similar attacks when they are carried out by our own government is virtually zero compared to what is being felt now for Bostonians. It was just indubitably confirmed through hard investigative journalism last week that large portions of the 3,000-4,000 people killed in the drone war have been unidentified individuals without any connection to any terrorist or insurgent groups in conflict with the US. For years, there have been indisputable reports of massive civilian casualties in drone bombings in Pakistan, Yemen, and beyond.

“How different are the images produced by such attacks—shattered bodies, dismembered limbs, severed arteries, frantic aid givers and terrified survivors—how different from the moving images of the tragedy in Boston now being broadcast and rebroadcast on TV stations around the globe?”  Barry Lando asks.

Within hours of the Marathon bombings, more than 75 people were killed in a bombing in Iraq. The perpetrators were part of a group called Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), a group that only exists as a result of the illegal US war and invasion, which itself got hundreds of thousands of people killed. This is a regular occurrence in and around Baghdad, and has been since the start of the Bush administration’s elective war there. But most Americans have been unconcerned.

The most important thing to glean from this discrepancy in empathy for senseless acts of violence inflicted on our own countrymen as compared with the senseless acts of violence carried out by our own countrymen on equally innocent people abroad was articulated brilliantly by Glenn Greenwald today:

Regardless of your views of justification and intent: whatever rage you’re feeling toward the perpetrator of this Boston attack, that’s the rage in sustained form that people across the world feel toward the US for killing innocent people in their countries. Whatever sadness you feel for yesterday’s victims, the same level of sadness is warranted for the innocent people whose lives are ended by American bombs. However profound a loss you recognize the parents and family members of these victims to have suffered, that’s the same loss experienced by victims of US violence. It’s natural that it won’t be felt as intensely when the victims are far away and mostly invisible, but applying these reactions to those acts of US aggression would go a long way toward better understanding what they are and the outcomes they generate.

I’ve reviewed on this blog over and over again the abundance of commentary from locals in Yemen and Pakistan who give testimony to the fact that the US drone war breeds deep resentment that can be immensely consequential.

“People are afraid to go to weddings because, whenever large groups of men gather, they are afraid a drone will hit them,” a sheikh from Bayhan district in Shabwa told The Economist last year.

After a September 2012 drone strike that killed 13 civilians, a local Yemeni activist told CNN, “I would not be surprised if a hundred tribesmen joined the lines of al Qaeda as a result of the latest drone mistake. This part of Yemen takes revenge very seriously.”

There is an important lesson to be learned from the despair Americans feel today: it is universal.

Tragedy Elicits State Worship

Whenever there is a horrible attack like this one, Americans invariably morph their feelings of anger and sadness into overt expressions of state worship. It seems almost instinctual. Everybody starts proclaiming their love for the USA –  their pride and admiration for the police, military, and elected officials.

This is not trivial. States are violent institutions by their very nature, but they thrive on what is called “stability” because stability means people aren’t unsatisfied and disillusioned and are therefore less likely to question the authority of the government and “cause trouble.” It is a testament to hundreds of years of ideological propaganda in concert with state formation that the first instinct of most people after such an incident is to rally around the flag, the government, its officials, and its armed militias.

In times like these, patriotism and nationalistic fervor take over – which is just another way of saying dissent and self-criticism are met with heightened hostility.

It’s too early to say what the consequences of these reactions will be in the near future. But as I warned on Twitter hours after the bombing yesterday, we should be prepared for one set of reactions if this turns out to be concocted by Islamists, and a very different set if not.

From the Guardian:

Jordan has agreed to spearhead a Saudi-led push to arm rebel groups through its borders into southern Syria, in a move that coincides with the transfer from Riyadh to Amman of more than $1bn (£650m).

It marks a significant change for Jordan, from a policy of trying to contain the spillover threat posed by the civil war across its border to one of actively aiming to end it before it engulfs the cash-strapped kingdom.

Jordan’s role as a conduit for arms has emerged in the past two months as Saudi Arabia, some Gulf states, Britain and the US have sharply increased their backing of some rebels to try to stop the advances of al-Qaida-linked groups among them.

A push to defeat al-Qaida, rather than an outright bid to oust Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad, is Jordan’s driving force.

This news coincides with my argument that Obama’s policy in Syria long ago abandoned any effort to oust the Assad regime and is instead geared toward containing and undermining the rise of al-Qaeda militants among the rebel opposition.

Non-interventionists have decried the administration’s pretense of aiding the rebels, and rightly so. But many are also wedded to the belief that Washington is engaged in an effort to impose regime change and establish a client state in Syria, simultaneously eliminating Iran’s major ally. As I’ve written, however, this is not the reality.

That said, the efforts of Jordan, the Gulf states, and the Obama administration to arm and train moderate elements of the Syrian rebels is an exercise in futility. As has been reported for months, al-Qaeda offshoots in the Syrian opposition like Jabhat al-Nusra are the rebels’ main fighting force. The major gains of the rebel fighters in the past year can largely be attributed to these jihadists: they are the best armed, most well trained, and fiercest battalions around. This partly explains why the bulk of the rebels, jihadists or not, have repeatedly pledged allegiance to the Islamic extremists.

So, an effort to undermine the rebels’ main source of strategic and military utility will not result in an end to the conflict or to the Assad regime. The aid will not be “decisive,” as the wonks say. That is, it will not come in the form of tanks and anti-aircraft weapons and therefore will not stand against the Syrian military. And anyways, the so-called “vetting process” used to distinguish moderates from extremists is basically a farce.

In addition, the policy of aiding proxy rebels is at least part of what has sustained the conflict for so long, worsening the humanitarian crisis and aiding al-Qaeda’s rise in Syria. Aid that is redirected away from extremists will still be doing damage, never mind the fact that the Saudi Arabian and Jordanian regimes can’t exactly be trusted to actually aid “moderates” fighting for “democracy” post-Assad.

From Ron Paul’s former Congressional foreign policy aide, now executive director of his new Peace Institute, Daniel McAdams:

The Neo-Conservative Era Is Dead

Former Congressman Ron Paul will hold a press conference this Wednesday to launch his next big project: the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. After decades in and out of the US House of Representatives leading the call for a non-interventionist foreign policy and the protection of civil liberties, Dr. Paul is launching a revolutionary new vehicle to expand his efforts. The Institute will serve as the focal point of a new coalition that crosses political, ideological, and party lines.

The Ron Paul Institute will focus on the two issues most important to Dr. Paul, education and coming generations. It will fill the growing demand for information on foreign affairs from a non-interventionist perspective through a lively and diverse website, and will provide unique educational opportunities to university students and others.

The neo-conservative era is dead. The ill-advised policies pushed by the neo-cons have everywhere led to chaos and destruction, and to a hatred of the United States and its people. Multi-trillion dollar wars have not made the world a safer place; they have only bankrupted our economic future. The Ron Paul Institute will provide the tools and the education to chart a new course with the understanding that only through a peaceful foreign policy can we hope for a prosperous tomorrow.

Founder, Chairman, and CEO Dr. Paul has invited the Institute’s board of advisors to speak at the conference, including Rep. Walter Jones, Jr. (NC), Rep. John Duncan, Jr. (TN), former Rep. Dennis Kucinich (OH), Judge Andrew Napolitano, Ambassador Faith Whittlesey, and Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

What: Press Conference To Inaugurate the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
When: Wednesday, April 17th, 3:00 PM
Where: Capitol Hill Club, 300 1st St., SE, Washington, DC. (California Room)