Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer
Those people who feel there is something “wrong” with President Barack Obama’s politics can’t quite put their finger on it. So they call him a “socialist” or even “Communist,” and, like former New York mayor Rudy Guiliani, maintain that he doesn’t “love America.”
But since they probably haven’t been university students recently, they aren’t familiar with Obama’s real ideology – “post-colonialism,” as fathered by the late Palestinian-American Columbia University professor Edward Said.
Most of today’s “political correctness” has emerged from this brew of Marxism and what we might refer to as “Third World liberationism.” And in terms of foreign policy, it is directed at western regimes – and in particular, to the “settler state” of Israel. On the other hand, brutal regimes such as the one in Iran are still seen as “victims.”
By the time Obama got to college, after spending most of his youth in Hawaii and Indonesia (which is what Guiliani meant by saying Obama was not brought up like most Americans), this dogma had replaced the New Left activism of the 1960s espoused by people like Obama’s own mother.
Since the November 2014 midterm Congressional elections, Obama has become more open in his espousal of this world-view – after all, he no longer has to face an electorate, nor does his party, until 2016 -- and it became more clear that he was a disciple of Said’s.
I was just referring to ideological affinity. But then I did a simple Google search, entering the words Barack Obama and Edward Said, and – lo and behold – it turns out there was an actual personal connection.
It appears that Obama, as a student at Columbia University in New York in 1982, took courses with the leading theoretician of post-colonialism, the academic who authored Culture and Imperialism, The Question of Palestine, The Politics of Dispossession, and his 1978 masterwork, Orientalism. That last book, in particular, has shaped how the world is viewed by a generation of academics, journalists, and other intellectuals.
In Culture and Imperialism, Said wrote that “The United States has replaced the earlier great empires and is the dominant outside force.” For Obama, the idea of “American exceptionalism” has been a ruse designed to mask America’s position as the inheritor of European colonialism.
Obama and Said kept in touch after Obama moved to Chicago, where the future president would become a community organizer. The Obamas attended a Palestinian fundraiser in Chicago in May 1998 at which Said was the featured speaker.
Obama also befriended Said’s protegé Rashid Khalidi, who was at the time a professor at the University of Chicago. Khalidi moved to Columbia in 2003, where he currently occupies the Edward Said chair of Modern Arab Studies. The Obamas attended his farewell party.
A special tribute at the party came from “Khalidi’s friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama,” reported an April 10, 2008 Los Angeles Times article. “Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi’s wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.”
The consequences for American policy in the Middle East have been profound, including the current “cold war” between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
National Security Adviser Susan Rice blasted Netanyahu’s March 3 address to Congress, in which he warned that the future of Israel, and the world, is imperiled by a pending “bad deal” with Iran on its nuclear program.
Rice called his visit “destructive” to relations between the U.S. and Israel. Such invective is almost unheard of when speaking about an ally.
Obama’s politics also harkens back to an older American tradition, that of the influential Communist-organized Popular Front of the 1930s. As University of Connecticut Professor Christopher Vials observes in his recent book Haunted by Hitler: Liberals, the Left, and the Fight Against Fascism in the United States, “Popular Front nationalism was of an aspirational sort.”
Rather than applauding the United States for “offering the best system in the world, it praised the nation mainly for the promise it held for the future.”
Obama loves today’s America less than he does the future one he is helping to create, where subaltern groups who are socially, politically, and geographically outside of the power structure -- African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims -- would gain their place in an America that will have finally transcended its white, largely Protestant ideological past: Hence his fervent pro-immigration stance.
Edward Said did his work well. Who says academics have no influence!
Professor Henry Srebrnik
Monday, March 09, 2015
Thursday, March 05, 2015
Abkhazia, South Ossetia: Two De Facto States in South Caucasus
Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
In 2008, then president Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia decided to conquer two areas, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, that had been autonomous parts of Georgia when that country was itself one of the 15 constituent republics in the Soviet Union.
In the complex ethnically-based federal structure of the Soviet Union, Abkhazia had been an autonomous republic while South Ossetia was an autonomous region, both within Georgia.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia had successfully seceded from Georgia after 1991, when the Soviet Union was dissolved and ethnic tensions grew over Georgia’s moves towards independence. In both, there was a mass exodus of ethnic Georgians. (Prior to this, ethnic Abkhaz were in fact a minority within their republic.)
Saakashvili, who rose to power in Georgia after the Rose Revolution that ousted the country’s former leader, ex-Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze, in 2003, was determined to get the two entities back.
He began building up his military with American arms, and even hoped Georgia might join NATO and the European Union. He had been encouraged in this ambition by people like Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, a “hawk” when it came to relations with Russia.
British academic Richard Sakwa argues in his new book Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands, that most western leaders saw Russia as a defeated nation whose interests could be brushed aside, and which must accept U.S. hegemony.
So in early August 2008, Georgian forces attacked South Ossetia. But instead of recapturing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Georgians soon found themselves at war with Russia.
Saakashvili had miscalculated and had underestimated Russia’s resolve in defending the two breakaway areas. Moscow pushed the Georgians back in less than a week, and soon afterwards formally recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as sovereign states.
The Bush administration had acceded to the independence of Kosovo, the former Serbian province, in February 2008. Moscow would cite the Kosovo precedent in pushing the claims of separatists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
In September 2009 an EU fact-finding mission determined that the 2008 conflict was caused by Georgia’s attack on the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7-8.
Today the Republic of Abkhazia, with a population of 243,000, controls 8,660 square kilometres, and remains beholden to Russia for its independence.
Raul Khadzhimba, who was elected president last August, said that Abkhazia and Russia “live and develop in common civilization space.” The economy of Abkhazia is heavily integrated with Russia and uses the Russian rouble as its currency.
On Nov. 24, 2014, an agreement was signed between Putin and Khadzhimba to create joint Russian and Abkhazian military forces. This, declared the Abkhaz president, will create more firm guarantees for the sovereignty of Abkhazia, and will provide more opportunities for attracting investments. The accord also made it easier for residents of Abkhazia to obtain Russian citizenship.
The Georgian government denounced it as a step towards annexation. “The signature of the so-called treaty constitutes a deliberate move by Russia in reaction to Georgia’s European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations,” the Georgian foreign minister, Tamar Beruchashvili, said in a statement.
The Republic of South Ossetia, whose 51,000 people live within an area of 3,900 square kilometres, is also protected by Russian troops. With most Georgians gone, 90 per cent of the population is Ossetian, up from two-thirds when it was part of Georgia.
It is a poor country, and former President Eduard Kokoity admitted that it is seriously dependent on Russian economic assistance. It too uses the Russian rouble.
The current incumbent, Leonid Tibilov, in power since April 2012, is widely considered loyal to Moscow after a career with the Soviet security service.
In the past quarter-century, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia dissolved. Eritrea broke away from Ethiopia, East Timor from Indonesia, Kosovo from Serbia, and South Sudan from Sudan. What so special about Georgia’s territorial integrity, if it’s clear some people prefer to acquire their own states?
As for Saakashvili, who left office in 2013, he has now become chairman of the International Advisory Council on Reforms for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko -- despite being wanted by the new Georgian government on multiple criminal charges of corruption during his time in power.
In 2008, then president Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia decided to conquer two areas, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, that had been autonomous parts of Georgia when that country was itself one of the 15 constituent republics in the Soviet Union.
In the complex ethnically-based federal structure of the Soviet Union, Abkhazia had been an autonomous republic while South Ossetia was an autonomous region, both within Georgia.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia had successfully seceded from Georgia after 1991, when the Soviet Union was dissolved and ethnic tensions grew over Georgia’s moves towards independence. In both, there was a mass exodus of ethnic Georgians. (Prior to this, ethnic Abkhaz were in fact a minority within their republic.)
Saakashvili, who rose to power in Georgia after the Rose Revolution that ousted the country’s former leader, ex-Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze, in 2003, was determined to get the two entities back.
He began building up his military with American arms, and even hoped Georgia might join NATO and the European Union. He had been encouraged in this ambition by people like Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, a “hawk” when it came to relations with Russia.
British academic Richard Sakwa argues in his new book Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands, that most western leaders saw Russia as a defeated nation whose interests could be brushed aside, and which must accept U.S. hegemony.
So in early August 2008, Georgian forces attacked South Ossetia. But instead of recapturing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Georgians soon found themselves at war with Russia.
Saakashvili had miscalculated and had underestimated Russia’s resolve in defending the two breakaway areas. Moscow pushed the Georgians back in less than a week, and soon afterwards formally recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as sovereign states.
The Bush administration had acceded to the independence of Kosovo, the former Serbian province, in February 2008. Moscow would cite the Kosovo precedent in pushing the claims of separatists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
In September 2009 an EU fact-finding mission determined that the 2008 conflict was caused by Georgia’s attack on the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7-8.
Today the Republic of Abkhazia, with a population of 243,000, controls 8,660 square kilometres, and remains beholden to Russia for its independence.
Raul Khadzhimba, who was elected president last August, said that Abkhazia and Russia “live and develop in common civilization space.” The economy of Abkhazia is heavily integrated with Russia and uses the Russian rouble as its currency.
On Nov. 24, 2014, an agreement was signed between Putin and Khadzhimba to create joint Russian and Abkhazian military forces. This, declared the Abkhaz president, will create more firm guarantees for the sovereignty of Abkhazia, and will provide more opportunities for attracting investments. The accord also made it easier for residents of Abkhazia to obtain Russian citizenship.
The Georgian government denounced it as a step towards annexation. “The signature of the so-called treaty constitutes a deliberate move by Russia in reaction to Georgia’s European and Euro-Atlantic aspirations,” the Georgian foreign minister, Tamar Beruchashvili, said in a statement.
The Republic of South Ossetia, whose 51,000 people live within an area of 3,900 square kilometres, is also protected by Russian troops. With most Georgians gone, 90 per cent of the population is Ossetian, up from two-thirds when it was part of Georgia.
It is a poor country, and former President Eduard Kokoity admitted that it is seriously dependent on Russian economic assistance. It too uses the Russian rouble.
The current incumbent, Leonid Tibilov, in power since April 2012, is widely considered loyal to Moscow after a career with the Soviet security service.
In the past quarter-century, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia dissolved. Eritrea broke away from Ethiopia, East Timor from Indonesia, Kosovo from Serbia, and South Sudan from Sudan. What so special about Georgia’s territorial integrity, if it’s clear some people prefer to acquire their own states?
As for Saakashvili, who left office in 2013, he has now become chairman of the International Advisory Council on Reforms for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko -- despite being wanted by the new Georgian government on multiple criminal charges of corruption during his time in power.
Wednesday, March 04, 2015
The Increasing Chaos in Libya
Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer
It’s been more than three and a half years since the brutal Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi met his end in a drainage pipe outside his native city of Sirte.
But things in that nation have become so bad since then that there must be many Libyans who miss him! Rival coalitions backed by militias are now battling for control over Libya and its vast resources, in what has become a lawless and failed state.
Some three thousand people have been killed by fighting in the past year, and nearly a third of the country’s population has fled across the border to Tunisia.
Libya’s parliament, the House of Representatives, elected in June 2014, and its government, led by Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni, have only limited authority. The government currently operates out of the eastern city of Bayda, while parliament meets in the eastern city of Tobruk.
The Libya Dawn movement, a coalition of militias and political factions formed from the blocs that lost the elections, has gained control of the capital, Tripoli, and established a rival government, the so-called New General National Congress.
It includes extremist groups such as Ansar al-Sharia, which has been linked to the assault on the United States diplomatic mission in Benghazi in 2012.
The two rival factions denounce each other as traitors, terrorists or war criminals. Extremists have taken advantage of this political vacuum, and the Islamic State (ISIS) has now established a beachhead.
This came to the world’s attention in the most appalling way recently, when 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians were beheaded. The killers identified themselves as followers of ISIS.
Last October, the Islamic Youth Shura Council in the eastern city of Derna, a hotbed of Islamism, pledged allegiance to ISIS. In turn, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has recognized the Libyan “provinces” of Barqa (Cyrenaica), Tripolitania, and Fezzan as belonging to his “caliphate.”
ISIS seeks to eliminate the Tunisian, Libyan, and Egyptian borders to form a province similar to the one they are building in Syria and Iraq. An even more ambitious plan touted by some involves crossing the Mediterranean to attack Italy.
Libya has already suffered many atrocities, including an attack this past January on the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli, frequented by westerners, which killed 10 people. More recently, ISIS followers killed 38 people in Qubbah, a small town near Bayda.
Last summer, Libya Dawn’s Islamists seized the international airport in Tripoli, in the process destroying one and a half billion dollars’ worth of aircraft. In November, they were involved in the bombings of the Egyptian and United Arab Emirates embassies.
Egypt is a key backer of al-Thinni’s internationally recognised government, and Egypt and the UAE support an anti-Islamist militia led by Khalifa Haftar.
Both countries have mounted air strikes against the Islamists, and Egypt has also called for a UN-backed military intervention in Libya. On the other hand, Libya Dawn is backed by Qatar and Turkey.
Haftar has emerged as the most high profile individual fighting Libya Dawn’s Islamist militias. A former general who fell out with Gadhafi and went into exile, he returned to Libya during the civil war in 2011, and he now heads the self-declared Libyan National Army.
Haftar’s force has taken much of the eastern half of the country, in an offensive known as Operation Dignity, which has been endorsed by the House of Representatives. He was the target of a suicide bomber outside his home near Benghazi last June; it killed four of his guards
.
Both sides have vast amounts of weaponry left over from the Gadhafi years, including some military aircraft.
Economically, too, the situation in Libya is disastrous. Oil revenues are virtually the country’s only source of income. Prior to 2011, oil output stood around 1.6 million barrels per day. Now, production hovers around 200,000 to 300,000 barrels per day.
Last year, Libya depleted $27 billion of its reserves, which now stand around $81 billion, according to the International Monetary Fund.
“Libya has the same features of potentially becoming as bad as what we’re seeing in Iraq and Syria,” Bernardino Leon, the United Nations envoy to Libya, said in an interview with the New York Times. “The difference is that Libya is just a few miles away from Europe.”
Libya, once an Italian colony, has never had any real sense of national identity and is fast becoming, as British diplomat Jonathan Powell stated, a “Somalia on the Mediterranean.” Perhaps a tyrant such as Gadhafi provided the only glue that held it together.
It’s been more than three and a half years since the brutal Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi met his end in a drainage pipe outside his native city of Sirte.
But things in that nation have become so bad since then that there must be many Libyans who miss him! Rival coalitions backed by militias are now battling for control over Libya and its vast resources, in what has become a lawless and failed state.
Some three thousand people have been killed by fighting in the past year, and nearly a third of the country’s population has fled across the border to Tunisia.
Libya’s parliament, the House of Representatives, elected in June 2014, and its government, led by Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni, have only limited authority. The government currently operates out of the eastern city of Bayda, while parliament meets in the eastern city of Tobruk.
The Libya Dawn movement, a coalition of militias and political factions formed from the blocs that lost the elections, has gained control of the capital, Tripoli, and established a rival government, the so-called New General National Congress.
It includes extremist groups such as Ansar al-Sharia, which has been linked to the assault on the United States diplomatic mission in Benghazi in 2012.
The two rival factions denounce each other as traitors, terrorists or war criminals. Extremists have taken advantage of this political vacuum, and the Islamic State (ISIS) has now established a beachhead.
This came to the world’s attention in the most appalling way recently, when 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians were beheaded. The killers identified themselves as followers of ISIS.
Last October, the Islamic Youth Shura Council in the eastern city of Derna, a hotbed of Islamism, pledged allegiance to ISIS. In turn, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has recognized the Libyan “provinces” of Barqa (Cyrenaica), Tripolitania, and Fezzan as belonging to his “caliphate.”
ISIS seeks to eliminate the Tunisian, Libyan, and Egyptian borders to form a province similar to the one they are building in Syria and Iraq. An even more ambitious plan touted by some involves crossing the Mediterranean to attack Italy.
Libya has already suffered many atrocities, including an attack this past January on the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli, frequented by westerners, which killed 10 people. More recently, ISIS followers killed 38 people in Qubbah, a small town near Bayda.
Last summer, Libya Dawn’s Islamists seized the international airport in Tripoli, in the process destroying one and a half billion dollars’ worth of aircraft. In November, they were involved in the bombings of the Egyptian and United Arab Emirates embassies.
Egypt is a key backer of al-Thinni’s internationally recognised government, and Egypt and the UAE support an anti-Islamist militia led by Khalifa Haftar.
Both countries have mounted air strikes against the Islamists, and Egypt has also called for a UN-backed military intervention in Libya. On the other hand, Libya Dawn is backed by Qatar and Turkey.
Haftar has emerged as the most high profile individual fighting Libya Dawn’s Islamist militias. A former general who fell out with Gadhafi and went into exile, he returned to Libya during the civil war in 2011, and he now heads the self-declared Libyan National Army.
Haftar’s force has taken much of the eastern half of the country, in an offensive known as Operation Dignity, which has been endorsed by the House of Representatives. He was the target of a suicide bomber outside his home near Benghazi last June; it killed four of his guards
.
Both sides have vast amounts of weaponry left over from the Gadhafi years, including some military aircraft.
Economically, too, the situation in Libya is disastrous. Oil revenues are virtually the country’s only source of income. Prior to 2011, oil output stood around 1.6 million barrels per day. Now, production hovers around 200,000 to 300,000 barrels per day.
Last year, Libya depleted $27 billion of its reserves, which now stand around $81 billion, according to the International Monetary Fund.
“Libya has the same features of potentially becoming as bad as what we’re seeing in Iraq and Syria,” Bernardino Leon, the United Nations envoy to Libya, said in an interview with the New York Times. “The difference is that Libya is just a few miles away from Europe.”
Libya, once an Italian colony, has never had any real sense of national identity and is fast becoming, as British diplomat Jonathan Powell stated, a “Somalia on the Mediterranean.” Perhaps a tyrant such as Gadhafi provided the only glue that held it together.
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Another Chance for Democracy in Sri Lanka
Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
Every now and then, a bit of good news breaks through the gloom that usually characterizes reports from much of the non-Western world. Such is the case of the recent presidential election in Sri Lanka.
The country has been though decades of brutal civil war, culminating in massive war crimes on the part of the Sinhalese-controlled government against Hindu Tamil rebels trying to establish a separate state, Tamil Eelam, in the north of the country.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the insurgents known as the Tamil Tigers, were often little better when it came to committing atrocities.
The conflict was triggered by anti-Tamil riots in 1983 that claimed hundreds of lives. Governments came and went, and fighting was punctuated by cease-fires that were broken by one side or the other, as the insurgency continued with relentless ferocity.
Things changed in 2005, the year Mahinda Rajapaksa won the presidential election. He pursued the war against the Tamil Tigers with renewed ferocity and finally defeated them in May 2009. LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed.
At least 100,000 people died in the 26-year conflict, including as many as 40,000 in the last month alone, according to the United Nations. As well, approximately 300,000 civilians were displaced during the final phase of the war.
Not surprisingly, in January 2010 Mahinda Rajapaksa was re-elected by a big margin.
Given the nature of internal conflicts of this sort, it is remarkable that, despite the atrocities which accompany such guerrilla warfare, the country never succumbed to outright military rule or civilian dictatorship.
Nonetheless, the accession to power by the man who finally defeated the Tigers seemed to bode ill for democracy. Rajapaksa cultivated a more authoritarian style of rule, relegating parliament to a secondary role, and appointed his relatives to key positions.
He arrested his main rival in the 2010 election, General Sarath Fonseka, who a year later was sentenced to three years in jail for “corruption.” Also, in early 2013 Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake was dismissed for allegations of financial and official misconduct. In reality, she was removed when she resisted Rajapaksa’s centralization of power.
When parliament approved a constitutional change allowing Rajapaksa to seek an unlimited number of terms, it seemed that Sri Lanka was well on the road to becoming an authoritarian state.
In August 2013 Navi Pillay, then the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner, accused Rajapaksa’s government of eroding democracy and the rule of law after a week-long visit to the country.
Shunned by most western countries, including Canada, his government increasingly turned to powers such as China, Iran, and Russia for foreign investment and diplomatic support.
Despite anger at rising prices, corruption and one-family rule, Rajapaksa remained so confident of his popularity that he scheduled a president election for this past Jan. 8, two years before the end of his second term.
Hard-line Sinhalese groups like the Buddhist Power Force (BBS) mobilized to support Rajapaksa.
But the Hindu Tamil and Muslim minorities that make up over a quarter of the population were less enthusiastic. Rajapaksa also lost the support of another Buddhist group, the National Heritage Party (JHU).
And worst of all, he was caught unawares by the desertion of former allies in his own Sri Lankan Freedom Party, who described his regime as a “soft dictatorship.” One of them, Rajapaksa’s health minister, Maithripala Sirisena, announced he would run against the president.
And the impossible happened. Despite his overwhelming advantages, Rajapaksa was defeated, winning 47.6 per cent of the vote to Sirisena’s 51.3 per cent. Sirisena, running under the banner of the United National Front, won the strong electoral support of Tamils, Christians, and Muslims.
Some Tamil activists have become increasingly unhappy in recent weeks as a result of what they see as delays in releasing prisoners and returning seized lands. The Tamil-dominated Northern Provincial Council unanimously passed a resolution this month seeking an international investigation into accusations of genocide against Tamils during the country’s civil war.
The new administration has indicated that it will mount its own investigation into possible wartime atrocities and mount criminal prosecutions against the perpetrators of the worst crimes. The UN Human Rights Council has agreed to defer the release of its own inquiry until September.
So apart from giving the country a renewed sense of democracy, under Sirisena there might be the possibility of some genuine national reconciliation.
Henry Srebrnik
Every now and then, a bit of good news breaks through the gloom that usually characterizes reports from much of the non-Western world. Such is the case of the recent presidential election in Sri Lanka.
The country has been though decades of brutal civil war, culminating in massive war crimes on the part of the Sinhalese-controlled government against Hindu Tamil rebels trying to establish a separate state, Tamil Eelam, in the north of the country.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the insurgents known as the Tamil Tigers, were often little better when it came to committing atrocities.
The conflict was triggered by anti-Tamil riots in 1983 that claimed hundreds of lives. Governments came and went, and fighting was punctuated by cease-fires that were broken by one side or the other, as the insurgency continued with relentless ferocity.
Things changed in 2005, the year Mahinda Rajapaksa won the presidential election. He pursued the war against the Tamil Tigers with renewed ferocity and finally defeated them in May 2009. LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran was killed.
At least 100,000 people died in the 26-year conflict, including as many as 40,000 in the last month alone, according to the United Nations. As well, approximately 300,000 civilians were displaced during the final phase of the war.
Not surprisingly, in January 2010 Mahinda Rajapaksa was re-elected by a big margin.
Given the nature of internal conflicts of this sort, it is remarkable that, despite the atrocities which accompany such guerrilla warfare, the country never succumbed to outright military rule or civilian dictatorship.
Nonetheless, the accession to power by the man who finally defeated the Tigers seemed to bode ill for democracy. Rajapaksa cultivated a more authoritarian style of rule, relegating parliament to a secondary role, and appointed his relatives to key positions.
He arrested his main rival in the 2010 election, General Sarath Fonseka, who a year later was sentenced to three years in jail for “corruption.” Also, in early 2013 Chief Justice Shirani Bandaranayake was dismissed for allegations of financial and official misconduct. In reality, she was removed when she resisted Rajapaksa’s centralization of power.
When parliament approved a constitutional change allowing Rajapaksa to seek an unlimited number of terms, it seemed that Sri Lanka was well on the road to becoming an authoritarian state.
In August 2013 Navi Pillay, then the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner, accused Rajapaksa’s government of eroding democracy and the rule of law after a week-long visit to the country.
Shunned by most western countries, including Canada, his government increasingly turned to powers such as China, Iran, and Russia for foreign investment and diplomatic support.
Despite anger at rising prices, corruption and one-family rule, Rajapaksa remained so confident of his popularity that he scheduled a president election for this past Jan. 8, two years before the end of his second term.
Hard-line Sinhalese groups like the Buddhist Power Force (BBS) mobilized to support Rajapaksa.
But the Hindu Tamil and Muslim minorities that make up over a quarter of the population were less enthusiastic. Rajapaksa also lost the support of another Buddhist group, the National Heritage Party (JHU).
And worst of all, he was caught unawares by the desertion of former allies in his own Sri Lankan Freedom Party, who described his regime as a “soft dictatorship.” One of them, Rajapaksa’s health minister, Maithripala Sirisena, announced he would run against the president.
And the impossible happened. Despite his overwhelming advantages, Rajapaksa was defeated, winning 47.6 per cent of the vote to Sirisena’s 51.3 per cent. Sirisena, running under the banner of the United National Front, won the strong electoral support of Tamils, Christians, and Muslims.
Some Tamil activists have become increasingly unhappy in recent weeks as a result of what they see as delays in releasing prisoners and returning seized lands. The Tamil-dominated Northern Provincial Council unanimously passed a resolution this month seeking an international investigation into accusations of genocide against Tamils during the country’s civil war.
The new administration has indicated that it will mount its own investigation into possible wartime atrocities and mount criminal prosecutions against the perpetrators of the worst crimes. The UN Human Rights Council has agreed to defer the release of its own inquiry until September.
So apart from giving the country a renewed sense of democracy, under Sirisena there might be the possibility of some genuine national reconciliation.
Henry Srebrnik
Monday, February 23, 2015
The Long Arm of Iran in the Middle East
Henry Srebrnik [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer
Back in 2010, Iranian Ayatollah Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi
called for a “Greater Iran” that would assume hegemonic control over much of
the Middle East and Central Asia, stretching from Afghanistan to the
Mediterranean.
“If I am elected as president, I will return the lands of
Tajikistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan, which were separated from Iran” by the
Russians, he announced three years later, when planning to run for president.
This was too much even for the Council of Guardians, Iran’s
ideological watchdog, which rejected his candidacy. Iran’s government also disavowed
his statement.
Nonetheless, since the ascension to power of Ayatollah
Khomeini in 1979, Iran has been slowly building an empire in the Middle East.
Its Lebanese Shi’ite proxy Hezbollah has taken Lebanon
hostage, and is now helping Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime in Syria. The
Shi’ite government of Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad is effectively an Iranian
puppet.
In chaotic Yemen, the Houthis, also allied to Iran, have
taken the capital, Sanaa. The United States has
closed its embassy in Yemen following an attack on an American Embassy
car on Jan. 19 at a Houthi roadblock.
The militants’ slogan, which is chanted at rallies and
painted on walls in Sanaa, includes the phrase “Death to America,” mimicking
the one often heard in Tehran.
A man who did run for the presidency of Iran in 2013, Ali
Akbar Velayati, last year declared that his hope is for the Houthis to become
to Yemen what Hezbollah is to Lebanon, a Shi’a faction in control of an Arab
state.
Velayati, who also served as Iran’s foreign minister from
1981 to 1997, is an advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, so his words must
be taken seriously. And Kayhan, the
Iranian newspaper controlled by Khamenei, has predicted that the Saudi kingdom
would not survive the Houthi rebellion in Yemen.
Tehran has also had a hand in trying to destabilize some of
the small Sunni-ruled Gulf states, in particular Bahrain, which has a Shi’a
majority population. Throughout the Arab world, regimes fear Iranian subterfuge
on behalf of their brand of radical Islam.
Of late, Iran has even taken to bragging about this. General
Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the powerful Quds Force, the foreign wing of
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, on Feb. 11 announced that Tehran’s regional
influence was growing.
“Today we see signs of the Islamic revolution being exported
throughout the region, from Bahrain to Iraq and from Syria to Yemen and North
Africa,” he declared.
Partly as a response, Sunni terrorist groups have mounted
their own campaigns in the region. The Islamic State (ISIS) controls about
90,000 square kilometres in parts of Iraq and Syria.
Suleimani seemed unfazed by ISIS and al-Qaeda, though,
maintaining that the jihadists are “nearing the end of their lives.” After all,
the Quds Force was able to keep Baghdad under Iranian control, and Shi’ite
militias backed by Iran are increasingly taking the lead in Iraq’s fight
against the Islamic State. In Syria Bashar Assad has held on to power thanks to
Iran’s support.
As Liel Leibovitz,
a senior writer for Tablet magazine, observed recently, American policy has lately swung toward embracing the idea of
an unreconstructed Iran as a key U.S. ally in Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and beyond.
“Since the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS began last fall,
“Iran has achieved all but public U.S. support for its control over the Iraqi
military and for the survival of the Assad regime in Syria,” noted columnist
Caroline Glick in a Feb. 12 Jerusalem Post article.
She asserted that President Barack Obama is clearing the path for a nuclear armed Iran that controls large swathes of the Arab world through its proxies. Last November, Obama wrote a letter to Ayatollah Khameini, suggesting that U.S.-Iranian cooperation in the Middle East could be possible should an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program be signed.
She asserted that President Barack Obama is clearing the path for a nuclear armed Iran that controls large swathes of the Arab world through its proxies. Last November, Obama wrote a letter to Ayatollah Khameini, suggesting that U.S.-Iranian cooperation in the Middle East could be possible should an agreement on Iran’s nuclear program be signed.
“But partnering with
Tehran would require Washington and its friends in London and Paris to accept
the Islamic Republic as the legitimate government of a fully sovereign state
with legitimate interests,” write Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett, authors of
the 2013 book Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with
the Islamic Republic of Iran.
That would be a major mistake. Iran is a devious and
powerful state, far more adept at destabilizing the Middle East than are groups
like ISIS. They don’t engage in gratuitous acts of barbarism such as the
beheadings of hostages, which create outrage around the world.
Tehran doesn’t take on western powers directly, but acts
behind the scenes and through proxies – while continuing to work on acquiring
nuclear capabilities.
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Why is the West Enraging Russia?
Henry Srebrnik, [Halifax] Chronicle Herald
But Russia has always been a great power! Would anyone deny that status to
the U.S.? Why the attempt to humble the Russians?
A cease-fire between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian
fighters went into effect on Feb. 15, but no one knows whether it will last.
Previous ones have been broken, and in any case some fighting continues.
The United States has apparently been considering sending
“lethal aid” to Ukraine should the war resume, which some military analysts
believe is the only way to deal with what they see as belligerence from Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
The incoming U.S. defence secretary, Ashton B. Carter, has
said he is inclined to provide arms to the Ukrainians.
But this is madness. If anything, the belligerence comes
from the other side. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich recently
said that a U.S. decision to arm Ukraine would not only escalate the situation
but “threatens the security of the Russian Federation.”
Of course it does. This is part of Russia’s “near abroad,”
an area for centuries under Moscow’s control (and in large parts of Ukraine,
remember, inhabited by ethnic Russians and Russophiles).
The western boundaries of Russia have since the collapse of
the Soviet Union in 1991 been pushed back to where they were in the 17th
century. What if the U.S. kept losing state after state, with California and
the southwest deciding perhaps to rejoin Mexico – aided by Moscow?
When the USSR fell apart, and the internal Soviet boundaries
of the republics suddenly became international frontiers, trouble was bound to
follow.
This is true anytime, when a region that breaks away from a
bigger state itself includes a minority that is ethnically related to the
larger one. Remember the anglo-Quebec slogan at the time of the 1995 referendum
on separation in Quebec? “If Canada is divisible, Quebec is divisible.”
In other words, non-francophone areas might have chosen to
break away from an independent Quebec and remain in Canada.
In 1991, when the Soviet state collapsed, Ukraine should
have been subject to plebiscites to determine whether its people wanted
independence, or to join Russia, or to split into two states. The eastern
regions now in revolt would no doubt have chosen to unite with Russia, and the
same is true for the Crimea.
The rest of Ukraine could have become a smaller, but
homogenous – and peaceful -- country. There’s nothing wrong with a political
divorce for peoples who don't want to stay together, where one feels oppressed
by the other!
Why is territorial integrity such a sacred cow? After all, these
Soviet republics weren’t even sovereign states, and their borders were often
changed; they were the products of Communist manipulation. The same issues we
see in Ukraine also plague Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova, among
other former parts of that defunct Communist empire.
Yet now we see the western powers attempting to force
Russians who had been living in these regions for centuries and considered
themselves, in effect, really part of Russia, to now remain part of Ukraine --
a country which they never considered themselves part of. Why are Donetsk and
Luhansk all of a sudden more “Ukrainian” than “Russian?”
Whatever became of the principle of self-determination? Why
is it suddenly so important for NATO to make sure that frontiers that a mere 24
years ago were simply internal Soviet boundaries are now so sacrosanct that it
is willing to risk war with Russia?
“This is not about
Ukraine. Putin wants to restore Russia to its former position as a great
power,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former secretary-general of NATO, told
Britain’s Daily Telegraph.
Since it makes no geopolitical or ethnic sense, is it a
wonder Vladimir Putin sees this as little more than American imperialism
designed to weaken his country?
Remember, this all started, not with Russian intervention in
Ukraine, but with last February’s overthrow of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.
We might forget, but Russians remember, that they have been
attacked from the west numerous times in their history, including major
invasions by Napoleon and Hitler, the latter killing many millions of people.
Nor did the Cold War do much to improve their opinion of America.
When the Russians intruded into the western hemisphere by
aiding Communist Cuba, it almost led to a world war in 1962. Now Washington is
threatening Russia in its own back yard.
It might be time to heed a piece of advice from John
Mearsheimer, co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the
University of Chicago: “Any time a great power armed with thousands of nuclear
weapons is backed into a corner, you are asking for really serious trouble.”
France and Germany, who oppose arming Ukraine, have heeded
this warning.
Friday, February 20, 2015
The North Caucasus Cauldron
Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
While the crisis between Russia and
Ukraine has been the focus of much of the world’s attention, there
are simmering brushfires in other areas of the former Soviet Union.
In the North Caucasus, still part of
the Russian Federation, five Muslim-majority ethnic republics, with a
combined area of 97,200 square kilometres and a population of more
than six million, remain restive and a worry for Moscow. All but
Ingushetia border Russia proper.
One of them, Chechnya, has been the
scene of two major wars since 1994, leaving tens of thousands dead,
and resulting in the displacement to southern Russia of
400,000-600,000 people, predominantly from Chechnya and neighbouring
Dagestan.
Despite the official claims of peace,
both republics remain major centres of violence. Ingushetia,
Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia have also experienced
jihadi-inspired turmoil.
The revival of traditional Sufi groups
and the rise of radical Salafi (or Wahhabi) Islam, especially in
Dagestan and Chechnya, was brought about by “the perpetuation of
corrupt ruling elites, the absence of political pluralism, severe
economic hardship, youth unemployment and high levels of income
inequality,” according to Domitilla Sagramoso and Akhmet
Yarlykapov, two scholars specializing in the study of the region.
Indeed, they argue, the impact of
“growing Islamization of the region’s political life and the
increased religiosity” has created a “significant cultural and
political cleavage between the North Caucasus and the rest of
Russia.”
The
works of radical ideologues, the presence of militants from the Arab
world, and travels to Muslim countries by young Caucasians, have
inspired many to embrace imported jihadi creeds. A
network of extremists continues to advocate the establishment of an
Islamic state governed by sharia law in all of the North Caucasian
republics.
Much
of this radicalization is fueled from outside the country. French
scholar Giles Kepel has used the term “petrodollar Islam” for the
vast infusion of wealth from Saudi Arabia. The long-term strategy is
proselytism of Islam -- especially Salafi Islam.
In
Dagestan the Salafi ideologue Akhmed-hadji Akhtaev founded
Al-Islamiyyah and by the late 1990s the organization controlled
numerous mosques and religious schools; it also sent students to
study in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries.
The percentage of ethnic Russians in
the republics has dropped from 26 per cent in 1989 to about nine per
cent today; in Chechnya, it went from under 25 per cent to less than
two per cent.
In 2011, two nationalist Russian
groups, the Russian Public Movement and the Russian Civic Union,
launched a campaign to have the entire region cut off financially.
Under the slogan “Stop Feeding the
Caucasus,” they demanded that the Kremlin cease supporting the
economies of the region, which have suffered greatly due to the
political instability. (Each republic receives more than 50 per cent
of its budget from Moscow.)
Russia may have beaten back Chechen
attempts at independence or its takeover by Islamists, but at a
price.
As British academic Richard Sakwa has
pointed out, Russian president Vladimir Putin has allowed the
republic to be governed by “strongmen” such as Chechen President
Ramzan Kadyrov, in power since 2007.
In effect, he writes, Chechnya has
achieved “secession without independence.” Dagestan and
Ingushetia also, in the words of Anna Matveeva, an expert on the
region, are “drifting away by default.” There are now even border
guards between southern Russia and the North Caucasus.
Kadyrov is a strict Muslim who urges
Chechen women to wear headscarves. He also encourages polygamy and
has imposed restrictions on the sale of alcohol. He even supports
so-called “honour” killings.
Kadyrov has also overseen the
construction of hundreds of mosques, including one in the centre of
Grozny capable of hosting 10,000 worshipers.
The president denounced the cartoons of
the Prophet Muhammad in the Parisian magazine Charlie Hebdo, at a
mass rally Jan. 19 in Grozny, the capital of the republic.
“We resolutely announce that we will
never let anybody insult the name of the Prophet without punishment,”
Kadyrov told the crowds.
Thanks to the ongoing unrest in the
republics, and the periodic terrorist acts by Chechens in Russian
cities, including Moscow itself, there has been a concomitant rise of
anti-Caucasian sentiments among ethnic Russians, occasionally boiling
over into attacks on Caucasians living in Russia proper by
ultra-nationalist Russian gangs.
But Kadyrov has proved useful to Putin.
By his adherence to Islam, he undermines the ideological attraction
of Islamism. He also supported Russia in its war with Georgia in
2008, and delivered an astounding (and of course unbelievable) 99.76
per cent of the vote in Chechnya for Putin in the 2012 Russian
presidential election!
So Putin continues to support Kadyrov
and other Russian-installed rulers in the Caucasus, knowing that the
alternative would be worse.
Monday, February 09, 2015
Is There a Future for Ethno-Religious Nations?
Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer
Some nations were originally founded upon a sense of religious “chosen-ness,” the idea that God or Providence had selected them to be a force for good in the world.
And the geographic space they came to inhabit was seen as a “promised land” given them by their deity. It became a “sacred homeland.”
This produced a strong sense of what we today would call national consciousness, an identity very different from that of, say, someone Belgian.
Anthony D. Smith, a scholar of nationalism and ethnicity at the London School of Economics, has examined this form of nationalism in his book Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity, published in 2003.
From the moment of God’s covenant with the Israelites in the Old Testament, the idea that a people are chosen by God has had a central role in shaping national identity in the western world, he writes. And sacred belief remains central to national identity in many places, even in today’s modern world.
Clearly, this has been the basis for the modern Jewish form of nationalism known as Zionism, since even secular Jews had to base their claim to an ancient homeland where they had become a minority over the centuries by reference to the original biblical claim to the land.
While the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox forms of Christianity were more universal in outlook, the Protestant Reformation saw the formation of renewed Old Testament forms of identity.
Calvinists, in particular, saw themselves as the elect of God. They saw their conquest of new territories as divinely inspired.
The Congregationalists and Presbyterians who settled in colonial New England in the 17th century constantly made the analogy between America and Ancient Israel. The chosen people, they declared, is closer to God than any other and is held to higher standards.
In the words of John Winthrop, governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, “we shall be as a City upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”
In his 1988 book God Land: Reflections on Religion and Nationalism, the late Irish writer Conor Cruise O’Brien described this outlook as “providing nationalism with divine legitimation.” The Constitution would become a sacred document.
To this day, American nationalism retains a sense of “manifest destiny,” and the idea of the country as the “indispensable nation.”
Two other Calvinist outposts, Protestant Ulster and the Afrikaner settlements in South Africa, are examples of the concept of “holy nationalism.”
Both groups of settlers considered themselves new chosen peoples in new promised lands, with the God-given right to take over areas inhabited by Irish Catholics and various African tribes, respectively, just as the Israelites had conquered the land of Canaan.
In a study published in 1992, God’s Peoples: Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel, and Ulster, Queen’s University historian Donald Harman Akenson found a common thread in the views of Ulster Scots Presbyterians, Dutch Reformed Church Afrikaners, and the Jews of Israel.
Each of these peoples, he suggested, were committed to an Old Testament-like covenant with God that promised them the land they had struggled to get if they made the commitment and sacrifice necessary in such a covenant. This religiously-based fervor resulted in some of the world’s most obdurate political conflicts.
However, Akenson suggested that the covenantal mindset was gradually dissolving in South Africa and Northern Ireland, and recent events have borne him out.
In 1994 Afrikaner-based apartheid gave way to majority black rule in South Africa, and Ulster Scots-Irish Unionists are slowly reconciling themselves to power-sharing with Catholics in Northern Ireland, as mandated by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement signed by most of the province’s political parties as well as by the British and Irish governments.
Akensen contended, though, that the Israelis would remain adamant in their determination to fulfill their ancient covenant -- the template for all the others. They remain the last ones standing, but we don’t know if that will last either.
Some nations were originally founded upon a sense of religious “chosen-ness,” the idea that God or Providence had selected them to be a force for good in the world.
And the geographic space they came to inhabit was seen as a “promised land” given them by their deity. It became a “sacred homeland.”
This produced a strong sense of what we today would call national consciousness, an identity very different from that of, say, someone Belgian.
Anthony D. Smith, a scholar of nationalism and ethnicity at the London School of Economics, has examined this form of nationalism in his book Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity, published in 2003.
From the moment of God’s covenant with the Israelites in the Old Testament, the idea that a people are chosen by God has had a central role in shaping national identity in the western world, he writes. And sacred belief remains central to national identity in many places, even in today’s modern world.
Clearly, this has been the basis for the modern Jewish form of nationalism known as Zionism, since even secular Jews had to base their claim to an ancient homeland where they had become a minority over the centuries by reference to the original biblical claim to the land.
While the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox forms of Christianity were more universal in outlook, the Protestant Reformation saw the formation of renewed Old Testament forms of identity.
Calvinists, in particular, saw themselves as the elect of God. They saw their conquest of new territories as divinely inspired.
The Congregationalists and Presbyterians who settled in colonial New England in the 17th century constantly made the analogy between America and Ancient Israel. The chosen people, they declared, is closer to God than any other and is held to higher standards.
In the words of John Winthrop, governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, “we shall be as a City upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”
In his 1988 book God Land: Reflections on Religion and Nationalism, the late Irish writer Conor Cruise O’Brien described this outlook as “providing nationalism with divine legitimation.” The Constitution would become a sacred document.
To this day, American nationalism retains a sense of “manifest destiny,” and the idea of the country as the “indispensable nation.”
Two other Calvinist outposts, Protestant Ulster and the Afrikaner settlements in South Africa, are examples of the concept of “holy nationalism.”
Both groups of settlers considered themselves new chosen peoples in new promised lands, with the God-given right to take over areas inhabited by Irish Catholics and various African tribes, respectively, just as the Israelites had conquered the land of Canaan.
In a study published in 1992, God’s Peoples: Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel, and Ulster, Queen’s University historian Donald Harman Akenson found a common thread in the views of Ulster Scots Presbyterians, Dutch Reformed Church Afrikaners, and the Jews of Israel.
Each of these peoples, he suggested, were committed to an Old Testament-like covenant with God that promised them the land they had struggled to get if they made the commitment and sacrifice necessary in such a covenant. This religiously-based fervor resulted in some of the world’s most obdurate political conflicts.
However, Akenson suggested that the covenantal mindset was gradually dissolving in South Africa and Northern Ireland, and recent events have borne him out.
In 1994 Afrikaner-based apartheid gave way to majority black rule in South Africa, and Ulster Scots-Irish Unionists are slowly reconciling themselves to power-sharing with Catholics in Northern Ireland, as mandated by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement signed by most of the province’s political parties as well as by the British and Irish governments.
Akensen contended, though, that the Israelis would remain adamant in their determination to fulfill their ancient covenant -- the template for all the others. They remain the last ones standing, but we don’t know if that will last either.
Monday, February 02, 2015
Obama's Foreign Policy: Ignore Friends, Placate Tyrants?
Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
President Barack Obama cut short his trip to India to fly to Riyadh on Jan. 27 to pay homage to the rulers of Saudi Arabia, following the death of King Abdullah. Secretary of State John Kerry called the late king “a man of wisdom and vision.”
In actual fact, Abdullah, in the words of New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, presided over a state “whose domestic policies are almost cartoonishly repressive and whose international influence has been strikingly malign.”
Those who hope the new monarch, King Salman, will prove to be more progressive will soon enough be disabused of that notion.
On the other hand, Obama was too busy to join the huge Paris rally on Jan. 11 attended by some two million people, including more than 40 world leaders, which followed the massacre at the offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket a few days earlier.
Obama has also announced that he will not be meeting Benjamin Netanyahu when the Israeli prime minister comes to Washington to speak to a joint session of Congress on March 3.
Netanyahu has said his priority is to urge the United States and other powers not to negotiate an Iranian nuclear deal that might endanger Israel.
This is something Obama doesn’t want to hear. Indeed, he has indicated he will veto any action by Congress to strengthen sanctions against Tehran.
Is he hoping that reason might prevail over the apocalyptic religious visions harbored by the mullahs – visions which require, among other things, destroying Israel and vanquishing Sunni Arab rivals? The current talks will in the end legitimize Iran as a nuclear state.
Since the ascension to power of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, Iran has been slowly building an empire in the Middle East, through armed force and terror. Its Lebanese Shi’ite proxy Hezbollah has taken Lebanon hostage, and is now helping Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime in Syria, long an Iranian client.
The Shi’ite government of Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad, which rules those parts of the country not under Kurdish or Islamic State control, is effectively an Iranian puppet. Like his predecessor Nouri al-Maliki, he is a member of the Hizb Al-Dawa, the Islamic party long under Iranian tutelage.
In chaotic Yemen, the Houthis, also allied to Iran, have taken the capital, Sanaa. President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has resigned and the country is close to disintegration.
Iran has also had a hand in trying to destabilize some of the small Sunni-ruled Gulf states, in particular Bahrain, which has a Shi’a majority population. Saudi Arabia has blamed Iran for inciting upheaval in the small country starting in 2011.
Partly as a response, Sunni terrorist groups, sometimes bankrolled by the Saudis, Qatar, and other Sunni states, have mounted their own campaigns in the region. The Islamic State controls about 90,000 square kilometres in parts of Iraq and Syria, and is gaining support elsewhere.
Alarmed by the Houthis’ expansion, Sunni separatists in the south of Yemen have started to seize territory and are working with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The demise of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya has turned that country into a failed state, with various Islamist militias fighting each other in the streets of Tripoli and Benghazi. Militants have also become active in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
And Hamas, despite three major wars with Israel since 2008, remains stronger than ever in Gaza, which it has governed since 2007.
In 2009, soon after taking office, Obama made a major speech at Cairo University, asking the Islamic world for a “new beginning” in its relations with the United States.
But for all of his “make nice” foreign policy, Obama will probably leave office with a Middle East in much worse shape, and less friendly to the U.S., than it was when he won the presidency in 2008.
President Barack Obama cut short his trip to India to fly to Riyadh on Jan. 27 to pay homage to the rulers of Saudi Arabia, following the death of King Abdullah. Secretary of State John Kerry called the late king “a man of wisdom and vision.”
In actual fact, Abdullah, in the words of New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, presided over a state “whose domestic policies are almost cartoonishly repressive and whose international influence has been strikingly malign.”
Those who hope the new monarch, King Salman, will prove to be more progressive will soon enough be disabused of that notion.
On the other hand, Obama was too busy to join the huge Paris rally on Jan. 11 attended by some two million people, including more than 40 world leaders, which followed the massacre at the offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket a few days earlier.
Obama has also announced that he will not be meeting Benjamin Netanyahu when the Israeli prime minister comes to Washington to speak to a joint session of Congress on March 3.
Netanyahu has said his priority is to urge the United States and other powers not to negotiate an Iranian nuclear deal that might endanger Israel.
This is something Obama doesn’t want to hear. Indeed, he has indicated he will veto any action by Congress to strengthen sanctions against Tehran.
Is he hoping that reason might prevail over the apocalyptic religious visions harbored by the mullahs – visions which require, among other things, destroying Israel and vanquishing Sunni Arab rivals? The current talks will in the end legitimize Iran as a nuclear state.
Since the ascension to power of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, Iran has been slowly building an empire in the Middle East, through armed force and terror. Its Lebanese Shi’ite proxy Hezbollah has taken Lebanon hostage, and is now helping Bashar al-Assad’s embattled regime in Syria, long an Iranian client.
The Shi’ite government of Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad, which rules those parts of the country not under Kurdish or Islamic State control, is effectively an Iranian puppet. Like his predecessor Nouri al-Maliki, he is a member of the Hizb Al-Dawa, the Islamic party long under Iranian tutelage.
In chaotic Yemen, the Houthis, also allied to Iran, have taken the capital, Sanaa. President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi has resigned and the country is close to disintegration.
Iran has also had a hand in trying to destabilize some of the small Sunni-ruled Gulf states, in particular Bahrain, which has a Shi’a majority population. Saudi Arabia has blamed Iran for inciting upheaval in the small country starting in 2011.
Partly as a response, Sunni terrorist groups, sometimes bankrolled by the Saudis, Qatar, and other Sunni states, have mounted their own campaigns in the region. The Islamic State controls about 90,000 square kilometres in parts of Iraq and Syria, and is gaining support elsewhere.
Alarmed by the Houthis’ expansion, Sunni separatists in the south of Yemen have started to seize territory and are working with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The demise of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya has turned that country into a failed state, with various Islamist militias fighting each other in the streets of Tripoli and Benghazi. Militants have also become active in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
And Hamas, despite three major wars with Israel since 2008, remains stronger than ever in Gaza, which it has governed since 2007.
In 2009, soon after taking office, Obama made a major speech at Cairo University, asking the Islamic world for a “new beginning” in its relations with the United States.
But for all of his “make nice” foreign policy, Obama will probably leave office with a Middle East in much worse shape, and less friendly to the U.S., than it was when he won the presidency in 2008.
Monday, January 26, 2015
Do Cry for Me, Argentina
Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
As Marcellus, one of the sentries at Denmark’s royal castle in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” might have said, “Something is rotten in the state of Argentina.”
The puzzling death of a prosecutor on Jan. 18 has fed speculation that he might have been murdered while gathering evidence in a high-profile terrorist attack more than two decades ago.
In 2004 Alberto Nisman was assigned to investigate the 1994 suicide bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires that left 85 people dead. He eventually traced the plot to Iran and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah.
On October 25, 2006, Nisman formally accused the government of Iran of directing the bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) building, and Hezbollah of carrying it out.
But the Argentine government, not wishing to get involved in a diplomatic contretemps with Tehran, kept dragging its feet, instead signing an agreement with Iran to create a joint commission to investigate the bombing.
Nisman kept at it, though, and was set to testify to Argentina’s Congress on his report alleging that Argentina’s President, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Foreign Minister Hector Timerman, and other officials had covered up Iran’s connection to the bombing of the building.
They were accused, in a 300-page document, of setting up a “parallel diplomacy” to sign a “secret pact” with Iranian authorities that would lead to the exchange of Argentine grains for much-needed Iranian oil, and even an arms deal, to ease the country’s energy crisis and lack of hard currency.
But now, instead of presenting his findings to legislators, Nisman has been found dead in his apartment with a gun nearby. Government officials rushed to declare it a suicide.
But few believe it. Diego Guelar, a former Argentine ambassador to the United States, told CNN en Espanol that the suicide explanation is “ridiculous.” Patricia Bullrich, head of the legislative committee that invited Nisman to testify, agreed.
“In the days before his death on Sunday, the prosecutor was very active, very focused on the presentation he was going to give before Congress, in the evidence he was going to present and his mind made up about going forward with it,” Bullrich stated. “It's hard to believe that he would have taken his own life.”
Nisman himself had told a reporter a day before his death, “I could end up dead from this.”
Following news of the death, some 2,000 protesters took to the streets near the presidential palace, the Casa Rosada, waving Argentine flags and holding signs proclaiming “Yo soy Nisman” (“I am Nisman”).
“The executive power is consolidating its dictatorship,” remarked protester Luciano Florio. “The judicial system cannot work independently when prosecutors are being killed.”
The 1994 attack, along with a 1992 suicide bombing of the Israeli embassy, which killed 29 people, remains an unhealed wound within Argentine society, particularly for its 180,000-strong Jewish population.
As Marcellus, one of the sentries at Denmark’s royal castle in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” might have said, “Something is rotten in the state of Argentina.”
The puzzling death of a prosecutor on Jan. 18 has fed speculation that he might have been murdered while gathering evidence in a high-profile terrorist attack more than two decades ago.
In 2004 Alberto Nisman was assigned to investigate the 1994 suicide bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires that left 85 people dead. He eventually traced the plot to Iran and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah.
On October 25, 2006, Nisman formally accused the government of Iran of directing the bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) building, and Hezbollah of carrying it out.
But the Argentine government, not wishing to get involved in a diplomatic contretemps with Tehran, kept dragging its feet, instead signing an agreement with Iran to create a joint commission to investigate the bombing.
Nisman kept at it, though, and was set to testify to Argentina’s Congress on his report alleging that Argentina’s President, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Foreign Minister Hector Timerman, and other officials had covered up Iran’s connection to the bombing of the building.
They were accused, in a 300-page document, of setting up a “parallel diplomacy” to sign a “secret pact” with Iranian authorities that would lead to the exchange of Argentine grains for much-needed Iranian oil, and even an arms deal, to ease the country’s energy crisis and lack of hard currency.
But now, instead of presenting his findings to legislators, Nisman has been found dead in his apartment with a gun nearby. Government officials rushed to declare it a suicide.
But few believe it. Diego Guelar, a former Argentine ambassador to the United States, told CNN en Espanol that the suicide explanation is “ridiculous.” Patricia Bullrich, head of the legislative committee that invited Nisman to testify, agreed.
“In the days before his death on Sunday, the prosecutor was very active, very focused on the presentation he was going to give before Congress, in the evidence he was going to present and his mind made up about going forward with it,” Bullrich stated. “It's hard to believe that he would have taken his own life.”
Nisman himself had told a reporter a day before his death, “I could end up dead from this.”
Following news of the death, some 2,000 protesters took to the streets near the presidential palace, the Casa Rosada, waving Argentine flags and holding signs proclaiming “Yo soy Nisman” (“I am Nisman”).
“The executive power is consolidating its dictatorship,” remarked protester Luciano Florio. “The judicial system cannot work independently when prosecutors are being killed.”
The 1994 attack, along with a 1992 suicide bombing of the Israeli embassy, which killed 29 people, remains an unhealed wound within Argentine society, particularly for its 180,000-strong Jewish population.
Monday, January 19, 2015
Palestinian Plan to Join International Criminal Court Roils the Waters
Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Journal Pioneer
In an article I published in the Calgary Herald in November 1999, I wrote that “it is conceivable that some international tribunal may some day indict an Israeli leader for war crimes.”
Might this soon come to pass? On Dec. 30, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed the Rome Statute, paving the way for membership in the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague.
Palestinian chances of joining the ICC improved in 2012 after the United Nations General Assembly voted to upgrade their status to that of a “non-member observer state.”
These are not easy days for Israel. The summer war with Hamas in Gaza, whatever the military outcome, was largely negative from the standpoint of international opinion.
In Europe, more and more countries are moving towards recognition of a Palestinian state, even in the absence of a peace treaty with Israel, recognized borders, the final status of Jerusalem, and other critical issues. The legislatures of Great Britain, Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden have all urged their governments to take this step.
In the United Nations, only the American veto on the Security Council prevents even more drastic international sanctions of various sorts.
Membership in the ICC could see the Palestinians pursue Israel on war crimes charges. The ICC can prosecute individuals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed since July 1, 2002, when the Rome Statute came into force. Israel is not a member of the ICC and does not recognise its jurisdiction.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by asserting that “It is the Palestinian Authority, which is in a unity government with Hamas, an avowed terrorist organisation that, like ISIS, perpetrates war crimes, that needs to be concerned about the International Criminal Court in the Hague.”
The move to join the ICC is part of a strategic shift by the Palestinian leadership to pursue statehood in the international arena after years of failed U.S.-brokered negotiations with Israel. At the same time, Abbas also signed applications to join 20 other international conventions.
All of this follows the narrow rejection of a UN Security Council resolution demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories by late 2017. Eight members of the 15-strong Security Council voted for the Jordanian-sponsored resolution, while the U.S. and Australia voted against. Five countries abstained. (It needed nine votes to pass.)
Permanent members China, France and Russia voted yes, while Britain abstained. Nigeria, which had been expected to vote in favor, changed its position at the last minute -- thus preventing its passage.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the resolution’s failure “should teach the Palestinians that provocations and attempts to force Israel into unilateral processes will not achieve anything.”
Lieberman’s gloating may be premature. The composition of the Security Council has now changed, with newly-elected members Angola, Malaysia, New Zealand, Venezuela and Spain – none particularly enamoured of Israel -- replacing Argentina, Australia, Luxembourg, the Republic of Korea and Rwanda for two-year terms.
Since South Korea and Rwanda abstained, while Australia was opposed, the same resolution may get nine votes if re-introduced in 2015, necessitating the embarrassment of an American veto.
As for Abbas’ plan to join the ICC, given Washington’s displeasure with the decision it could prove counterproductive. “There will be immediate American and Israeli financial sanctions,” declared Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah.
A U.S. State Department spokesman warned that it would only “push the parties further apart.” Meanwhile, Netanyahu will be facing the Israeli electorate in March, and is certainly in no mood to compromise.
In an article I published in the Calgary Herald in November 1999, I wrote that “it is conceivable that some international tribunal may some day indict an Israeli leader for war crimes.”
Might this soon come to pass? On Dec. 30, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed the Rome Statute, paving the way for membership in the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague.
Palestinian chances of joining the ICC improved in 2012 after the United Nations General Assembly voted to upgrade their status to that of a “non-member observer state.”
These are not easy days for Israel. The summer war with Hamas in Gaza, whatever the military outcome, was largely negative from the standpoint of international opinion.
In Europe, more and more countries are moving towards recognition of a Palestinian state, even in the absence of a peace treaty with Israel, recognized borders, the final status of Jerusalem, and other critical issues. The legislatures of Great Britain, Ireland, France, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden have all urged their governments to take this step.
In the United Nations, only the American veto on the Security Council prevents even more drastic international sanctions of various sorts.
Membership in the ICC could see the Palestinians pursue Israel on war crimes charges. The ICC can prosecute individuals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed since July 1, 2002, when the Rome Statute came into force. Israel is not a member of the ICC and does not recognise its jurisdiction.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by asserting that “It is the Palestinian Authority, which is in a unity government with Hamas, an avowed terrorist organisation that, like ISIS, perpetrates war crimes, that needs to be concerned about the International Criminal Court in the Hague.”
The move to join the ICC is part of a strategic shift by the Palestinian leadership to pursue statehood in the international arena after years of failed U.S.-brokered negotiations with Israel. At the same time, Abbas also signed applications to join 20 other international conventions.
All of this follows the narrow rejection of a UN Security Council resolution demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories by late 2017. Eight members of the 15-strong Security Council voted for the Jordanian-sponsored resolution, while the U.S. and Australia voted against. Five countries abstained. (It needed nine votes to pass.)
Permanent members China, France and Russia voted yes, while Britain abstained. Nigeria, which had been expected to vote in favor, changed its position at the last minute -- thus preventing its passage.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the resolution’s failure “should teach the Palestinians that provocations and attempts to force Israel into unilateral processes will not achieve anything.”
Lieberman’s gloating may be premature. The composition of the Security Council has now changed, with newly-elected members Angola, Malaysia, New Zealand, Venezuela and Spain – none particularly enamoured of Israel -- replacing Argentina, Australia, Luxembourg, the Republic of Korea and Rwanda for two-year terms.
Since South Korea and Rwanda abstained, while Australia was opposed, the same resolution may get nine votes if re-introduced in 2015, necessitating the embarrassment of an American veto.
As for Abbas’ plan to join the ICC, given Washington’s displeasure with the decision it could prove counterproductive. “There will be immediate American and Israeli financial sanctions,” declared Khalil Shikaki, director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah.
A U.S. State Department spokesman warned that it would only “push the parties further apart.” Meanwhile, Netanyahu will be facing the Israeli electorate in March, and is certainly in no mood to compromise.
Monday, January 12, 2015
What Can We Learn from Paris Terrorist Attacks?
Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
The three days of terror in Paris are over. The gunmen who
murdered 12 people at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo have been killed by
the French police. The victims, mostly journalists, included the Jewish
caricaturist Georges Wolinsk and two police officers.
A second suspect, who killed another police officer in a separate incident, and
then held numerous hostages in a kosher supermarket, murdering at least four of
them, has also been killed. There may be others, as yet unknown, who were
involved in this.
It also brought all of France to a standstill.
These were not random attacks. Charlie Hebdo was singled out
for its satirical attacks on Islamist extremism, while the Jewish store was
undoubtedly selected because of the religion of its owner and customers,
especially on the day preceding the Jewish Sabbath, when there would have been
many shoppers inside.
The magazine had already been firebombed in 2011 and had enhanced
police protection for awhile – but there is only so much that can be done to
guard places against attacks that come without any warning. It is simply
impossible to protect everyone at all times, or to keep potential terrorists
under surveillance indefinitely.
This will of course benefit those on the right in France. Jean-Marie
Le Pen, the founder of France’s National Front, tweeted an image of his
daughter Marine Le Pen, now the party’s leader, with the slogan “Keep Calm And
Vote Le Pen.”
While France’s next presidential election isn't due until 2017, some polls are already showing Le Pen as the most popular candidate in first round voting.
Why should we be surprised? When a liberal political order cannot protect its citizens, eventually
people turn to more drastic measures.
The Charlie Hebdo killers might as well have had signs on their backs reading “we are terrorists.” Both were known to the authorities and indeed, one had already served time in prison. They were on an American “no-fly” list. Yet nothing could be done until their massacre at the magazine. In the end, they were killed anyway.
The Charlie Hebdo killers might as well have had signs on their backs reading “we are terrorists.” Both were known to the authorities and indeed, one had already served time in prison. They were on an American “no-fly” list. Yet nothing could be done until their massacre at the magazine. In the end, they were killed anyway.
It’s all well and
good to worry about “Islamophobia,” but this kind of thing can't just
keep going on, whether in stores, offices, cafés, train stations, and so on. Vigilance can only take you so far.
Constitutional protections
may end up victims of enhanced security measures, with civil liberties falling
by the wayside. And a frightened public won’t care.
That happened in
South America in the 1960s-70s, when radical left groups were kidnapping and
killing people. As society became ever more destabilized, eventually a full
scale coup, and the complete loss of civil liberties, was the result, in
countries like Argentina and Uruguay.
So over-solicitous
liberal worries about “rights” may, ironically, end “rights” for everyone! We
must find some middle ground.
Wednesday, January 07, 2015
Afghanistan War Ends with a Whimper
Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
The western-led war against the Taliban in Afghanistan has, we are told, come to an end.
It began on Oct 7, 2001, a month after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, and was initially aimed at degrading Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization, which had found a home in the country, then ruled largely by the fundamentalist Taliban.
By 2003, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force included troops from 43 countries, the bulk coming from the United States. At peak levels the U.S. had 100,000 troops in Afghanistan.
But though bin Laden evaded capture and fled to Pakistan, while the Taliban head, Mullah Omar, was never found, this war would go on for a further 13 years, its aims shifting to the virtually impossible task of defeating a movement that clearly epitomized the ethno-religious beliefs of the majority Pashtun population.
A tribal society, Afghanistan became for NATO a project aimed at creating, among other things, a modern state, with a democratic political culture ensuring equal rights for women and minorities.
This was never going to happen. Afghanistan remained mired in economic and political corruption, run by warlords whose income derived largely from the sale of opium for the international drug trade.
The country’s former president, Hamid Karzai, who won two highly suspect elections in 2004 and 2009, was an unstable politician who spent much of the time biting the American hands that kept him in power.
Once Barack Obama replaced George W. Bush in the White House, it was clear the United States and its allies would try to get out of Afghanistan as soon as they could without losing face.
In May 2014, Washington announced that its combat operations would conclude at the end of the year, leaving just a small residual force at Bagram Air Base and in Kabul until the end of 2016.
On December 28, 2014 the International Security Assistance Force formally ended combat operations in Afghanistan and transferred full security responsibility to the Afghan government at a rather muted ceremony in Kabul.
President Obama issued a statement declaring the step “a milestone for our country,” adding that “the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion.”
The ceremony was held on the floor of an indoor basketball court, and many people stayed away for fear of the Taliban, which has carried out an unprecedented wave of attacks in the capital while retaking territory abandoned by western troops.
It wasn’t exactly a victory parade, nor will the day be commemorated, the way V-E Day is remembered as the end of the Second World War in Europe in 1945.
By the Afghanistan war’s end, 3,387 coalition troops had been killed, including 2,257 American, 453 British, and 158 Canadian, soldiers. Hundreds of thousands of Afghan National Army and Taliban militants had also died, along with countless civilians.
The war has cost America alone over one trillion dollars since 2001. As for Canada, Ottawa spent at least $18 billion and perhaps as much as $22 billion.
Operation Enduring Freedom, as the U.S. mission in Afghanistan had been known since 2001, has come to an end. But it will not be enduring, nor did it bring freedom.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted Dec. 11-14 found 56 per cent of respondents concluding that it had not been worth fighting.
In the Pashtun heartland in the south and east, many people value the Taliban way of life and moral code. The Taliban made major gains last summer, killing a record number of Afghan policemen and soldiers.
“The Taliban still carries the banner of Islamic morals,” a senior diplomat told the New York Times recently. “The Taliban still grabs people’s minds. And in a fight about who is right, you must gain the minds of the people.”
Karzai may be gone but the Kabul government remains corrupt and untrustworthy. His successor, Ashraf Ghani, the winner in another questionable election last year, is little better.
A State Department poll conducted in late October found that 66 per cent of Afghans favour amnesty for Taliban leaders if it paved the way for a peace deal.
So the Taliban is regaining control of much of the country, and the dreams of democracy and modernization have proved to be mirages, unable to transcend the country’s political culture.
The western-led war against the Taliban in Afghanistan has, we are told, come to an end.
It began on Oct 7, 2001, a month after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, and was initially aimed at degrading Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization, which had found a home in the country, then ruled largely by the fundamentalist Taliban.
By 2003, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force included troops from 43 countries, the bulk coming from the United States. At peak levels the U.S. had 100,000 troops in Afghanistan.
But though bin Laden evaded capture and fled to Pakistan, while the Taliban head, Mullah Omar, was never found, this war would go on for a further 13 years, its aims shifting to the virtually impossible task of defeating a movement that clearly epitomized the ethno-religious beliefs of the majority Pashtun population.
A tribal society, Afghanistan became for NATO a project aimed at creating, among other things, a modern state, with a democratic political culture ensuring equal rights for women and minorities.
This was never going to happen. Afghanistan remained mired in economic and political corruption, run by warlords whose income derived largely from the sale of opium for the international drug trade.
The country’s former president, Hamid Karzai, who won two highly suspect elections in 2004 and 2009, was an unstable politician who spent much of the time biting the American hands that kept him in power.
Once Barack Obama replaced George W. Bush in the White House, it was clear the United States and its allies would try to get out of Afghanistan as soon as they could without losing face.
In May 2014, Washington announced that its combat operations would conclude at the end of the year, leaving just a small residual force at Bagram Air Base and in Kabul until the end of 2016.
On December 28, 2014 the International Security Assistance Force formally ended combat operations in Afghanistan and transferred full security responsibility to the Afghan government at a rather muted ceremony in Kabul.
President Obama issued a statement declaring the step “a milestone for our country,” adding that “the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion.”
The ceremony was held on the floor of an indoor basketball court, and many people stayed away for fear of the Taliban, which has carried out an unprecedented wave of attacks in the capital while retaking territory abandoned by western troops.
It wasn’t exactly a victory parade, nor will the day be commemorated, the way V-E Day is remembered as the end of the Second World War in Europe in 1945.
By the Afghanistan war’s end, 3,387 coalition troops had been killed, including 2,257 American, 453 British, and 158 Canadian, soldiers. Hundreds of thousands of Afghan National Army and Taliban militants had also died, along with countless civilians.
The war has cost America alone over one trillion dollars since 2001. As for Canada, Ottawa spent at least $18 billion and perhaps as much as $22 billion.
Operation Enduring Freedom, as the U.S. mission in Afghanistan had been known since 2001, has come to an end. But it will not be enduring, nor did it bring freedom.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted Dec. 11-14 found 56 per cent of respondents concluding that it had not been worth fighting.
In the Pashtun heartland in the south and east, many people value the Taliban way of life and moral code. The Taliban made major gains last summer, killing a record number of Afghan policemen and soldiers.
“The Taliban still carries the banner of Islamic morals,” a senior diplomat told the New York Times recently. “The Taliban still grabs people’s minds. And in a fight about who is right, you must gain the minds of the people.”
Karzai may be gone but the Kabul government remains corrupt and untrustworthy. His successor, Ashraf Ghani, the winner in another questionable election last year, is little better.
A State Department poll conducted in late October found that 66 per cent of Afghans favour amnesty for Taliban leaders if it paved the way for a peace deal.
So the Taliban is regaining control of much of the country, and the dreams of democracy and modernization have proved to be mirages, unable to transcend the country’s political culture.
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