Fadl Still Blockaded; Truck Bomb in Mosul; Doha Summit Fails to Unify Arab voices

A truck bomber struck at police in downtown Mosul (pop. 1.7 mn.) on Tuesday morning, killing 7 and wounding 17.

Al-Zaman writing in Arabic says that Iraqi troops continued for a third straight day their siege of the Sunni Fadl distrinct. The paper alleged that diseases are starting to spread among women and children because of the blockade and curfew. The Sunni Arab Awakening Council in Fadl was accused of trying to revive the banned Baath Party, and its leader was arested, provoking an uprising. But the Iraqi government's crackdown on the Fadl district raised fears or provoked protests among other Sunni Arabs. The Awakening Council leader in Baquba, Diyala province to the east, said that he would stop fighting extremists for the government if Adil Mashhadani,the Fadl Council leader, was not released. Meanwhile, US officers were frantically calling their Sunni contacts and reassuring them that the US would go to bat for them and they would not be left to the mercy of the Shiite militias.

The Arab League Conference in Doha, Qatar has wrapped up, and it too had implications for Sunni-Shiite reconciliation (or lack thereof) inside Iraq.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that the Arab League had initially planned to hold its next meeting in Baghdad, but the continued poor security in that city has dissuaded the organization, which will meet in Libya instead. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki protested the switch. (It is likely that the move came at least in part in response to the identification among member states with the Sunni Arab population of Fadl District, which was being besieged by Shiite Iraqi troops as the conference unfolded. Most Arab League member states are strongly Sunni and many see Shiite Islam as Persian rather than Arab--which is untrue and unfair.)

Al-Maliki, a Shiite, was snubbed by Saudi King Abdullah, who refused to meet him on the grounds that he had reneged on his pledge to reconcile with the Sunni Arabs of Iraq. Al-Maliki's Da`wa Party had angered the Saudis a couple of years ago by launching a protest movement against Wahhabism, the established branch of Islam in the Saudi kingdom.

Al-Zaman [The Times of Baghdad] reports in Arabic that that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiites, was asked by Agence France Presse if he supported the return of members of the former Baath party to public life. He is said to have replied that this matter is governed by the Iraqi Constitution, which must be obeyed. (The constitution outlaws the Baath Party). The AFP question was prompted by statements made by Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa after his meeting with Sistani a couple of weeks ago. Moussa implied that Sistani favored national reconciliation with all Iraqis. Sistani in his reply appeared to repudiate Moussa's report of their conversation and to underline his own commitment to continued debaathification.

At the same time, the Islamic Mission Party (Da`wa) led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called for the criminalization of the Baath Party, on the grounds that it issued a law in 1980 making it a capital crime to belong to the Da'wa, and carried out numerous pogroms against Da'wa members. This call appears to envision going beyond firing Baathists and forbidding them to hold political office to actually prosecuting them for party membership. Since Sunnis were disproportionately present in the Baath Party (though there were plenty of Shiites in it, too), any such step would lay an especially heavy burden on the Sunni Arabs.

McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Monday:

' Diyala

Three people were killed and eight others were injured when a bicycle bomb in downtown Baquba around 10 a.m.

A policeman was injured by a roadside bomb that targeted a patrol of the Iraqi police in al Mualimeen neighborhood west Baquba around 11 a.m.

The police forces on Khanaqeen Street northeast of Baquba found the body of a civilians few hours after gunmen kidnapped him by insurgents from his house.

Nineveh

One Iraq soldier was killed and two others injured by a roadside bomb that targeted their patrol in west Mosul on Monday morning.

Gunmen assassinated a civilian in west Mosul on Monday morning.

Around 2 p.m. gunmen opened fire killing the general director of the immigrants and displaced people department in Hamdaniyah district southeast of Mosul city and injured his colleague while the two men were leaving the department.

Babil

Gunmen killed three Sahwa members in their car while they were going to work in Eskanderiyah town north of Hilla city on Monday morning.

A man was killed and his sister in law was injured when gunmen opened fire upon them south of Hilla city on Monday morning. '

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Attack on Police Blamed on Pakistani Taliban

Pakistani security forces quickly restored order Monday to the police academy near Lahore that was attacked on Sunday by militants. The Taliban Movement of Pakistan, led by Baitullah Mahsud, is being blamed for the police academy attack. The violence in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas spills out onto Punjab sometimes.

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El Mundo: New Governor of Badghis Controversial

The USG Open Source Center translates an article from the Spanish newspaper El Mundo profiling Delbar Jan Arman, a former member of the Hizb-i Islami of Gulbadin Hikmatyar who fought the Soviets, and whose four-year tenure as governor of Zabul province in the Pashtun south was controversial because of charges of corruption and repression of women. He is being transferred to Badghis in the north. You wonder after treading this if Afghanistan's big problem is really al-Qaeda.

Afghan Governor of Spanish-Controlled Badghis Province Profiled
Report by Monica Bernabe: "Afghanistan's Most Hated Governor To Lead 'Spanish' Province"
elmundo.es
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Document Type: OSC Translated Text

This man of imposing appearance, who wears a turban, may become a nightmare for the Spanish troops deployed in Afghanistan, as well as for the AECID (Spanish Agency for International Cooperation and Development) workers who are carrying out reconstruction projects. Delbar Jan Arman has been appointed governor of Badghis, the Spanish-controlled Afghan province where some 220 Spanish troops are currently stationed.

Cont'd (click below or on "comments")

This appointment is not trivial because the Spanish troops and aid workers will have to liaise and negotiate with him in order to operate in the province. However, given his career, Arman could lead Badghis to a disaster that may sweep the Spanish troops away. At least this is what he did in Zabul, one of the most unstable provinces in southern Afghanistan, where he was governor for almost four years.

No matter whom you ask, everybody talks about him in the same way. The Afghan members of parliament who come from Zabul and the local journalists speak very badly of the former governor of Zabul.

There are many examples. "Corruption has reached levels never seen before," an Afghan reporter said in a telephone conversation. He also said that various NGOs had tried last winter to deliver food and blankets to poor families living in the province. Later, they realized that a significant part of that aid ended up in the hands of government officials working for the governor's office.

The rights of women were also trampled on during Arman's term in office. "Three women were killed by their own families as a result of the so-called honor crimes and the governor did not move a finger to punish the culprits. The women even demonstrated on the streets of Qalat, the capital of Zabul, to protest against these crimes," another local journalist explained.

However, the straw that broke the camel's back was the governor's decision to destroy 1,000 shops located by the road linking Kabul and Kandahar, as it passes through Zabul, in order to widen the road and build a park. The demolitions were carried out without any compensation and the storekeepers made complaints to Kabul. They demonstrated in front of the parliament and perhaps that led Afghan President Hamid Karzai to appoint him to another position.

Last week, Karzai decided unilaterally to transfer former governor of Badghis Ashraf Nasery, who has stood out for his brilliance and good understanding with the Spanish troops, to Zabul and the governor whom nobody wants in Zabul was transferred to Badghis.

However, Arman has powerful backing: the US troops of the Coalition Force that are carrying out the so-called Operation Enduring Freedom and have nothing to do with the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), to which the Spanish troops belong. Arman's relationship with the Americans has almost been a honeymoon and, according to local reporters, bombings of civilians and arrests of tribal leaders by the US troops multiplied during his rule as governor.

However, Arman and the Americans have been getting along with each other for a long time. Born in Khost province, the former governor of Zabul, who belongs to the Pashtun ethnic group and has five daughters and three sons, studied at the Afghan Institute of Technology in Kabul during the 1970s. Later, he completed his studies as an electrical technician in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar with the help of US instructors.

When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, he took up arms and fought in the ranks of the Hezb-I-Islami party of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the most prominent Afghan war criminals, who is considered to be responsible for many of the current attacks on the Afghan and international troops.

Arman speaks perfect English, is a good speaker, and intends to act like an open-minded man. He tried to smother me with attentions and a table filled with fruits, sweets, and drinks. He even introduced me to his wife, which is unusual in Afghanistan, where under no circumstances should women appear before strangers.

The new governor of Badghis naturally acknowledged that the people in Zabul cannot stand the sight of him. "I had been in office for many years and the people usually get tired and want changes," he argued.

As for Badghis, Arman said that he has never been there, but he is aware that "the Spanish troops are doing a good job." "I hope that we will work together as brothers," he stressed. As for corruption, he did not see any solution to it. "Corruption in this country is the result of 30 years of war and unqualified staff," he stated. "Hence this problem will go on for a long time and it requires patience," he said. Patience is probably what the Spanish troops in Badghis need.

(Description of Source: Madrid elmundo.es in Spanish -- Website of El Mundo, center-right national daily; URL: http://www.elmundo.es)

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Fadl Rebellion against Government is Put Down

It seems fairly clear from McClatchy's account that the slummy Sunni Arab district of al-Fadl in Baghdad went into rebellion against the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Saturday and Sunday, after the arrest of Adil al-Mashhadani. The latter was the leader of the Awakening Council or Sons of Iraq paramilitary that has been patrolling Sunni Arab neighborhoods. The Awakening Council then kidnapped 10 Iraqi troops and launched an all-out struggle. Hard fighting by the troops of the Shiite-dominated central government, backed by US soldiers, bested the rebels, who were forced to surrender and release their hostages.

The bad news is that the Sunni rebellions may start up again. The good news is that the Iraqi Army stood and fought against the rebels.

McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Sunday.

' Baghdad

- At 5 p.m. a magnetic bomb attached to an Iraqi Army officer’s car detonated in the neighborhood of Ghadeer in eastern Baghdad on Sunday. The car was empty but the blast wounded two people passing by.

- At 8 p.m. two people were killed when a magnetic bomb attached to their car detonated in Adhamiyah, a neighborhood in northern Baghdad. Eight people nearby were also injured.

Basra

- A roadside bomb killed seven people in the Hamdan Industrial Compound in southern Basra on Sunday. Morgue officials received seven corpses from the incident but police said only six people were killed. Six were garbage collectors and the seventh was a policeman.

Kirkuk

- An unidentified man was found shot dead in Karat Amour village in northeast Kirkuk on Sunday morning.

Nineveh

- At least 17 people were wounded when a car bomb detonated in a market in the town of Qayara, about 25 miles south of Mosul.

- Gunmen shot down an employee of the Mosul medical care department in Mosul around 3 p.m. The employee was about to leave his office when the gunmen opened fire. He died immediately.

Anbar

- A roadside bomb targeted a police patrol in Fihaylat area in (about 17 miles south of Falluja). Six policemen were wounded ,two of them in critical condition and among the wounded were two officers.

- A roadside bomb detonated at the gate of Anbar University targeting the head of the security, the brigadier general Ali Mikhlif Al-Asafi. The brigadier general was wounded in the incident and his injury is serious. '

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Two Major Attacks on Pakistani Police; Obama Focuses on Al-Qaeda

Ten gunmen attacked a police training facility near Lahore on Sunday, killing 20 and wounding 150. They deployed 11 bombs and machine gun fire. Two the attackers were killed in a counter-attack. The police facility is near Wagah, the border crossing into India. Note that this site is very, very distant from the tribal regions in the northwest where the Pakistani Taliban have been attacking NATO convoys and warehouses. There was no immediate indication of the identity of these attackers.

Earlier on Sunday, militants in the northwest abducted 12 security personnel.

President Obama said on Sunday that he wanted to refocus on rooting out "al-Qaeda" in Afghanistan and Pakistan. I shouldn't think there are more that 500 "Arab Afghans" actually based in Afghanistan, though, so I can't understand why you would need 21,000 new combat troops to take them on. (There are probably that number or more on the Pakistan side of the border, and perhaps 8,000 foreign fighters in the Federally Admnistered Tribal Areas of Pakistan altogether-- most of them Afghans, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Chechens, Uighurs, etc., not mostly Arabs.) See my posting below on Obama's Domino Theory.

Tom Engelhardt suggests a comparison betseen the Pakistani Federal bail-out of AIG, given the open-eneded commitment to nation-building in the pledge.

Mulla Abdul Salam, the commissioner of Musa Qala District of Helmand Province in Afghanistan and a former Taliban leader, says that 95 percent of the Taliban are ready to lay down their weapons and reconcile with the Kabul government. He says that only fear of reprisals from other Talibs keeps htem in line, and that when the central government is able to provide them security, it will be able to bring them in from the cold.

In contrast, an old-time Tajik warlord who fought the Taliban, Ismail Khan, "the lion of Herat," is opposed to negotiating with the Taliban and considers them incorrigible, according to Aljazeera English:



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Cole in Salon: Obama's Domino Theory

My column in Salon.com is out, "Obama's domino theory," in which I worry that "The president sounds like he's channeling Cheney or McCain -- or a Cold War hawk afraid of international communism -- when he talks about the war in Afghanistan."

Excerpt:

'[Obama's] latter-day domino theory of al-Qaida takeovers in South Asia is just as implausible as its earlier iteration in Southeast Asia (ask Thailand or the Philippines). Most of the allegations are not true or are vastly exaggerated. There are very few al-Qaida fighters based in Afghanistan proper. What is being called the "Taliban" is mostly not Taliban at all (in the sense of seminary graduates loyal to Mullah Omar). The groups being branded "Taliban" only have substantial influence in 8 to 10 percent of Afghanistan, and only 4 percent of Afghans say they support them. Some 58 percent of Afghans say that a return of the Taliban is the biggest threat to their country, but almost no one expects it to happen. Moreover, with regard to Pakistan, there is no danger of militants based in the remote Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) taking over that country or "killing" it. '

Read the whole thing.

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Cole interview at Washington Note

Video of my conversation with Steve Clemons about my new book, Engaging the Muslim World, is up at the Washington Note website. Clemons is a canny observer of US foreign policy and knows the capital's movers and shakers, so it was a special pleasure to think together with him about where US relations with the Muslim world are headed.


Engaging the Muslim World

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Jang on Baluchistan's Sense of Deprivation

The USG Open Source Center translates an editorial on Baluchistan from the Urdu newspaper "Jang." There is now talk that the Obama administration will extend its Predator drone strikes into the Pakistani province of Baluchistan. On Saturday, "Jung" published among the more informed and sensible pieces on Baluchistan I have seen. The Baluch are only about 5 percent of Pakistan's population. They are largely organized by kinship ("tribes") but most are settled. Their province is rich in resources but these tend to be expropriated by the central government with little return to the province. There has been a long-running Baluch movement for autonomy, and one of its leaders, Akbar Bugti, was killed by the previous, Musharraf regime. President Asaf Ali Zardari is visiting Baluchistan and hopes to improve its relations with the center.

Pakistani Editorial Stresses Removal of Sense of Deprivation Among Baluch People
Editorial: "Trust, Consultations, Development Are Answer to Baluchistan's Sense of Deprivation"
Jang
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Document Type: OSC Translated Text

Some important announcements are expected during President Asif Zardari's three-day visit to Baluchistan Province that began on 26 March. These announcements are likely to come on 27 March or the following day. Some sources say that during his address to the joint session of two houses of parliament on 28 March, he will announce the government decisions with regard to the demands of the various groups in Baluchistan.

President Zardari's Baluchistan visit is a part of the government's strategy to contact the local people and hold consultations with different schools of thought. Moreover, the importance of this tour has increased in the context of global thinking on the province. Some reports emanating from Washington indicate that the United States intends to expand drone attacks up to Baluchistan, as some influential US quarters believe that Mullah Omar and Al-Qa'ida leadership are present in the safe havens in Quetta and planning fresh attacks on the United States in addition to commanding their militants to carry out actions against foreign forces in Afghanistan. A similar fear is being expressed by Richard Holbrooke, US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, NATO forces, and several European countries, including the United Kingdom.
Cont'd (click below or on "comments")

Unrest, however, prevails in various parts of the province because of different reasons. Angry people have taken up arms and are carrying out their activities from the mountains of Baluchistan. Certain elements are involved in spreading disturbances, sabotage, firing, and bomb blasts instead of registering their anger through political means. It is not difficult for elements involved in insurgency to get funds and sophisticated weapons because of the presence of several Indian Consulates in Afghanistan along the Pakistani border. The Afghan refugee camps also contribute in aggravating the situation.

Although serious threats are hovering over Baluchistan that have a direct impact on the country's security and integrity, some forces do not want the Gwadar port to be functional. The deep sea port in Gwadar, which has been built with Chinese help, is the shortest and cheapest foreign trade route for Central Asian countries. There are clear chances that the Gwadar port can become the region's economic center in the coming days. But there are doubts among Baluch quarters that the ratio of the local population in Gwadar will decrease with the arrival of people from other parts of the country after the port becomes functional. These reservations of the local Baluch people must be removed.

Baluchistan, the biggest Pakistani province, is still much backward despite being rich in natural resources. This backwardness has created a sense of deprivation among the local population. The entire country benefited from Baluchistan's natural gas, but the local people in Sui Town, Baluchistan Province, were deprived of this facility for several decades. Copper deposits in Saindak could not be fully utilized so far. Precious stones, metals, and marble are found in abundance in the province's mountains. Baluchistan can be made a much prosperous province by fully utilizing its natural resources.

Lack of funds is said to be the main reason for not benefiting from Baluchistan's natural resources. The long coastal area of the province has much attraction for tourists. Despite the passage of six decades of independence, a strong infrastructure could not yet be established in the province. As a result, job opportunities could not be created and economic condition of the people remained the same.

One of its reasons also is the attitude of Baluchistan's tribal chieftains and feudal lords who were not ready to loosen their grip of the people whom they have been ruling for centuries. They were scared of the light of modern civilization coming to the province through roads and developmental projects. On several occasions, these lords even revolted and used force to stop construction of roads in their areas. Therefore, the development process got affected. This situation also resulted into bloodshed in the province. Nawab Akbar Bugti's, a Baluch nationalist leader killed in military operation in Baluchistan two years ago, martyrdom inflicted an irreparable loss to the country. A lot of time and hard work will be needed to control the situation created by Nawab Bugti's martyrdom.

After Pakistan People's Party's (PPP) victory in 18 February 2008 elections, President Zardari, as the party cochairman, apologized to the Baluch people for past mistakes and excesses committed against them. He has also expressed determination to remove the Baluchistan's sense of deprivation. He has also set up a special committee to resolve longstanding issues in the province. Several measures are being implemented to bring Baluchistan at par with other provinces. In this regard, the government has decided to waive 70 billion rupees (Pre) ($870 million) the province owed to the central bank.

President Zardari wants to solve the problems of all groups of Baluchistan through talks. He says that he wants to talk to those angry people also who have taken up arms. During his current visit, President Zardari wants to talk to opposition leaders, tribal chieftains, and insurgents to resolve their issues. Several incidents of abduction and killing of engineers and experts belonging to friendly countries have taken place in Baluchistan Province in recent times. The president wants to ensure nonrecurrence of such incidents in the future. The kidnappers of UN official John Solecki, who was abducted in Quetta last month, have taken him to a place where security forces have not been able to reach so far. Zardari will certainly like to get Solecki released through the efforts of the influential personalities of the province.

President Zardari will also hold consultations with Baluch leaders to deal with terror activities that are posing a serious threat to the country's security. These were pointed out recently by a conference attended by most political parties in Baluchistan. Some quarters believe that solution to most of the Baluchistan's problems, including backwardness, economic difficulties, Baluch-Pashtun conflict, unemployment, and sense of deprivation lies in recommendations made by several committees formed in the past. These recommendations include some constitutional reforms also. These recommendations can be implemented to create a pleasant environment in the province.

A new era of progress and prosperity in Baluchistan can be initiated by speeding up work on building infrastructure, providing professional and vocational education to youth, creating more job opportunities, and promoting a feeling of participation in country's affairs among the local population. In this way, the local people will not develop a feeling of anger, but love with other provinces. There is a need to set up a permanent system of mutual contacts and consultations to maintain the environment of trust so that people express themselves at all levels, solve the problems, and put the province on the path to progress and prosperity. The sense of deprivation among the Baluch people can be removed by launching a large number of development projects in the province. This task should be initiated immediately.

(Description of Source: Rawalpindi Jang in Urdu -- Influential, largest circulation newspaper in Pakistan, circulation of 300,000. The countrys only moderate Urdu newspaper, pro-free enterprise, politically neutral, supports improvement in Pakistan-India relations.)


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Gun Battle with Sunni Arabs in Downtown Baghdad

The Shiite government of Iraq arrests Adil Mashhadani, an Awakening Council or Sons of Iraq leader who had turned against the radical Salafi fundamentalists and took a salary from the US to fight them. Then a major gunfight breaks out between the government and armed Sunnis in the Fadil district of Baghdad.

The Nuri al-Maliki government does consider many of the "Sons of Iraq" to be criminals and terrorists and is declining to accept most of them into Iraq's security forces or army, out of fear of a coup.

Situation not stable.

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World Reactions to Obama Plan for Afghanistan

NATO and Afghan troops raided a bomb-making cell of insurgents in the southern Pushtun province of Helmand, killing 19 guerrillas, it was announced on Saturday.

Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai praised President Obama's plan for Afghanistan on Saturday, and was especially happy about two elements-- going after militants hiding out in neighboring Pakistan, and reaching out to negotiate with the less radical of the insurgents inside Afghanistan.

Although in public, Pakistan president Asaf Ali Zardari hailed Obama's proposals, behind the scenes, there was substantial disagreement with them on the part of both the foreign office and the president's office, though they seemed not to be coordinating with one another. It is not clear what the substance of the disagreements are.

Meanwhile, Pakistani Taliban mounted an attack on NATO trucks and supplies in Peshawar on Sunday morning, torching four and destroying large amounts of food and other supplies.

There are two big conferences about Afghanistan on the world stage these days. One was held in Moscow, in the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. That organization groups China and Russia with the newly independent states of Central Asia. They are neighbors of Afghanistan and are at risk from instability (and narco-terrorism) emanating from it. They also frankly don't want US military bases in their neighborhood. There have been charges that the SCO conference was intended to upstage the upcoming parleys under United Nations auspices in the Hague.

Iran said Friday that the Shanghai Cooperation Council is better able to resolve Afghanistan's problems than NATO.

While many in the United States are worried that President Obama is sending 21,000 new troops to Afghanistan, India, Iran and Russia are more worried about his hostility to Hamid Karzai and his pledge to negotiate with moderate Taliban, raising concerns that he might deliver Afghanistan into the arms of a "Taliban lite" government. In turn, India fears that such a regime would be overly under the sway of Pakistan and might become a support for terrorist groups such as Lashkar-i Tayyiba, which recently attacked Mumbai.

Before the SCO conference, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov had signaled ihis discomfort with Obama's troop build-up, and his confidence that the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai should be listened to.

Russia Today has video:



Meanwhile, Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi laid out his country's priorities for Afghanistan:

1. He advocated an "Afghan-led process of national reconciliation based on genuine dialogue with those local elements willing to forsake the path of violence"

2. To be facilitated by the country's neighbors

3. prioritize the battle for hearts and minds of the Afghans, showing respect to local traditions

4. undertake a massive reconstruction program for Afghanistan, "focusing on reconstruction and social welfare", with a strengthening of Afghan security forces and the enabling of Afghan refugees to return home

5. "Finally, revitalise the trans-regional development agenda. Afghanistan’s potential, as a land bridge, must be realised by promoting infrastructure and energy connectivity." Translation: Qureshi wants to revive the moribund plan to pipe natural gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and thence India. That plan is going nowhere as long as there is a Taliban insurgency around Qandahar, since nothing is easier to blow up than a gas pipeline. In fact, Turkmenistan appears to be tired of waiting and has signed with Russia, so it will send the natural gas to Moscow for transit to Europe.

The US views Afghanistan as a fertile field for cooperation with Iran, which has substantial influence in that country. The Hazara Shiite minority of some 22% in Afghanistan has strong ties to Shiite Iran. The Persian-speaking Tajiks, also a substantial proportion of the population, have a cultural affinity for Iran. And Iran has good relations with the Uzbeks of the north. Iran dislikes the hyper-Sunni Taliban, with whom Tehran almost went to war in 1998, seeing the Taliban as a cat's paw of rival Sunni, Pakistan. Iran also wants to halt Afghan drug shipments through that country to the West, as does the West. Finally, some NATO countries are eyeing Iran for transhipping their supplies and materiel to troops in Afghanistan.

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OSC: Cheragh: Obama Plan for Afghanistan Flawed

The USG Open Source Center translates an Afghan editorial criticizing elements of President Obama's new plan for Afghanistan. It displays the gravest doubts that he will find any moderate Taliban with whom to negotiate, but also rejects the idea of an influx of further Western troops. It also decries the tendency of Western politicians to exaggerate the threat to their societies from Afghanistan.

Afghan paper criticizes US plan of talks with 'imaginary' moderate Taleban
Cheragh (Light)
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Document Type: OSC Translated Text

Afghan paper criticizes US plan of talks with "imaginary" moderate Taleban

Text of editorial headlined "USA's tribute to moderate Taleban?" by independent Afghan newspaper Cheragh on 25 March

New scenario, old methods

Nowadays the Americans and their European allies are speaking of peace and reconciliation with an invisible and imaginary thing called the moderate Taleban, and their diplomats are knocking on different doors, even of enemies and the opponents, for the victory of this mission so that if possible meet the lost or self-created creature (Moderate Taleban) and involve them in their new strategy and thereby be immune to their harm and revenge. One of these tributes is opening of a political office for the Taleban and encouraging them to ensure the security of military establishments and logistical convoys in return for a considerable amount (of money).
Cont'd (click below or on "comments")

For many years Afghanistan, because of its sensitive geopolitical location, has been the ground of strategic competition of occupying and hegemonic countries, and has paid a big cost for the realization of their objectives and wishes. The Americans have newly noticed the fact that they cannot make Afghans surrender through force and intimidation, and the new administration of the country (USA) wants to turn a new chapter of cooperation but still it is on the wrong path. Because the events during the past seven years in our country have shown that boosting troops and looking at Afghanistan from a military point of view not only did not help the international community reach their goals, but has also made them face the opposition of the neighbours and the countries in the region to their presence and the reluctance and distrust of the Afghan people towards cooperation with the forces.

On the other hand, the US government is wandering after an imaginary thing like moderate Taleban to end the violence. Although the will to end violence and ensure security is praiseworthy, but for many years the Afghan people and government, in the thought that they could find the ones among the Taleban whose reason dominate their emotions and distinguish the good from the bad, and even for a moment think about the interests of the people and the good of the country, are wandering in the mirage of their imaginations in search of the unfounded thing.

But why the US, despite the fact that the Taleban have always reacted violently, and their spokesman has stated that in contrast to the conception of the western leaders, the Taleban are unified and cannot be classified, still wishes something that cannot be found? It is a suspicious issue.

Since a long time now, western military and strategic studies institutions, by employing experts and releasing their commentaries through the relevant media in an attempt to reverse the facts of war and the existing crisis in Afghanistan, and to exaggerate the country's threat to the world, are engaged in presenting negative and disappointing views; and by magnifying the threat of the Taleban to the government and security (forces), show them uncontrollable and invincible, and justify their wrong acts.

Our advice to the friends (Americans) is that instead of idealism and wasting time, they should turn to realism and do not sum up this mission with killing extremist Taleban and tribute to the moderate ones. The westerners, instead of making peace with the terrorists and human rights violators, should base their strategy on the realities of the international community and the changes in the region and play no more with the fate and emotions of our people.

(Description of Source: Kabul Cheragh (Light) in Dari -- Eight-page independent daily, publishes political, social and cultural articles; critical of the transitional government)


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Pakistan Mosque Bombed, 50 Killed; US: Pakistani Military Elements Support Taliban

In Pakistan, Taliban detonated a bomb in a mosque at Jamrud in the Khyber agency near the Afghanistan border on Friday, killing 50 and wounding 100. The mosque is frequented by paramilitary troops who man a nearby government checkpoint, and who were probably the target of the blast. There is a sense in which Taliban violence in the Federally Administered Tirbal Agencies is a civil war between factions of Pushtuns.

AP has video:



Meanwhile on Friday the US accused elements in the Pakistani military of backing the Taliban.

Pakistani commentators generally greeted the new Obama policy toward their country with skepticism. (See below).

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Cole on Pakistan Drone wars, on Rachel Maddow's Show

I was on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC television news show on Friday evening, commenting on the Pakistan bit of President Obama's plan. She referred to it as a drone war. I said I didn't think we were at war with Pakistan so much as with some Pushtun tribes on either side of the Hindu Kush. And I didn't think it was likely that they would be brought under "control."

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Urdu Editorials Condemn US Predator Strikes on Pakistan

The USG Open Source Center translates Pakistani editorials in the Urdu press that condemn US Predator drone strikes on targets inside Pakistan. In a recent poll, Muslim publics, including that in Pakistan, overwhelmingly rejected US military presence in Muslim countries. A year ago, an opinion poll of Pakistanis found that "most Pakistanis do not believe that Pakistan-U.S. security cooperation has benefited Pakistan, and a majority (84 percent) sees the U.S. military presence in Asia as a greater threat to Pakistan than Al Qaeda and the Taliban (60 percent). Two-thirds of the Pakistanis polled do not trust the United States to “act responsibly in the world,” and a vast majority thinks the United States aims to “weaken and divide the Islamic world.” A recent poll of residents of the tribal belt themselves found majority support for the US Predator strikes, but polls show that Pakistanis in general view the US as a destabilizing factor for their country.

Pakistan: Urdu Press Slams Increasing Drone Attacks on Tribal Areas, Baluchistan
Pakistan -- OSC Summary
Friday, March 27, 2009

The following is a roundup of excerpts from editorials on the increasing drone attacks on Pakistan's tribal areas and Baluchistan, published in the 27 March editions of five Urdu dailies:

Jang Editorial Criticizes US Definition of Terrorism

Emphasizing that when people react against the drone attacks, they are dubbed as terrorists, the editorial says: "Despite persistent protests by Pakistan, the drone attacks are not ending. Rather an open signal has been given about launching attacks on Baluchistan. It creates a horrific impression about the threats posed to the independence, security, and sovereignty of the country. The United States always claims that foreign militants have been killed in drone attacks, and our agencies back the claim. However, the stance of the local people has been on the contrary. These attacks generate reaction, which is also dubbed as terrorism. The families affected by these attacks enjoy the support and backing of the local population. As a result an unpleasant situation emerges for the government."

Mashriq Editorial Says US Not Realizing Pakistan's Problems

Lashing out at the United States for not taking stock of the difficulties its drone attacks are creating for Pakistan in the war on terror, the editorial says: "Pakistan is facing intractable problems because of the drone attacks. On the one hand, precious lives are lost, and on the other, the stability of the country is endangered. In fact, the federal government has repeatedly asked the United States to stop the drone attacks, but it appears that the US Administration has no realization, whatsoever, about the problems and hardships of its ally and is bent on going ahead with its policies at all costs. Drone attacks were also being launched during Pervez Musharraf's period. The reaction of Musharraf regime was quite similar to the present stance of the government where it is asking the United States to stop the drone attacks and offer to launch action on its own. No talk was ever held with the United States on a diplomatic level on stopping the drone attacks."

Ummat Editorial Dismisses US Claims About Target

Questioning Washington's claims that top Al-Qa'ida leaders are targeted in these attacks, the editorial comments: "Since August last year, US planes have made at least 38 violations of Pakistan's border adjacent with Afghanistan and launched bomb and missile attacks in settled and the tribal areas. Americans claim that several key Al-Qa'ida leaders have been killed in these attacks, but the US media and authorities, which are the master of propaganda,, have failed to show the body of any key Al-Qa'ida leader. The killings caused by the drone attacks are so horrific that it becomes very difficult to identify the victims. Because of this, the killed common people and tribesmen are given the name of militants. Several people whom the United States claim to have killed were later found alive. Militancy in the northern areas of Pakistan came into being as a result of the US policies. Americans are dubbing it as terrorism and are engaged in killing tribesmen with missiles and bombs. The United States faces no threat from these people."

Jinnah Editorial Terms President's Baluchistan Visit Crucial

Asserting that President Asif Zardari visited Quetta amid reports about the US plans to launch drone attacks on Baluchistan, the editorial comments: "Reports are pouring in that the United States intends to expand the scope of the drone attacks to Baluchistan. At the same time, these attacks have been accelerated on the tribal areas as well, and there are reports about fixing new targets by the United States. Under these circumstances, President Zardari is visiting Baluchistan. In this scenario, the visit of President Zardari is very crucial."

Khabrain Editorial Highlights Futility of Drone Attacks

Suggesting that the US act is stoking terrorism and extremism in the tribal areas, the editorial says: "Just two days after Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi condemned the drone attacks, the United States again launched the deadly attacks. This clearly proves that the United States does not trust Pakistan despite that it fully supported it in the war on terror and offered sacrifices. So estrangement and hatred against the United States is increasing in Pakistan because of these attacks. The US act is causing increase in terrorism and extremism instead of eliminating it."

End/ (Not Continued)



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Obama Goes to War; Are 60,000 of 80,000 Afghan Troops Potheads?

Part I of President Barack Obama's major policy speech on Afghanistan, Pakistan and al-Qaeda on Friday, 3/27:



And Part II:



Full text of prepared remarks available here.

A Guardian Television report suggests that 75% of the 80,000 Afghan army troops are regular marijuana users. Many are alleged to be village juvenile delinquents who were kicked out. Discipline and tactical know-how is limited. They are facing old-time guerrillas like the Hizb-i Islami of Gulbadin Hikmatyar.

Will 4,000 additional US trainers, promised by President Obama on Friday, be enough?

For background, see Chapter Six of


Engaging the Muslim World


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26 Killed, 37 Wounded in Baghdad Bombing; Women's Condition Deteriorating

A car bombing in a market district of Shaab, Baghdad, killed 26 and wounded 37 on Thursday, the fifth large bombing in March. The LAT underlines that blast walls separating Shiite Shaab from nearby Sunni Arab areas have recently been removed. But it should be remembered that Shaab used to be mixed and is now almost wholly Shiite, so there could be some disgruntled Sunnis and who struck back.

AP has video:



Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that Iranian speaker of the House Ali Larijani is on a secret mission in Iraq to mediate between the Islamic Mission (Da'wa) Party of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his sometime coalition partner, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI). The two parties are seeking to form coalitions in several southern Shiite provincial councils, and Iran is said impatient for the deal to be concluded.

Compare this item to the complaints of the incoming US ambassador to Iraq, slamming Iranian influence.

Iraqi women are in the grip of a silent emergency, according to Oxfam:

' "Women are the forgotten victims of Iraq. Despite the billions of dollars poured into rebuilding Iraq and recent security gains, a quarter of the women interviewed still do not have daily access to water, a third cannot send their children to school and since the war started, over half have been the victim of violence.'

McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Thursday:

' Baghdad

A car bomb targeted civilians near al Zahraa Hospital in Shaab neighbourhood, northern Baghdad at 1 p.m. Thursday killing 16 civilians including four women, injuring 40 others including four women.

Nineveh

Gunmen attacked and killed a store owner in his store in Faisaliyah neighbourhood, central Mosul at 11.30 a.m. Thursday.

A joint Iraqi police and Iraqi army patrol opened fire upon a suspect speeding car that wouldn't stop at the checkpoint in al Jamiaa neighbourhood in which Mosul University is located injuring the driver and accidentally killing a female student who was passing by. The car turned out to be booby trapped and was detonated under control without casualties.

- A gunman threw a grenade at a shop in Dawasa neighborhood in downtown Mosul in the afternoon. The shop owner was wounded and the gunman was arrested by police.

Kirkuk

Gunmen attempted to kidnap one of the body guards of the President of the Criminal Court in Kirkuk, Thursday morning. And during the ensuing hand fight, people started to gather and the gunmen fled leaving the body guard, Murad Fikret with superficial injuries.

Three workers in the Electricity Department in Kirkuk were injured when a roadside bomb targeted them while working in Rashad neighbourhood, western Kirkuk, early Thursday afternoon.'

My interview with Scott Horton of Antiwar.com is now available on the web. It concerns my book:


Engaging the Muslim World

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Predator Strikes Stir anti-US "Hatred"

As the Obama administration announces that it will send 4,000 further troops to Afghanistan to train the Afghan army, the USG Open Source Center translates a talks show from Islamabad that alleges that US predator drone strikes on Pakistan are increasing hatred of the US in Pakistan

Karachi Geo News television in Urdu at 1400 GMT on 25 March carrieslive regularly scheduled "Capital Talk" program relayed from channel's Islamabad studio. Prominent Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir is host of thepopular talk show in Pakistan. . .

Hamid Mir begins the discussion by saying that as soon as one crisis ends in Pakistan, another crisis emerges and Pakistanis have now learned to live with these crises. Mir adds: a day after the judiciary crisis ended on 16 th March, New York Times reported that America is now thinking about extending scope of Drone attacks to Baluchistan and David Kilcullen, adviser to CENTCOM Chief David Petraeus, told Washington Post on 24th March that "Pakistan can break up in next 6 months" and that "Army and Police do not listen to the government in Pakistan" and that "continuation of war on terror is in Pakistan's interest." Continuing, Mir says: yet another Drone attack has taken place in South Waziristan today. Mir adds: although America says that Drone attacks have many benefits, but "most Pakistani observers and a large majority of people believe that the so-called war on terror and Drone attacks have increased and not reduced terrorism in world."Mir says: there were 36 Drone attacks during Gen. Pervez Musharraf's rule, 38in 2008 and 9 so far this year in which about 500 people have been killed. Mir adds: America claims that many top Al-Qa'ida leaders have been killed in Droneattacks, but it has not provided any evidence of killing of Al-Qa'ida leaders. Continuing, Mir says: everybody knows that terrorism and "hatred against America" has increased in Pakistan due to the American policies. Mir says: if Drone attacks are continued, some other country will also find some excuse to carry out similar attacks on Pakistan.
Cont'd (click below or on "comments")

Mir asks Kaira whether Drone attacks will resolve issues faced by Pakistan or not. Kaira says the government has condemned Drone attacksfrom very first day it came to power and it has made it clear to the American administration that it will not be able to achieve its desirable objectives through these attacks. Kaira adds: this is true that "hatred toward America is increasing" throughout Pakistan, especially in tribal areas, due to Drone attacks. Continuing, Kaira says: it should be understood that unless foreign terrorists and extremists are not "isolated" from the local population,successes will not be achieved, and Drone attacks are not proving helpful in this context. Kaira adds: Pakistani troops are still operating in tribal areas and if a credible information is provided to them, they will act against terrorists and extremists because this is in Pakistan's own interest. Continuing,Kaira says: terrorists and extremists want to destabilize the government and political and financial institution of Pakistan and political forces shouldjoin hands to foil their agenda.

Mir plays part of the latest song of Shahzad Roy in which the singer calling for change of system in Pakistan is killed in a symbolic Drone attack at the end.

Mir asks Roy what is philosophy of his latest song and what message he wanted to convey to the nation through this song. Roy says many people seriously think that music cannot bring about change, but music cansurely play a part in changes needed in the system. Roy adds that he has also triedto tell through the song that nobody cares for "innocent, honest and poor"under-trial prisoners in Pakistani jails and in Guantanamo and the end of songshows in "good sense of humor" that a Drone attack kills the singer. On thesubject of Drone attacks, Roy says: Drone attacks are okay if terrorists arebeing killed in it, but "innocent" persons are also being killed in these attacks. Roy says: a commission should be set up to look at the cases of under-trial prisoners in Pakistani jails.

Mir asks Kaira why the government is not able to make America understand that a "//clean shaved singer//" like Shahzad Roy, who is neither Taliban nor an Al-Qa'ida member, is also protesting against America through his songs. Sidestepping the question, Kaira says he does not fully understand what exactly Roy wants to depict in his song, but the fact is that terrorists and extremists, some of whom are foreigners, cannot be allowed to take Pakistan's destiny into their own hands. Continuing, Kaira says: media and civil society definitely has a role in creating awareness in the society, butthey should also "give a hope" to people because only promoting "atmosphere of dejection" does not help the nation. When Mir intervenes to say Roy is notpromoting frustrations, he is "asking people to take their destiny in their own hands," Kaira says when people start making their own groups to fight for their own cause, the writ of state no more exists.

Roy says that he is not arguing that Drone attacks are right or wrong, but the fact is that these attacks are being carried out from outside Pakistan.

Mir establishes video link with Ahmer Bilal Sufi, prominent international law expert, and asks him whether there are other examples of Drone attacks and whether international law allows Drone attacks. Sufi says there are one or two examples of Drone attacks somewhere else than Pakistan andthere was a Drone attack in Yemen to target some alleged terrorists travelingin a van and there have been some Drone attacks in Gaza, but these attacks aremost frequent on Pakistan and that is why international law experts are viewingPakistan as a case study to find out whether there is any legal basis for theseattacks. Continuing, Sufi says: Article 24 of the UN Charter that there shouldbe no air and ground intervention in any state and, so, Drone's entry into any country's airspace itself tantamount to intervention and it is the violation ofUN principle of non-intervention and if it fires anything to cause loss of lifeor property, it obviously mans that the international law is being violated.Continuing, Sufi says: US Congress passed a resolution in 2001 authorizingmilitary action anywhere in the world against those terrorists who wereinvolved in 9/11, but that authorization is of US domestic law and there is no such authorization in international law. Mir asks whether any other countrycould also find encouragement in US Drone attacks to carry out similar attackson Pakistan. Sufi says: international experts are also studying the Pakistanigovernment's reaction and they believe that this reaction is "//muted//" and it is not "//categorical//" and "//clear//" and this lack of clarity is casting ashadow on the question of legality because it is being said that if the homestate where Drone attacks are being carried out openly expresses its consent,these attacks will get legal cover. Sufi adds: there is "//ambiguity//" inPakistan's position and its advantage is going to the debate of legality ofDrone attacks and that is why Drone attacks are being expanded. Sufi says: ifPakistan does not take a categorical stand against Drone attacks, othercountries like India will be encouraged to plan similar attacks on Pakistan.

Mir says Sean D. Murphy, professor at Georgetown University's Law School, in his paper to US Naval War College says that US military's cross border actions from Afghanistan into Pakistan are illegal.

Kaira says nobody is accepting the legality of Drone attacks, but superpowers do not act according to international law. Mir jumps in to ask why America is not able to impose its will on Iran or North Korea ofVenezuela, why on Pakistan alone. Kaira says: superpowers impose their will onmany states other than Pakistan. When Mir says Kaira should then say whetherAmerica is "Pakistan's friend or enemy," Kaira says all states are "friendly onlyto their own interests." Kaira adds: Pakistan's position is different from Iranbecause Iran is not "//harboring//" (elements hostile to America), whilePakistan is on "//allegedly harboring//" (list). When Mir says that Washington Post is reporting that attacks are being carried out with the Pakistan government's consent, Kaira asks why Washington Post's story should be believed.

Roy says more than 250,000 children die in Pakistan everyyear by drinking contaminated water and if the government is not able to solvesuch minor problem of providing safe drinking water to children, how could it claim that it will succeed in this "//all difficult// and very dangerous war//"(against terror) even with outside help.

Mir establishes telephonic contact with Raja Zafarul Haq,senior leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Sharif (PML-N), to know his party's position on Drone attacks. Mir says it is publicly known that the PML-Ncondemns Drone attacks, but it is now being said that the PML-N is also readyto support the present government's policy on US-led war on terror and it isholding talks with high American officials in this connection. Haq says: thisis mere speculation and there is no truth in reports that the PML-N will endorse Gen. Pervez Musharraf's policy, which is also being continued by thepresent government, on Drone attacks. Continuing, Haq says: Pakistan governmentofficials themselves have state that Drone attacks are creating "hatred" towardAmerica and affecting efforts against terrorism and extremism and that is whyhow could PML-N endorse a policy which directly violates Pakistan's sovereignty and the UN charter.

Mir says the question is if the government cannot protect Pakistan's territory, how it could claim that it's the protector of Pakistan's security. Kaira says Parliament not Hamid Mir would decide whether Pakistan should go to war (with America on the issue of Drone attacks). Mir says: but the day parliament approves a resolution against Drone attacks, America "shredsit to pieces" by carrying out more attacks on which all Pakistanis are in"terrible throe." Kaira says he is also in terrible throe, but what is thesolution. Kaira adds: one solution is to make America understand the folly ofits policy of Drone attacks and another solution is to "//straightaway go for awar//." Mir says he is not suggesting war, but Drones could be shot down because the Pakistan air chief has stated that Drones could be shot down. Royjoins in to say if Kaira is in terrible throe because of Drone attacks, he should resign as federal minister. Kaira says his resignation will not make any difference, the main point is how do we prevent Drone attacks and the government is working in this direction.

Roy says Pakistan should take a stand like the one taken byIran without worrying for consequences.

Mir concludes the discussion by saying that the Parliament resolutions are not going to prevent Drone attacks because America does not care about Pakistan parliament's resolutions. Mir says: there is no justification in international law for repeated attacks on Pakistan's territory by a foreign power and if America claims that Drone attacks are killingAl-Qa'ida leaders, it should provide evidence to support its claim. Mir adds hehimself has visited the tribal areas and himself saw only the "bodies of womenand children and their graves" and this is not acceptable to him or any otherPakistani. Mir says: Pakistan's parliament now has to play a "decisive role" inthis connection.

. . . Guests:

Qamar Zaman Kaira, federal minister for information andbroadcasting and senior Pakistan People's Party leader

Shahzad Roy, prominent Pakistani playback singer--Mirintroduces Roy as "representative of civil society" in today's discussion

Ahmer Bilal Sufi, prominent international law expert, whojoins discussion via video link

Senator Raja Zafarullah, senior leader of Pakistan MuslimLeague-Nawaz Sharif, who joins discussion via telephone line Discussion on "increase in hatred" toward America due toDrone attacks

(Description of Source: Karachi Geo News TV in Urdu -- 24-hour satellite news TV channel owned by Pakistan's Jang publishing group. Known for providing quick and detailed reports of events. Geo's focus on reports from India is seen as part of its policy of promoting people-to-people contact and friendly relations with India.)


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Sunni Arab Refugees from Iraq Not Returning; $3-5 Bn. US Reconstruction Aid Wasted

Hamza Hendawi of AP says his interviews and on-the-ground researches in Baghdad support my contention that the Iraqi capital is now only 10 percent to 15 percent Sunni (in 2003 it was roughly 50/50 Sunni and Shiite):

' Among the statistics obtained by the AP:

— Only an estimated 50,000 of 300,000 displaced families — or 16 percent — have returned to their Baghdad homes, according to the U.S. military. Most are believed to be Sunnis.

— In Hurriyah, an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 families, most of them Sunnis, fled in 2006 and 2007. Of those, only 648 families — or 16 to 22 percent — have come back since September.

In addition, 350 to 400 of the displaced families have sold or rented their Hurriyah homes, suggesting they intend to stay away forever, said Maj. Hussein al-Qaissy, Hurriyah's Iraqi army commander.

Note that 300,000 displaced Iraqi families would likely be 1.5 million individuals.

I did research in August, 2008, in Jordan on Iraqi refugees, and it became very clear to me that they are not returning to Iraq. Many are traumatized, having seen horrific violence against neighbors, friends or family members. One fourth of the families applying for refugee aid reported having had a child kidnapped. Many have been personally threatened by militias who still control their old neighborhood. Sometimes the militias track them down in East Amman and threaten them again. Iraqi Sunnis do not feel safe returning to districts that are now largely Shiite. Mixed families feel that they no longer have a place to live safely. Most refugees have had their property confiscated. Many former Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad are now ghost towns.

Iraq says that security in its north has been enhanced by more vigilant Syrian border policing, a signal of better relations between Baghdad and Damascus. (My own guess is that the US commitment to a troop withdrawal timetable has made it less urgent for the Syrians to stir up trouble in the Iraqi north. They don't mind the Da'wa Party or the Islamic Mission Party coming to power in Iraq, though the Syrian government is secular. But they really minded a big US troop presence on their doorstep.

On the other border, Turkey is pledging to double the supply of water flowing into Iraq. One suspects that the quid pro quo is an Iraqi crackdown on the Kurdish Workers Party guerrillas who are hiding out in Iraqi mountains and who conduct cross-border raids on Turkish soldiers in eastern Anatolia.

As much as $5 billion in US reconstruction aid for Iraq was simply wasted, according to the GAO.

Iranian speaker of the House, Ali Larijani, while on a visit to Iraq reiterated the Iranian position that they want to see concrete policy changes from the US before they take President Barack Obama's overtures too seriously. The Iranians keep saying that the US put Saddam Hussein up to attacking Iran in September 1980. This was the last months of the Carter administration, and Gary Sick, who was then on the National Security Council, says that Iraq's invasion of Iran came as a shock to him and his colleagues. President Carter himself would do us all a favor by addressing this allegation, which has also been retailed by gadfly Christopher Hitchens. Also, the US archives for that period should be just about open, and the diplomatic record may also help dispel this myth. (It is true that from 1983 the Reagan administration sought an alliance with Iraq against Iran, but that is a different issue.)

France is selling 24 helicopter gunships to Iraq.

McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Wednesday.. Let's get this straight: bombings wounded several people in Mosul and Baghdad; Turkey bombarded the Qandil area and the Iranians shelled eastern Kurdistan villages-- both because they perceive Kurdish terrorist groups to have been given safe harbor in Iraqi Kurdistan. So this is what calm looks like?

' Nineveh

A roadside bomb targeted a U.S. military convoy near a girl's primary school in Rasheediyah neighbourhood, northern Mosul at 2.15 p.m. Wednesday killing three little girls, injuring seven others.

Iraqi Police found, Wednesday, the body of a man who had been kidnapped three days before from his jeweler's shop in the town of Bashiqa, 30 km to the east of Mosul. He had been shot many times in the head and chest.

Gunmen raided a house in Darkezliyah neighbourhood ,eastern Mosul late Tuesday and killed the woman who lived in it.

- Police found a dead body for a young man in Bashiqa (west of Mosul).

Diyala

A roadside bomb targeted the motorcade of civil society official, Azbar al Azawi as it left his home headed for work at 8.30 a.m. Wednesday. His brother was critically injured, and several others got away with superficial injuries.

Dohuk

Turkish bombardment was renewed Wednesday morning, hitting villages on the border strip near the city of Zakhu, northern Duhok without causing any human casualties, but eye witnesses said that the bombing caused great fear and panic among the villagers.

Sulaimaniyah

Iranian artillery bombarded the villages on Qindeel Mountain in northwest Sulaimaniyah province Wednesday morning without causing any human casualties.

Baghdad

- A roadside bomb targeted an American convoy near a clinic in Qahira neighborhood in northeast Baghdad around 7:30 p.m. Five Iraqi people were wounded with no casualties reported on the American side , police said.

- A roadside bomb targeted an American convoy in Adhamiyah neighborhood in northern Baghdad around 8:30 p.m. Four Iraqi people were wounded with a damage to an American vehicle with no casualties reported, Iraqi police said.'

End/ (Not Continued)


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Cole Interview with Riz Khan

My two-part interview with Riz Khan of Aljazeera English regarding my new book, Engaging the Muslim World, is now available at YouTube.

Part I:



and Part II of the interview:




Engaging the Muslim World

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Update: Bombing Kills 10 in Afghanistan; 3 Australian Troops Wounded

Wednesday witnessed a new round of deadly violence in Afghanistan. In Khost to the east, a roadside bomb incinerated a civilian vehicle, killing 10. It was probably intended for the new Afghan army. In Uruzgan, the home province of Mulla Omar, a blast wounded 3 Australian soldiers and their interpreter.



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US May Undermine Karzai with PM; 8 Police Killed by Taliban;

The Obama administration is so discouraged by the poor performance of the government of Afghan president Hamid Karzai that it is contemplating appointing a prime minister who would do the serious work that Karzai appears to avoid. The plan raises questions of constitutionality in Afghan law, and has a "great man theory" that what is wrong with Afghanistan is personalistic and could be fixed with a new executive officer.

Taliban ambushed Afghan police near Spin Boldak south of Qandahar late on Monday, killing at least 8 of them. Some observers wonder if the attack came in revenge for the killing of 10 militants, including Mawlavi Hasan, a senior figure in a NATO air strike earlier the same day.

Elsewhere, in Afghanistan, militants bombed a mosque. NATO troops shot an Afghan driver for approaching a checkpoint too fast and seeming to disregard orders to halt.

The sting of the killing of 4 Canadian troops over the weekend in Afghanistan was increased by mean-spirited comments at Fox Cable News calling Canadian soldiers "effeminate." Rightwing American bigotry toward Canadians and French, and jokes branding both as cowardly, is always despicable, but never moreso than when our NATO allies are fighting and dying alongside American troops in perhaps the most challenging terrain in the world. I don't think Faux CN should be let off with a mere mumbled apology.

Jean McKenzie interviews former Taliban officials and a researcher in Qandahar who stress that the groups that NATO calls "Taliban" are not al-Qaeda and are different from one another. The "Old Taliban" of Mulla Omar, it is alleged, are pragmatic and a deal could be made with them. Taliban are said to control 10% of Afghanistan, and violence between them and the Kabul government left 2000 civilians dead last year, a 40% increase over 2007.

The results of the policy review on Afghanistan ordered by President Barack Obama will be released on Friday.

The Obama administration agrees with European allies that an exit strategy needs to be found from Afghanistan. By this phrase they seem to mean that they are determined to train and pay for more Afghan police and soldiers, who can provide security in NATO's stead, and that they will depend on on regional allies like Pakistan. (Cole: It just should be pointed out that the training of Afghan security forces has gone much more slowly than NATO had hoped, and Pakistan is unable to deal with its own northwest, much less with Afghanistan.)


Aid organizations are warning that drought in Afghanistan is threatening thousands, perhaps millions of Afghans. Taliban attacks on aid convoys are exacerbating the problem:

' Based on UN estimates, some 2.2 million tons of cereal grains need to be imported into the Afghanistan this year just to meet basic needs. Commercial imports were expected to supply 1.5 million tons. But, in the current situation--marked by high prices and the smallest wheat harvest in years--any meaningful commercial imports of food and agricultural inputs are unlikely. The bulk of the nearly one-million-ton shortfall will need to be met by the international donor community. '

Controversy continues to rage about 5 men killed in a US/Afghan raid in Kunduz. Afghans say the men were innocent civilians, while the US and NATO maintain that the dead had been militants.

Aljazeera English has video about continuing Afghan protests over the US and NATO air strikes that often kill innocents.




End/ (Not Continued)

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News from the Book Tour

Thanks so much to Steve Clemons and the New America Foundation for hosting my talk regarding my new book on Tuesday afternoon. It was live streamed, and I will post links when it is available as a clip.


Engaging the Muslim World

Here is a response to a point I made in my talk at the Prose and Politics bookstore on Monday night in DC. I had complained that there are no Arabic-language centers for the study of America at any university in the Middle East. There is some American studies, but mostly done in English in English departments. And, key works like the writings of Thomas Jefferson have not been translated. I proposed that some chairs be endowed. Bazar Dispatch suggests that US efforts on media and public diplomacy have ignored the key task of informing people of the region about America.

And, thanks so much to M. J. Rosenberg for his spirited denunciation of Martin Peretz's McCarthyite tactics of blackballing people and interfering in their employment. (I had been hurt and confused when my old friend Marty Peretz, who always seemed like such a nice person suddenly turned on me. Not.)

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37 Killed in 4 Iraqi Car Bombings; Gul to Baghdad

McClatchy reports that four bombings around Iraq killed 37 and wounded 60 on Monday.

A bombing at a mechanic's shop in Abu Ghraib to the west of Baghdad killed 9 and wounded 27. There were also bombings in Mosul and near the northern Turkmen city of Tal Afar.

But most worrisome of all was an attack on a Kurdish wedding in Jalawla, Kurdish city in ethnically mixed Diyala Province. Kurdish desires to incorporate northern Diyala (or perhaps all of Diyala) into the Kurdistan confederacy have led to tensions with Arabs of the province, who oppose this change. Some Sunni Arabs in the province, moreover, have joined the radical Salafi group, the Islamic State of Iraq, and have repeatedly attacked Kurds, Shiites and those Sunni Arabs they consider to be collaborating with the US or with the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.

McClatchy writes,

"There will be new mourning inside every Kurdish house," said Deshti Ali, whose cousins were injured in the blast. "Everyone is afraid that today is the start of a new chain of explosions in the city."

The conflict between Arabs and Kurds over territory in the north is shaping up as the next big battle, figurative or literal,in Iraq.

Meanwhile,the Turkish president Abdullah Gul visited Baghdad on Tuesday, seeking a deal on how to handle the Kurdish issue.

Aljazeera English reports on the call by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for reconciliation with former members of the now-dissolved Baath Party. This move appears to be an election maneuver by al-Maliki, positioning him as the candidate of national unity for next November.



Aljazeera English reports on Iraqi refugees in Amman, Jordan, who lack work visas and live precarious lives. There are an estimated 200,000 such refugess in Jordan (estimates of 500,000 or even 700,000 are vast exaggerations) and as many as a million in Syria. Most are afraid to return to their neighborhoods because of ethnic cleansing campaigns and ongoing death threats. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees estimates that 50,000 Iraqis in Jordan are "vulnerable," which is a technical term and an ominous one.



Aljazeera English reports on the problems Iraq refugees who have made it to the US face in finding employment in tough economic times. The US accepted 12,000 such refugees from Jordan in 2008 and says it will take a similar number in 2009. Some of these refugees have no English, and unemployment may force them back to dangerous neighborhoods in Iraq, from which they were ethnically cleansed by the reigning militias.



McClatchy reports political violence in Iraq on Monday:

' Baghdad

Nine civilians were killed and 23 others wounded by a roadside bomb inside a car maintenance workshop in Abu Ghraib district in west Baghdad around 12 p.m.

Seven people were injured including two national police members when a roadside bomb detonated in Doura neighborhood in south Baghdad on Monday evening.

Diyala

At least 25 people were killed and 45 others were injured when a suicide bomber detonated inside mourning tent in Jalawla town northeast of Baquba city on Monday evening.

Nineveh

Four civilians and two policemen were injured when a suicide bomber detonated in Bab al Bedh area in downtown Mosul on Monday afternoon.

A policeman was killed and five civilians were injured when a suicide bomber detonated the policeman in Tal Afar town west of Mosul on Monday afternoon.

Two civilians were killed by a roadside bomb that targeted their car in Wadi hajar area south of Mosul city on Monday afternoon.'

End/ (Not Continued)

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Cole on NPR

Listen to my interview with Steven Inskeep of National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" on myths about Saudi Arabia's puritanical and hyper-Protestant Wahhabi branch of Islam. I argue that there is no statistical or social scientific evidence that Wahhabis are more prone to violence or terrorism than other branches of Islam. Note that it is a narrow argument about the myth of Wahhabism as a font of terrorism in an essentialist way. There is lots wrong with the human rights record of Wahhabism. But that is a different issue. It is a whole chapter in my new book, Engaging the Muslim World.

My hour-long interview with Diane Rehm of NPR on my new book is available here.

Daniel Levy favorably reviews my book, along with recent works of Robin Wright and Rashid Khalidi, for The American Prospect


Engaging the Muslim World

End/ (Not Continued)

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Obama v. Cheney on Guantanamo, Prosecutions, Torture

President Barack Obama on 60 Minutes Sunday night:

' Commenting on former Vice President Dick Cheney's recent assertion that the closure of Guantanamo will make America more vulnerable to attack, Obama said, "I fundamentally disagree with Dick Cheney. Not surprisingly. You know, I think that Vice President Cheney has been at the head of a movement whose notion is somehow that we can't reconcile our core values, our Constitution, our belief that we don't torture, with our national security interests. I think he's drawing the wrong lesson from history."

"The facts don't bear him out. I think he is, that attitude, that philosophy has done incredible damage to our image and position in the world. I mean, the fact of the matter is after all these years how many convictions actually came out of Guantanamo? How many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney? It hasn't made us safer. What it has been is a great advertisement for anti-American sentiment. Which means that there is constant effective recruitment of Arab fighters and Muslim fighters against U.S. interests all around the world." '

Just to give President Obama some support here.

Dan Eggen and Julie Tate of the Washington Post wrote as far back as 2005 that the 400 terrorism convictions boasted of by Bush at that time were mostly bogus:

'An analysis of the Justice Department's own list of terrorism prosecutions by The Washington Post shows that 39 people -- not 200, as officials have implied -- were convicted of crimes related to terrorism or national security.

Most of the others were convicted of relatively minor crimes such as making false statements and violating immigration law -- and had nothing to do with terrorism, the analysis shows. For the entire list, the median sentence was just 11 months.

Taken as a whole, the data indicate that the government's effort to identify terrorists in the United States has been less successful than authorities have often suggested. The statistics provide little support for the contention that authorities have discovered and prosecuted hundreds of terrorists here. Except for a small number of well-known cases -- such as truck driver Iyman Faris, who sought to take down the Brooklyn Bridge -- few of those arrested appear to have been involved in active plots inside the United States.

Among all the people charged as a result of terrorism probes in the three years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, The Post found no demonstrated connection to terrorism or terrorist groups for 180 of them.

Just one in nine individuals on the list had an alleged connection to the al Qaeda terrorist network and only 14 people convicted of terrorism-related crimes -- including Faris and convicted Sept. 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui -- have clear links to the group. Many more cases involve Colombian drug cartels, supporters of the Palestinian cause, Rwandan war criminals or others with no apparent ties to al Qaeda or its leader, Osama bin Laden.'

That's right, as of four years after September 11, Bush-Cheney had convicted exactly 14 members of al-Qaeda. But wait, there is more.

Several of them were convicted for planning attacks overseas. As of a year and a half ago, only 4 al-Qaeda-related individuals had been convicted for planning attacks inside the US. Of those, Zacharias Moussawi and Richard Reid came from abroad for the operation. There is no evidence of any significant radical activity among American Muslims.

As for the ways in which Bush-Cheney blackened the US reputation in the Muslim world, the Pew Global Attitudes surveys are eloquent. In 2001-2007, Bush brought the favorability rating of the US among Turks from 52 percent down to 9 percent. He brought the rating among Indonesians (that is the largest Muslim country in the world) from 75 percent under Clinton to 29 percent. Those polls don't just show a plummeting favorability rating. They show anger with the United States among Muslim publics, and anger is easily played upon by radicals seeking recruits to terrorist operations.

Former aide to Colin Powell Lawrence Wilkerson pointed to how poorly the Guantanamo captives from the battlefields of Afghanistan were vetted, and large numbers appear to have been sold to the US by the Taliban themselves. I happen to know that a few Iraqi Shiites who had fled from Saddam and were hiding out in Afghanistan got caught up in Cheney's dragnet and were sent to Guantanamo. Hint: there are no Shiite al-Qaeda; al-Qaeda kills Shiites.

Major "Matthew Alexander", who played a major role in taking out Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, told Harpers's:

'I listened time and time again to foreign fighters, and Sunni Iraqis, state that the number one reason they had decided to pick up arms and join Al Qaeda was the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the authorized torture and abuse at Guantánamo Bay. My team of interrogators knew that we would become Al Qaeda’s best recruiters if we resorted to torture.'

Here is one of the more experienced and successful counter-terrorism officials in the US military. He backs up what Obama just said, and contradicts Cheney from personal experience.

It is worth asking how many US soldiers died or were wounded at the hands of ordinary Sunni Arabs who would have been at their day jobs if they hadn't been enraged by the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo torture. In short, how many US soldiers did Cheney personally murder?

Not to mention all his other accomplishments in Iraq.

End/ (Not Continued)


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Defending Jim Lehrer and Nicholas Kristof from Martin Peretz

The editor-in-chief of The New Republic, Martin Peretz, attacked Jim Lehrer and Nicholas Kristof over the weekend for having had anything to do with me.

I'm not important, but I really must come to the defense of Lehrer and Kristof. Peretz blames Jim Lehrer for having me on the Lehrer News Hour on PBS and thus allegedly minting me as a liberal intellectual. And he goes on to accuse the News Hour and PBS more generally of being ideologically biased to the Left.

The News Hour works extremely hard to put on balanced interviews. Every time a person is considered for an interview, it involves a pre-interview, a sort of audition. The producer tries to find out what the guest will say on an issue, and then to find a good counter. On Lehrer, I was put opposite Neoconservatives from the American Enterprise Institute such as Michael Rubin and Reuel Gerecht, or against Iraqi politicians or intellectuals who supported the Bush war. I was never put on as a singular or dominating voice, and so Peretz's accusation of bias is merely an insult.

Many of the conservatives with which PBS paired me know no Arabic and have no cultural understanding of the Middle East. As for my credentials, I had written my dissertation on trans-national Shiite Islam in the modern period and had two chapters in the dissertation set among Iraqi Shiites. I discovered new primary sources in Arabic for Iraqi history and Shiism in India and Pakistan, and suffered to get them (I was laid low for 6 months by hepatitis at the end of my fieldwork.) I had been among the few Americans to have written Iraqi history before the war (see my book, Sacred Space and Holy War) and was the first to write an academic journal article on the Sadr Movement. I lived in the Muslim world for nearly 10 years, which informed my researches. There are different ways of knowing. Mine is an academic way, and it has its virtues, and it is not strange that this expertise was respected by PBS. Peretz does not really object to me because I lack expertise or am too far left to suit him (it would not take much) but because my analyses and conclusions differ so profoundly from his, especially on Israel/Palestine, that he wants to silence me. But the Lehrer News Hour is not about shutting people up. It is about allowing a free debate among a large range of perspectives. By the way, readers should google my appearances on Lehrer and decide how well those interviews hold up in the light of what we now know.

Interestingly, Peretz doesn't seem to know what a blog is or to realize that it wasn't PBS that made me prominent, but "Informed Comment" and my daily commentary and reportage here. And, it generated lots of television, not just the Lehrer News Hour. I have been on ABC Evening News, Nightline, the Today Show, CNN Headline News, Anderson Cooper 360, Wolf Blitzer, John Gibson's Big Country (yes, on Fox), Keith Olbermann, Ron Reagan, the History Channel, etc., etc. Lehrer has hardly been alone among television journalists in valuing my perspective.

Peretz has smeared Jim Lehrer, indeed, libelled him, along with Ray Suarez, Margaret Warner and Gwen Ifill (all of whom have interviewed me), and must apologize. Now.

Nicholas D. Kristof has more ethics, more humanity and more insight in one of his fingernails than Peretz has in his whole body.

Peretz is transparent that he fears my new book, Engaging the Muslim World, will be influential and he wants to stop you from reading it.

Doesn't that make you curious to know what is in it that threatens him so much?


Engaging the Muslim World

Cont'd (click below or on "comments")

Peretz is a prime example of what John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt call the "Israel Lobby" (I prefer the plural). He is rich. He has sharp elbows. He used his riches to insert himself centrally into the national political debate. (Try to get an article critical of Israel published in The New Republic). He helped get over 4,000 young Americans killed in a fruitless Middle East war, which he appears mainly to have backed in order to crush the Palestinians. And he is using his position to marginalize Americans who do not share his extreme form of Zionism. He boasts of ruining careers here for the sake of the Likud Party in Israel. He is wholly unrepresentative of American Jewry, which is diversified as to social class and is mostly liberal and dedicated to social justice, and much of which is anti-war (nearly half of American Jews opposed the Iraq War, when 75% of Americans as a whole supported it).

Peretz single-handedly ruined a great magazine with a century-long tradition of contributing to political debate in the United States. Obviously, it has some great journalists working for it, but he corrupted its editorial line and ousted honorable liberals (getting rid of people is one of his favorite ways of making sure he wins). He has no particular accomplishments to his name except marrying the Singer sewing machine fortune and then using it to buy and disfigure The New Republic. He is famous for having backed the nun-killing far rightwing Contras in Central America in the 1980s, and for being part of a Reaganite wacky far right of cranky rich people, along with Domino's Pizza magnate Tom Monaghan, who worked tirelessly to make sure Central American peasants remained barefoot and oppressed so that US corporate profits could continue to flow freely from the region.

He also lobbied the W. Bush administration tirelessly to launch a war of aggression on Iraq with no vestige of international law. I noted in Salon recently,

' "Martin Peretz, owner of the New Republic, took up the neoconservative mantra on Sept. 5, 2002, writing that "The road to Jerusalem more likely leads through Baghdad than the reverse. Once the Palestinians see that the United States will no longer tolerate their hero Saddam Hussein, depressed though they may be, they may also come finally to grasp that Israel is here to stay and that accommodating to this reality is the one thing that can bring them the generous peace they require." '

How you could get more wrong than that, I'm not sure.

Contrast that to what I was writing before the 2003 invasion of Iraq:

' Moreover, the idea that a US military occupation of Iraq will deter as oppose to provoking more attacks on US interests is awfully optimistic. The main problem an organization like al-Qaeda has is to recruit further members and keep current members from melting away in fear. They recruit best when the young men are angriest. What are they angry about? The Israeli dispossession of the Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza; the almost daily shooting by the Israeli army of innocent noncombatants; the progressive colonization of Palestinian territory by--let us say--idiosyncratic settlers from Brooklyn (all of this is on t.v. every day over there); the harsh Indian police state erected over the Muslims of Kashmir; the economic stagnation and authoritarian policies of many Middle Eastern governments that are backed by the US; and the poverty and prejudice Muslim immigrants to places like France and Germany experience daily.

I don't have any idea how to resolve all these grievances; but the young men are very angry about and humiliated by them, and al-Qaeda plays on that anger to seduce them into attacking US interests. A US occupation of Iraq is not going to address the grievances, and is likely to create new bitterness and so help the recruitment drive. If the US really wanted to stop terrorism, it would invade the West Bank and Gaza and liberate the Palestinians to have their own state and self-respect, instead of heading to Baghdad.

Iraq is rugged; tribal forces are still important; and the majority population is Shiite, as is that of neighboring Iran. What will happen if US bombs damage the Shiite shrines, the holiest places for 100 million Shiite Muslims in Lebanon, Iran, Pakistan, India, Bahrain? What will happen if there is a riot in a shrine city like Karbala and US marines put it down by killing rioters? Do we want 100 million Shiites angry at us again? (Lately they have calmed down and it is the radical Sunnis that have given us the problems).

What happens if the Iraqi Sunni middle classes lose faith in secular Arab nationalism because the Baath is overthrown, and they turn to al-Qaeda-type Islam, in part out of
resentment at American hegemony over their country? What will happen if we give the Turks too much authority to intervene in Kurdistan, and fighting breaks out between the Turks and the Iraqi Kurds, and if the Iraqi Kurds turn against the US?'

Peretz accuses me of prophesying and wants me to apologize for being wrong. I was not prophesying. I was pointing to the dangers and uncertainties of an Iraq War. And my gut instinct for what the dangers were was perfectly correct, as subsequent events unfortunately demonstrated.

That Iraq is no longer racked by paroxysms of almost cosmic violence, as it was 2006-2007, is a wonderful good thing. But 4 million are still huddling, displaced; millions have been wounded; the economy is a wreck, and in a recent week 60 were killed in car bombings in the center of the capital. It is not paradise. In any case, that social crises subside over the years does not resurrect the dead or heal the wounded or restore fathers to the orphaned. Peretz does not care about actual human beings, though, unless they are just like him-- rich and superficial and arrogant and spoiled.

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