Encircling Empire: Report #15—The Humanitarian-Militarist Project and the Production Empire in Libya

Encircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period. They are intended to be useful for those interested in: ● contemporary and critical political anthropology ● public anthropology ● imperialism and imperial decline ● militarism/militarization ● the political economy of the world system ● hegemony and soft power ● counterinsurgency ● revolution ● rebellion ● resistance ● protest ● activism ● advocacy ● critique.

Not the usual media roundup, this report focuses on some of the questions raised in “The Libyan Revolution is Dead,” as part of a broader critique on the foreign military intervention in Libya, one week after it began. In particular, we examine:

• the political implications of the war in Western nations;
• the nature of the media spectacle, and how it resembles/differs from wars of the last 20 years;
• assessing the “successes” of the no-flight zone (NFZ) and what it allegedly prevented;
• the human rights frame, and the problem of evidence for “crimes;”
• the strategy behind the foreign military intervention, and the increasingly rapid slippage from one goal to the next;
• the slow but growing media analysis of “the rebels” in Libya, getting underneath some of the insurgents’ claims, followed by an examination of some of the promotional propaganda designed to sell them to Western audiences;
• growing critiques of the war, with perspectives from those outside of Western Europe and North America—one might say, from experts on imperialism for having been at its receiving end for many generations;
• and, finally, the folly of the late humanitarian project, that refuses to recognize its own complicity in creating the object of its destructive desires.

Links to the relevant articles are to be found throughout.

First, the top recommendations for this week:

1. “The Qaddafi I Know: The Good, the Bad, and the West’s Ugly Intervention,” by Yoweri Museveni, 24 March 2011, Foreign Policy—by very far the best article yet on Libya.
2. “Gaddafi, moral interventionism and revolution,” by Richard Falk, Al Jazeera, 23 March 2011.
3. “The five principles driving war propaganda are in play in Libya,” by Duncan Cameron, 22 March 2011, Rabble.ca.
4. “Hopes for a Qaddafi Exit, and Worries of What Comes Next,” by David D. Kirkpatrick, The New York Times, 21 March 2011.
5. “Libyan rebels appear to take leaf from Kadafi’s playbook,” by David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times, 24 March 2011.
6. “Journalists visit prisoners held by rebels in Libya,” by Luis Sinco, Los Angeles Times, 23 March 2011.
7. “‘Humanitarian War’ is an Oxymoron” by Cindy Sheehan, Dandelion Salad, 24 March 2011.
8. “Gadhafi’s military: Trained and armed by Uncle Sam: Millions of dollars in American arms sales have been approved for Libya in recent years,” by Justin Elliott,” by Justin Elliott, Salon, 23 March 2011.
9. “Instead of Bombing Dictators in Libya and Around the World, Stop Selling Them Bombs,” by Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis, AlterNet, 23 March 2011.
10. “Libya’s biggest tribe joins march of reconciliation to Benghazi: Members of Warfalla deny plan to join civilians in carrying olive branches through war zone is a propaganda stunt,” by Ian Black, The Guardian, 23 March 2011.

The Humanitarian-Militarist Project and the
Production of Empire in Libya

The War at Home

Rapid intervention abroad, in the name of a vague humanitarianism, occurs at the expense of democratic consultation back home. Utilizing the military as a supposed solution to political conflicts, is a solution that always comes laden with “emergency,” requiring a rush into combat, and a minimization of debate and analysis. This war, like any other, also comes at the cost of democracy at home. While not only promoting the profile of the military-industrial complex, now treated as indispensible to the amelioration of the human condition, the war also promotes the careers of individual politicians, who might otherwise be in jeopardy in upcoming electoral campaigns. One of these is French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who can point to French flags being waved by the Libyan opposition in Benghazi, with some holding up signs that say, “Merci, Sarkozy.”

As Duncan Cameron observed: “The Conservative perpetrators, Sarkozy, Cameron, and Harper all had good reasons to draw momentary attention away from their own domestic failings. Along with U.S. President Obama, none have built a domestic alliance for the pursuit of a prolonged engagement.”

In the United States, it is the imperial presidency that is continually renewed and fortified by war. President Obama, in the most alarmist mode, declared the Libyan situation a U.S. “national emergency,” and one that required immediate action, in violation not just of his campaign promise to not take the U.S. into another war without first consulting Congress, but also in violation of the War Powers Resolution, which he had stoutly defended. But then again, the dishonest reply comes back: this is not a war, it is a “kinetic military operation” that, oddly enough, bears all of the traits of any other war. This euphemistic phrase has rightly earned the scorn and mockery of commentators from across the political spectrum.

While Obama declared Libya’s internal events a national emergency for the U.S., that did not stop him from leaving on a tour of South America, and failing to address the American people, which he is planning to do more than a full week after the bombing began. None of these actions speak of any real “emergency.”

All of these are the costs and consequences of this war, they are not minimal, and we have to decide if they represent a price worth paying for this adventure.

The Media Spectacle

There have been a few unexpected ironies and reversals that have arisen in this war. One of these is that, while still a cheerleader for war, CNN has tended to have more commentary that is skeptical, even critical, of the war, than has the supposed counterweight to U.S. militainment, Al Jazeera.

One other apparent difference, impressionistic at best, is that at least where cable news media are concerned there is a comparatively less war pornography when compared to the early days of the Iraq invasion and the Kosovo air war: few dazzling shots of weapons in action, not many “bomb cam” videos, and rather lackluster Pentagon PowerPoint presentations with a handful of generally unspectacular slides. Unlike Kosovo, no triumphalist, jubilant daily briefings that glorify air assaults and heap insults on the “enemy.” This might change, but for now one is left to wonder about the reason for the apparent minimalism. It might be part of an effort by the Pentagon to tone down the militainment, so as to create a better illusion that the U.S. is not in the lead; it might be out of respect for a public that is tired of war, that has seen enough already, and this is just another war among the others currently taking place; and/or it might be that the Pentagon is still working on its media strategy for this war (most doubtful of all).

Rather than loving descriptions of weaponry and journalists fondling bombs, or asking for details on technical specs of ordnance and how machines performed in battle, CNN, Fox News, and other mainstream media in the U.S. have produced stories that critically detail how much this added war will cost the American public in a time of economic crisis, budget deficits, states eliminating benefits, and cities shutting down services (see: “U.S. Role in Libya Already Costs Hundreds of Millions,” Fox News). By now, we have the figures memorized: just one Tomahawk missile costs in excess of $1.4 million, and the U.S. has fired more than 160 to date into Libya; it costs $10,000 per hour to keep a bomber in the air, and bombing runs from the U.S. last 25 hours.

What continues unabated, even increasing, is the kind of spastic demonization that we see in the Christian Science Monitor, in particular this 25 March 2011 article by Scott Peterson, “In Libya, a campaign to confuse: Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, with his claims of total popular support and theatrical displays at bombing sites, treads a fine line between rhetoric and reality.” In that article we read everything from Gaddafi being a “mad dog,” because a U.S. president said so, to having a “borderline personality,” because one U.S. academic says so from afar…in which case, if mentally ill, he cannot be held accountable for his actions by any court—one irony of overkill.

The “successes” of the “No-Fly Zone” (NFZ)

The US-led military intervention has boasted of having destroyed the Libyan air force, of destroying military convoys on the ground, and of establishing a NFZ that cannot be challenged by Libyan government forces. Thus in terms of practical implementation, the intervening Western powers can claim success.

One week on, however, what we have not seen is evidence of:

1) significant government or military defections to the side of the insurgents;

2) an ability by the insurgents to advance without the support of what is ultimately the world’s most biggest air force;

3) popular uprisings against the Gaddafi regime across Libya;

4) a loss of popular support for Gaddafi, who retains the backing of several tribes, including the Gadadfa, Megarha, Tarhuna, and the country’s biggest tribe, the Warfalla.

What we have witnessed, instead, included:

1) increased worries by the NATO interventionists that there could be a “stalemate” on the ground and that the regime might not be overthrown;

2) determined NATO involvement as a partisan to the conflict, with the rapid slippage from “protecting civilians,” to clearly protecting the insurgents and aiding their military advance (which few seem to envision as opening up a threat to the safety of civilians as they are placed within the crossfire between government forces and the insurgents), to outright calls for regime change—going well beyond what UN Security Council Resolution 1973 either specified or authorized;

3) an expansion of the expected duration of the military intervention, escalating quickly from statements that said “days, not weeks,” to now “weeks, not months;”

4) a rise in the fighting between government forces and insurgents (“According to reports from Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, new fighting erupted Monday at Misrata”); and,

5) an increased outflow of refugees from towns at the centre of the increased hostilities (“Simon Brooks, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross operations in eastern Libya, reported big population movements from the Ajdabiyah area because of the fighting;” “Residents had already fled the [Zintan] town center to seek shelter in mountain caves”).

Precisely in line with what multiple critics of the NFZ said would happen, as it was in Kosovo, was that the NFZ—and the ensuing attacks on ground forces (not specifically mandated by UNSC1973), which were also predicted to result from the limitations of a NFZ to achieve the stated “humanitarian” objectives—has not caused the regime to fall, has helped to escalate hostilities, has heightened the refugee crisis, and has opened the door to further foreign military intervention that goes well beyond purely humanitarian goals.

What we have all been told, instead, is that the foreign military intervention averted what “would have been” a “massacre” in Benghazi. There is never any evidence for “would have been”—it is simply a belief premised on prediction, nor is there any evidence that Gaddafi aimed to target civilians in general. Had the Gaddafi regime wished to target civilians in Benghazi and “massacre” them, it could have easily done so using its air force alone, when it still had one. The convoy destroyed by French jets, on the road to Benghazi, was a small one, and not one up to the task of either occupying a large city, or wiping out its inhabitants. Leaving aside the obvious hyperbole and alarmism that helped to create a mandate for intervention, what the intervention likely did accomplish was to sustain the insurgents by exogenous means, setting in motion their continued dependence on foreign air cover just to move from one location to another.

Evidence of crimes by the Gaddafi regime, post-NFZ

In a following section we look at evidence of human rights and/or Geneva Convention violations for which the insurgents are responsible, as documented by Western journalists, but passing entirely without comment by either the UN, NATO, or any of the officials of the intervening Western powers.

As for evidence of crimes committed by Gaddafi forces, against civilians, in areas they occupy, this has proven to be more than just tricky for those who militated for intervention and advocate for the overthrow of the regime. If true, then it would be further proof of the failure of the NFZ/air strikes to achieve their stated objectives.

But then, how do we know what the truth is? Some seem to chafe at the very asking of questions about evidence, especially in social network sites such as Twitter. Social media is great comfort food for the mind, apparently, and also great for creating swarms of unanimity that actively work to stifle anyone asking critical questions, or even basic ones such as: how do you know what you claim to know? As I have argued elsewhere, social media is a great crowdsourcing tool for propagating and enforcing hype that serves official propaganda purposes.

Here is one example, where supposed humanitarian sympathy works to enforce alarm and suspend critical thinking—from Global Voices. “Amid the stories of destruction and the mounting death toll,” Amira Al Hussaini writes, “Libyan netizens are waking up this morning to news of…”—the language thus far is careless, for the best she can do, and even then without firm support, is to quote possible Libyans who are all outside Libya, glossed over by the phrase “Libyan netizens,” while referring to “stories” that they are waking up to…which rather distances them from the experience about which they are supposed experts. More importantly, she adds: “the world continues to watch as more evidence of horror and atrocities come out from Misrata”—but she cites no evidence, even less can she claim that the regime deliberately targeted civilians. Instead, what does she offer? Lopsided social media unanimity—a selection of tweets, some of which consist of little more than slogans. Asked to explain, Global Voices failed to respond.

Here is the “evidence” of “crimes” in Misrata, occurring during the last days of fighting, as reported by the international media—and this is critically important, because if Gaddafi and officials in his regime are ever to be held accountable by the International Criminal Court, one has to know what kind of evidence there is for his crimes:

• In “U.S.: Libya forces attack civilians in third largest city of Misrata,” Reuters reports: “The on-scene commander of the international coalition for Libya is confirming that civilians are under attack by government forces in Misrata, the North Africa nation’s third largest city.” The problem with this statement is that United States Navy Adm. Samuel J. Locklear is not actually on the scene, and is clearly not an independent source. In addition, no evidence was furnished to substantiate his claims.
• “A doctor in Misrata said the tanks fled after the airstrikes began around midnight, giving a much-needed reprieve to the city, which is inaccessible to human rights monitors or journalists” (AP). This signals that reports cannot be independently verified
• “After five days of fighting, resident Ali al-Azhari said….Al-Azhari, who spoke to The Associated Press by phone from the city, said one officer told rebels he had order ‘to turn Zintan to a desert to be smashed and flattened’ (AP). We do not know more than this person is a “resident,” that AP reporters had not actually met him, and that his report is little more than second-hand hearsay.
• “Rashid Khalikov, the U.N. aid coordinator for Libya, said Wednesday he was ‘extremely concerned’ about the plight of civilians there, adding that the global body hasn’t received any firsthand information about the humanitarian situation inside the country for a week” (AP). Again, this confirms that there is no independently verified, primary evidence.
• Note how this Reuters report moves from a grand claim to minimal numbers: “Residents said a ‘massacre’ was taking place with tank and artillery fire destroying buildings and snipers picking off people indiscriminately….A rebel spokesperson said 16 people had been killed in Misrata and another six in attacks on Zintan, another rebel-held town in west Libya,” and, “It was impossible to independently verify the reports.”
• We do know that coalition bombers launched an attack against “an ammunition bunker near Misrata” but we are not told how near Misrata, or whether civilians live close to the bunker (AP).
• “a resident said pro-Gaddafi snipers were still shooting at people from rooftops in the centre of the town and that the death toll during the past week had reached 115 people, including several children” (Reuters). Is the resident a partisan source? How does this resident know the total of all those killed in the city for the past week? We simply do not know.
• “ ‘Snipers continue to target civilians,’ said the resident, who did not give his name” (Reuters). Even if we use hearsay, is there at least a second source to corroborate this? More credible evidence is provided by doctors—yet, they do not speak of any number of people killed, just those wounded, and we do not know who wounded them given the fight between opposing forces.
• CNN provides more than Reuters above: “A doctor said 109 people have died in Misrata over the past week. Six were killed Thursday by Gadhafi’s rooftop snipers — unseen but too often precise. More than 1,300 others have been wounded since the protests erupted in the western city last month.” Of the 109 people killed and 1,300 wounded, how many were insurgents? Do injured insurgents have their own, independent, medical treatment capabilities?
• “Gaddafi’s forces shelled an area on the outskirts of the city, killing six people including three children, a rebel said” (AP). In other words, we have the word of a single person, a partisan, that indicates a small number of casualties, and does not address whether the intentional targets were civilians.

When civilians die in the cross-fire between government forces and insurgents, are these to be treated as crimes by the regime alone? Are they to be treated as a deliberate attack on the civilian population?

None of this amounts to either the need to “support” the Gaddafi regime, or to avoid democratization, nor does it mean that no crimes could have possibly been committed and that there is no need for accountability. Needless to say, some heads will explode nonetheless when what is challenged is the act of emoting in an information-depleted environment.

The war has been sold as humanitarian, allegedly to prevent a “massacre” that officials assert “would have happened” with civilians presumably the intended target (no discussion of why, if that was the Gaddafi regime’s goal, the air force was not used to raze Benghazi while Libya still had an air force). As Cameron points out:

“The main motivation given for the bombing of Libya by western forces is the need to protect the civilian population from bombing attacks ordered by Gaddafi on insurgents in eastern Libya, and stop an expected massacre in Benghazi by advancing armored divisions. When asked at a press briefing March 1 if there was evidence of bombing attacks on civilians, American Secretary of Defense Robert Gates replied ‘We’ve seen the press reports, but we have no confirmation of that.’ U.S. Admiral Mullen added: ‘That’s correct. We’ve seen no confirmation whatsoever.’ Their statements confirmed what Russian military intelligence sources had previously reported: the attacks had never happened.”

Nonetheless, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton persists: “We faced the prospect of an imminent humanitarian disaster. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were in danger,” and, “a massacre in Benghazi was prevented.”

As for rebel spokesmen, and as noted by the New York Times’ David Kirkpatrick (see below), statements about Gaddafi’s atrocities have frequently been wildly overblown and unsubstantiated, and apparently designed to motivate international action. For example, Abdel Rahman Al Abar, Libya’s Chief Prosecutor who defected to the opposition, told Al Jazeera, “What happened and is happening are massacres and bloodshed never witnessed by the Libyan people.” Never before witnessed­—an interesting erasure of Italian colonialism (perhaps convenient, since Italian bombs may soon be raining down on Libyan soil once again), which seems to forget the actual genocide practiced by the Italians in launching air strikes on civilian populations, using mustard gas, killing thousands in detention camps, and in some estimates, killing off as many as 37% of all Libyans. We see history being reinvented before our very eyes, if we choose to remain awake.

“Protecting civilians” means regime change, expanded war, and ignoring consequences

Not content with the obvious failures of the current air war to achieve any of the ultimate political objectives, the Obama administration—still not wanting to be seen as leading this “kinetic operation”—is considering drastically more lethal firepower: “Among the weapons being eyed for use in Libya is the Air Force’s AC-130 gunship, an imposing aircraft armed with cannons that shoot from the side doors with precision. Other possibilities are helicopters and drones that fly lower and slower and can spot more than fast-moving jet fighters” (AP, 26 March 2011: “US eye more firepower to hit pro-Gadhafi forces”). The aim, clearly, is not just to negate Libyan air capabilities, or to remove them from positions where they can harm civilians, but to “remove” government forces from their own country entirely. Hopefully, none of these government troops have families, or those benefitting from NATO’s actions that terminate them will likely feel the wrath of revenge for some time to come.

Learning more about the insurgents and the political opposition

According to Hillary Clinton, “When the Libyan people sought to realize their democratic aspirations, they were met by extreme violence from their own government.” Yet, the New York Times correspondent on the ground, David Kirkpatrick, gives us a different account: “In the neighborhoods of the capital that have staged major peaceful protests against Colonel Qaddafi, many have volunteered — speaking on the condition of anonymity — that their demonstrations were nonviolent mainly because they could not obtain weapons fast enough.”

Kirkpatrick presents this analysis of what we know, and still do not know about the opposition:

“The behavior of the fledgling rebel government in Benghazi so far offers few clues to the rebels’ true nature. Their governing council is composed of secular-minded professionals — lawyers, academics, businesspeople — who talk about democracy, transparency, human rights and the rule of law. But their commitment to those principles is just now being tested as they confront the specter of potential Qaddafi spies in their midst, either with rough tribal justice or a more measured legal process.

“Like the Qaddafi government, the operation around the rebel council is rife with family ties. And like the chiefs of the Libyan state news media, the rebels feel no loyalty to the truth in shaping their propaganda, claiming nonexistent battlefield victories, asserting they were still fighting in a key city days after it fell to Qaddafi forces, and making vastly inflated claims of his barbaric behavior.

“Skeptics of the rebels’ commitment to democracy point to Libya’s short and brutal history. Until Colonel Qaddafi’s revolution in 1969, Libya could scarcely be considered a country, divided as it was under its former king into three separate provinces, each with myriad tribes of rural, semi-nomadic herders. Retaliatory tribal killings and violence were the main source of justice.”

TIME’s Mark Thompson in “Just Who Are These Libyan Rebels?” is worried by what he sees as evidence that the Benghazi region is in fact a base for those who fought the U.S. in Iraq, finding data that supports what Hillary Clinton stated to Congress and, oddly enough, giving some weight to what the media otherwise treated as Gaddafi’s “crazy” allegations about “Al Qaeda” fighters.

On another issue, the clear dependence of the Libyan insurgents on NATO air strikes, and the fact that some journalists are saying there is clear evidence of the coordination between the two, Yoweri Museveni makes the following stinging, valid, point: “if the Libyan opposition groups are patriots, they should fight their war by themselves and conduct their affairs by themselves. After all, they easily captured so much equipment from the Libyan Army, why do they need foreign military support? I only had 27 rifles. To be puppets is not good.”

As if hearing Museveni’s criticism, one insurgent, Ahmed al-Aroufi, told Reuters: “We don’t depend on anyone but God, not France or America. We started this revolution without them through the sweat of our own brow, and that is how we will finish it” (source).

In a poorly titled promotional piece, “Libya’s Reformist Revolutionaries,” by Anjali Kamat and Ahmad Shokr—they are either reformists or revolutionaries, but cannot be both, if one understands even the basic meanings of these political concepts—the authors set the tone for their piece with a hostile and defensive reaction:

“The newly formed and heterogeneous rebel council that has taken control of parts of eastern Libya realises that what began as a hopeful pro-democracy uprising has been forced into a perilous war against a quasi-fascist regime. It is in desperation in the face of mounting casualties that the National Transitional Council has supported the ‘no-fly zone’ demand. The imperative for solidarity with the Libyan rebels is being lost in anti-imperialist polemics, some of which has [sic] casually dismissed those Libyans who call for a no-fly zone as naïve or, even worse, as imperial stooges.”

It is also a misleading and inaccurate piece of propaganda. There have been no casual dismissals, but very studied critiques that have advanced many skeptical and critical questions that go unanswered (and remain so, even after articles such as the one above). In addition, the calls for a NFZ preceded any threats of a “massacre” by weeks, so it was by no means a last-resort call. This was established already, in the words of opposition leaders themselves, in the last article on this site. Finally, it is a high-ranking member of the opposition Transitional National Council, Ali Tarhouni, who himself suggested the insurgents were naïve: “…the lingering disarray stemmed from an initial expectation that Gadhafi would quickly crumble and flee after the uprising’s initial success, Tarhouni said.” Kamat and Shokr need to have some discussions with those they claim to represent and support, before impugning the rest of us.

As for the “imperative for solidarity”—there is no imperative, though one can certainly appreciate the totalitarian tone. The insurgents are not entitled to solidarity, not automatically, not without question. What is interesting is that even with the support of the world’s most powerful militaries, even with the backing of the UN, the Arab League, and a mass of self-described humanitarians, that articles like this still need to be written—as if stricken by fear that they might not have also won total unanimity, as if some questions cause too much discomfort, and risk becoming contagious. Far from winning sympathy, articles such as this one by Kamat and Shokr invite even more criticism.

Contrary to the “imperative for solidarity,” more sober documentary analyses from correspondents on the ground provide a very disturbing picture of these “reformist revolutionaries.” In “Libyan rebels appear to take leaf from Kadafi’s playbook,” Los Angeles Times reporter David Zucchino writes:

“The rebels of eastern Libya have found much to condemn about the police state tactics of Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi: deep paranoia, mass detentions, secret prisons and tightly scripted media tours….

“But some of those same tactics appear to be creeping into the efforts of the opposition here as it seeks to stamp out lingering loyalty to Kadafi. Rebel forces are detaining anyone suspected of serving or assisting the Kadafi regime, locking them up in the same prisons once used to detain and torture Kadafi’s opponents….”

In particular, they are focusing on sub-Saharan Africans, with an approach that can only be characterized as racially selective xenophobia. They are either violating the human rights of innocent civilians, beating them and wrongly imprisoning them (sometimes worse), or violating the Geneva Conventions by parading prisoners of war if they are truly mercenaries. So far, the evidence that some are mercenaries is backed by the insurgents who merely present their African passports to journalists, as if this was sufficient proof. See also: “Libyan rebels appear to take leaf from Kadafi’s playbook,” by David Zucchino, Los Angeles Times, 24 March 2011.

See also: “Libya’s Rebels Embrace West,” by Yaroslav Trofimov and Charles Levinson, Wall Street Journal, 21 March 2011; “Key figures in Libya’s rebel council,” by David Gritten, BBC News, 10 March 2011.

Critiques of the war, from outside Europe and North America

From Africa and the Caribbean, articles are now appearing that condemn Western military intervention in Libya. This is by no means even the start of a representative summary, which might be the focus of upcoming reports. In Trinidad & Tobago, Khafra Kambon, a respected long-time activist, writes in “Africans need a strong international voice” (and read the comments):

“If it is the protection of civilians, and we abhor the indiscriminate killing of unarmed, peaceful protestors, why was the fervour to intervene not decreased when it was clear that the Gadaffi government was in fact faced with an armed uprising? The opposing sectorally-based militia, has even war planes, which was revealed when one was shot down. They are brutally murdering the Black-skinned citizens of other African countries, who have been working in Libya. No mention is made of the plight or protection of these civilians.

“Why does the UN-mandated ceasefire apply only to the government while the armed insurgents advance to take over cities under cover of coalition aircraft?

“Why was the Western media silent on the African Union’s rejection of military intervention and proposal for a negotiated solution? Why did the allies block the AU team from going to Libya before they started their assault? Libya is an African country and part of Gadaffi’s problem with the Arab world stems from his identification with Africa.

“Libya now faces a serious threat of being destroyed as a nation. Africa and Africans around the world need a louder international voice if we are to survive as a viable people in a dangerous world where wars for resources and battles for our minds are intensifying.”

Also, Guyanese journalist Rickey Singh, also a long-standing critical voice in the region’s media, wrote in “Arab ‘fig leaf’ for regime change”:

“the US, UK and France using as a ‘fig leaf’ the Arab League’s flattering endorsement of a ‘no-fly zone’ in Libya to unleash enormous military power and now the warning from President Obama that ‘Gadaffi must go’, President George W Bush must be smiling.

“Let us get ready for regime change in Tripoli — compliments of even a coalition of intervening powers with conflicting messages and priorities.”

Most striking of all, is the balanced, very detailed, and very critical article by Yoweri Museveni, which is this week’s top most recommended article and defies any neat summary, but I will leave it at this extract:

“I am not able to understand the position of Western countries, which appear to resent independent-minded leaders and seem to prefer puppets. Puppets are not good for any country. Most of the countries that have transitioned from Third World to First World status since 1945 have had independent-minded leaders….

“Qaddafi, whatever his faults, is a true nationalist. I prefer nationalists to puppets of foreign interests. Where have the puppets caused the transformation of countries? I need some assistance with information on this from those who are familiar with puppetry….

“Excessive external involvement always brings terrible distortions. Why should external forces involve themselves? That is a vote of no confidence in the people themselves. A legitimate internal insurrection, if that is the strategy chosen by the leaders of that effort, can succeed. The Shah of Iran was defeated by an internal insurrection; the Russian Revolution in 1917 was an internal insurrection; the Revolution in Zanzibar in 1964 was an internal insurrection; the changes in Ukraine, Georgia, and so forth — all were internal insurrections. It should be for the leaders of the resistance in a given country to decide their strategy, not for foreigners to sponsor insurrection groups in sovereign countries.

“I am totally allergic to foreign, political, and military involvement in sovereign countries, especially the African countries. If foreign intervention is good, then, African countries should be the most prosperous countries in the world, because we have had the greatest dosages of that: the slave trade, colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism, etc. But all those foreign-imposed phenomena have been disastrous. It is only recently that Africa is beginning to come up, partly because we are rejecting external meddling. External meddling and the acquiescence by Africans into that meddling have been responsible for the stagnation on our continent. The wrong definition of priorities in many African countries is, in many cases, imposed by external groups….Quislings and their external backers do not care about all this.”

And finally, Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam in the U.S., with a stirring denunciation of the intervention, in a video originally taken down by YouTube after it had received almost half a million views:

The folly of spontaneous and reactive “humanitarianism”

Much of the overwrought “humanitarian concern” expressed by Western liberals and some leftists, including many who were not even paying attention to Libya just over a month ago, deserves continued critique. The displacement of sympathy, after the fact of repression, in a selective and impetuous manner, is a manifestation of dependence both on mainstream media for their guidance, and a rejection of their own primary responsibility in not working against the military-industrial complex which armed and trained these regimes in the first place. Instead, they praise the work of the very same war corporatism in bringing “salvation” to civilians.

What we know is that Col. Gaddafi obtained his own military training in Britain in the 1960s. In addition, in an article by Justin Elliott, “Gadhafi’s military: Trained and armed by Uncle Sam,” we learn the following:

“in fiscal 2009 (the year beginning in October 2008)…the Defense Department spent about $30,000 training two Libyans in the Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program. An annual report on foreign military training talks about increasing spending for fiscal 2010, including a State Department program to teach English to Libyan officers. The report praises Libya as ‘an important partner in counterterrorism and regional stability,’ and makes the case for future training.

“In September 2009, three senior Libyan military officers visited headquarters of the U.S. Africa Command in Germany to receive ‘in-depth briefings on the command, how it functions and works with African militaries,’ according to a DOD report. The Africa Command is now overseeing the bombardment of Libya.

“Earlier that year, in March, ‘Libyan naval officers spent a day aboard the USS Eisenhower in the Mediterranean Sea to speak with crew members and watch flight deck operations,’ according to the same report. That followed the January 2009 signing of a ‘memorandum of understanding’ between the U.S. and Libya on military cooperation.

“There’s also evidence that Libya has purchased American weapons. More than $15 million in arms sales from U.S. manufacturers to Libya were authorized by the government in fiscal 2009 alone, according to the State Department. (Only $400,000 of that was delivered that year; presumably the rest was delivered in later years, for which data is not yet available.) That sum was mostly authorized in the category of ‘aircraft and associated equipment.’ That year more than 20,000 components and parts of aircraft were authorized for sale to Libya. In 2008, $46 million in military sales were approved by the government.

“In late February, the State Department suspended all arms export licenses for Libya, suggesting there may have been a flow of U.S. arms into the country until very recently. U.S. allies in the fight against Gadhafi have also been involved in arms deals with Libya, including Britain and France, which has reportedly sold missiles to the Libyans…”

An article by Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis in AlterNet, “Instead of Bombing Dictators in Libya and Around the World, Stop Selling Them Bombs” (23 March 2011), also tells us:

“In 2009 alone, European governments–including Britain and France–sold Libya more than $470 million worth of weapons, including fighter jets, guns and bombs. And before it started calling for regime change, the Obama administration was working to provide the Libyan dictator another $77 million in weapons, on top of the $17 million it provided in 2009 and the $46 million the Bush administration provided in 2008.”

Rather than fight their countries’ original intervention in supplying arms and training, many of those advocating for the NFZ turned their sights on the anti-interventionists. As international lawyer and UN special rapporteur Richard Falk notes,

“The anti-interventionists, who doubt the current effectiveness of hard power tactics, especially under Western auspices, were outmanoeuvred, especially at the United Nations and in the sensationalist media that confused the Gaddafi horror show for no brainer/slam dunk reasoning as to the question of intervention, treating it as a question of ‘how’, rather than ‘whether’, again failing to fulfil their role in a democratic society by giving no attention to the anti-intervention viewpoint.”

Instead of action against militarism, the ironic humanitarians/liberal imperialists will quicker denounce the “anti-war crowd,” than face their own complicity in creating the monsters they tilt against.

Meanwhile, unlike any of the other international governmental organizations, such as the Arab League and the UN, whose stated concern for protecting civilians did not lead them to think of peaceful means of conflict resolution and diplomacy—it is the African Union that has stepped forward to both criticize Gaddafi and propose a nonviolent resolution. The African Union called for a transition period that would lead to democratic elections—this is a chance for the opposition to definitively demonstrate the extent of its popular support, rather than rush to grab power by force of arms. AU leaders rebuked Gaddafi and called for reforms that could well lead to his removal—“A Libyan government delegation is meeting in Ethiopia with five African heads of state who plan to develop a road map to encourage political reform in the North African country. It couldn’t immediately be confirmed if Libyan rebels were also in attendance” (source). Jean Ping, the AU commission chairman, stressed the inevitability of political reforms in Libya and called the aspirations of the Libyan people “legitimate” (source). (Also see: “African Union invites Libya govt, opposition to talks.”) What will the “humanitarians” do, dismiss regional solutions for peaceful conflict resolution and democratization…and support more bombing?

Encircling Empire: Report #14—Foreign Military Intervention in Libya: A Report on Neo-colonial dependency and humanitarian imperialism

Encircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period. They are intended to be useful for those interested in: ● contemporary and critical political anthropology ● public anthropology ● imperialism and imperial decline ● militarism/militarization ● the political economy of the world system ● hegemony and soft power ● counterinsurgency ● revolution ● rebellion ● resistance ● protest ● activism ● advocacy ● critique.

This report is being published just as the UN Security Council is moments away from voting on a new resolution against Libya, that could significantly escalate and internationalize the violence there. More than that, in response Libya’s leader has promised to retaliate against all air and maritime traffic in the Mediterranean, which would lead to a further escalation and internationalization of the war. France is promising military action within mere hours of the passage of the UN Resolution. Now, as I finish these words, news that the UN has in fact passed a “no fly zone” resolution. See this, just published: “UN Votes for Libya Air Strikes,” by Lenin’s Tomb. An early copy of the resolution can be obtained here.

In this report ZA continues from the last one, by presenting a media roundup that focuses on arguments for and against foreign military intervention in Libya. (As usual, the reports are listed in chronological order, starting with the most recent.) Many of the arguments have centered around the imposition of a no flight zone, although frequently the argument for intervention includes proposed air strikes on Libyan government targets. First to be presented are those articles that criticize humanitarian imperialist premises and the (re)turn to validating military humanism, as they tend to be the most cogent and continue to be largely unanswered. Second, a listing of key rebel statements calling for Western intervention, and some articles about the Libyan opposition. Third, articles and essays that promote and justify foreign military intervention. Also, ZA’s top recommendations.

COMMENT: As the author of this report, what I specifically protest are minds instantly made up, with absolute certainty, when just a little over a month ago hardly anyone was speaking about Libya. The way those instantly certain minds repeat many of the exact same “humanitarian” justifications for war in Iraq and Kosovo, in the most absolute terms, with little attention to any lessons learned, is shocking and disappointing. We know from Google Trends that Libya was almost not mentioned at all just over a month ago, and yet so many speak as if they are ready-made experts on Libya, and have a deep familiarity with the rebels, who they are, what they want, and what is their depth of popular support. In addition, few remark on the fact that almost from the very start of the anti-Gaddafi protests there were suspiciously fast calls for a Western-backed no fly zone: the Libyan protests began on February 17—and yet it was, as far as can be determined using Google news archives, on February 20 that the first articles began to appear that coupled the terms Libya and “no fly zone.” One opposition leader said: “We asked for a no-fly zone to be imposed from day one” (source). This ought to raise more questions, for anyone who is a free thinker and values the importance of skepticism. What determination did Gaddafi’s opponents have to see this struggle through to the end, by their own efforts? What political groundwork, consciousness raising, and network building did they engage in before rebelling? What kind of estimate did they make of the regime’s strengths? What level of popular support do they enjoy, outside of Benghazi? Given that the army was kept deliberately weak by Gaddafi himself, to preclude any viable military coup, how has it managed so many gains when the rebels claimed to have won all sorts of defections?

Top recommendations:

1. “Another NATO Intervention? Libya: Is This Kosovo All Over Again?” by Diana Johnstone, CounterPunch, 07 March 2011.
2. “Libya and the folly of intervention: After turning a blind eye to Gaddafi’s violent rule, the West has no legitimacy to enforce a no-fly zone,” by Sami Hermez, Al Jazeera English, 07 March 2011.
3. “The Old Gang’s All Here: Libya and the Return of Humanitarian Imperialism,” by Jean Bricmont, CounterPunch, 08 March 2011.
4. “Seeing Through the ‘Humanitarians’,” by Marko Markanovic, Antiwar.com, 12 March 2011.
5. “The revival of imperialist ideology,” Lenin’s Tomb, 01 March 2011
6. “Why a no-fly zone means no freedom for Libyans— Those looking to the West to intervene against Gaddafi degrade the name of internationalism and deny Libyans the right to control their fate” by Mick Hume, Spiked, 15 March 2011.
7. “On Libya, too many questions,” by George F. Will, Washington Post, 08 March 2011.
8. “Don’t Use U.S. Force in Libya!” by Leslie H. Gelb, The Daily Beast, 13 March 2011.
9. “Iraq Then, Libya Now,” Op-Ed by Ross Douthat, New York Times, 13 March 2011.
10. “Will We Ever Learn? Kicking the Intervention Habit,” by Richard Falk, 07 March 2011.
11. “Pack Journalism Promotes War on Libya,” by Stephen Lendman, IntelDaily, 11 March 2011.
12. “Internet activists should be careful what they wish for in Libya: Calls for a no-fly zone over Libya ignore the perils of intervention. Long-term solutions aren’t as simple as the click of a mouse,” by John Hilary, The Guardian, 10 March 2011.
13. “It’s Their War, Not Ours,” by Patrick J. Buchanan, Antiwar.com, 08 March 2011.
14. “Don’t Think, Recognize! Sarkozy’s Stupid Move on Libya,” by Patrick Cockburn, CounterPunch, 11-13 March 2011.

AGAINST FOREIGN MILITARY INTERVENTION IN LIBYA

“No-fly zones, easy to announce and expensive to impose, have, at best, a checkered history. In Bosnia, a no-fly zone failed to prevent the massacres at Srebrenica. In Kosovo, a full-blown bombing campaign was subsequently needed to dislodge Serb forces. In Iraq, more than a decade of being under a no-fly zone didn’t topple Saddam Hussein and an invasion by more than 100,000 U.S. ground troops was needed in a war that lasted six years. Only Britain and France, backed by Lebanon, the only Arab League nation currently among the 10 rotating members of the Security Council, are clearly pushing for a no-fly zone.” (source)

17% of Americans favour more direct U.S. intervention—see this, and other notes, compiled by the military blog, Fabius Maximus in “About attacking Libya – let’s give this more thought than we did Afghanistan and Iraq.” See especially: “67% Say U.S. Should Steer Clear of Political Unrest in Arab Nations,” Rasmussen Reports, 23 February 2011.

“Libya: The illusion of force—A no-fly zone will deliver too little, too late. The Libyan rebels’ greatest asset is who they are,” Editorial, The Guardian, 10 March 2011: “Their [the rebels’] biggest weapon remains their cause and who they are. Not agents of al-Qaida or the proxies of western colonialism, but Libyans who have risen up after decades of brutal repression. Tripoli is unlikely to fall militarily, but the regime is still capable of imploding if and when the military tide turns. We should not forget the lessons of Egypt and Tunisia in Libya. The more brutality Gaddafi employs, the quicker he hastens his own end.”

For an extensive series of strong criticisms of John Kerry’s arguments for Western military intervention in Libya, read the comments in response to his article here.

We already know that past “no fly zones” were remarkable failures in achieving their stated objectives, and often provoked the opposite. Yet some still cling to the notion that the northern NFZ over Iraq was a “success” and that it “protected the Kurds” for a decade—in fact, it was only imposed after forces under Saddam Hussein had annihilated Kurdish opposition: “The largest populations of Kurds in Iraq, living in the plains below the mountains, became easy targets for Iraqi gunships. Helicopters strafed civilian convoys with gunfire as the Kurds fled to higher ground. It was only after the Kurdish rebellion became a rout, after thousands of Kurds had been killed and more than one million became refugees, that a no-fly zone was implemented by British, American and French forces” (source).

“Against American interventionism: Before we heed calls for US military action against the Gaddafi regime in Libya, just remember the recent history of foreign wars,” by Clancy Sigal, 11 March 2011: “There is no such thing as a surgical, clean, no-consequences military operation, despite all the assurances beforehand. Inevitably, we end up killing the wrong people and lying about it. You know the game is up when our deeply opportunistic defence secretary Robert Gates, his cynical eye on retirement and a Bob McNamara-style self-purification, tells army cadets ‘any future defence secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should “have his head examined”, as General MacArthur so delicately put it.’ As Gates slams the office door shut behind him. Sure, let’s impose a no-fly zone over Tripoli. Then comes the urgent necessity to protect our Awacs and fighter planes; then comes urgent need for a stable air base and a surge of soldiers to protect it against malcontents with AK-47s; then comes …Matt Damon, one of my favourite actors and an avowedly leftish movie star who produced a TV version of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History, recently announced his disappointment in Obama. ‘I no longer hope for audacity,’ Damon laments. Listen, Matt: maybe, in this case, audacity is the last thing we want from our commander-in-chief.”

“Why a no-fly zone means no freedom for Libyans— Those looking to the West to intervene against Gaddafi degrade the name of internationalism and deny Libyans the right to control their fate” by Mick Hume, Spiked, 15 March 2011: “The irony of the Saudis claiming to support action against Gaddafi while sending in troops to help the Bahraini royals put down protests should not have escaped even the G8…. Let us cut out the pious crap and be clear about what these demands for a Western no-fly zone over Libya represent. However it is dressed up as a humanitarian mission to protect the Libyan people from Gaddafi’s repression, and however token Cameron might imagine it could be, a no-fly zone would be an act of political and military intervention by foreign powers to shape the fate of Libya. That is anti-democratic in principle, taking the struggle for power out of the hands of the people themselves. History suggests it would also be a disaster in practice that could escalate and perpetuate a civil war. Western intervention by any other name will still risk imposing a no-freedom zone on the Libyans…. the liberal pro-interventionists are able to strike a high moral pose in support of a ‘humanitarian’ no-fly zone. Even if they fail to persuade their governments this time, this influential lobby is using the Libyan case to re-establish the moral case for Western intervention after the disaster of the Iraq invasion. And that is potentially a more dangerous development for the world than anything happening in Libya. The cri de Coeur of our age is that ‘we’ should intervene to save the Libyans and others in the name of international solidarity. It is a telling sign of the degradation of political language and the defeat of the left that intervention by Western powers in the affairs of Africa and Arabia should now be glorified with the title of internationalism.”

“Germany blocks plans for Libya no-fly zone: G8 talks stall after Germans refuse to support military intervention backed by Britain and France,” by Simon Tisdall, The Guardian, 15 March 2011: “Speaking during the meeting, Germany’s foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, said his country remained ‘very sceptical’ about the prospect of a no-fly zone. He recommended instead more ‘political pressure’ against the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi. He said Germany did not want ‘to get sucked into a war in north Africa’. ‘We need to send a clear signal … Gaddafi must stop his civil war against his own people, he must be held responsible for his crimes. The security council must take action.’ But Westerwelle also made clear Germany would not support military intervention. His comments echoed the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who told an EU summit last week that the no-fly zone idea was potentially dangerous. ‘What is our plan if we create a no-fly zone and it doesn’t work? Do we send in ground troops?’ she said. ‘We have to think this through. Why should we intervene in Libya when we don’t intervene elsewhere?’…”

“Don’t Think, Recognize! Sarkozy’s Stupid Move on Libya,” by Patrick Cockburn, CounterPunch, 11-13 March 2011: “There is something frivolous and absurd about France’s sudden recognition of the Libyan rebel leadership in Benghazi as a sort of quasi-government. Presumably it’s intended to give the impression Nicolas Sarkozy has a grip on events, it is evidence he does not know what to do any more than other European leaders. The recognition of unelected and self-appointed leaders in countries in which civil war is raging is a reminder, rather, of 19th century imperialism, when the British, for instance, would choose a leader in a country like Afghanistan who was most likely to be co-operative. There is usually a price to be paid for this. Leaders backed by outside powers may obtain arms and money, but their local credibility is unlikely to be enhanced. In Libya, Gaddafi can more easily deride his opponents as foreign dupes. If recognition of the Benghazi junta is aimed at providing political cover for later military intervention it is again unlikely to convince anybody that Libyans are taking the decisions. What makes France’s move all the more surprising is that US intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq shows the devastating consequences of not having a credible local ally. The only thing known about the rebel leadership in Libya is that it is divided and ineffective.”

“Iraq Then, Libya Now,” Op-Ed by Ross Douthat, New York Times, 13 March 2011: “Five years ago, in the darkest days of insurgent violence and Sunni-Shia strife, it seemed as if the Iraq war would shadow American foreign policy for decades, frightening a generation’s worth of statesmen away from using military force. Where there had once been a ‘Vietnam syndrome,’ now there would be an ‘Iraq syndrome,’ inspiring harrowing flashbacks to Baghdad and Falluja in any American politician contemplating an intervention overseas. But in today’s Washington, no such syndrome is in evidence. Indeed, it’s striking how quickly the bipartisan coalition that backed the Iraq invasion has reassembled itself to urge President Obama to use military force against Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi….there are lessons from our years of failure in Iraq that can be applied to an air war over Libya….One is that the United States shouldn’t go to war unless it has a plan not only for the initial military action, but also for the day afterward, and the day after that. Another is that the United States shouldn’t go to war without a detailed understanding of the country we’re entering, and the forces we’re likely to empower. Moreover, even with the best-laid plans, warfare is always a uniquely high-risk enterprise — which means that the burden of proof should generally rest with hawks rather than with doves, and seven reasonable-sounding reasons for intervening may not add up to a single convincing case for war…. They have rallied around a no-flight zone as their Plan A for toppling Qaddafi, but most military analysts seem to think that it will fail to do the job, and there’s no consensus on Plan B. Would we escalate to air strikes? Arm the rebels? Sit back and let Qaddafi claim to have outlasted us?… If we did supply the rebels, who exactly would be receiving our money and munitions? Libya’s internal politics are opaque, to put it mildly….And if the civil war dragged on, what then? Twice in the last two decades, in Iraq and the former Yugoslavia, the United States has helped impose a no-flight zone. In both cases, it was just a stepping-stone to further escalation: bombing campaigns, invasion, occupation and nation-building.”

“Don’t Use U.S. Force in Libya!” by Leslie H. Gelb, The Daily Beast, 13 March 2011: “Hold your wallets and hang on to your military-age children. Senators Kerry, Lieberman, and McCain, along with hordes of humanitarians and neoconservatives, have converged with one aim, to push the U.S. into war in Libya. Yes, it would be war, though they like to call it ‘humanitarian action’ and pretend it’s just a simple matter of declaring and enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya. What they’re really proposing is a potential tragedy—for the U.S. and for Libyans. Better to let Libya’s neighbors do the heavy lifting with restricted U.S. help, as President Obama seems inclined to do….

“Violence on a significant scale has been occurring in Africa for decades in places like Sudan, the Ivory Coast, and Congo. Did Senators Kerry, Lieberman, and McCain propose U.S. military intervention in those countries? Were these catastrophes any less deserving of humanitarian intervention?

“The real question is this: If the rebels gained power, would they be any better than Col. Gaddafi? I haven’t found many Americans, or anyone else, for that matter, who know much about them….The troubling truth Americans need to learn is that they know little or nothing about these societies and even less about the monsters who might emerge after a civil war. The United States would be crazy to hitch its star, in any military manner, to the new ‘freedom fighters’.”

Editorial: The U.S. can’t afford to get involved in another civil war | rgj.com | The Reno Gazette-Journal, 13 March 2011: “Any use of the military by the U.S., by NATO or the U.N. would be met with fierce resistance. Are Americans, the British, the French or even the Italians, just a short hop away from Libya, prepared for more military action? Equally important, are they willing to make the commitment that comes with getting involved in someone else’s civil war?

“That is one of the primary lessons that we should have learned in the aftermath of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It took just weeks to accomplish our missions in both countries: to unseat Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Yet, many years later, we’re still not able to disentangle ourselves in either country. Just this week, there were reports of negotiations in Iraq over extending the deadline for the remainder of our troops to leave, and it’s long been clear that some troops would remain even after the deadline. How long we’ll stay in Afghanistan is unknown.

“All this comes at a time when the federal budget is running unsustainable deficits that may result in large cuts to programs that directly affect the people in this country, including many veterans who fought in the very wars that have taken so much of the taxpayers’ money.

“We do not need another war; we cannot afford another war. Nor can we single-handedly rid the world of every leader we don’t approve of.

“Yes, we should keep a close eye on what happens in Libya to ensure it doesn’t spread. But it’s the Libyans’ fight, and it should stay that way.”

“Seeing Through the ‘Humanitarians’,” by Marko Markanovic, Antiwar.com, 12 March 2011: “With clashes in Libya ongoing it was inevitable two types of opinion makers would make a comeback. First the smug humanitarian calling for a return to the good old days of Clinton and the Kosovo War. That morally invigorating episode in which NATO went after Yugoslavia’s civilian economy, massacred around two thousand non-combatants from the air and made itself complicit in the killing of at least a further eight hundred and the expulsion of 200,000 at the hands of the KLA. And secondly, the sober skeptic whose words of caution and anti-interventionism are worse than useless. In recent days the nagging from the something-must-be-done brigade has been followed in close lockstep by contrary opinions that are a waste of space. Cautioning against intervention on the grounds of technical difficulties and unforeseen consequences or fiscal obstacles is worthless unless tied down to the issue of the right to intervene….”

The Angry Arab News Service/وكالة أنباء العربي الغاضب: “Military Intervention in Libya: for a categorical rejection of NATO/Saudi intervention” 12 March 2011: “The voices for military intervention in Libya are now increasingly alarming and suspicious.  I get more suspicious when I read the liberal (read always Zionist) commentators screaming for direct military intervention when those same people never showed any concern for Arab victims before, especially during Israeli war crimes sprees.  Somebody sent me a tweet by none other than Nicholas Kristof (responsible for outrageous and racist commentaries about Arabs in the last year and is known for his utter cowardice towards ALL Israeli crimes against Arabs) who is invoking the authority of “the Arab League” to call for military intervention.  In other words, Kristof and other liberals or right-wingers are invoking basically the authority of Saudi autocracy to call for support of the democracy movement in Libya.  What is left of the Arab League except Saudi Arabia and its tool Amr Mousa?  George Will, a right-wing and Zionist commentator (who at least writes well and can make an argument) has a strong piece in which he refuges many of the conventional arguments about Libya…”

“In Search of Monsters,” Op-Ed by Maureen Dowd, New York Times, 12 March 2011: “The Iraq war hawks urging intervention in Libya are confident that there’s no way Libya could ever be another Iraq. Of course, they never thought Iraq would be Iraq, either.

All President Obama needs to do, Paul Wolfowitz asserts, is man up, arm the Libyan rebels, support setting up a no-fly zone and wait for instant democracy. It’s a cakewalk….You would think that a major architect of the disastrous wars and interminable occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq would have the good manners to shut up and take up horticulture. But the neo-con naif has no shame….”

“Crooked Global Cops Go After Libyan Gang Leader Muammar Gaddafi,” by Saman Mohammadi, OpEd News, 12 March 2011: “The U.S. government and NATO don’t have the moral authority to intervene anywhere in the world. Backing the U.S. and NATO against Gaddafi is like backing big Satan against small Satan. It is sad that the world is still operating on the law of the jungle, but that is the truth. Western powers are not a just force in the world, and the U.N. is not a serious organization. And it should be kept in mind that the traitorous war criminals who control America’s shadow government are not concerned about human welfare or freedom….The idea that revolutions can be won by foreign military force is the craziest idea in the world. The price of freedom must be paid by the Libyan people for it to be truly their freedom, which means that the international community must not intervene. The day will eventually come when enough military leaders in Libya come to their senses and take out Gaddafi with a bullet to the head, or the rebel forces become so strong that Gaddafi becomes nothing more than a frail, old gang leader waiting to be killed the day he lets his guard down. Gaddafi will be better removed by the angels from below in Libya than the devils from above who control the U.S. military and NATO. So let’s not be fooled by the warhawks and ‘humanitarian’ interventionists who are calling for U.S. military force in Libya….”

“Gen. Wesley Clark says Libya doesn’t meet the test for U.S. military action,” by Wesley K. Clark, Washington Post, 11 March 2011: “Understand the national interests at stake, and decide if the result is worth the cost….Africa killed several million and when fighting in Darfur killed hundreds of thousands. So far, the violence in Libya is not significant in comparison. Maybe we could earn a cheap “victory,” but, on whatever basis we intervene, it would become the United States vs. Gaddafi, and we would be committed to fight to his finish. That could entail a substantial ground operation, some casualties and an extended post-conflict peacekeeping presence….Know your purpose and how the proposed military action will achieve it….In Libya, if the objective is humanitarian, then we would work with both sides and not get engaged in the matter of who wins. Just deliver relief supplies, treat the injured and let the Libyans settle it. But if we want to get rid of Gaddafi, a no-fly zone is unlikely to be sufficient – it is a slick way to slide down the slope to deeper intervention….Determine the political endgame before intervening….In Libya, we don’t know who the rebels really are or how a legitimate government would be formed if Gaddafi were pushed out….Get U.S. public support, obtain diplomatic and legal authority, and get allies engaged….Avoid U.S. and civilian casualties….A no-fly zone in Libya may seem straightforward at first, but if Gaddafi continues to advance, the time will come for airstrikes, extended bombing and ground troops – a stretch for an already overcommitted force. A few unfortunate incidents can quash public support….Once you decide to do it, get it over with….Given these rules, what is the wisest course of action in Libya? To me, it seems we have no clear basis for action. Whatever resources we dedicate for a no-fly zone would probably be too little, too late. We would once again be committing our military to force regime change in a Muslim land, even though we can’t quite bring ourselves to say it. So let’s recognize that the basic requirements for successful intervention simply don’t exist, at least not yet: We don’t have a clearly stated objective, legal authority, committed international support or adequate on-the-scene military capabilities, and Libya’s politics hardly foreshadow a clear outcome. We should have learned these lessons from our long history of intervention. We don’t need Libya to offer us a refresher course in past mistakes.”

“Pack Journalism Promotes War on Libya,” by Stephen Lendman, IntelDaily, 11 March 2011: “America’s major media never met an imperial war it didn’t love and promote, never mind how lawless, mindless, destructive and counterproductive….It’s a familiar Western scheme, justified as ‘humanitarian intervention,’ what America, above all, doesn’t give a damn about and never did, seeking only imperial dominance, no matter how much death and destruction it takes to get it. ‘Operation Libya’ had antecedents, notably in Yugoslavia and Iraq, two previous countries Western powers destroyed and now exploit….”

“Worldview: Why we mustn’t initiate a Libya no-fly zone—Instead, U.S. officials should help coordinate an Arab and African response to this crisis,” by Trudy Rubin, Inquirer Columnist, 10 March 2011: “Despite the emotional pleas by Benghazi rebels on CNN, much of the talk about no-fly zones ignores the harsh realities of the Libyan conflict. The ongoing Arab revolts have been genuine grassroots protests driven by local grievances, and not orchestrated by the West or other outside powers….”

“REFLECTIONS OF FIDEL: NATO, war, lies and business,” by Fidel Castro, Granma, 10 March 2011: “The empire is now attempting to turn events around to what Gaddafi has done or not done, because it needs to militarily intervene in Libya and deliver a blow to the revolutionary wave unleashed in the Arab world. Through now not a word was said, silence was maintained and business was conducted. Whether a latent Libyan rebellion was promoted by yankee intelligence agencies or by the errors of Gaddafi himself, it is important that the peoples do not let themselves be deceived, given that, very soon, world opinion will have enough elements to know what to believe. In my opinion, and as I have expressed since the outset, the plans of the bellicose NATO had to be condemned….”

“Internet activists should be careful what they wish for in Libya: Calls for a no-fly zone over Libya ignore the perils of intervention. Long-term solutions aren’t as simple as the click of a mouse,” by John Hilary, The Guardian, 10 March 2011: “The internet is credited with giving key tools to activists in the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia, but social media may now be used to empower those very western governments responsible for maintaining north Africa’s worst dictatorships. As Libya’s uprising unfolds, e-activist organisation Avaaz has convinced 800,000 people to sign up for a no-fly zone in Libya. Little do most of these generally well-meaning activists know, they are strengthening the hands of those western governments desperate to reassert their interests in north Africa….Clearly a no-fly zone makes foreign intervention sound rather humanitarian – putting the emphasis on stopping bombing, even though it could well lead to an escalation of violence. No wonder, too, that it is rapidly becoming a key call of hawks on both sides of the Atlantic. The military hierarchy, with their budgets threatened by government cuts, surely cannot believe their luck – those who usually oppose wars are openly campaigning for more military involvement….”

“A Ceasefire and Negotiations the Right Way to Resolve the Libya Crisis,” International Crisis Group, 10 March 2011: “Both immediate humanitarian and longer term political considerations require an end to the violence through a cease-fire and negotiations between the two sides. Crisis Group accordingly calls for the formation of a contact group or committee consisting of internationally respected statesmen drawn from Libya’s North African neighbours and other African states. Its mandate would be to broker an immediate ceasefire and initiate direct talks between the two sides to secure a transition to a post-Qaddafi regime that has legitimacy in the eyes of the Libyan people. Such talks might not succeed. More forceful measures — sanctioned by the UN Security Council and in close coordination with the Arab League and African Union — might become necessary to prevent massive loss of life. But before that conclusion is reached, diplomatic options must first be exhausted. They have not even begun.”

“The Chorus for War,” by Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo, 10 March 2011: “What we are watching in Libya is an outbreak of civilian protests that has broken into armed revolt. That’s very different. And do we really believe now that the United States can or should intervene militarily every time there is an armed insurrection against an existing government? That strikes me as crazy and deeply unwise, regardless of how odious the Libyan regime might be….”

“Intervention In Libya — Options For the Obama Administration,” Speakers: Matthew C. Waxman, Adjunct Senior Fellow For Law And Foreign Policy, Council On Foreign Relations; Micah Zenko, Fellow For Conflict Prevention, Council On Foreign Relations; Presider: Deborah Jerome, Deputy Editor, Cfr.Org, Council On Foreign
09 March 2011 Council on Foreign Relations:

“ZENKO: I would just point out that according to, you know, one, information and — you know, any reporting from conflict zones is always difficult to come by.  It’s late.  It’s incomplete.  Both sides have very strong reasons to portray their side to the international community in the best light.  So this is with all those qualifications.

“But, you know, all of the sort of international reporting in the Human Rights Watch and UNHCR and other U.N. entities on the ground suggest that Libya is facing a civil war.  It is an ongoing civil war between paramilitary groups and uniformed military forces representing the government, as well as some former military and paramilitary forces, un-uniformed, representing the rebel groups.

“In the course of the fights between both sides, the Libyan air force has used some of its fighter aircraft and helicopters in attack operations against mass rebel groups.  There’s been almost no reports — only a handful of reports — of these being used demonstrably against civilians.  And in fact, there’s more instances of a reporting of bombs being dropped in the middle of the — in the middle of the desert, repeated sorties over the desert where bombs are dropped, far away from where anybody is located.

“So if you look at the actual violence that’s happening on the ground, it’s with snipers, AK-47s, artillery, long-range artillery, tanks and so forth; people just harassing, setting up checkpoints and mobile checkpoints to try to take down the rebel movement and try to harass and intimidate and coerce noncombatant civilians.
“In that — in that instance, a no-fly zone has absolutely no impact on the primary tactic that’s being used to harass and intimidate people on the ground.  So imposing a no-fly zone over Libya might make us feel good, might give us some sort of gratitude without the commitment of actually — of actually doing anything to impact the situation on the ground.  But it is not relevant to the fight that is going on now in the civil war.”

“Why the US must not intervene in Libya: Americans are hardwired to expect their military to fix foreign crises, but we should resist the calls of DC’s armchair generals,” by Stephen Kinzer, The Guardian, 09 March 2011: “The urge to intervene around the world may truly have become hardwired into the American psyche. How else to explain the seriousness with which some in Washington are suggesting that the United States take sides in the unfolding civil war in Libya? The US is fighting two wars in Muslim countries. Since the results have included thousands of dead Americans, a near-bankrupt treasury and a surge in anti-Americanism in the world’s most volatile region, launching a third war might seem unwise. Intervening in Libya would require the US to take sides in a highly obscure conflict. Any group the US helps bring to power would be heavily tainted, and Americans would have to defend it in an explosive environment….”

“How a Libyan no-fly zone could backfire,” Source: Stratfor.com , Author: George Friedman, 09 March 2011: “Even with a no-fly zone, Gadhafi would still be difficult for the rebels to defeat, and Gadhafi might still defeat the rebels. The attractiveness of the no-fly zone in Iraq was that it provided the political illusion that steps were being taken, without creating substantial risks, or for that matter, actually doing substantial damage to Saddam Hussein’s control over Iraq. The no-fly zone remained in place for about 12 years without forcing change in Saddam’s policies, let alone regime change. The same is likely to be true in Libya. The no-fly zone is a low-risk action with little ability to change the military reality that creates an impression of decisive action. It does, as we argue, have a substantial downside, in that it entails costs and risks — including a high likelihood of at least some civilian casualties — without clear benefit or meaningful impact. The magnitude of the potential civilian toll is unknown, but its likelihood, oddly, is not in the hands of those imposing the no-fly zone, but in the hands of Gadhafi. Add to this human error and other failures inherent in war, and the outcome becomes unclear. A more significant action would be intervention on the ground, an invasion of Libya designed to destroy Gadhafi’s military and force regime change. This would require a substantial force — and it should be remembered from Iraq that it would require a substantial occupation force to stabilize and build a new regime to govern Libya.”

“‘No-fly zone’ is a euphemism for war. We’d be mad to try it: Cameron’s urge to dust himself in military glory may be strong, but he should not interfere in the Libyan rebels’ cause,” by Simon Jenkins, The Guardian, 09 March 2011: “Happy days are back for the sofa strategists and beltway bombardiers. After the miseries of Iraq and Afghanistan, a Libyan no-fly zone is just the tonic they need. If you zero in from carrier A, you can take out the Tripoli air defences while carrier B zaps the mercenary bases and carrier C zooms with special forces to secure the oilfields. You might tell the Americans to go easy on Leptis Magna after what they did to Babylon. Otherwise, let rip. You can sense the potency surging through Downing Street’s veins. This is how wars begin, and beginning wars is politically sexy….”

“It’s Their War, Not Ours,” by Patrick J. Buchanan, Antiwar.com, 08 March 2011: “Don’t start down a road the end of which you cannot see or do not know. There is no vital U.S. interest in whether Gadhafi wins or is deposed. We ought to stay out. This is their war, not ours. Churchill once said: Take away this pudding, it has no theme. What is the theme, where is the consistency in U.S. policy? We backed the dictators Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, who were as autocratic as Gadhafi, whom we demand be deposed. We support the dictator in Yemen, the absolute monarch in Saudi Arabia, the king in Bahrain, the sultan in Oman, and the emir in Kuwait, but back pro-democracy demonstrators in Iran, though there have been more elections in Iran than in all those other nations put together. America has taken a terrible beating for what shehas done and tried and failed to do in that region for a decade. Let the ‘world community’ take the lead on this one. Tell them, this time, the Yanks are not coming.”

“On Libya, too many questions,” by George F. Will, Washington Post, 08 March 2011: “But is that a vital U.S. national interest? If it is, when did it become so? A month ago, no one thought it was. How much of Gaddafi’s violence is coming from the air? Even if his aircraft are swept from his skies, would that be decisive? What lesson should be learned from the fact that Europe’s worst atrocity since the Second World War – the massacre by Serbs of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica – occurred beneath a no-fly zone?… But how is imposing a no-fly zone – the use of military force to further military and political objectives - not military intervention?… If collateral damage from such destruction included civilian deaths – remember those nine Afghan boys recently killed by mistake when they were gathering firewood – are we prepared for the televised pictures?… If a pilot is downed and captured, are we ready for the hostage drama? If we decide to give war supplies to the anti-Gaddafi fighters, how do we get them there?… Presumably we would coordinate aid with the leaders of the anti-Gaddafi forces. Who are they?…What concerning our Iraq and Afghanistan experiences justifies confidence that we understand Libyan dynamics?… Could intervention avoid ‘mission creep’? If grounding Gaddafi’s aircraft is a humanitarian imperative, why isn’t protecting his enemies from ground attacks?… How often has intervention by nation A in nation B’s civil war enlarged the welfare of nation A? Before we intervene in Libya, do we ask the United Nations for permission? If it is refused, do we proceed anyway? If so, why ask? If we are refused permission and recede from intervention, have we not made U.S. foreign policy hostage to a hostile institution? Would not U.S. intervention in Libya encourage other restive peoples to expect U.S. military assistance? Would it be wise for U.S. military force to be engaged simultaneously in three Muslim nations?”

“The Old Gang’s All Here: Libya and the Return of Humanitarian Imperialism,” by Jean Bricmont, CounterPunch, 08 March 2011: “The whole gang is back: The parties of the European Left (grouping the ‘moderate’ European communist parties), the ‘Green’ José Bové, now allied with Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who has never seen a US-NATO war he didn’t like, various Trotkyist groups and of course Bernard-Henry Lévy and Bernard Kouchner, all calling for some sort of ‘humanitarian intervention’ in Libya or accusing the Latin American left, whose positions  are far more sensible, of acting as ‘useful idiots’ for the ‘Libyan tyrant.’ Twelve years later, it is Kosovo all over again. Hundred of thousands of Iraqis dead, NATO stranded in an impossible position in Afghanistan, and they have learned nothing! The Kosovo war was made to stop a nonexistent genocide, the Afghan war to protect women (go and check their situation now), and the Iraq war to protect the Kurds. When will they understand that all wars claim to have humanitarian justifications? Even Hitler was ‘protecting minorities’ in Czechoslovakia and Poland….The negative role of the International Criminal Court is again apparent, here, as was that of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia in the case of Kosovo. One of the reasons why there was relatively little bloodshed in Tunisia and Egypt is that there was a possible exit for Ben Ali and Mubarak. But ‘international justice’ wants to make sure that no such exit is possible for Qaddafi, and probably for people close to him, hence inciting them to fight to the bitter end….”

Early evidence that even the threat of a “no fly zone” has dramatically escalated violence in advance: “I think they are bombing heavily because they want to win time before a no-fly zone is imposed,” the rebel shouted over the phone (source).

“The U.S. Should Keep Out of Libya,” by Richard Haas, Wall Street Journal, 08 March 2011: “There are political reasons to question the wisdom of the U.S. becoming a protagonist in Libya’s civil war. It is one thing to acknowledge Moammar Gadhafi as a ruthless despot, which he has demonstrated himself to be. But doing so does not establish the democratic bona fides of those who oppose him. And even if some of those opposing him are genuine democrats, there is no reason to assume that helping to remove the regime would result in the ascendancy of such people….”

“Libya and the folly of intervention: After turning a blind eye to Gaddafi’s violent rule, the West has no legitimacy to enforce a no-fly zone,” by Sami Hermez, Al Jazeera English, 07 March 2011: “Calls for international intervention to end the conflict in Libya have come from across the political spectrum and have even included Libyan voices, such as the country’s delegation to the United Nations. These calls, especially on the part of Libyans, are surely motivated by a belief that the international community, with all its power, must have some tools at its disposal to put real pressure on Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi to cease the bloodshed and step down as the country’s leader. However, some calls for international engagement with the Libyan conflict have also been motivated by a disingenuous desire to reassert  US leadership in the world. To the extent that these intentions are the guiding light, the international community’s interventionist policy, including the recently passed UN Security Council Resolution 1970 imposing sanctions on Libya, is dangerous, misguided and irresponsible….Under the guise of protecting human rights, the international community, with the United States at its helm, seems eager to redeem its image by capitalising on the revolutionary spirit now sweeping the Arab world, and to position itself as the savior of Libya in the hopes of securing the  allegiance of any future government.”

“Will We Ever Learn? Kicking the Intervention Habit,” by Richard Falk, 07 March 2011: “With respect to Libya, we need to take account of the fact that the Qaddafi government, however distasteful on humanitarian grounds, remains the lawful diplomatic representative of a sovereign state, and any international use of force even by the UN, much less a state or group of states, would constitute an unlawful intervention in the internal affairs of a sovereign state, prohibited by Article 2(7) of the UN Charter unless expressly authorized by the Security Council as essential for the sake of international peace and security. Beyond this, there is no assurance that an intervention, if undertaken, would lessen the suffering of the Libyan people or bring to power a regime more respectful of human rights and dedicated to democratic participation. The record of military intervention during the last several decades is one of almost unbroken failure if either the human costs or political outcomes are taken into proper account. Such interventionary experience in the Islamic world during the last fifty years makes it impossible to sustain the burden of persuasion that would be needed to justify an anti-regime intervention in Libya in some ethically and legally persuasive way…. Mahmoud Mamdani has taught us to distinguish ‘good Muslims’ from ‘bad Muslims,’ now we are being instructed to distinguish ‘good autocrats’ from ‘bad autocrats.’ By this definition, only the pro-regime elements in Libya and Iran qualify as bad autocrats, and their structures of must at least be shaken if they cannot be broken. What distinguishes these regimes? It does not seem to be that their degree of oppressiveness is more pervasive and severe than is the case for the others. Other considerations give more insight: access and pricing of oil, arms sales, security of Israel, relationship to the neoliberal world economy.”

“Another NATO Intervention? Libya: Is This Kosovo All Over Again?” by Diana Johnstone, CounterPunch, 07 March 2011: “let’s look at some of the disturbing similarities….A demonized leader….The ‘we must do something’ chorus….The specter of ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘genocide’ is evoked to justify war….Leftist idiocy….Refugees….Osama bin Laden….Refusal of negotiations….”

“Libya, the United States, and Iran: Just Who Is ‘Meddling’?” by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, Race for iran, 06 March 2011: “With its no doubt emotionally gratifying but feckless rhetoric demanding Qaddafi’s departure, the Obama Administration has ensured that it can play no constructive role in a process of political transition in Libya. Can anyone with a clear head, an appreciable measure of historical memory, and decent intentions honestly think it would be a good idea for the United States to invade Libya—under the rubric of humanitarian intervention and with the stated aim of restoring the Libyan people’s ‘freedom’?  Can no one in Washington remember Somalia, let alone Iraq? All of this is playing out as the Obama Administration seems increasingly inclined to support the Bahraini ruling family in resisting the most important demands of the opposition there for real political reform…”

“The revival of imperialist ideology,” Lenin’s Tomb, 01 March 2011: “Ironic, in the middle of a revolutionary upsurge in the Middle East, that an unholy alliance of security experts, politicos, EU personnel, ambassadors, and house babblers is once more bruiting the shop-soiled commodity of ‘shumanitarian intervention’. Forget the recent embarrassment over the loss of Tunisia, and Egypt, and the sweats over uprisings in Bahrain and Yemen. It’s all about Libya. And having spent the last few years arming Qadhafi, selling him to international audiences as a former madman who has seen the light, the US and EU are now simulating mortal affront over the use to which Qadhafi is putting those weapons. Having waited and watched, and made initially very equivocal statements, they’ve determined that Qadhafi’s regime is finished just in time to avoid any faux pas, such as Joe Biden or Tony Blair bigging up the man’s courage or denying his dictatorial proclivities. More, they’re ready to fight on the side of the Libyan revolution. Neocons are once more clamouring for the breach. Anne Marie Slaughter, the ‘Wilsonian’ former head of State Department policy planning, is also tweeting for the intervention. David Cameron is raising alarm over the prospect of chemical weapons being used as justification for imposing a ‘no fly zone’….Now, the ideology of ‘humanitarian intervention’ is among other things a form of racist paternalism. It maintains, through its affirmations and exclusions, that people in the Third World cannot deliver themselves from dictatorship without the assistance of imperialist Euro-American states. Even if they do, the ideology in its present permutation maintains, they won’t be able to maintain a decent society by themselves….”

“What Should The U.S. Do About Libya? Most Americans Say Nothing,” by Doug Mataconis, Outside the Beltway, 23 February 2011: “Fortunately, the American people seem to be far more cautious about this idea of adventurism to save the world than some of the punditocracy: Americans are wary of the current chaotic political situation in several Arab countries including Libya but strongly believe the United States should stay out of the picture.”

“On International Intervention and the Dire Situation in Libya,” by Aslı Ü. Bâli and Ziad Abu-Rish, Jaddaliya, 23 February 2011: “We thus return to our original do-no-harm principle. We neither advocate abandoning the Libyan people to the violence of the regime nor protecting al-Qaddafi from accountability. But as calls for international intervention grow, we must worry about the risk of counter-productive results for Libyans on the ground of some of the options being considered. A combined strategy of humanitarian assistance, severing existing military ties with the regime, and generating exit options for al-Qaddafi and his family may well be the best course for accomplishing the goal of supporting Libya’s civilian population….”

“Tiptoeing to War with Libya,” by Daniel McCarthy, The American Conservative, 22 February 2011: “Aside from making Western interventionists feel better about themselves, the only use the symbolic measures proposed by Lynch have is to set a pretext for large-scale military invention, which Lynch insists he does not want. (‘I don’t call for a direct military intervention.’) Imposing no-fly zone is not symbolic, of course: it’s ‘direct military intervention’ pure and simple, an act of war. If a single NATO jet goes down, pressure to invade North Africa will be nigh irresistible. Interventionists of all stripes are fully aware of this. Maybe naive good intentions outstrip common sense where some interventionists are concerned, but watch out: the Libyan slaughter is creating an opening for those who would have liked to stage-manage the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions to impose some ‘control’ on unrest in the region. A Libyan intervention will be the first step toward putting an end to all this messy indigenous rebellion, so the task of proper, American-led ‘democratization’ can resume.”

“Resist Temptation to Intervene in Libya,” by Ted Galen Carpenter, The National Interest, 22 February 2011: “Washington’s geostrategic plate is already overflowing just handling the existing messy interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The last thing U.S. policy makers need to do is have this country meddle in Libya. They should resist the siren calls for no-fly zones or other initial steps on what could be a very slippery slope.”

DEPENDENT REBELS?

“The international community has failed us,” Mr. [Ahmed] Omar [“a rebel commander”] said by phone. (source)

“People are fed up. They are waiting impatiently for an international move,” said Saadoun al-Misrati, a rebel spokesman in the city of Misrata, the last rebel-held city in western Libya, which came under heavy shelling Wednesday. “What Gadhafi is doing, he is exploiting delays by international community. People are very angry that no action is being taken against Gadhafi’s weaponry.” (AP)

Gheriani, the rebel spokesman, said by telephone from Benghazi that the opposition was hoping for a positive U.N. Security Council vote but “if not, we’ll rely on ourselves and do what we can.” (AP)

“We think that in the coming hours we will see real genocide in Ajdabiya,” he said. “The international community has to act within the next 10 hours”— Dabbashi said Gadhafi’s forces would unleash “ethnic cleansing” on villages in mountain region of the western part of the country. “I think something will be in the resolution to allow air strikes,” he said. Ibrahim Dabbashi, Libya’s ex-deputy envoy to the UN—who apparently works in the field of international relations without any sensible understanding of the meaning of words such as “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing,” or he does and throws them about carelessly to produce an emotional effect (source).

“The world is sleeping,” he [a rebel fighter interviewed by AP] said. “They (the West) drunk of Gadhafi’s oil and now they won’t stand against him. They didn’t give us a no-fly zone” (source).

“We feel so, so, isolated here. We are pleading with the international community to help us in this very difficult time.” (source)

“Libyan rebels urge west to assassinate Gaddafi as his forces near Benghazi: Appeal to be made as G8 foreign ministers consider whether to back French and British calls for a no-fly zone over Libya,” by Chris McGreal in Benghazi, The Guardian, 14 March 2011: “Libya’s revolutionary leadership is pressing western powers to assassinate Muammar Gaddafi and launch military strikes against his forces to protect rebel-held cities from the threat of bloody assault. Mustafa Gheriani, spokesman for the revolutionary national council in its stronghold of Benghazi, said the appeal was to be made by a delegation meeting the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, in Paris on Monday, as G8 foreign ministers gathered there to consider whether to back French and British calls for a no-fly zone over Libya…. ‘We are telling the west we want a no-fly zone, we want tactical strikes against those tanks and rockets that are being used against us and we want a strike against Gaddafi’s compound,’ said Gheriani. ‘This is the message from our delegation in Europe.’….[and then came the blackmail:] ‘The west is missing the point. The revolution was started because people were feeling despair from poverty, from oppression. Their last hope was freedom. If the west takes too long – where people say it’s too little, too late – then people become a target for extremists who say the west doesn’t care about them. Most people in this country are moderates and extremists have not been able to penetrate them. But if they get to the point of disillusionment with the west there will be no going back’.”

“Gaddafi tries to crush rising, West threatens attack | Green Left Weekly”: “There have been contradictory statements by various members of the Benghazi-based ITNC on the question of foreign military intervention. Some, such as its chairperson Mustafa Mohammed Abdul Jalil (the former justice minister in the Gaddafi regime who defected to the rebels on February 21) have repeatedly called for the imposition of a ‘no-fly zone’ over Libya. On the other hand, vice-chairperson Abdul Hafez Ghoga, a Benghazi-based human rights lawyer and community organiser, has made statements opposing Western military intervention. But in some statements, he said that a United Nations-imposed ‘no-fly zone’ would be acceptable. The founding statement of the ITNC said: ‘Finally, even though the balance of power is uneven between the defenceless protestors and the tyrant regime’s mercenaries and private battalions, we will relay on the will of our people for a free and dignified existence. Furthermore, we request from the international community to fulfill its obligations to protect the Libyan people from any further genocide and crimes against humanity without any direct military intervention on Libyan soil.’ At this stage, the rebel leaders getting the most publicity are those who once were in the Gaddafi regime….there is no discernable leftist voice in this revolution….”

“This was a rare decision of the Arab League,” rebel spokesman Abdul Basit al-Muzayrik told Al-Jazeera. “We call on the international community to quickly make a firm decision against these crimes.” (source)

“The Libyans are being cleansed by Gaddafi’s air force,” said Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of the rebel national council. “We asked for a no-fly zone to be imposed from day one. We also want a sea embargo and we urgently need some arms and we also need humanitarian assistance and medicines to be sent to the cities besieged by Gaddafi troops.” (source)

“Where is the West? How are they helping? What are they doing,” shouted one fighter. (source)

“People are losing faith in the international community,” said Essam Gheriani, a spokesman for the rebel movement in Libya….”They are not pleased with all the procrastination,” Gheriani said. “What are they waiting for?”….“The United States has a lot it can do to support the Libyans,” Ali said. “I wonder why they are taking it slow?” (source)

MOUNTING AGGRESSION

“Specter of Rebel Rout Helps Shift U.S. Policy on Libya,” by Mark Landler and Dan Bilefsky, New York Times, 16 March 2011: “The administration, which remains deeply reluctant to be drawn into an armed conflict in yet another Muslim country, is nevertheless backing a resolution in the Security Council that would give countries a broad range of options for aiding the Libyan rebels, including military steps that go well beyond a no-flight zone. Administration officials — who have been debating a no-flight zone for weeks — concluded that such a step now would be ‘too little, too late’ for rebels who have been pushed back to Benghazi. That suggests more aggressive measures, which some military analysts have called a no-drive zone, to prevent Colonel Qaddafi from moving tanks and artillery into Benghazi.”

Hillary Clinton praises the Arab League (see the article above)—“The turning point was really the Arab League statement on Saturday,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday to reporters traveling with her in Cairo. “That was an extraordinary statement in which the Arab League asked for Security Council action against one of its own members.” Note that the Arab League is a collection of dictators who simply want to remove a competing dictator many AL members have hoped to remove for a very long time, using this as an opportune excuse. Saudi Arabia has had no qualms about sending troops into Bahrain to directly crush peaceful and unarmed protesters there—whatever motivated the Arab League, “human rights” was not a concern.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said it was “high time” for the international community to “pull together” and respond to the appeal by the Arab League. “Together, we can save the martyred people of Libya. It is now a matter of days, if not hours,” he wrote today. “The worst would be that the appeal of the League of the Arab States and the Security Council decisions be overruled by the force of arms.” (source)

Interesting that if a “no fly zone” is backed by the United Nations Security Council, and is “an international legality” in the poorly chosen words of Lebanon’s UN ambassador, motivated by “humanitarian” concerns—that Israel should not be considered as a participant in any air strikes against Libya. The only article which even mentions this issue in passing is World Politics Review’s “Global Insider: Arab Air Forces and the Libya No-Fly Zone.”

More from the murky depths of the mind of Lebanon’s UN ambassador: “Supporters introduce no-fly resolution at UN,” Associated Press, 16 March 2011: Nawaf Salam, Lebanon’s UN ambassador, who introduced the resolution, seems to be even more conceptually impaired than his Libyan colleague when he states that a NFZ “in no way could qualify as a foreign intervention.” Is he mad? Who introduced the resolution? Where was it introduced? Against whom is it to be enforced, and by what means? Why is it that support for actions against Libya have to be mounted on the premise that the public consists of ignorant morons?

“The UN’s duty to Libyans: The United Nations’ statement on Libya was completely inadequate. Gaddafi needs a tough resolution ringing in his ears,” by Carne Ross, The Guardian, 23 February 2011: “People are being killed in Libya. Every member of the UN has declared its commitment to protect civilians, including in circumstances where they are being attacked by their own government. In 2005, every member state signed onto the so-called ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (which you can see here), which states, among other things, that all countries must prevent mass killing. The UN Security Council itself endorsed this principle in its own resolutions, including on Darfur and in its resolutions on protection of civilians (including this one). What is happening in Libya is the true test of such declarations, and it is for every UN member, including the UK and US, in their positions as permanent members of the council, to declare loud and clear – and now – that this principle must be respected, and if it is not, that consequences will follow.”

“We must not wait for a massacre,” Sen. John Kerry, Al Jazeera, 14 March 2011: “Leaders around the world are vigorously debating the advisability of establishing a no-fly zone to stop the violence unfolding in Libya. Some cite Bosnia, where NATO took too long to protect civilian populations in the mid-1990s, as a reason to act. Others remember Rwanda, where President Bill Clinton later expressed regret for not acting to save innocent lives. But the stakes in Libya today are more appropriately underscored by the tragedy in southern Iraq in the waning days of the Persian Gulf War 20 years ago.

As coalition forces were routing the Iraqi army in February 1991, President George Bush encouraged the Iraqi people to ‘take matters into their hands to force Saddam Hussein the dictator to step aside’. When Iraqi Shia, Kurds, and Marsh Arabs rebelled against Hussein, they believed that American forces would protect them against their brutal dictator’s superior firepower….Perhaps the mere threat of a no-fly zone will keep Gaddafi’s pilots from using their helicopters and fighter jets to kill their own people. If it does not, we should make clear that we will lead the free world to avoid the senseless slaughter of any more Libyan citizens by a madman bent on maintaining power. The US and the world community should also make clear – as we did in Bosnia and Kosovo – that we are taking a united stand against a thug who is killing Muslims.” John Kerry, protector of Muslims? The last westerner to intervene in Libya who took that line was this one.

“David Cameron signalled that he wants Britain to be involved in military action in Libya. In what is probably his most bellicose statement on the crisis so far, the prime minister said Britain needs to ‘continue to win the argument for a strong response in the international community’. He said that setting up a no-fly zone was ‘perfectly practical and deliverable’ and that action would have to take place soon. ‘Time could be relatively short,’ he said. To those who say it is nothing to do with us, I would simply respond: Do we want a situation where a failed pariah state festers on Europe’s southern border, potentially threatening our security, pushing people across the Mediterranean and creating a more dangerous and uncertain world for Britain and for all our allies as well as for the people of Libya? Several Tory MPs praised Cameron for taking a lead on this issue internationally when he made a statement in the Commons. But Cameron faced criticism from some Labour MPs who tried – and failed – to get him to condemn the use of Saudi troops to put down protests in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.” (source)

“The Case for a No-Fly Zone,” by Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times, 09 March 2011: “I was a strong opponent of the Iraq war, but this feels different….So let’s remember the risks of inaction — and not psych ourselves out. For crying out loud.”

“Former Czech president Havel backs military intervention in Libya,” Monsters and Critics, 07 March 2011: “If the fighting continues in Libya, the west should arm anti- government protestors, close the air space over Libya or conduct airborne attacks on Gaddafi and his forces, Havel said. The international community had intervened too late in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and that mistake should not be repeated, the former dissident and playwright argued.”

“The Libyan conundrum: Don’t let him linger—Should the Arabs and the West do anything to remove Muammar Qaddafi?” The Economist, 03 March 2011: “….But if the Libyan regime starts killing people in their thousands—and especially if it uses helicopter gunships or aircraft—diplomatic reluctance should melt away. Too often the world has dithered open-mouthed as evil men have slaughtered Darfuris or Rwandans with impunity. Outsiders, led by the UN, must help Libya’s emerging transitional councils with humanitarian aid. The UN Security Council may yet have to be persuaded to restore peace by invoking the ample power of Chapter VII. And if that proves unattainable, the widest possible coalition of the willing, ideally including Libya’s Arab neighbours, must protect Libyan civilians by arming the opposition and defending them from aerial attack.”

“Letter to President Obama about Libya NFZ – Sign Libya Appeal”:

“(1) Working closely with U.S. allies, NATO, and the United Nations to create a coalition that will impose as quickly as possible a no-fly zone for all Libyan military aircraft over the full extent of northern Libyan airspace, and implement such measures as may be required to render the Libyan air force inoperable throughout the country.

(2) Joining France in recognizing the provisional government of Libya based in Benghazi as the sole legitimate government of Libya.

(3) Entering into immediate dialogue with the provisional government to determine how the U.S. and the international community may provide this legitimate government with both humanitarian and military assistance.

(4) Assist in the jamming of military communications by the Gaddafi forces.

(5) Issue a clear warning to all military officers and mercenaries supporting the Gaddafi regime that they will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of international law if they participate in crimes against humanity; and offer protection to any senior officers now loyal to Colonel Gaddafi who choose to defect.” [Signatories include: Akbar Ahmed

(American University), Patrick M. Cronin (Center for a New American Security), Francis Fukuyama (Institute for International Studies, Stanford University)]

“The Libyans cannot be left to a terrible fate – David Cameron must act: If the West does not intervene, then we will be sanctioning Gaddafi’s slaughter, writes Mary Riddell,” by Mary Riddell, Telegraph, 28 February 2011: “…Whether or not Libya becomes a bloodbath, the outside world can no longer leave its citizens to their fate. John Maynard Keynes once mourned the fact that recession meant pretending ‘that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution,’ he concluded, ‘must be our gods for a little longer.’ Human meltdown brooks no such delay. The age of false gods is over as the Arab world throws off the feudalism in which the West colluded and storms the road to freedom. It falls to Cameron, the reluctant internationalist, to ease Libya’s safe entry into a post-autocratic world by all means at his disposal. No British prime minister may face a greater test.”

“We must stand ready to intervene in Libya: Britain and its allies must explore how armed humanitarian intervention could take place in Libya, says Sir Richard Dalton, former British ambassador to Libya,” by Sir Richard Dalton, Telegraph, 27 February 2011: “….Amid the uncertainties, Britain and its partners must explore actively and seriously how international armed humanitarian intervention could be undertaken urgently.”

“Stopping Qaddafi,” New York Times Editorial, 24 February 2011: “…If the killing goes on, other steps may be quickly needed, including offering temporary sanctuary for refugees and imposing the kind of no-fly zone that the United States, Britain and France used to protect Kurds in Iraq from the savagery of Saddam Hussein. After Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda, the United States and its allies vowed that they would work harder to stop mass atrocities. One thing is not in doubt: The longer the world temporizes, the more people die.”

“Liberating Libya: The U.S. and Europe should help Libyans overthrow the Gadhafi regime,” Wall Street Journal Editorial, 23 February 2011: “It’s time for the West to drop its studied neutrality and help Libyans topple one of the world’s most loathsome regimes. Paul Wolfowitz has some useful suggestions nearby, starting with humanitarian aid and support from Western capitals to keep communications open inside the country. Mr. Dabbashi, Libya’s rebelling minister to the U.N., recommends a ‘no fly zone’ to prevent Gadhafi from importing mercenaries. We’d go further and tell the Libyan armed forces that the West will bomb their airfields if they continue to slaughter their people. Arming the demonstrators also cannot be ruled out. The Libyan government is already blaming the protests on foreign help, and the protesters are facing a life or death struggle. The worst policy would be to encourage the demonstrators without giving them the tools to prevail.”

“It’s Too Late for Dithering,” by Paul Wolfowitz, The Enterprise Blog, 22 February 2011: “….When there are so many things that could be done to help the unbelievably brave Libyan people—without any risk to American lives—it is shameful to be sitting on our hands. If that is not reason enough to act, then we should be thinking about the terrible reputation the United States is acquiring, by its inaction, among the Libyan people and throughout the region. It will stay with us for a long time.”

“Moammar Gaddafi must pay for atrocities,” Washington Post Editorial, 21 February 2011: “…the Gaddafi regime be held accountable for its crimes. The first way to do that is a public call for regime change. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that it was ‘time to stop this unacceptable bloodshed’ in Libya; European leaders made similar statements. But the regime’s actions demand much more forceful action, including an immediate downgrading of relations and the raising of Libya’s case before the U.N. Security Council. The United States and the European Union should make clear that if the regime survives through violence, it will be subject to far-reaching sanctions, including on its oil industry….”

“Obama Should Tell Qaddafi to Go,” by Tom Hayden, 21 February 2011: “Rarely, if ever, do I advocate U.S. intervention in the affairs of other nations. But President Obama should be supported if he calls for Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi to step down and asks the United Nations to intervene, if necessary.”

“Daily Kos: Libya needs a no-fly zone NOW”: “The case for action is clear. The USA must enforce an immediate no-fly zone over Libya.”

Encircling Empire: Report #13—Revolution, Intervention, Anthropology

Encircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period. They are intended to be useful for those interested in: ● contemporary and critical political anthropology ● public anthropology ● imperialism and imperial decline ● militarism/militarization ● the political economy of the world system ● hegemony and soft power ● counterinsurgency ● revolution ● rebellion ● resistance ● protest ● activism ● advocacy ● critique.

In this report, first two maps of social media penetration in the Middle East and North Africa, in relation to ongoing revolts; then, a long overdue catalogue of anthropologists writing online about the revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa; then a series of opposing items, those dealing with rejections of any foreign military intervention in Libya (a position best articulated by Fidel Castro), followed by statements by what would otherwise be willing interventionists, in the U.S. government, who find multiple problems with imposing a no-flight-zone, and then those articles and statements  that strongly favour intervention, and the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P); finally, we end with notes on empire at work in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Given that this is our longest report yet, here is a minor short cut—our top recommendations in no particular order:

1. “The narcissism of the iPad imperialists who want to invade Libya,” Brendan O’Neill, The Telegraph (blogs), 25 February 2011
2. “High Risks for Acting Now,” Kori Schake, 02 March 2011
3. Security Council–SC/10187–Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York: Security Council, 6491st Meeting: “In Swift, Decisive Action, Security Council Imposes Tough Measures on Libyan Regime, Adopting Resolution 1970 in Wake of Crackdown on Protesters”
4. “US defence secretary Robert Gates slams ‘loose talk’ about no-fly zones” – The Guardian, 03 March 2011
5. “In one of final addresses to Army, Gates describes vision for military’s future,” Greg Jaffe, Washington Post, 25 February 2011
6. “The militarization of aid and its perils,” International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), 22 February 2011
7. “All-American Decline in a New World: Wars, Vampires, Burned Children, and Indelicate Imbalances,” by Tom Engelhardt, 25 February 2011
8. Resonance and the Egyptian Revolution , byGastón Cordillo

MAPPING SOCIAL MEDIA AND REVOLUTION

Libya Crisis Map – “The CrisisMappers Standby Task Force has been undertaking a mapping of social media, news reports and official situation reports from within Libya and along the borders at the request of OCHA. The Task Force is also aiding in the collection and mapping of 3W information for the response. UNOSAT is kindly hosting the Common Operational Datasets to be used during the emergency. Interaction with these groups is being coordinated by OCHA’s Information Services Section.”

Technology and Revolution—How Wired are the Middle East and North Africa? – surprisingly little, it turns out, which makes one wonder why some call Egypt the “Facebook revolution” when 5.49% of Egypt’s population uses Facebook. What is astounding, and either understated or ignored altogether, is the vast range of cell phone users.

ANTHROPOLOGISTS AND FIELD REPORTS ON THE ARAB REVOLUTIONS

The following are listed in no particular order, and each one is a highly recommended resource/essay.

Essays:

From Canada’s newest blogging anthropologist, Gastón Cordillo at the University of British Columbia, two essays on the embodiment of revolution, a thought provoking series on “resonance,” taking political agitation to the physical level:

Resonance and the Egyptian Revolution

“What has coalesced as a powerful, unstoppable force on the streets of Egypt is resonance: the assertive collective empathy created by multitudes fighting for the control of space. Resonance is an intensely bodily, spatial, political affair, materialized in the masses of bodies coming together in the streets of Egyptian cities in the past thirteen days, clashing with the police, temporarily dispersed by teargas and bullets, and regrouping again like an relentless swarm to reclaim the streets, push the police back, and saturate space with a collective effervescence. Resonance is what gives life to this human rhizome and the source of its power….”

The Speed of Revolutionary Resonance

“The current wave of revolutionary insurrections seems to be the fastest in history. Revolutions always come in waves, but insurgent shockwaves that once expanded across continents over years or months are now making states crumble, one after another, in a matter of weeks. As the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt are rapidly followed by widespread rebellions in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and now Oman, it is clear that these are not just events but nodes of acceleration, which shoot out high-speed resonances in all directions and make millions of bodies fight oppression in myriad places at the same time. This political whirlwind is a distance-dissolving machine. It is also an evolving constellation that shifts its form and pulsation because of the striated nature of the global terrain, one day creating moments of joyful exhilaration on Tahrir Square and a few days later facing unrestrained state violence in Libya. In these mutating territories, we seem to be witnessing an epochal clash between new revolutionary velocities and the old, increasingly eroded supremacy of the state in controlling means of speed-creation….”

“Power, realpolitik, and freedom: Egypt and US Ideals about Freedom” – Ryan Anderson, Ethnografix

“Democracy, it seems, only applies here at home. When it comes to a distant population like the people of Egypt, it seems that many people are willing to sidestep all of the rhetoric about political freedom and openly advocate supporting a repressive policy state, all in the name of ‘our interests’….”

“Democracy or Extremism? Political Ideals and Egypt” – Ryan Anderson, Ethnografix

“The US has a pretty confusing–if not outright contradictory–history of foreign policy. On the surface, we supposedly are the champions of democracy, human rights, and freedom. Right? Those are the ideals that the nation was founded upon, and they continue to play a primary role in the political rhetoric and overall idealism of its people. However….”

“Autocrats, democracy, and pragmatism” – Ryan Anderson, Ethnografix

“Over on a political blog that I check every now and again, one of the respondents to this post argues that the US should keep supporting Mubarak (despite that fact that he’s a SOB), and that they would be perfectly content if the conditions of the last 30 years continued unabated. This is one strain of realpolitik that has been pretty common in certain circles the last few days, one that is akin to a long-running foreign policy philosophy that has reigned in the US for decades….”

“Events in Egypt (everything is fine love the Egypt government)” – Ryan Anderson, Ethnografix

“One of the most blatant moves of the Egyptian government was the decision to close down social media (internet access, cell phone use, etc) to attempt to control popular unrest. Not a good decision–and this speaks to the power of these tools when it comes to political organization and expression. Of course, this whole story is developing as we speak, so it remains to be seen how things will play out….”

Reports from the Field:

The Egyptian Revolution: First Impressions from the Field - Mohammed A. Bamyeh, Portland State University, Sociology of Islam and Muslim Societies

“Everyone I talked to echoed similar transformative themes: they highlighted a sense of wonder at how they discovered their neighbor again, how they never knew that they lived in “society” or the meaning of the word, until this event, and how everyone who yesterday had appeared so distant is now so close. I saw peasant women giving protestors onions to help them recover from teargas attacks; young men dissuading others from acts of vandalism; the National Museum being protected by protestors’ human shield from looting and fire; protestors protecting captured baltagiyya who had been attacking them from being harmed by other protestors; and countless other incidents of generous civility amidst the prevailing destruction and chaos.

“I also saw how demonstrations alternated between battle scenes and debating circles, and how they provided a renewable spectacle in which everyone could see the diverse segments in social life converging on the common idea of bringing down the regime. While world media highlighted uncontrolled chaos, regional implications, and the specter of Islamism in power, the ant’s perspective revealed the relative irrelevance of all of the above considerations. As the Revolution took longer and longer to accomplish the mission of bringing down the regime, protestors themselves began to spend more time highlighting other accomplishments, such as how new ethics were emerging precisely amidst chaos. Those evidenced themselves in a broadly shared sense of personal responsibility for civilization—voluntary street cleaning, standing in line, the complete disappearance of harassment of women in public, returning stolen and found objects, and countless other ethical decisions that had usually been ignored or left for others to worry about….”

“‘You’ll be Late for the Revolution!’ An Anthropologist’s Diary of the Egyptian Revolution” – Samuli Schielke, Jaddaliya

“On 28 January, as millions went out all over the country, I booked my ticket to Cairo for a short visit, with the aim of making myself an idea of the atmosphere, of the sensibility of life of an uprising that had completely taken me by surprise. As an anthropologist, my work in the last years has focussed on the aspirations people have, the frustrations they experience, and the ways they try to find to live a life of dignity under constantly frustrating conditions. But I had not taken seriously the possibility that there would emerge a sudden collective consciousness that it is actually possible to change these conditions. Just days before 25 January, a friend asked whether there could be a revolution in Egypt like there was in Tunisia, and I said no, I don’t think so, because it seems so difficult to mobilise the people in Egypt, and for decades people have expected a revolution to break out in Egypt, but it hasn’t. Well, now it has, and much of what I thought I knew about Egyptian society has to be revised. But much more than revising academic knowledge is now at stake, and the short week I spent in Egypt from 31 January to 6 February also has changed me and my priorities….in the course of a week I transformed from an anthropological observer sympathetic with the events, into an activist committed to the sake of revolution even at personal risk. Personal and political transformation often go hand in hand….”

“The Egyptian Protests: A View from the Ground (The Beginning)” - Gregory Johnsen, Big Think

“…one of the doormen leads police to us.  They separate the Egyptians from the foreigners.  The foreigners they escort out to the street and tell us to go home.  The Egyptians they take away.”

“The Egyptian Protests: A View from the Ground (Neighborhood Watch)” - Gregory Johnsen, Big Think

“It became clear to me what was going to happen.  Mubarak was going to make a play for power essentially attempting to convince people that a police state with him was better than chaos without him.  And that is exactly what happened. There were three groups of looters – undercover thugs from the regime, prisoners that escaped/were set free and other elements looking for free stuff….”

Roundups:

“A wonderful development” – Anthropologists on the Egypt Uprising (updated 6.2.) – antropologi.info

One of Lorenz Khazaleh’s excellent overview essays of a range of anthropologists writing about the Egyptian uprising.

“Saba Mahmood: Democracy is not enough – Anthropologists on the Arab revolution part II” – antropologi.info

Lorenz does it again, his second overview essays featuring many excellent essays, reports, and other resources produced by anthropologists.

Martijn de Koning at CLOSER (Anthropology of Muslims in Europe) is continuing a weekly series of roundups of essays, news, and other documents on the ongoing protests and uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa—see for example:

• “Closing the week 8 – A need to read list of the uprisings in the Middle East”
• “Uprising – Music, Images and The Tunisia and Egypt Revolution on Youtube”
• “Closing the week 5 – Featuring the Tunisia & Egypt Uprising”

“Tunisia and Egypt uprisings – selected bookmarks” – John Postill, media/anthropology

A very useful collection of some of the essays and reports dealing with the role of the broadcast media, as well as social media, and Wikileaks, with reference to the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt.

AGAINST FOREIGN MILITARY INTERVENTION IN LIBYA

Fidel Castro—Reflections from Fidel: NATO’s Inevitable War, Part 1

“Imperialism and NATO – seriously concerned about the revolutionary wave unleashed in the Arab world, which produces a large portion of the oil sustaining the consumer economies of the rich, developed countries – could not miss the opportunity to take advantage of Libya’s internal conflict to promote a military intervention. The statements formulated by the United States government from early on were clearly in this vein. The circumstances could hardly be more propitious….”

Fidel Castro—Reflections from Fidel: NATO’s Inevitable War, Part 2

“We totally abstained from expressing any opinions concerning the concepts of the Libyan leadership. We can clearly see that the fundamental concern of the United States and NATO is not Libya, but the revolutionary wave unleashed in the Arab world, which they wish to prevent at all costs. It is an irrefutable fact that relations between the United States and its NATO allies in recent years were excellent until the rebellion in Egypt and in Tunisia arose. In high-level meetings between Libya and NATO leaders, none of the latter had any problems with Gaddafi. The country was a secure source of high-quality oil, gas and even potassium supplies. The problems which arose between them in the early decades had been overcome….”

Fidel Castro—Reflections from Fidel: NATO’s plan is to occupy Libya

“One can be in agreement with Gaddafi or not. The world has been invaded with all kind of news, especially through the mass media. We shall have to wait the time needed to discover precisely how much is truth or lies, or a mix of the events, of all kinds, which, in the midst of chaos, have been taking place in Libya. What is absolutely evident to me is that the government of the United States is totally unconcerned about peace in Libya and will not hesitate to give NATO the order to invade that rich country, possibly in a matter of hours or a few days.”

USA Today, Editors: “Our view: No-fly zone in Libya holds more risks than rewards,” 04 March 2011:

“When a crisis like the one in Libya arises, replete with barbaric actions by a dictator against his own people, calls for U.S. military action follow like a spasmodic reflex. Americans see people in trouble, want to help and look to the military to deliver a quick, effective, cost-free blow. But that impulse rarely produces the desired result, which makes the chorus calling for a no-fly zone over Libya sound gratingly off-key, despite the good intentions and notable credentials of some of the advocates….”

“Chavez proposes talks for Libya: Venezuelan president calls for mediation to end crisis while the US and other powers weigh military options,” Al Jazeera English, 01 March 2011: “ ‘We want a peaceful solution … We support peace in the Arab world and in the whole world.’…Chavez said it was better to seek ‘a political solution instead of sending marines to Libya, and better to send a good will mission than for the killing to continue.’ Al Jazeera’s Dima Khatib, reporting from Caracas, said the comments come from ‘Chavez’s ideology that the south can come up with solutions for the south.’… Chavez repeated his warning that the US wanted to invade Libya to get oil, a view that has been voiced by both Cuba and Nicaragua. ‘He is worried that the United States is after the Libyan oil, just like they were after the Iraqi oil. He says that they have gone mad because of the Libyan oil; it’s driving them crazy,’ our correspondent said. ‘He also wondered why doesn’t the world condemn the massacres in Falluja, in Afghanistan and in Pakistan’…”

“Chavez says he won’t condemn Libya’s Gadhafi,” Christopher Toothaker, Associated Press, 01 March 2011: Hugo Chavez: “We must be prudent. We know what our political line is: We don’t support invasions, or massacres, or anything like that no matter who does it. A campaign of lies is being spun together regarding Libya.”

“Venezuela: US, allies fomenting Libya’s violence,” Christopher Toothaker, Associated Press, 25 February 2011: “Venezuela’s top diplomat on Thursday echoed Fidel Castro’s accusation that Washington and its allies are fomenting unrest in Libya to justify an invasion to seize North African nation’s oil reserves. Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro claimed the United States and other powerful countries are trying to create a movement inside Libya aimed at toppling Moammar Gadhafi. Maduro did not condemn or defend the violent crackdown on Libyans participating in the popular uprising against Gadhafi’s long rule. He called for a peaceful solution to the upheaval in Libya and questioned the veracity of media reports on the bloody uprising, which has crept closer to Gadhafi’s stronghold in Tripoli. ‘They are creating conditions to justify an invasion of Libya,’ Maduro said. ‘Libya is going through difficult times, which should not be measured with information from imperial news agencies,’ Maduro added, referring to Western media. Gadhafi has been a close ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, and Chavez’s political opponents have strongly criticized those close relations. In a Twitter message Thursday, Venezuela’s leftist president said: ‘Viva Libya and its independence! Gadhafi is facing a civil war.’…”

“The narcissism of the iPad imperialists who want to invade Libya,” Brendan O’Neill, The Telegraph (blogs), 25 February 2011: “In a modern political sphere that has its fair share of narcissists and ignoramuses, no one is quite as narcissistic or as ignorant as the liberal interventionist. From the comfort of his Home Counties home, possibly to the sound of birds tweeting on the windowsill, the liberal interventionist will write furious, spittle-stained articles about the need to invade faraway countries in order to topple their dictators. As casually and thoughtlessly as the rest of us write shopping lists, he will pen a 10-point plan for the bombing of Yugoslavia or Afghanistan or Iraq and not give a second thought to the potentially disastrous consequences. Now, having learned nothing from the horrors that they cheer-led like excitable teenage girls over the past 15 years, these bohemian bombers, these latte-sipping lieutenants, these iPad imperialists are back. This time they’re demanding the invasion of Libya….”

“Stop the War Coalition statement on Middle East revolutions,” Stop War UK, 25 February 2011: “There must be no US or British intervention in Libya: the future of Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen. must be determined by the people of those countries alone. The uprisings sweeping the Middle East deserve the support of all progressive people. They are directed against autocracies which have denied their people basic rights and the possibility of a decent life. These autocracies have also, for the most part, depended on the self-interested support of the big powers, the USA and Britain first of all. Western governments have prioritised cheap oil, arms sales and support for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians above the rights of the Arab peoples…. The future of Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen and all the other states facing popular uprisings must be determined by the people of those countries alone. Solidarity with those fighting for their democratic and national freedom is our obligation. We can best discharge it by demanding that the government at long last takes its hands off the Middle East and its people, leaving them to settle accounts with their own rulers.”

Canadian Peace Alliance: “Support the Libyan people. Yes to freedom and democracy across the Arab World! No Military Intervention in Libya”: “The Government of Canada has announced that it will send HMCS Charlottetown to Libya to join the US aircraft carrier fleet led by the USS enterprise. This is part of a much larger NATO led buildup in the area. The Canadian Peace Alliance is opposed to any military intervention in Libya or in the region as a whole. If the western governments were genuine in their desire to help the people of Libya – or Egypt or Tunisia for that matter – they would not have supported the dictators and their regimes. That support for the dictators is a chief reason why the situation is so violent for the people rising up. Western military deployment to Libya is a bit like asking the arsonist to put out their own fire. Far from being a shining light in a humanitarian crisis, western intervention is designed to maintain the status quo and will, in fact make matters worse for the people there.”

“Gadhafi’s LatAm allies show solidarity, caution,” Andrea Rodriguez and Alexandra Olson, Associated Press, 22 February 2011: “The bloody upheaval in Libya is creating an uncomfortable challenge for Moammar Gadhafi’s leftist Latin American allies, with some keeping their distance and others rushing to the defense of a leader they have long embraced as a fellow fighter against U.S. influence in the world. Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said Tuesday that the unrest may be a pretext for a NATO invasion of Libya, while Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega offered support for Gadhafi, saying he had telephoned to express solidarity. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, on the other hand, has stayed mute. Bolivia came closest to criticizing the government in Tripoli, issuing a statement expressing concern over ‘the regrettable loss of many lives’ and urging both sides to find a peaceful solution….”

FROM WASHINGTON AND THE UN: PROBLEMS WITH FOREIGN MILITARY INTERVENTION

“US defence secretary Robert Gates slams ‘loose talk’ about no-fly zones” – The Guardian, 03 March 2011: While UK Prime Minister David Cameron appears eager to impose a no-flight zone, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (who seems intent on exiting office by covering his tracks with a series of very sober and critical assessments), stated:

“There is a lot of, frankly, loose talk about some of these military options. Let’s just call a spade a spade. A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defences. That’s the way you do a no-fly zone. Then you can fly planes around the country and not worry about our guys being shot down. That is the way it starts. It also requires more aeroplanes than you would find on a single aircraft carrier. It is a big operation by a big country.”

“Senator: Army could train Libyan opposition in anti-aircraft defense,” Adam Levine, CNN, 03 March 2011:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:

“We are working to understand who is legitimate, who is not, but it is premature in our opinion to recognize one group or another. I think it’s important to recognize that there is a great deal of uncertainty about the motives, the opportunism, if you will, of people who are claiming to be leaders right now.”

Senator John McCain’s response to Gates:

“McCain seemed to take offense at Gates’ comment Wednesday that there has been a lot of ‘loose talk’ about military options, including the no-fly zone. ‘May I just say personally, I don’t think it’s loose talk on the part of the people on the ground in Libya, nor the Arab League nor others, including the prime minister of England, that this option should be given the strongest consideration. The perception of Libyan pilots who now take off and land and attack pro-revolutionary forces might prove rather cautionary to them if they think that we will stop them and shoot them down if they carry out those missions’….‘Deterrence is always one of the options that we should have available to the national command authority,’ Dempsey agreed. ‘I will say, of course, that my own personal experience is sometimes the way our potential adversaries interpret our deterrent actions is not exactly as we’ve planned it. But deterrence is a valid option’.”

“US signals caution about Libya military intervention,” Lachlan Carmichael, AFP News, 02 March 2011: “In testimony to the US Senate, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that any US intervention to help opponents of Moamer Kadhafi would be ‘controversial’ both within Libya and the broader Arab community. She has said that Washington understands the Libyan opposition wants to ‘be seen as doing this by themselves’ as they seek ways to dislodge Kadhafi and his forces from the capital Tripoli and other areas they hold. In a speech on Wednesday, Kadhafi warned that ‘thousands’ would die if the West intervened to support the more than two-week old uprising against him.”

From The New York Times’ “Room for Debate” series, “Should the U.S. Move Against Qaddafi? What are the dangers for the U.S. and the international community in intervening in Libya?”:

“What We Should Know by Now,” John Mueller, 02 March 2011: “But there are a couple of cautions. One is that the experience of the last decade or so does not lead one to be confident that launching military force with woefully inadequate intelligence solves more problems than it creates or that, on balance, it actually ends up saving lives.

The other is that there is danger in posturing dramatically (or sanctimoniously) from outside about supporting an embattled side and then failing adequately to follow up with quick and effective action, which is often impossible to put together. The danger of coupling vast proclamation with limited action is that it can encourage people desperately to hold out in hopeless situations waiting for the promised, or seemingly promised, deliverance from outside.”

“No Clear Playbook,” Camille Eiss, 02 March 2011: “But deciding to act requires understanding where our leverage with Colonel Qaddafi and his henchmen lies. Do assets matter against power? Beyond the challenges of establishing a no-flight zone, will one prevent murderers from fighting on the ground? The sad reality in the case of Libya is that we have no clear playbook. So far, the best strategy may be the administration’s approach to other recent uprisings: focus on nonviolence and let Libyans be the primary players. With international partners who share this responsibility, the U.S. should intervene as necessary to promote these goals and to fulfill our responsibility to protect civilians and to end the violence. More extensive U.S. involvement might only muddy the indigenous democratic process, undermining our long term efforts to support free societies and a more stable region.”

“First, Define the Goals,” Steven Simon, 02 March 2011: “…armed intervention in an unfolding civil war would pose far greater risks. Again, the issue would be, what are we intervening for? If it is merely to put our thumb on the opposition’s side of the scales, by, say, intercepting regime aircraft, as the rebels have requested, or even staging air raids on airbases under the regime’s control, the risk to U.S. forces would be limited. The Navy, or Air Force if staging from NATO bases, could do this without breathing hard. But even for these limited missions, the U.S. would probably want to make sure that Libyan air defenses are unable to hinder U.S. air operations, which would mean a wider range of ground targets, with all the risk of collateral damage and loss of aircrews to accident or a lucky Libyan shot. And the mission would have to continue, perhaps for a long while, especially if Qaddafi’s air forces stood down, to wait out the U.S. presence. At that point, the U.S. would risk losing the battle for public opinion.”

“What Military Force Will Require,” Bruce W. Jentleson, 02 March 2011: “Intervention will require more than the United States and NATO. For reasons of history, power and politics a strictly Western intervention would be highly problematic. U.N. Security Council authorization is crucial. Russian and Chinese opposition has to be overcome. Efforts should continue to get African Union support. So, too, is support from the Arab League, though the opposition by the Organization of the Islamic Conference makes this unlikely.”

“A Logical, but Difficult, Step,” Richard Fontaine, 02 March 2011: “But, as General James Mattis, head of U.S. Central Command, said at a Senate hearing, taking out Libyan air defenses, ‘wouldn’t be just telling people not to fly airplanes.’ It would also imply risking American lives and possibly shooting down Libyan aircraft. The effort is even tougher at the diplomatic level. The administration would surely prefer to proceed with any military action under a United Nations mandate, which would require Russian agreement. But Moscow has already rejected the idea of a U.N.-authorized no-flight zone. NATO could carry out the mission outside U.N. authorization, as it did during the Kosovo war, but France has said that such a mission could go forward only with U.N. approval — and it’s unclear where other members stand. So the United States might be stuck, unable to get U.N. or NATO authorization, witnessing continued aerial bombings, and having to choose between doing nothing or pulling together a coalition of the willing.”

“High Risks for Acting Now,” Kori Schake, 02 March 2011: “we ought to be very cautious about actually using American military force to affect the rebellion in Libya, for four reasons. First, it is difficult to see what practical measures, short of removing Colonel Gaddafi ourselves or sending military teams into Libya to assist rebel forces, would affect the fight…. Second, we have not had an ambassador in Libya for months, and we have evacuated our diplomats; we ought not overestimate how much we understand what is occurring in the country or the shape Libya’s rebellion will take…. Third, debate over the Security Council resolution suggests it is unlikely the Chinese and Russians would authorize the use of force (they had to be assured the resolution that passed would not), and NATO would not be an alternative without a U.N. mandate…. Fourth, military force is sticky — once the president commits American military forces to involvement, even tangentially, he commits the nation. It is difficult to disengage if the limited force committed doesn’t achieve the president’s objectives….”

“Top powers split over Libya options: Amid calls for a no-fly zone, Russia and France caution against military intervention without UN authorization,” Al Jazeera English, 01 March 2011: “Russia has however described the no-fly zone idea as “superfluous” and along with France cautioned against moving militarily against Gaddafi without UN authorization….”

CALLS FOR INTERVENTION: ON THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT (R2P)

“Obama’s Choice: To Intervene or Not in Libya,” Mark Landler, The New York Times, 05 March 2011: “Mr. Obama’s blunt call last Thursday for Colonel Qaddafi to leave office, coupled with a threat to leave all military options on the table if he doesn’t, made it clear that the president believes the United States cannot stand by while Libyan jets bomb civilians. But his reluctance to talk about the most obvious measure — a no-flight zone over the country — reveals his qualms about thrusting the United States into a volatile situation in a region where foreign intervention is usually viewed as cynical neo-colonialism….The fact that protesters in Egypt and Tunisia were able to drum out their leaders without the help of American F-16s is viewed inside the White House as a big victory. Making sure that young Arabs feel “ownership” of their political movements has been a central piece of the administration’s strategy, even if it has exposed Mr. Obama to criticism that he is not doing enough to stop violence when it occurs….He won’t lack for impassioned advice: Among his staff members is Samantha Power, a human-rights expert who won a Pulitzer Prize for a book chronicling American foreign-policy responses to genocide.”

New “Libyan Transitional National Council” calling for air strikes–Rebels in east Libya set up crisis committee | Reuters: “The council repeated its call for foreign air strikes to help dislodge the man who has been in power for 41 years and has used warplanes and helicopters against rebel forces….Speaking at a news conference, the head of the national council, ex-Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil, said the body did not want foreign troops on Libyan soil and had sufficient forces to liberate the country….‘Our people have the numbers and the determination toliberate all of Libya, but we will ask for air strikes to help us do this in the shortest possible time’.”

“Senator: Army could train Libyan opposition in anti-aircraft defense,” Adam Levine, CNN, 03 March 2011: Senator Joseph Lieberman—“While we’re considering the no-fly zone, and I hear all the concerns about how it would be … another alternative I’m raising is that we might provide the Libyan opposition with the capacity to defend themselves from Gadhafi’s aircraft.”

“Opposing view: A moral obligation to intervene,” Jamie M. Fly, USA Today, 04 March 2011: “A no-fly zone enforced by the U.S. and key allies does not require the approval of the United Nations Security Council. The no-fly zones over Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and NATO’s 1999 war with Serbia over Kosovo did not have the council’s explicit blessing. It is in our interest to see the Libyan people free themselves from Gadhafi’s brutal reign. We should thus explore all possible options to do so, including arming the opposition so they are not slaughtered by regime forces. Gadhafi’s days are over. It is just a matter of time until he is forced from power. The question is whether we will stand on the sidelines and continue to watch thousands be killed in protracted fighting or whether we will ensure that his departure is hastened and casualties minimized. Intervening is a moral obligation for the United States — a moral obligation we’ve all too often ignored in similar cases in the past, with disastrous consequences. This time we need to get it right. It’s time for President Obama to lead.”

“Libyan ambassador: The U.S. must do more to stop Qaddafi’s massacre,” David Kenner, Foreign Policy, 04 March 2011: “Libyan Ambassador to the United States Ali Aujali, who joined the opposition in the early days of the crisis, issued an urgent plea for the United States to take more aggressive eactions against the Libyan government in an interview with Foreign Policy today. Aujali strongly supported the implementation of a no-flyzone over Libya, calling it ‘a historic responsibility for the United States.’ He also criticized the arguments about the risks of no-fly zone, which have been made by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other military officials. ‘When we say, for example, that the no-fly zone will take a long time, that it is complicated — please don’t give this regime any time to crush the Libyan people,’ he said.”

“Gaddafi bombs oil areas, Arabs study peace plan,” Mohammed Abbas, Reuters, 03 March 2011: “Opposition activists called for a no-fly zone, echoing a demand by Libya’s deputy U.N. envoy, who now opposes Gaddafi. ‘Bring Bush! Make a no fly zone, bomb the planes,’ shouted soldier-turned-rebel Nasr Ali, referring to a no-fly zone imposed on Iraq in 1991 by then President George Bush. But perhaps mindful of a warning by Gaddafi that foreign intervention could cause ‘another Vietnam,’ Western officials expressed caution about any sort of military involvement including the imposition of a no-fly zone….”

“Arabs may impose Libya no fly zone: International concern grows over violence in Libya with Arab state ministers saying they could impose a ‘no-fly’ zone,” Al Jazeera English, 02 March 2011: “The Arab League has said it may impose a ‘no fly’ zone on Libya in co-ordination with the African Union if fighting continues in Libya. Wednesday’s Arab League ministers’ meeting in Cairo rejected any direct outside military intervention in Libya…”

“ICC to launch Libya probe: The ICC probe will look into the killing of civilians by Gaddafi’s forces during Libya’s uprising,” Al Jazeera English, 02 March 2011: “The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has said he will open a formal investigation into possible crimes against humanity in Libya….The announcement was an unprecedentedly swift reaction to the violent crackdown on anti-government protests by Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, and his supporters. Prosecutors often take months and sometimes years to decide whether to open an investigation into possible war crimes….”

“Are sanctions enough? We ask what the international community can do to protect the Libyan people,” Inside Story, Al Jazeera English, 01 March 2011: “On Saturday, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to impose financial sanctions on the regime of Muammar Gaddafi and to refer Libya to the International Criminal Court. And in an attempt to strengthen this decision, foreign ministers met in Geneva on Monday at a UN Human Rights Council to discuss the future of Libya. But also on the agenda – what action should be taken against Gaddafi and his regime for human rights violations against the Libyan people. But with Gaddafi threatening to cleanse the country house by house, are words enough to protect unarmed Libyan civilians?”

“Britain considers Libya no-fly zone: David Cameron says military intervention including arming rebels could be needed to stop Gaddafi ‘murdering’ his people,” Al Jazeera English, 01 March 2011: “David Cameron, the British prime minister, has said the international community cannot let Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi ‘murder’ his own people, as he justified considerations for a no-fly zone over the riot-torn country. ‘It’s not acceptable that Colonel Gaddafi can be murdering his own people, using aeroplanes and helicopters gunships … and we have to plan now to make sure that if it happens we can do something to stop that,’ he said on Tuesday. If he starts taking that sort of action we might need to have a no-fly zone in place very quickly’….”

“Exile an option for Gaddafi: White House—Nothing is off the table against Gaddafi: Clinton,” Al Arabiya, 28 February 2011: “…The United States had said it was prepared to offer ‘any kind of assistance’ to Libyans seeking to overthrow Gaddafi as his opponents piece together a transitional body comprising representatives from the liberated cities….”

“EU approves wide sanctions against Libya,” John Heilprin and Bradley Klapper, Associated Press, 28 February 2011: “The European Union slapped its own arms embargo, visa ban and other sanctions Monday on Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s regime, part of an escalating global effort to halt a bloody crackdown on his critics in the North African nation. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton came to Geneva on Monday to press EU diplomats, including Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, for stronger action against Gadhafi’s regime….”

“Libya quashes protest in Tripoli; West to aid east,” Maggie Michael, Associated Press, 28 February 2011: “ ‘We’ve been reaching out to many different Libyans who are attempting to organize in the east and as the revolution moves westward there as well,’ Clinton said. ‘I think it’s way too soon to tell how this is going to play out, but we’re going to be ready and prepared to offer any kind of assistance that anyone wishes to have from the United States.’ Two U.S. senators said Washington should recognize and arm a provisional government in rebel-held areas of eastern Libya and impose a no-fly zone over the area — enforced by U.S. warplanes — to stop attacks by the regime. But Fillon said a no-fly zone needed U.N. support ‘which is far from being obtained today’.”

“Security Council imposes sanctions on Libyan authorities in bid to stem violent repression,” UN News Centre, 26 February 2011: “The Security Council today voted unanimously to impose sanctions against the Libyan authorities, slapping the country with an arms embargo and freezing the assets of its leaders, while referring the ongoing violent repression of civilian demonstrators to the International Criminal Court (ICC). In its Resolution 1970, the Council obligated all United Nations Member States to ‘freeze without delay all funds, other financial assets and economic resources which are on their territories, which are owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by the individuals or entities’ listed in resolution. The Council imposed a travel ban on President Muammar Al-Qadhafi and other senior figures in his administration, including some members of his family and other relatives. ‘All Member States shall immediately take the necessary measures to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer to the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, from or through their territories or by their nationals, or using their flag vessels or aircraft, of arms and related material of all types, including weapons and ammunition,’ according to the arms embargo clause of the resolution….”

United Nations Webcast: “Security Council Meeting,” 26 February 2011: Peace and security in Africa and other matters including the situation in Libya. Adoption of Resolution 1970 imposing sanctions on the Libyan regime.

Security Council–SC/10187–Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York: Security Council, 6491st Meeting: “In Swift, Decisive Action, Security Council Imposes Tough Measures on Libyan Regime, Adopting Resolution 1970 in Wake of Crackdown on Protesters”: “Many expressed hope that the resolution was a strong step in affirming the responsibility of States to protect their people as well as the legitimate role of the Council to step in when they failed to meet that responsibility…. Recalling the Libyan authorities’ responsibility to protect its population….

“Libya needs a multilateral response,” Michael O’Hanlon, Politico, 25 February 2011: “One thing that both Iraq and Afghanistan have again demonstrated is the potential for war not to go as planned — even when we think all major factors line up in our favor…. With Libya, there is a considerable possibility that if we were to impose no fly zones and no drive zones, Qadhafi would not only threaten any Americans still in Libya, but he would intensify — rather than scale back — the pace of killing of his own citizens…. So we would have had to consider the possibility of needing to put forces on the streets of Tripoli to defeat parts of the Libyan army; the African mercenaries and thugs whom Qadhafi cultivated over the years….”

“NATO to hold urgent talks on Libya,” Slobodan Lekic, Associated Press, 25 February 2011: “NATO’s main decision-making body holds an emergency meeting on Friday to discuss Libya’s unrest, and the alliance may discuss deploying ships and surveillance aircraft to the Mediterranean, officials said. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who chairs meetings of the North Atlantic Council, has said the alliance does not intend to intervene in Libya, that it has received no such requests to do that, and that such an action would require a U.N. mandate….”

“NATO Secretary General’s statement on the situation in Libya,” NATO, 24 February 2011: “I do not consider the situation in Libya a direct threat to NATO or NATO Allies, but, of course, there may be negative repercussions. Such upheaval may have a negative impact on migration, refugees, etc., and that also goes for neighbouring countries….”

“Crisis alert: The Responsibility to Protect in Libya,” 23 February 2011, responsibilitytoprotect.org: An extensive collection of calls for action in Libya from a wide range of human rights organizations.

“It’s Time To Intervene: What the international community can do to support regime change in Libya,” Shadi Hamid, Slate Magazine, 23 February 2011: “What can be done? This is a time for bold, creative policy-making. For starters, NATO should quickly move to enforce a no-fly zone over Libya, both to send a strong message to the regime and to prevent the use of helicopters and planes to bomb and strafe civilians. The United States and European allies should freeze the assets of senior Libyan officials and consider other targeted sanctions. Meanwhile, the international community should also let it be known that any individuals involved in perpetrating atrocities will be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court, while regime figures who defect to the opposition will be granted amnesty. If the conflict threatens to spill over into outright civil war, and the death toll reaches into the tens of thousands, the United Nations will need to consider more advanced measures, including authorizing the deployment of peacekeeping troops to protect civilian populations in the eastern part of the country….The ‘responsibility to protect’ provides further grounds for action. During the 2005 U.N. World Summit, member states unanimously affirmed that ‘each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.’ In Paragraph 139 of the summit outcome document, states affirmed their readiness to take collective action ‘in a timely and decisive manner’ if nations ‘manifestly fail’ to protect their populations from crimes against humanity….”

“On Libya we can’t let ourselves be scarred by Iraq: The international community must get over the foolishness of the 2003 invasion, and take swift action against Gaddafi,” Ian Birrell, The Guardian, 23 February 2011: “It is like an apocalyptic Hollywood film. There are even rumours of systematic male rape in this elegant city of jacaranda trees and Italianate buildings. Who knows what is true and what is false, only that there is a whirlwind of terror amid a media blackout as the people of Libya try to overthrow the despot who has ruined their country these past 41 years….The international community may be forced to make a choice: does it sit back and prevaricate while people are massacred, as it has so often in the past. Or does it refuse to be scarred by the foolishness of the Iraq invasion and show that it can act when there is unacceptable barbarism….”

Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect: “Open Statement on the Situation in Libya,” 22 February 2011: “United Nations (UN) member states must uphold their 2005 commitment to the responsibility to protect (R2P) and take immediate action to protect the population of Libya from mass atrocities….”

“24 rights groups urge US and EU to confront Libyan massacres in UN Security Council and Human Rights Council,” UN Watch, Global Post, 20 February 2011: “The letter asserts that the widespread atrocities committed by Libya against its own people are ‘particularly odious’ actions that amount to war crimes, requiring member states to take action through the Security Council under the responsibility to protect doctrine….”

EMPIRE AT WORK

“Nine Afghan Boys Collecting Firewood Killed by NATO Helicopters,” Alissa J. Rubin and Sangar Rahimi, The New York Times, 02 March 2011: “Nine boys collecting firewood to heat their homes in the eastern Afghanistan mountains were killed by NATO helicopter gunners who mistook them for insurgents, according to a statement on Wednesday by NATO, which apologized for the mistake. The boys, who were 9 to 15 years old, were attacked on Tuesday in what amounted to one of the war’s worst cases of mistaken killings by foreign-led forces. The victims included two sets of brothers. A 10th boy survived.”

“Egypt, Serbia, Georgia… The History of US Sponsored ‘Democratization’,” Eric Walberg, Global Research.ca, 03 March 2011: “Central to Egypt’s revolution was a tiny group of Serbian activists Otpor (resistance), who adapted nonviolent tactics of in the late 1990s and successfully forced Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic to resign in 2000. Egyptian youth in the 6 April Youth Movement even adopted their clenched fist symbol, bringing Otpor…”

“Angelina Jolie visits schoolgirls in Afghanistan,” Ann Oldenburg, USA Today, 03 March 2011: “Jolie visited families and presented education materials to local schoolgirls in Qala Gudar village, where she will fund a new girls primary school, outside Kabul. The lack of a proper classroom means most girls now can’t study beyond fourth grade. Jolie also paid for a school in the remote returnee settlement of Tangi in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province, according to the UNHCR.”

“In one of final addresses to Army, Gates describes vision for military’s future,” Greg Jaffe, Washington Post, 25 February 2011: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates: “In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should ‘have his head examined,’ as General MacArthur so delicately put it.”

“The militarization of aid and its perils,” International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), 22 February 2011: “…For the International Committee of the Red Cross, the question is not whether the military can contribute to humanitarian efforts; it, for example, has an obligation under international humanitarian law to evacuate wounded civilians. Aid becoming part of counter-insurgency strategies, however, is much more problematic. I have never forgotten a press statement issued by international forces in Afghanistan a couple of years ago emphasizing that humanitarian assistance was helping them and Afghan forces win the ‘fight against terrorism’….”

“Business as usual for David Cameron and merchants of death,” John Kamfner, The Guardian, 22 February 2011: “When Robin Cook tried to tighten rules on British arms sales to dodgy regimes in 1997 he was told by Tony Blair’s team to grow up….This is one area where the boardroom and the unions are in harmony, and one that does not change whatever the government. Britain is a market leader in fighter jets, electric batons, sub-machine guns and teargas. Why add to the jobless total for the sake of morals? If we don’t sell the kit someone else will….”

“Petraeus Accuses Afghan Parents of Burning Kids to Make US Look Bad: Attempt to Downplay Kunar Massacre Sparks Outrage,” Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com, 21 February 2011: “One would think that the effort to downplay the killings of as many as 64 civilians, including a large number of children, would be enough to spark considerable anti-US outrage, but apparently Gen. David Petraeus saw an opportunity to make things even worse, and took it. In a closed door meeting aimed at explaining why they had killed so many civilians, Gen. Petraeus actually accused parents in the region of burning their own children in an attempt to raise the death count and make the US look bad….”

“All-American Decline in a New World: Wars, Vampires, Burned Children, and Indelicate Imbalances,” by Tom Engelhardt, 25 February 2011: “This is a global moment unlike any in memory, perhaps in history. Yes, comparisons can be made to the wave of people power that swept Eastern Europe as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989-91. For those with longer memories, perhaps 1968 might come to mind, that abortive moment when, in the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, and elsewhere, including Eastern Europe, masses of people mysteriously inspired by each other took to the streets of global cities to proclaim that change was on the way. For those searching the history books, perhaps you’ve focused on the year 1848 when, in a time that also mixed economic gloom with novel means of disseminating the news, the winds of freedom seemed briefly to sweep across Europe.  And, of course, if enough regimes fall and the turmoil goes deep enough, there’s always 1776, the American Revolution, or 1789, the French one, to consider.  Both shook up the world for decades after. But here’s the truth of it: you have to strain to fit this Middle Eastern moment into any previous paradigm, even as — from Wisconsin to China – it already threatens to break out of the Arab world and spread like a fever across the planet.  Never in memory have so many unjust or simply despicable rulers felt quite so nervous — or possibly quite so helpless (despite being armed to the teeth) — in the presence of unarmed humanity.  And there has to be joy and hope in that alone….”

Photo from Tahrir Square by Hossam el-Hamalawy

EE: Report #12, FOCUS ON EGYPT: Revolution and Counter-Revolution

Encircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period. They are intended to be useful for those interested in: ● contemporary and critical political anthropology ● public anthropology ● imperialism and imperial decline ● militarism/militarization ● the political economy of the world system ● hegemony and soft power ● counterinsurgency ● revolution ● rebellion ● resistance ● protest ● activism ● advocacy ● critique.

In this report, some “opening statements” by key actors who helped to shape this report; then an editorial on revolution and counter-revolution; followed by a list of some Egyptian democracy activist sites worth following; also a list of live blogs on the Egyptian revolution; keeping track of missing persons in the Egyptian uprising; some essays worthy of note on Egypt; and, “Empire’s Egypt,” a special focus on news and essays concerning U.S. intervention in Egypt.

OPENING STATEMENTS

A comrade’s tweet, read aloud and posted on the screen on CBC Newsworld, 02 February 2011:

From now we are not a peaceful protesters , The next Friday gona be a real war between us and the Mubarak,s thugs #Jan25 #Tahrir
@mar3e – Mohammed Maree

I was getting really upset that every time I went on a show, all you would see is “Crisis in Cairo,” “Unrest in Egypt.” And they were totally missing the historical significance of what was happening. My country, you know, my people, these incredibly courageous people in Egypt, were standing up to a tyrant of 30 years, and all they wanted to focus on was this looting, that was clear at the time and now has been proven to be linked to the Mubarak regime. And all they wanted to ask was, “Are American citizens safe? And how are the artifacts in Egypt?” And I said, “Look, everybody is safe. We all care about the artifacts, but can we please talk about Egyptians and what a historic moment this is?” –Mona ElTahawy, see:

“I am also a man of the army, and it is not in my nature to give up responsibility….This dear country is my country just like it is the homeland of every Egyptian man and woman. I have lived in this country. I have fought for it. I have defended its sovereignty and interest, and I will die on its land, and history will judge me and others.” –Hosni Mubarak, Tuesday 01 February 2011

…it is quite likely that the president and his colleagues in Europe are as frightened of the potential explosion of people power across the Middle East and North Africa as are the sclerotic autocratic leaders of the region against whom the protests are being directed.

The question is, why?

Why would Obama, who worked so hard to reach out to the Muslim world with his famous 2009 speech in Cairo, be standing back quietly while young people across the region finally take their fate into their own hands and push for real democracy?

Shouldn’t the president of the United States be out in front, supporting non-violent democratic change across the world’s most volatile region?
–Mark LeVine, Professor of History at UC Irvine: “It’s Time for Obama to Say Kefaya!”

A tweet from P.J. Crowley, spokesman for the U.S. State Department allied to the Mubarak regime:

We reiterate our call for all sides in #Egypt to show restraint and avoid violence. Egypt’s path to democratic change must be peaceful.

…and as if knowing exactly what was coming in the form of “democratic reform” to be ushered in by its ally, Hosni Mubarak, the State Department urgently instructed American citizens to evacuate Egypt immediately, at one point seemingly forgetting there was still a curfew when issuing its statement.

REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION

Mark LeVine answers his questions above: “Obama not only prefers the status quo, but the United States will actively subvert democracy in order to ensure that governments that will follow its policies remain in power,” outlining details of how the Obama administration has also opposed free and fair elections for Palestine. That Obama has not backed radical but peaceful change in a region that demands it, as acknowledged by U.S. diplomats in numerous leaked cables, shows that Obama has taken an approach that can only be characterized as “tragic and stupid” for backing the status quo. At most, Obama has backed some promised reforms that fall well short of what Egyptians rightly demands, reforms to be ushered in and directed by a dictator who is personally responsible for the murder and torture of Egyptians, and whose immediate actions following such promises on Tuesday night was to unleash a wave of violence against pro-democracy protesters, and to demand that protesters forsake their rights to freedom of assembly, movement, association, and free speech by instructing them to “evacuate immediately” from the streets. Egypt is a rich source of lucrative business opportunities for the U.S. military-industrial complex, for defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin (which has committed itself to fulfilling its standing $230 million contract to supply Egypt with 20 new F-16s), and for U.S. mega banks.

There is nearly unanimous agreement among foreign mainstream media and many European leaders, that the violence by those wrongly dubbed “pro-Mubarak protesters” is orchestrated by the Mubarak regime. There is also considerable circumstantial evidence pointing to that, as well as the government and police IDs of those thugs who were seized by the pro-democracy protesters.

From: polooeste

In particular, the military, which had sealed entrances to Tahrir Square, and was frisking those seeking entry to check for weapons (then not allowing them to leave), was freely admitting gangs of thugs who came and went as they wished, and openly brandished weapons. Robert Fisk, echoing some of the activists, was one of the few Western journalists to have shown skepticism about the supposed “protection” seemingly offered to pro-democracy protesters early on. They were right: indeed, if anything the military used the protests to achieve one of their goals, to prevent succession passing to Mubarak’s son Gamal instead of one of their own officers. That members of the government are now starting to point fingers at each other, with the Prime Minister issuing something of an apology, disclaiming any responsibility (which simply does not correspond with facts on the ground), directing attention at the police (and not the army’s mysterious withdrawal and failure to intervene to stop the violence happening under its nose), and the reported arrest of the former Minister of the Interior for his involvement, shows a regime in disarray with some internal cleavages. The timing of the violence was instructive too, beginning almost immediately after the end of Mubarak’s Tuesday-night speech, after Mubarak consulted by telephone with Obama and in person with Obama’s envoy, Frank Wisner.

From: polooeste

The regime and its thugs showed an amazing lack of any historical sense of what it means to turn public opinion in the U.S., its major supporter, against it. In particular, the repeatedly aired footage of the attack on a CNN crew on Wednesday, 02 February (see below) with Anderson Cooper getting struck in the head several times, makes one wonder where the leaders of this violence were when an officer of the Nicaraguan National Guard, under dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, executed ABC News’ Bill Stewart—see President Jimmy Carter’s official condemnation—shown on the six o’clock news to all Americans.

Anderson Cooper attacked in Egypt

Photo by Hossam el-Hamalawy

“The military’s refusal to act is a highly political act which shows that it is allowing the Egyptian regime to reconstitute itself at the top and is highly, utterly against the protesters,” explained Prof. Joshua Stacher, an Egypt specialist who met with three White House National Security Council officials to talk about the Egyptian crisis. He added that the absence of military action serves two purposes: “Make the protesters go home, and two, scare the population that isn’t protesting. They want the Egyptian people to submit to the police state, and they want the people to pine for their police state, so that they have stability back.”

One open question now is whether Mubarak is merely acting on American advice, or rejecting American advice, as supposedly shown in these publicly rendered clashes between Egyptian and U.S. government officials. There is the possibility that this is theatre stage managed by friends, an attempt to provide political cover for Washington’s covert intervention so that it can appear to have clean hands. Indeed, plausible deniability seems to have become a leading theme in recent violence. Less of an open question is that Mubarak seems intent on having a hold on power, if anything to safeguard his accumulation of a vast fortune estimated to be between $50 and $80 billion, accumulated from decades of corruption and strategic positioning in lucrative contracts with foreigners, derived from Mubarak’s military and government service, and to not be forced to admit that Egypt and its people do not belong to him, to be used and dispensed with as he pleases.

For some (see: “Game over: The chance for democracy in Egypt is lost”) the regime’s turn to violence inevitably invites violent revolution. If that is the case, those most capable of delivering anti-regime violence will likely emerge as leaders of a post-Mubarak Egypt, and are also likely never to forget nor forgive the U.S.’ complicity in backing Mubarak and his government. That ordinary Egyptians should be held down in such poverty, and under such threat from their own government, as if it were their cross to bear for the sake of Israeli security and U.S. geopolitical interests, is not something that many of us will ever forget, or forgive.

‘The Will of The Egyptian People is above you Mubarak’--Anti-Mubarak graffiti on army tank in Tahrir Square...

ACTIVIST SITES WORTH FOLLOWING

From Hossam El-Hamalawy:

• 3ARABAWY Blog
• 3Arabawy Twitter
• Live stream via cell phone: Tahrir Occupation
• 3arabawy Flickr photostream

From Mohammed Maree:

• EgyTimes.org (in Arabic)
• Mohammed Maree—Flickr photostream

Jan25Voices on Twitter

LIVE BLOGS

Egypt Protests Live (The Guardian, UK)

Live Blog-Egypt Protests (Al Jazeera—not actually one blog devoted to this, rather posts organized by date, no central URL)

Human Rights Watch—Live updates from Egypt and the region

Egypt (and Beyond) LiveBlog: The Battle of Tahrir Square—EAWorldView

Egypt in Revolt (Mother Jones)

Judith Orr, reporting live from Cairo (Socialist Worker Online)

Live Blogging the Egypt Uprising (Not updated) Christian Science Monitor

See also:

Egypt Protests 2011–collection of all Global Voices Online posts

Upheaval in Egypt–The Daily Beast

And a very good roundup of live updates throughout the critical events of Wednesday 02 February, was produced on CNN, which also came under attack from Mubarak’s paid thugs.

See also the ZA Twitter List for Egypt, which includes only Egyptian pro-democracy activists, journalists, and messages from our comrades.

MISSING

Thanks to the efforts of Samer Karam and Tamer Salama, we have a Missing Persons List (see the Wall Street Journal’s article about this: “Using Crowds to Find the Missing”) that can be used for crowd sourcing information on the whereabouts of those disappeared since January 25 in Egypt. For a while we very concerned about the abduction by state security of anthropologist Mohamed Waked (also here), with his capture described in this article in the New York Review of Books by Yasmine El Rashidi.

ESSAYS TO NOTE

Among his many online essays, this one by Mohamed Waked is rather unique in using the electricity outages last year as a vehicle for assessing the failures of the Mubarak regime, its ties to Israel, the “reward” to the Egyptian people for the compromises of the dictatorship, the impact on Ramadan, and more—see: “Are Mubarak’s Gas Sales to Israel Partly to Blame? The Politics of Power Cuts in Egypt” (02 September 2010).

Also see Jillian C. York’s “Words from Tahrir Square,” transcribing Al Jazeera English’s interview with democracy activist Mona Seif (@monasosh) from Wednesday night (02 February).

“A Guide: How Not To Say Stupid Stuff About Egypt” –great points include: “This is so sad;” “What they did to the Mummies is horrible;” “The Muslim Brothers are Terrorists;” “The Twitter Revolution;” “If they get Democracy they will elect extremists,” and more.

EMPIRE’S EGYPT

Remarks by the [U.S.] President on the Situation in Egypt

Egypt protests: Hillary Clinton’s statement in full

Hillary Clinton: Interview With Randa Aboul Azem of Al Arabiya: “I really consider President and Mrs. Mubarak to be friends of my family.”

LENIN’S TOMB: The imperialist remedy for Egypt: “Asked if he would characterize Mubarak as a dictator Biden responded: ‘Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with – with Israel. … I would not refer to him as a dictator’….”

“Mubarak is Our Berlin Wall;” Egyptian Columnist Mona Eltahawy on How the Youth Drove the Uprising in Cairo and Implications for Democracy in the Region: “as you remember, in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, you saw revolution—revolutions and freedom movements across Eastern Europe. Mubarak is our Berlin Wall. When Tunisia had its revolution and toppled Ben Ali, everyone thought, “Beautiful little Tunisia, you’re so brave. But it’s never going to happen anywhere else.” Now it’s happening in the traditional leader of the Arab world. Egypt is a country of 80 million people. Once Mubarak falls—and he will fall; I mean, he’s crumbled. Several days ago, as far as I was concerned, he was done. Once Mubarak falls once and for all, you will see what will happen in the Arab world. This is going to—every Arab leader is watching right now in terror, and every Arab citizen is elated and cheering Egypt on, because they know the significance of this.”

Made in the U.S.A.: Tear Gas, Tanks, Helicopters, Rifles and Fighter Planes in Egypt Funded and Built Largely by U.S. Defense Department and American Corporations: “WILLIAM HARTUNG [author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex]: It’s a form of corporate welfare for companies like Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, because it goes to Egypt, then it comes back for F-16 aircraft, for M1 tanks, for aircraft engines, for all kinds of missiles, for guns, for tear gas canisters, as was discussed, a company called Combined Systems International, which actually has its name on the side of the canisters that have been found on the streets there. So these companies—for example, Lockheed Martin has been the leader in deals worth $3.8 billion over that period of the last 10 years; General Dynamics, $2.5 billion for tanks; Boeing, $1.7 billion for missiles, for helicopters; Raytheon for all manner of missiles for the armed forces. So, basically, this is a key element in propping up the regime, but a lot of the money, as you said and Juan Cole mentioned on this program, is basically recycled. Taxpayers could just as easily be giving it directly to Lockheed Martin or General Dynamics.”

Made in the USA: Birdshot used on protesters in Mohamed Mahmoud Street, made in the USA

Lockheed Martin stated its commitment to the Mubarak Government over a $230M contract—see this press release about its contract.

“Egyptian protesters are conflicted over US role:” “One of the insults flung at President Hosni Mubarak by Egyptian protesters seeking his ouster was: ‘Mubarak, you coward! You American collaborator!’ Hostility toward the United States is widespread among the crowds in Cairo’s streets, who feel Washington’s alliance with Egypt — along with billions of dollars in military aid through the years — has helped Mubarak’s authoritarian regime keep its grip on power for nearly three decades…. “Look at this!” one man shouted in a makeshift emergency room in a mosque near Tahrir Square on Saturday, as doctors treated bleeding demonstrators and other volunteers removed the bodies of slain protesters. He held up tear gas canisters emblazoned with ‘Made in the USA.’ Another man shook a fistful of bullet casings at reporters. ‘America! This is America!’ he shouted. A military helicopter that swooped over Tahrir Square and warplanes that buzzed Cairo on Sunday highlighted the conundrum once again. Protesters shook fists at the two low-flying planes and declared that they were obtained with U.S. military aid….”

“Analysis: Which side of history does America want to be on?” : “ ‘The Obama administration is still trying to come up with a coherent policy’ to replace decades of over-promising and under-delivering on reforms, said Mohamad Bazzi, senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations. Washington has long viewed the region through the lens of stability versus democracy. But unfolding events puts the lie to the stability side of the argument, to varying degrees, country by country.”

The End النهاية--Central Security Forces truck destroyed by protesters in downtown Cairo

EE: Report #11, FOCUSING ON EGYPT

Encircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period. They are intended to be useful for those interested in: ● contemporary and critical political anthropology ● public anthropology ● imperialism and imperial decline ● militarism/militarization ● the political economy of the world system ● hegemony and soft power ● counterinsurgency ● revolution ● rebellion ● resistance ● protest ● activism ● advocacy ● critique.

In this report, commentary on the latest news about the attempts to prop up the Mubarak regime in Egypt; an update on spreading protests across the Arab world; followed by a select list of news resources to help keep track of the protests in Egypt and to help us understand them; then we turn to the role of the Internet in the protests, and the government shutdown; finally, a comprehensive write up of Wikileaks’ Egypt cables.

WHAT DID HE SAY?

From Tuesday, 25 January, through the momentous events of Friday, 28 January, Egypt is experiencing a growing mass uprising against the U.S. supported dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak who is now seeing his 30^th year in power. At the time of writing, both Mubarak and Obama have made televised speeches in which both have said precisely the wrong things: Mubarak, that he intends to keep power, and yet partly conceding that the protesters have valid grievances by announcing that he would fire all of his ministers; Obama, in saying that he wants Mubarak to implement “reforms,” clearly indicated that the U.S. is ready to continue to work with a dictator who is responsible for the deaths and torture of numerous Egyptians. Obama even went as far as demanding that the protesters should engage in peaceful actions, as if they had initiated any of the violence. Both “leaders” have failed to learn from history. Ronald Reagan, a president who presumably is to be classed as more right wing than Obama, even characterized as an extremist, nonetheless instructed his office to tell the Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos on 24 February 1986 that for Marcos it was “time to cut and to cut it cleanly.” Later, in a personal call with Marcos in Hawaii, Regan dismissed Marcos’ request for U.S. support for his return to the Philippines. Marcos also was smart enough to know that his time was up. Let’s see if Mubarak is as smart, because there is no hope for Obama.

At the same time as Friday’s protests, “a high-level Egyptian military delegation was in Washington on Friday for pre-scheduled defense talks, even as Egypt’s army took to the streets to face unrest sweeping the country,” Reuters reported.

THE AMERICAN WALL IS COMING DOWN

Protesters, in the tens of thousands, turned out on the streets of Sanaa, Yemen, various provincial centres and a port city on Thursday, 27 January, calling for an end to the U.S.-supported regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh. At the same time, Jordan saw three consecutive days of protests, at the time of this report, “demanding the country’s prime minister step down, and the government curb rising prices, inflation and unemployment.”

KEEPING TRACK OF THE PROTESTS

Friday, 28 January 2011, saw massive protests across Egypt and clear evidence that the security services were losing control. The headquarters of Mubarak’s National Democratic Party was completely engulfed in flames, with no fire services arriving to extinguish the flames, and this during the curfew imposed by Mubarak (from 7:00pm to 6:00am). The Foreign Ministry was taken over by protesters. Protesters moved through the streets of Cairo late into the night. Suez and Alexandria saw police stations taken over, weapons turned on the police, and a column of tanks embraced and welcomed, by the protesters, in a clear attempt to “disarm” the military which was sent to suppress citizens and to drive a symbolic wedge between the military and Mubarak. Both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and, a few hours later, President Barack Obama came out with nearly identical public addresses about Egypt.

The best and most up to date coverage is being provided by Al Jazeera English on its dedicated site: Anger in Egypt. Check in with its live blog. AJE relies on satellite transmissions of its live video feed, thus getting around the total shutdown of the Internet in Egypt, as ordered by Mubarak (see more below on the Internet and the protests).

Produced by Al Jazeera English, these maps of the protests for 28 January come from “Mapping Egypt’s ‘day of wrath’:”

View Larger Map

Also from Al Jazeera English, “Timeline: Egypt unrest: A chronicle of the demonstrations against the country’s leadership,” which provides an overview of some of the landmark developments for each day since the protests began earlier this week.

Photo galleries:

Al Jazeera’s “In pictures: Anger in Egypt”

Sarah Carr’s “Egypt Uprising” flickr photostream

THE INTERNET AND THE EGYPTIAN PROTESTS

See the following reports for analysis of the role of the Internet in the Egyptian mass protests:

“When Egypt turned off the internet: Egypt goes off the digital map as authorities unplug the country entirely from the internet ahead of protests,” Al Jazeera English, 28 January 2011:

“Computer experts say what sets Egypt’s action apart is that the entire country was disconnected in an apparently co-ordinated effort, and that all manner of devices are affected, from mobile phones to laptops. It seems, though, that satellite phones would not be affected. ‘Iran never took down any significant portion of their Internet connection, they knew their economy and the markets are dependent on Internet activity,’ Cowie said. When countries are merely blocking certain sites, like Twitter or Facebook, where protesters are co-ordinating demonstrations, as apparently happened at first in Egypt, protesters can use ‘proxy’ computers to circumvent the government censors. The proxies ‘anonymise’ traffic and bounce it to computers in other countries that send it along to the restricted sites. But when there is no internet at all, proxies can’t work and online communication grinds to a halt. Renesys’ network sensors showed that Egypt’s four primary internet providers, Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, Etisalat Misr, and all went dark at 12:34am. Those companies shuttle all internet traffic into and out of Egypt, though many people get their service through additional local providers with different names. Italy-based Seabone said no internet traffic was going into or out of Egypt after 12:30am local time.”

“Online activism fuels Egypt protest: Online social networks being used by activists to communicate and organise anti-government protests,” Fatima Naib, Al Jazeera English, 28 January 2011:

“Egyptian authorities have blocked internet and mobile services in a bid to quell anti-government protests, but the measures may have come a bit too late. Activists spread the word online about Friday’s protests, detailing the list of public squares where people should gather. Calls for action circulated on Twitter and Facebook since early on Friday morning…. A youth group that calls itself the April 6th Movement distributed 20,000 leaflets late on Thursday outlining a basic blueprint of where to go and what supplies to take. They urged people to distribute the information through emails and in person rather than Facebook and Twitter to avoid government interference.”

“Interview with Hossam el-Hamalawy: Professor Mark LeVine interviews journalist and blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy on the situation in Egypt,” Al Jazeera English, 27 January 2011:

“The internet plays only a role in spreading the word and the images about what goes on the ground. We do not use the internet to organise. We use the internet to publicise what we are doing on the ground hoping to inspire others into action.”

“Egyptian Youths Drive the Revolt Against Mubarak,” David D. Kirkpatrick and Michael Slackman, The New York Times, 26 January 2011:

“Almost three years ago, on April 6, 2008, the Egyptian government crushed a strike by a group of textile workers in the industrial city of Mahalla, and in response a group of young activists who connected through Facebook and other social networking Web sites formed the April 6th Youth Movement in solidarity with the strikers. Their early efforts to call a general strike were a bust. But over time their leaderless online network and others that sprang up around it — like the networks that helped propel the Tunisian revolution — were uniquely difficult for the Egyptian security police to pinpoint or wipe out. It was an online rallying cry for a show of opposition to tyranny, corruption and torture that brought so many to the streets on Tuesday and Wednesday, unexpectedly vaulting the online youth movement to the forefront as the most effective independent political force in Egypt.”

“Twitter Confirms That They’re Being Blocked In Egypt,” TechCrunch, 25 January 2011.

THE U.S. AND EGYPT IN THE WIKILEAKS CABLES

On 27 January, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley declared that Egypt is “an ally and friend of the United States, an anchor of stability in the Middle East which is helping us pursue a comprehensive peace in the Middle East.” Thanks to a decision by Wikileaks to set its own agenda for the release of diplomatic cables, independent of its submission to the media monopoly currently managing the release, we now have some recent historical perspective to add to the discussion, based on some unique primary sources. The following is a comprehensive report that tries to encompass almost all of Wikileaks’ recently released Egypt cables.

Human Rights in Egypt

Through the U.S. Embassy cables from Cairo, we become readily aware that the U.S. was very familiar with the depth and extent of its ally’s abuse of its own citizens. Writing in 2009, Ambassador Margaret Scobey wrote to the Secretary of State that, “Police brutality in Egypt against common criminals is routine and pervasive. Contacts describe the police using force to extract confessions from criminals as a daily event….security forces still resort to torturing Muslim Brotherhood activists who are deemed to pose a political threat,” but the Egyptian government had stopped denying that torture occurred and reportedly some police officers were convicted of torture and murder. Nonetheless, the cable goes on to affirm: “Torture and police brutality in Egypt are endemic and widespread.” Referring to the 06 April 2008 strike organized on Facebook, the Egyptian government arrested a Muslim Brotherhood member and tortured him, to scare other “April 6 Movement” members. Otherwise, the government “is more reluctant to torture Islamists, including Muslim Brotherhood (MB) members, because of their persistence in making public political statements, and their contacts with international NGOs that could embarrass the regime….the exception to this rule is when MB members mobilize people against the government in a way the regime deems threatening.” The cable expresses skepticism about the alleged firings of abusive officers, in the context of a “culture of police brutality,” and indicates that they may have been fired for other reasons. The cable concludes that the Egyptian government “has not begun serious work on trying to transform the police and security services from instruments of power that serve and protect the regime into institutions operating in the public interest, despite official slogans to the contrary.” On other occasions, as indicated in this cable from 2010, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Labor and Human Rights Posner raised police brutality directly with the authorities, only to face denials and recriminations about U.S. prodding on human rights issues. Speaking with a range of Egyptian authorities, Posner faced what was a stone wall of denial of human rights abuses under the Emergency Law.

A 2010 cable describes the history and uses of the Emergency Law:

“Egypt’s State of Emergency, in effect almost continuously since 1967, allows for the application of the 1958 Emergency Law, which grants…broad powers to arrest individuals without charge and to detain them indefinitely. The Emergency Law creates state security courts, which issue verdicts that cannot be appealed, and can only be modified by the president. The Emergency Law allows the president broad powers to ‘place restrictions’ on freedom of assembly.  Separately, the penal code criminalizes the assembly of 5 or more people in a gathering that could ‘threaten public order’.”

Democratic Reform

By now the U.S. government must be abundantly aware that the Egyptian regime will not undertake serious democratic reforms. The cables confirm this.

Concerning President Mubarak’s impending trip to Washington in 2009, to meet with Obama, this U.S. Embassy cable states that Mubarak “understands that the [Obama] Administration wants to restore the sense of warmth that has traditionally characterized the U.S.-Egyptian partnership. The Egyptians want the visit to demonstrate that Egypt remains America’s ‘ indispensable Arab ally’.” The cable reveals that “Mubarak continues to state that in his view Iraq needs a ‘tough, strong military officer who is fair’ as leader,” and finds this to be a “telling observation,” that, “we believe, describes Mubarak’s own view of himself as someone who is tough but fair, who ensures the basic needs of his people.” Mubarak repeatedly stresses that he fears any reform will open the door to revolution, such as the case of Iran in 1979, or the advent of Hamas in the Palestinian elections. The U.S. Embassy is quite clear about the stance of Mubarak toward his domestic political opposition, noting that the military is not geared toward fighting external threats, and “EGIS Chief Omar Soliman and Interior Minister al-Adly keep the domestic beasts at bay, and Mubarak is not one to lose sleep over their tactics.” In Mubarak’s view, “violence” would arise from “unleashed personal and civil liberties.” Indeed, he has only been “supportive of improvements in human rights in areas that do not affect public security or stability,” such as campaigns against “female genital mutilation.”

About the 2011 elections, the Americans said of Mubarak that “it is likely he will run again, and, inevitably, win.” National Democratic Party insider and former minister Dr. Ali El Deen Hilal Dessouki relegated democracy to a “long term goal,” even describing the political system as “pharaohnic.” The U.S. Embassy was well aware of a range of Egyptian government attempts to “suppress critical opinion,” by taking action against journalists, bloggers, and even an amateur poet, flooding the courts with lawsuits against them based on fabricated charges. The Emergency Law was used to block a court-ordered release of a blogger. One cable notes: “In a blogging environment often critical of the government, the GOE has selectively moved against certain bloggers.” This cable states that “Egyptian democracy and human rights efforts…are being stymied.”

The Fears of the Government of Egypt: Iran, Muslim Brotherhood, Bloggers

One thing that stands out in the cables is the recurring pattern in Egyptian government officials’ remarks, right up to President Mubarak, about their dominant fears—the most commonly cited ones are Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, and bloggers.

Mubarak seems obsessed with supposed Iranian attempts to undermine his rule by cultivating support with his domestic opposition. In fact, he sees Iranian influence and Iranian maneuvers almost everywhere across the Middle East and North Africa.

The U.S. Embassy cables detail the deliberate persecution of the Muslim Brotherhood by the Mubarak regime, in the run up to elections. In a briefing to Senator John Kerry, the Prime Minister of Qatar, Hamad bin Jissim Al Thani, states that the “The Egyptian government…has jailed 10,000 Muslim Brotherhood members without bringing court cases against them.” This also affects Mubarak’s decisions on succession and the option of bequeathing power to his son, Gamal: the Prime Minister of Qatar noted that President Mubarak “is thinking about how his son can take his place and how to stave off the growing strength of the Muslim Brotherhood.” Across the cables the Muslim Brotherhood is mentioned in numerous other contexts.

“Egypt’s bloggers are playing an increasingly important role in broadening the scope of acceptable political and social discourse, and self-expression,” and Egyptian bloggers work as human rights activists, although this has been diminished by various government crackdowns and the turn to other social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. While usually targeting the Muslim Brotherhood, the government “has also used the Emergency Law in some recent cases to target bloggers and labor demonstrators.” But, according to Interior Ministry State Security Director Rahman, the Muslim Brotherhood is the “mother of all extremism and terrorism in Egypt and the world.”

Economic Crisis and Domestic Discontent

While much has been made of the causes and catalysts of the present protests, few media reports focus on Egyptians’ economic plight, unlike the U.S. Embassy cables. This cable states that “Economic reform is ongoing although Egypt still suffers from widespread poverty affecting 35-40% of the population.” Another cable indicates that, “the effects of the global economic crisis on Egypt are beginning to be felt. As the global credit crunch worsens, Egypt remains vulnerable as exports, Suez Canal revenues, tourism, and remittances — its largest sources of revenue — are all down and likely to continue to fall.” And yet, “Mubarak will likely resist further economic reform if he views it as potentially harmful to public order and stability” apparently dismissing the significance of events such as the fact that “there were bread riots in 2008 for the first time since 1977.” Indeed, “Economic reform momentum has slowed and high GDP growth rates of recent years have failed to lift Egypt’s lower classes out of poverty.  High inflation, coupled with the impact of the global recession, has resulted in an increase in extreme poverty, job losses, a growing budget deficit and projected 2009 GDP growth of 3.5% – half last  year’s rate.”

Nonetheless, even while speaking of likely economic woes to plague Egypt as a result of the global financial crisis, Gamal Mubarak, son of the dictator, gives his expert fiscal advice to Senator Joe Lieberman, telling him what the U.S. needs to do with its banking system. Lieberman receives the comments with approval.

Military-to-Military Relations

Not letting Egyptian human rights abuses stand in the way, the cables detail a continuing and growing level of U.S. military cooperation and support for Egypt, and vice versa. On military relations, in a U.S. Embassy “scene setter” cable for General Schwartz (similar cables were written for FBI director Mueller and Admiral Mullen), we read that the “U.S.- Egypt military relationship is strong, but should change to reflect new regional and transnational threats. More focus is needed on combating emerging threats, including border security, counter terrorism, civil defense, and peacekeeping. Egypt continues to improve efforts to combat arms smuggling into Gaza, but a decision by Field Marshal Tantawi to delay a counter tunneling project threatens progress.” The cable outlines how and why U.S. military assistance matters to the Mubarak regime:

“President Mubarak and military leaders view our military assistance program as the cornerstone of our mil-mil relationship and consider the USD 1.3 billion in annual FMF as ‘untouchable compensation’ for making and maintaining peace with Israel. The tangible benefits to our mil-mil relationship are clear: Egypt remains at peace with Israel, and the U.S. military enjoys priority access to the Suez Canal and Egyptian airspace. We believe, however, that our relationship can accomplish much more.”

“Much more” includes trying to get Egypt to play a role in training the Iraqi military. Indeed, one cable speaks of Egypt’s offer “to train Iraqi and Afghan military officials.” Egypt also requested U.S. approval for an Egyptian sale of 140 M1A1 tanks to Iraq, manufactured in Egypt under a production agreement. While proclaiming goals of democracy promotion and respect for human rights in Egypt, the cable concentrates more attention on Egypt sealing over 100 tunnels across from Gaza, needed for the Palestinians to sustain themselves. Other cables also detail the high level military-to-military relations between the U.S. and Egypt.

Never too far: domestic unrest. To Gen. Schwartz: “Your visit will fall on the anniversary of the April 6, 2008 nation-wide strike protesting political and economic conditions. At least one opposition group has called for another April 6 strike this year.”

It is also made clear by that the Egyptian government understands that the military has its own “corporate interests,” and could have a say in who the next leader of Egypt might be. As the Prime Minister of Qatar noted, “the Egyptian ‘people blame America’ now for their plight. The shift in mood on the ground is ‘mostly because of Mubarak and his close ties’ to the United States.”

No Chance for a Popular Uprising

In what might be the grossest miscalculation ever on the part of the Mubarak regime, we encounter an easy dismissal of the possibility for domestic upheaval. An insider in the National Democratic Party and a former minister told the U.S. Embassy that, “widespread politically-motivated  unrest…was not likely because it was not part of  the ‘Egyptian mentality.’ Threats to daily survival, not politics, were the only thing to bring Egyptians to the streets en masse.”

EE: Report #10, 07—18 January 2011

Encircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period. They are intended to be useful for those interested in: ● contemporary and critical political anthropology ● public anthropology ● imperialism and imperial decline ● militarism/militarization ● the political economy of the world system ● hegemony and soft power ● counterinsurgency ● revolution ● rebellion ● resistance ● protest ● activism ● advocacy ● critique.

The special focus this week begins with Martin Luther King Jr. and his anti-imperialism in honour of MLK Day on 17 January; then, the uprising in Tunisia, and attempts to colonize it intellectually by positing social media as the leading forces in the rebellion; some noteworthy reports on the current state of the occupation of Afghanistan; and, finally, the occupation of Haiti as seen through the eyes of a top OAS diplomat (minus news of the return of the former dictator, Jean Claude Duvalier).

IN SPITE OF THE PENTAGON AND ITS POOR MYTHS: MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

“I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government. For the sake of those boys, for the sake of this government, for the sake of hundreds of thousands trembling under our violence, I cannot be silent….

“Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America’s soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over….

“They must see Americans as strange liberators….

“Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not “ready” for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long.” – Martin Luther King Jr., 04 April 1967

For the occasion of this Martin Luther King Day—as the U.S. government faces greater difficulty than ever before in persuading anyone, even most of its own citizens, that the war in Afghanistan is worth prolonging—the Pentagon decides to spin a clumsy and transparent myth of MLK as essentially an imperialist who would have backed this war. Perhaps the “thinking” is that MLK was secretly a “Vietnam exceptionalist” –all other wars of imperial occupation are good, except for Vietnam’s (for reasons left unexplained by the myth makers). Perhaps the “thinking” is that if Obama, who has ramped up the bombing of villages across Afghanistan and Pakistan, and engaged in new secret wars in Yemen and Somalia, while ignoring the Israeli demolition of Gaza, and still win a Nobel Peace Prize, then surely MLK can be folded into the same set of inversions?

For more, please see “Pentagon Official Suggests MLK Would Have Supported Current Wars,” with a focus on the incredible revision of MLK by the Pentagon’s General Counsel, Jeh Johnson (you can download his full speech here).

Johnson said: “I believe that if Dr. King were alive today, he would recognize that we live in a complicated world, and that our nation’s military should not and cannot lay down its arms and leave the American people vulnerable to terrorist attack.”

From the Pentagon’s media arm, see “King Might Understand Today’s Wars, Pentagon Lawyer Says,” by Terri Moon Cronk, American Forces Press Service.

For an appropriately critical rejection, read Robert Greenwald’s “No Room for the Pentagon’s Wars in Dr. King’s Dream.” Here is an extract, a back to the basics lesson on how to clearly understand MLK’s very clear messages:

“King decried the awful willingness of his country to spend $500,000 per each killed enemy soldier in Vietnam while so many Americans struggled in poverty. Yet last year, a conservative figure for the amount we spent per killed enemy fighter in Afghanistan was roughly $20 million.

“King spoke of the ‘monumental dissent’ that arose around the Vietnam War. “Polls reveal that almost 15 million Americans explicitly oppose the war in Vietnam,” he said. But today, 63 percent of Americans oppose the Afghanistan War, and when you do the math, that’s 196 million people, give or take the margin of error.”

THE REAL TUNISIAN REVOLUTION? IS IT A TWITTER REVOLUTION? A WIKILEAKS REVOLUTION? IS IT ALWAYS ALL ABOUT US?

As is becoming the norm in Western media in these last years, anytime a protester uses a cell phone, or posts a tweet, that gadget or that message becomes the focus of the story, and the protester melts away, or worse, becomes a mere appendage of the technology. It is this mixture of cyber-utopianism and technological determinism that Luke Allnut criticizes in “Tunisia: Can We Please Stop Talking About ‘Twitter Revolutions’?” :

“As the events in Tunisia continue to unfold they will be ripe for study by academics and experts, but in so quickly applying our theories of social mobilization, or our frameworks of revolutionary change, we become blind to what is really happening….

“The problem is that we so desperately want there to be a Twitter revolution. In a 24-hour news cycle, we don’t just seek instant news but instant answers, clear explanations and narratives that can be book-ended with events and wrapped up into a three-word headline….

“In our search for a single cause, we’re much more likely to settle on an [sic] ‘new technology’ explanation rather than something as dull as a great many of the participants were unemployed or wearing socks. Not only do ‘Twitter revolution’ explanations mean more page views, but they fulfill some deterministic urge within us — the dual promises of technology and modernity….

“More than that, Twitter revolution narratives are popular because rather than being about Tunisia, they are often really about ourselves. When we glorify the role of social media we are partly glorifying ourselves. Some of us are not only praising the tools we know and love and use every day, but also the tools we build and have stakes in. To proclaim a Twitter revolution is almost a form of intellectual colonialism, stealthy and mildly delusional:  We project our world, our values, and concerns onto theirs and we shouldn’t. We use Twitter and so must they. In our rush to christen the uprising, did we think to ask Tunisians what they wanted to call their revolution?”

Allnut is not alone in his criticism of the dual Twitter and/or Wikileaks Revolution theme. Here is a partial list:

Alaa Abd El Fattah in Twitter said: “hey frigging american analysts how about we let tunisians, who actually lived what happened decide how relevant twitter and wikileaks where?”

Neil Bhatiya in Twitter said: “Of course Tunisia was a wikileaks and twitter revolution. Just like the commodore 64 overthrew the Shah.”

From the U.S. State Department spokesman, P.J. Crowley in Twitter: “Tunisia is not a Wiki revolution. The Tunisian people knew about corruption long ago. They alone are the catalysts of this unfolding drama.” 11:37 AM Jan 16th via web

“First thoughts on Tunisia and the role of the Internet,” by Evgeny Morozov, Foreign Policy, 14 January 2011—“….This is not to deny that many of us were watching the Tunisian events unfold via Twitter. But let’s not kid ourselves: This is still a very small audience of overeducated tech-savvy people interested in foreign policy. I bet that 90% of Twitter users are not like that — and that percentage will get worse as Twitter becomes more mainstream. So, if we evaluate it in terms of awareness-raising by exploiting and building off the mainstream media, Tunisia’s ‘Twitter Revolution’ (as Andrew Sullivan was already quick to dub it), seems to have failed….”

“The First Twitter Revolution? Not so fast. The Internet can take some credit for toppling Tunisia’s government, but not all of it,” by Ethan Zuckerman, Foreign Policy, 14 January 2011—a somewhat ambivalent essay, “But as we learn more about the events of the past few weeks, we’ll discover that online media did play a role in helping Tunisians learn about the actions their fellow citizens were taking and in making the decision to mobilize. How powerful and significant this influence was will be something that academics will study and argue over for years to come. Scholars aren’t the only ones who want to know whether social media played a role in the end of Ben Ali’s reign — it’s likely to be a hot topic of conversation in Amman, Algiers, and Cairo, as other autocratic leaders wonder whether the bubbling cauldron of unemployment, street protests, and digital media could burn them next.”

“Not Twitter, Not WikiLeaks: A Human Revolution,” by Jillian C. York, 14 January 2011—“to call this a “Twitter revolution” or even a “WikiLeaks revolution” demonstrates that we haven’t learned anything from past experiences in Moldova and Iran.”

“Did Wikileaks and Twitter Cause Tunisia’s Revolution?” by Adrian Chen, Gawker, 14 January 2011—“….Nobody’s citing Foursquare yet, but it’s only a matter of time before some journalist finds a few protestors checking into a riot.”

“Was What Happened in Tunisia a Twitter Revolution?” by Mathew Ingram, GigaOm, 14 January 2011—“…even as the country’s ruler was being hustled onto a plane, the debate began over whether Twitter had played even more of a role in the revolution than just reporting on it as it happened: was this the first real Twitter revolution? The correct answer is probably yes and no. Did it help protesters, and thus the end goal of overthrowing the government? Undoubtedly. Was it solely responsible for that happening? Hardly.”

Where do we find these proclamations that Allnut and others criticize? Here is a partial list, relating the Tunisian uprising to both Twitter, or the other imagined hero, Wikileaks:

For Wikileaks:

From Wikileaks itself: “Did WikiLeaks do what the State Department could not? Time to rethink” http://is.gd/ydWGHu 7:40 PM Jan 14th via web

“The First WikiLeaks Revolution?” by Elizabeth Dickinson, Foreign Policy, 13 January, 2011—“Tunisians didn’t need any more reasons to protest when they took to the streets these past weeks — food prices were rising, corruption was rampant, and unemployment was staggering. But we might also count Tunisia as the first time that WikiLeaks pushed people over the brink. These protests are also about the country’s utter lack of freedom of expression — including when it comes to WikiLeaks….As in the recent so-called “Twitter Revolutions” in Moldova and Iran, there was clearly lots wrong with Tunisia before Julian Assange ever got hold of the diplomatic cables. Rather, WikiLeaks acted as a catalyst: both a trigger and a tool for political outcry. Which is probably the best compliment one could give the whistle-blower site.”

“Tunisia’s President Flees After Riots Fanned by WikiLeaks,” by Theunia Bates, AOL News, 14 January 2011—“Tunisia’s president has stepped down, fleeing the country he ruled for 23 years after a citizens’ revolt fanned by WikiLeaks disclosures about his regime’s corruption and economic mismanagement….But the protests rapidly shifted from demands for more jobs to demands for political reform, focused largely on the corruption of the ruling family. Demonstrators were whipped up by anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks’ publication of cables from the U.S. embassy in Tunisia, which provided a vivid insight into the luxuries enjoyed by the Ben Ali clan….”

“Tunisia and Wikileaks,” by Amy Davidson, The New Yorker, 14 January 2011—an ambiguous post, that first seems to affirm that the Wikileaks cables may have had an impact, but perhaps it was limited: “Tunisians, apparently, were unable to write off the frustrations of their lives. Reading the cables, it is clear that their release did not cause the fall of the President—he was laying the groundwork for that himself—though it may have affected the timing. It also, perhaps, clarified the moment for the Tunisians; will it also do so for us?”

“‘First Wikileaks Revolution’: Tunisia descends into anarchy as president flees after cables reveal country’s corruption,” by The Daily Mail, 15 January 2011—“Events in Tunisia have led to it being called the ‘First Wikileaks Revolution’. Although there has long been opposition to the corrupt rule of President Ben Ali, protests gathered pace when US embassy cables were published by Wikileaks….”

For Twitter:

“Tweeting Tyrants Out of Tunisia: Global Internet at Its Best,” by Nate Anderson Ars Technica, Wired: Threat Level, 14 January 2011—“Even yesterday, it would have been too much to say that blogger, tweeters, Facebook users, Anonymous and Wikileaks had “brought down” the Tunisian government, but with today’s news that the country’s president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has fled the country, it becomes a more plausible claim to make….”

“Could Tunisia Be The Next Twitter Revolution? Ctd” by Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic, 14 January 2011—“The core test is whether Twitter and online activism helped organize protests. It appears they did, even through government censorship. Wikileaks also clearly helped. So did al Jazeera, for those who see it entirely as an Islamist front.”

“Tunisia’s Revolution Was Twitterized,” by Firas Al-Atraqchi, Huffington Post, 14 January 2011—“Bechir Blagui, who runs the Free Tunisia website, says that people have tossed around different names for this ‘revolution.’ ‘They called it the jasmine revolt, Sidi Bouzid revolt, Tunisian revolt… but there is only one name that does justice to what is happening in the homeland: Social media revolution, or back home, better called the Facebook revolution,’ Blagui said. He says that in the absence of traditional media – government bans on reporting and the jailing of independent journalists like Fahem Boukaddous – Tunisians resorted to their cell phones and going online to document the history of their nation in the past four weeks. ‘Combined with Twitter, this helped on the ground organization of massive crowds from around small towns in remote areas. It was crucial for the organizing effort,’ Blagui added….”

AFGHANISTAN: LIBERATING GIRLS? RAZING VILLAGES

Take note, in contrast to the official propaganda about the Taleban in the West:

“Taliban ready to lift ban on girls’ schools, says minister–Afghanistan minister claims leadership has undergone ‘cultural change’ and no longer opposes female education,” by Jon Boone, The Guardian, 13 January 2011:

“Experts say that the attitude of the conservative Islamic movement towards women’s education has always been far more ambivalent than popularly understood.

“Mullah Zaeef, a former high-ranking Taliban official who served as Afghanistan’s ambassador to Pakistan in 2001, said the movement was not against educating women and that the ban on girls’ schools was only a ‘temporary measure.’

“Analysts say the policy was largely due to Taliban concerns about boys and girls being educated together and male teachers overseeing female classes….

“Amir Mansory, an education expert at the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, which has supported schools in the country for decades, said 33,000 girls continued to go to school in the late 1990s, despite the official ban.

“ ‘It was a sort of hidden policy,’ Mansory said. ‘No one said girls could go to school, but in the provinces Taliban officials would approach me asking for the Swedish Committee’s help in supporting girls’ schools.’

“And while insurgents have closed down many schools around the country in recent years, Mansory said they have been actively supported in some Taliban-controlled areas, including in Paktika and Wardak provinces.

“ ‘I personally think the Taliban are not against education but simply against a western type of education,’ Mansory said. ‘And if local people want to educate their girls the Taliban know they can’t do anything to stop that.’

“Analysts report that some local insurgent leaders have struck deals with Wardak’s education ministry to keep schools open.

“Phil Priestley, a researcher with the Tribal Liaison Office, this summer found large numbers of girls’ schools open for business in the largely Taliban-controlled district of Chardara in Kunduz province.

“Taliban officials even patrolled schools with attendance sheets and hauled truanting boys from their homes. Girls, on the other hand, were merely encouraged through their local communities to attend school.”

“Rogue militias abuse rural Afghans: Villagers and regional leaders accuse semi-official Arbakai of extortion and violence as country forms new local force,” by Mujib Mashal, Al Jazeera, 12 January 2011—“The Arbakai, semi-official local militias, have committed tremendous abuses in Afghanistan’s northeastern provinces of Kunduz and Baghlan. President Hamid Karzai finally ordered their disarmament last month. These militias are known to collect forced ‘taxes’ from feeble locals, create illegal checkpoints, seize property, and detain people in private jails – all at gun point and sanctioned by the government in Kabul. This widespread abuse damages government legitimacy and casts doubt over a recent program to create local police forces in other parts of the country. It also brings into question the effectiveness of the quick solutions sought to the security problems in Afghanistan. Historically, Arbakai militias were a major part of the tribal security apparatus in southeastern Afghanistan. Loosely linked to the central government, these groups typically came together from village families and provided security in times of need. A standing police force in these areas was a rarity. In the north, however, the idea of Arbakai is new. In fact, they are largely made up of former Mujahideen from the civil war period who were disarmed in the early years of President Karzai’s government. In the past couple years, they have regrouped under their former commanders, re-christened as Arbakai with new weapons….”

“Travels with Paula (I): A time to build,” by Thomas E. Ricks, Foreign Policy, 13 January 2011—the U.S., as predicted, is starting to flatten entire villages. They days of “winning hearts and minds” are over, as is the fabled mystique of Gen. David Petraeus as counterinsurgency “it’s all about the people” guru—who nonetheless always relied on massive and indiscriminate firepower in Iraq, as well as ethnic cleansing, and extrajudicial executions.

Related to the last story above, “Dicing with death in the devil’s playground: In a heartstopping dispatch, the Mail’s Richard Pendlebury joins troops clearing roadside bombs in the Afghan valley where every step could be your last,” by Richard Pendlebury and Jamie Wiseman, Daily Mail, 26 October 2010.

HAITI: FOREIGN OCCUPIERS NEGOTIATE A COUP; NGOs and PROFESSIONAL SELF-ADVANCEMENT; THE OAS SILENCES A DISSENTER

“For 200 years, the presence of foreign troops has alternated with that of dictators. It is power that defines international relations with Haiti and never dialogue. On the world scene, Haiti’s original sin is its liberation. The Haitians committed the unacceptable in 1804: a crime of high treason in a troubled world. The west was at that time a colonialist world, pro-slavery and racist, that based its wealth on the exploitation of conquered lands. So the Haitian revolutionary model struck fear into the great powers. The United States did not recognize Haiti’s independence until 1865. And France demanded payment of a ransom for accepting that liberation. From the beginning, independence was compromised and development shackled. The world has never known how to treat Haiti, so it has ended up ignoring it. That was the beginning of 200 years of solitude on the international scene . Today, the UN blindly applies chapter 7 of its charter, it deploys troops to impose its peace operations. Things aren’t resolved, they are aggravated. They want to make Haiti into a capitalist country, a destination of export for American business, and that is absurd. Haiti should go back to being what it is, that is, an essentially agricultural country still permeated with traditional rule.”—Ricardo Seitenfus, OAS delegate to Haiti

“Diplomat in Haiti to be dismissed for criticizing OAS, NGOs—Ricardo Seitenfus claims coup against Préval was suggested,” by Fabrícia Peixoto, Lo-de-Alla—“I became progressively aware of our limitations and, why not say it, of our failures in Haiti… I mean, we of the international community. Besides that, on November 28, the day of the elections, there was discussion in a meeting of the Core Group (donor countries, OAS and the United Nations) of something that seemed to me simply frightening. Some representatives suggested that President René Préval should leave the country and that we should think about an airplane for that purpose. I heard that and I was horrified. The prime minister of Haiti, Jean–Max Bellerive, arrived and immediately said not to count on him for any solution outside the constitution and he asked if President Préval’s mandate was being negotiated. And there was silence in the room. Beside me was Albert Ramdin, adjunct secretary of the OAS, so I could not speak because the OAS was being represented by him. But faced with his silence and that of the others, I asked to be able to speak and reminded them of the existence of the Inter-American Democratic Charter [of the OAS] and that I thought any discussion of President Préval’s mandate would be a coup. I was very surprised by the fact that the adjunct secretary of the OAS remained silent in the face of the possiblity of shortening the term of a legitimately elected president.”

“OAS representative in Haiti sharply critical of foreign aid and occupation—Ricardo Seitenfus: ‘Haiti is proof of the failure of international aid’,” by Arnaud Robert, Lo-de-Alla—“For the transnational NGOs Haiti has been transformed into a place of required passage. I would say it’s even worse than that: professional development. The volunteers who have arrived since the earthquake are very young; they land in Haiti with no experience. And Haiti, I can tell you, is not suitable for amateurs. Since January 12, because of massive recruitment, professional quality has declined considerably. There is a maleficent or a perverse relation between the NGOs and the weakness of the Haitian state. Certain NGOs exist only because of the Haitian calamity.”

“One Year Later, Haiti Hasn’t ‘Built Back Better’,” by Isabeau Doucet, The Nation, 12 January 2011—“…of every $100 of Haiti reconstruction contracts awarded by the American government, $98.40 returned to American companies, suggesting that non-Haitian companies and organizations have much to gain from the relief effort. Haiti’s reconstruction, like almost everything else in that country, has been privatized, outsourced, or taken over by foreign NGOs….On the tragedy’s one-year anniversary, it’s become clear that perhaps the only positive aspect of the past twelve months has been the exposure of the failures of the NGO aid system, and the international community’s long-standing use of the country as a laboratory for cashing in on disaster—both of which have been wrecking havoc on this country since long before the earthquake.”

EE: Report #9, 01—07 January 2011

Encircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period. They are intended to be useful for those interested in: ● contemporary and critical political anthropology ● public anthropology ● imperialism and imperial decline ● militarism/militarization ● the political economy of the world system ● hegemony and soft power ● counterinsurgency ● revolution ● rebellion ● resistance ● protest ● activism ● advocacy ● critique.

[Special thanks to Kerim Friedman (see his linkbunch) and J.P. Barlow]

The special focus this week is on the advance of Maoist rebellion in India, which takes us beyond our usual focus on Iraq and Afghanistan. Then we look at the decline of the American empire. In addition, some of our “usual” sections: Afghanistan and Wikileaks. See also the newest information under Public Anthropology Notes.

THE NAXALITES: MAOIST REVOLUTION IN INDIA

“When the oppressive forces maintain themselves in power against laws they themselves established, peace must be considered already broken.” –Ché Guevara

While many of us have focused on the U.S. “war on terror,” the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions and occupations, the institutionalized Western dread of the Taleban and Al Qaeda, and the acts of U.S. empire, the fact remains that other wars, no less brutal, have been advancing and gaining less notice, and other empires, no less imperial for being inward reaching, continue to fortify themselves. In particular, we are speaking here of the war against the advance of Maoism primarily in India, and the paths of the Indian state which are no less shocking than anything we might read from Wikileaks about Iraq or Afghanistan.

“The Trickledown Revolution,” Arundhati Roy’s extended piece, is a striking and compelling article, possibly one of the best articles I have read online in a long time. Many themes of fundamental concern to political anthropologists appear in this article: from the maintenance of a colonial legal legacy, to the fighting of counterinsurgency at home (in this case called “sub-conventional warfare” by the Indian state), to the existence of empire within, to a description of India’s “shadow people,” the “shadow war,” and the context of elite-controlled developmentalism and the calculated expropriation of resources of tribal areas, ostensibly protected by the Indian Constitution itself, to a description of institutionalized Left parties and their internecine, Eurocentric battles, to various strategies of resistance, and finally the Maoist Naxalite rebellion.

We are first taken to Jantar Mantar, which seems to have become something akin to a protesters’ ghetto, a space on the margins where public protest is permitted. But even that has changed since India decided to host a celebration of British empire, the Commonwealth Games in 2010. Now the protesters are cleared out by 6:00pm, joining the dispersal of the hundreds of thousands of residents and vendors also forcibly pushed out of the city almost overnight, to make way for the international games and for private interests. Developmentalism—showing that the development of some comes at the expense of the underdevelopment of others, is a persistent theme of the article. As Roy shows, this is an India that with the second-highest economic growth rate in the world, has more poor people than 26 of Africa’s poorest countries put together. India’s per capita food grain availability has decreased over the last 20 years—during what happens to be the period of its most rapid economic growth. The 100 richest people hold assets worth a full 25% of India’s GDP. Manmohan Singh, India’s Prime Minister, who has pushed through the economic transformations that have vastly inflated the wealth of the richest, and the poverty of the poorest, was literally hand picked by the IMF as its choice of Finance Minister for India, one of the preconditions for a lending program to the country. Meanwhile, Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul, continue the overt public pretense of care and compassion for the poor, helping Singh to win elections and continue the privatization of everything. Having plundered the country, local elites use money that is effectively stolen from those they have impoverished, and as Roy says, ask why it is then that the Maoists do not stand for elections. And we also learn of the sheer brutality of the state in repressing those who organize to challenge glaring inequalities, the enforced misery, the concerted effort of the state to maul the poor.

“The tenacity, the wisdom and the courage of those who have been fighting for years, for decades, to bring change, or even the whisper of justice to their lives, is something extraordinary. Whether people are fighting to overthrow the Indian State, or fighting against Big Dams, or only fighting a particular steel plant or mine or SEZ, the bottom-line is that they are fighting for their dignity, for the right to live and smell like human beings. They are fighting because, as far as they are concerned, ‘the fruits of modern development’ stink like dead cattle on the highway.”

Roy briefly introduces us to the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act or PESA, passed in 1996 as an amendment that attempts to right some of the wrongs done to tribal people by the Indian Constitution when it was adopted by Parliament in 1950. The rebellion against the developmentalist violations of this autonomy is what shocks the elites. And there is irony here:

“those who are being called ‘Maoists’ (which includes everyone who is resisting land acquisition) are actually fighting to uphold the Constitution. While the government is doing its best to vandalise it.”

Roy echoes questions asked in public commentary: “Is there anything they can be offered within the existing system that will deflect the Maoists from their stated goal of overthrowing the Indian State?” Her answer:

“The answer to that is, of course not. The Maoists do not believe that the present system can deliver justice. The thing is that an increasing number of people are beginning to agree with them. If we lived in a society with a genuinely democratic impulse, one in which ordinary people felt they could at least hope for justice, then the Maoists would be only be a small, marginalised group of militants with very little popular appeal.”

“Walking With The Comrades,” is another monumental article from Arundhati Roy, she tells us of the “deadly war that is unfolding in the jungle is a war that the Government of India is both proud and shy of,” stating that Operation Green Hunt has been both proclaimed and denied: “P. Chidambaram, India’s home minister (and CEO of the war), says it does not exist, that it’s a media creation. And yet substantial funds have been allocated to it and tens of thousands of troops are being mobilised for it. Though the theatre of war is in the jungles of Central India, it will have serious consequences for us all.” Roy identifies the Indian state “an emerging Superpower,” possessed by its own hubris, backed by the media and massive firepower. On the other side? “Ordinary villagers armed with traditional weapons, backed by a superbly organised, hugely motivated Maoist guerrilla fighting force with an extraordinary and violent history of armed rebellion.” The insurrection, she says, “has spread through the mineral-rich forests of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal—homeland to millions of India’s tribal people, dreamland to the corporate world.”

Roy locates the Maoist rebellion within a long-term history of numerous tribal uprisings against the British colonial regime and the post-independence state. As she explains, “tribal people were at the heart of the first uprising that could be described as Maoist, in Naxalbari village in West Bengal (where the word Naxalite—now used interchangeably with ‘Maoist’—originates).” Naxalite tribal politics and Maoist rebellion are now deeply intertwined. The Maoists themselves have emerged from a series of successive rebellions under different “avatars” as Roy says, each time said to have been exterminated and utterly defeated, and each time resurging stronger than before, over a wider area.

Here we see the continuation of colonialism through “independent” means, a transition to neo-colonialism, and domestically, internal colonialism. As Roy relates, “The Indian Constitution, the moral underpinning of Indian democracy, was adopted by Parliament in 1950. It was a tragic day for tribal people. The Constitution ratified colonial policy and made the State custodian of tribal homelands. Overnight, it turned the entire tribal population into squatters on their own land. It denied them their traditional rights to forest produce, it criminalised a whole way of life. In exchange for the right to vote, it snatched away their right to livelihood and dignity.” Then in comes “development” and “modernization” –state campaigns to fix “the problem” of the tribes, a problem that the state engineered and which it now proclaims to “solve” through even greater intervention.

Please read the article in full, as Roy takes us through her series of critical questions: “When a country that calls itself a democracy openly declares war within its borders, what does that war look like? Does the resistance stand a chance? Should it? Who are the Maoists? Are they just violent nihilists foisting an outdated ideology on tribal people, goading them into a hopeless insurrection? What lessons have they learned from their past experience? Is armed struggle intrinsically undemocratic? Is the Sandwich Theory—of ‘ordinary’ tribals being caught in the crossfire between the State and the Maoists—an accurate one? Are ‘Maoists’ and ‘Tribals’ two entirely discrete categories as is being made out? Do their interests converge? Have they learned anything from each other? Have they changed each other?”

To follow more news see the Indian Vanguard blog.

See also Gautam Navlakha: Days and Nights in the Heartland of Rebellion.

And please see:

• My Book Is Red – The word is Revolution. Maoists give a leg up to tribal languages. By Debarshi Dasgupta, Outlook India,17 May 2010
  
• India’s Dirty War. By Megha Bahree, Forbes, 10 May 2010
• Is India’s campaign against Maoist rebels going too far? By Jason Overdorf, 09 March 2010
• An Anthropologist In A Police State – Is there no limit to the state’s paranoia? Why is it so scared of those who do nothing more dangerous than teach and write that it feels they should be denied lodging, detained, provided ‘protection’, intimidated, ‘escorted’ out of the state? By Nandini Sundar, Outlook India, 13 January 2010
• Life Behind The Iron Curtain–The hounding of activist Himanshu Kumar is a parable about the war and panic in Chhattisgarh and the complete blackout of information, By Tusha Mittal, Tehelka, 16 January 2010
• Maoism in India: Panic or Panacea? By Nandini Chandra, Sanhati, 19 June 2009
• NAXALITE RAGE
• Anthropology of a Genocide: Tribal Movements in Central India Against Over-Industrialisation. By Felix Padel and Samarendra Das
• Naxalbari. By Kerim Friedman, Keywords, 12 April 2006
• Adivasi Rebels. By Kerim Friedman, Keywords, 13 May 2006

[Thanks to Kerim for this list.]

You can see/hear Roy talk about imperialism, democracy, and India’s war against its tribal peoples in the video list below:

THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

It seems that most Americans want taxes increased for the rich, more than 60%, with the second-largest group (20%) wanting to see cuts in military spending. See: “Most Americans say tax rich to balance budget: poll.” Which part of the world do most Americans see as the most troublesome? Washington D.C. Finally, it seems more Americans are coming around to a way of thinking that we share.

From TomDispatch, see Tom Engelhardt’s “The Urge to Surge Washington’s 30-Year High.” In particular, read Engelhardt’s description of the Soviet path to decline, and the extent to which it is echoed in the current situation of U.S. power:

“To one degree or another, we have been on the Soviet path for years and yet, ever more desperately, we continue to plan more surges.  Our military, like the Soviet one, has not lost a battle and has occupied whatever ground it chose to take.  Yet, in the process, it has won less than nothing at all.  Our country, still far more wealthy than the Soviet Union ever was, has nonetheless entered its Soviet phase.  At home, in the increasing emphasis on surveillance of every sort, there is even a hint of what made “soviet” and “totalitarian” synonymous.

“The U.S. economy looks increasingly sclerotic; moneys for an aging and rotting infrastructure are long gone; state and city governments are laying off teachers, police, even firefighters; Americans are unemployed in near record numbers; global oil prices (for a country that has in no way begun to wean itself from its dependence on foreign oil) are ominously on the rise; and yet taxpayer money continues to pour into the military and into our foreign wars.  It has recently been estimated, for instance, that after spending $11.6 billion in 2011 on the training, supply, and support of the Afghan army and police, the U.S. will continue to spend an average of $6.2 billion a year at least through 2015 (and undoubtedly into an unknown future) — and that’s but one expense in the estimated $120 billion to $160 billion a year being spent at present on the Afghan War, what can only be described as part of America’s war stimulus package abroad.

“….Sooner than later, Washington, the Pentagon, and the U.S. military will have to enter rehab.  They desperately need a 12-step program for recovery.  Until then, the delusions and the madness that go with surge addiction are not likely to end.”

“Should we rejoice or not in America’s decline?” –The CBC’s Richard Handler worries: what comes after American dominance? “Careful what you wish for” is the thrust of his piece, which at least is ahead of most articles in the Canadian press in that it actually posits “America’s decline” as something that is actual and factual, requiring that we think about the future.

On the other hand, the article is useful for revealing bundled assumptions that would cause someone to view the future with such trepidation. Handler seems to equate a good world order with a stable one, where stability means normalcy and normalcy means continuity. Perhaps if he were more on the losing end of the world-system, with a long suppressed social agenda constantly defended against extinction, he would have something to look forward to, possibly.

Handler’s article was good for providing us with this link:

“Back to Normalcy: Is America really in decline?” by Paul Kennedy (and behind a pay wall). Kennedy has a direct answer to Handler’s question, had Handler paused to listen: what replaces empire is normalcy. Kennedy’s thesis is that,

“All that is happening, really, is that the United States is slowly and naturally losing its abnormal status in the international system and returning to being one of the most prominent players in the small club of great powers. Things are not going badly wrong, and it is not as if America as becoming a flawed and impotent giant. Instead, things are just coming back to normal.”

THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

The surge is working—but not necessarily the way the Americans intended, assuming that opinion polls conducted in a war zone are ever anything to take seriously. It seems that more Afghans are supporting Taleban attacks, seeing them as justified, a number that has risen by 8%. In addition, only a minority, 36%, expressed any confidence that the U.S. and NATO would bring “stability.” An overwhelming majority, 73%, want to see negotiations take place with the Taleban.

Crossing over into our ongoing Wikileaks discussion, Anand Gopal’s “How the Wikileaks Are Changing Afghan Hearts and Minds” is well worth reading. Gopal tells us that at least some Afghans are using Wikileaks’ Afghan War Diary to validate their long-denied claims that the deaths of civilian friends and family were caused by NATO. The effect is this:

“Hatred of foreign forces, particularly in the rural Pashtun communities, has been intensifying steadily for years. On first blush this may be difficult to grasp; the Taliban, after all, tend to be quite brutal in their own right, routinely intimidating or abusing locals. But the documents offer evidence of hundreds of small incidents across the country where troops killed civilians, for failing to stop at a checkpoint, or for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or simply for being. Many of these killings came in ones and twos, often too small or in too remote of an area to be reported on. But over the course of five years (the period covered in the documents), they’ve accumulated in the Afghan psyche. And when taken together with night raids and disappearances, it becomes clearer why many rural Pashtuns view the troops as a source of insecurity rather than the other way around.”

Wikileaks itself is criticized by at least one of Gopal’s Afghan friends, for having placed him in danger, since there is a record now of his aiding foreign forces by telling them where to find a weapons cache. He has gone into hiding. Nonetheless, “he praises Wikileaks for the release, condemning only the exposure and imperiling of civilians informants like himself…. ‘It’s always like this with foreigners here. Things are great at first, but the real damage comes only later’.”

WIKILEAKS NEWS, GOOD AND BAD

As “Cablegate” seems to have dried up considerably—with the “media consortium” barely able to release as much as a single cable in the past three days—the stories based on the few cables released have constantly been overshadowed and upstaged by the saga of Julian Assange. We have been faced with stories of his temperament, his sexual habits, reports from his female accusers, and then an arguably inappropriate if not bizarre display of his Christmas celebrations. At the same time, the one we might call the real hero behind the leaks may be the one who is currently in solitary confinement, possibly having sacrificed the rest of his life for the sake of our knowledge. Yet Assange claims that he “owns the leaks,” and asserts his “financial interest” in them. One has to wonder then if John Young at Cryptome has it right in his article, “Wikileaks Rest in Peace,” just as we learn from an extensive piece in Vanity Fair: “Through December, WikiLeaks still wasn’t collecting new documents from potential whistle-blowers. The site is crowded with pleas for donations. ‘He is short of money and short of secrets,’ someone who has worked extensively with Assange told me. ‘The whole thing has collapsed’.” Meanwhile, we also learn from the Wall Street Journal, that Assange has assigned himself a salary of €66,000 per year, out of a total of €100,000 paid for salaries in total, the remainder shared among a handful of full-time staff. Likely of greatest concern to Wikileaks is that while it managed to raise €765,000 before August of 2010, since then donations have dropped off considerably, raising only €235,000 since August.

Considerably more positive articles and reports will include CBS’ “How WikiLeaks Enlightened Us in 2010.” This is an extensive—but by no means exhaustive—highly readable and well organized overview of the most significant news generated from Wikileaks’ multiple releases throughout last year, with global coverage, and a profusion of links to relevant stories.

Noam Scheiber of The New Republic described Wikileaks as the “Game Changer,” adding the subtitle, “Why Wikileaks will be the death of big business and big government.” Scheiber argues:

“The Wikileaks revolution isn’t only about airing secrets and transacting information. It’s about dismantling large organizations—from corporations to government bureaucracies. It may well lead to their extinction.”

In “WikiLeaks, Ideological Legitimacy and the Crisis of Empire,” Francis Shor makes a series of points that have been made abundantly on Zero Anthropology. This is how Shor leads the piece:

“While empires try to maintain their hegemony through economic and military prowess, they must also rely on a form of ideological legitimacy to guarantee their rule. Such legitimacy is often embedded in the geopolitical reputation of the empire among its allies and reluctant admirers. Once that reputation begins to unravel, the empire appears illegitimate.”

And while Bruce Sterling’s “The Blast Shack” was seemingly winning almost all the praise from establishment heads (and wannabes) as the best article ever about Wikileaks, it was this article in Spain’s El País, modestly titled “Why EL PAÍS chose to publish the leaks,” that clinches that honour in our eyes. The article is in English, and here is a sample:

“Cynics will argue that none of what we have learned from WikiLeaks differs from the usual way in which high-level international politics is conducted, and that without diplomatic secrets, the world would be even less manageable and more dangerous for everyone. Political classes on both sides of the Atlantic convey a simple message that is tailored to their advantage: trust us, don’t try to reveal our secrets; in exchange, we offer you security.

“But just how much security do they really offer in exchange for this moral blackmail? Little or none, since we face the sad paradox that this is the same political elite that was incapable of properly supervising the international financial system, whose implosion triggered the biggest crisis since 1929, ruining entire countries and condemning millions of workers to unemployment and poverty. These are the same people responsible for the deteriorating quality of life of their populations, the uncertain future of the euro, the lack of a viable European project and the global governance crisis that has gripped the world in recent years, and which elites in Washington and Brussels are not oblivious to. I doubt that keeping embassy secrets under wraps is any kind of guarantee of better diplomacy or that such an approach offers us better answers to the problems we face.

“The incompetence of Western governments, and their inability to deal with the economic crisis, climate change, corruption, or the illegal war in Iraq and other countries has been eloquently exposed in recent years. Now, thanks to WikiLeaks, we also know that our leaders are all too aware of their shameful fallibility, and that it is only thanks to the inertia of the machinery of power that they have been able to fulfill their democratic responsibility and answer to the electorate.

“The powerful machinery of state is designed to suppress the flow of truth and to keep secrets secret. We have seen in recent weeks how that machine has been put into action to try to limit the damage caused by the WikiLeaks revelations.”

PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY NOTES

Thanks to Daniel Lande at Neuroanthropology for producing this very useful roundup, “Anthropology and Publicity,” with extracts and links to the excellent essays produced for a blog/event we reported on earlier, Anthropology and/in Publicity. They are differently worth circulating and saving in any compendium of public anthropology papers.

EE: Report #8, 21 October—11 November 2010

Encircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period. They are intended to be useful for those interested in: ● contemporary and critical political anthropology ● public anthropology ● imperialism and imperial decline ● militarism/militarization ● the political economy of the world system ● hegemony and soft power ● counterinsurgency ● revolution ● rebellion ● resistance ● protest ● activism ● advocacy ● critique.

[Special thanks to Kazi Mahmood, and Bill Jacobson]

The special focus this week is the monumental Wikileaks Iraq War Logs release, which transpired since the last EE Report, as well as materials on militarization and militarism, and the Canadian non-withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Our leading quote for this week comes from John Parker, on the topic of Wikileaks and the intellectual deficits of journalists embedded with the Pentagon:

“The career trend of too many Pentagon journalists typically arrives at the same vanishing point: Over time they are co-opted by a combination of awe — interacting so closely with the most powerfully romanticized force of violence in the history of humanity — and the admirable and seductive allure of the sharp, amazingly focused demeanor of highly trained military minds. Top military officers have their s*** together and it’s personally humbling for reporters who’ve never served to witness that kind of impeccable competence. These unspoken factors, not to mention the inner pull of reporters’ innate patriotism, have lured otherwise smart journalists to abandon – justifiably in their minds – their professional obligation to treat all sources equally and skeptically.”

WIKILEAKS’ IRAQ WAR LOGS

The big news since the last EE Report was the release of 391,832 secret records that cover the U.S.’ Iraq War between 2004 and 2009, now being hailed as the biggest leak of official documents in history (that might be questionable, but certainly the most publicly accessible leak of that size). The logs can be accessed here:

• Wikileaks Iraq War Diaries (main page)
• Diary Dig (Browse the diaries and make complex searches)
• War Logs (Browse the diaries, rate and comment the reports)
• Raw files, download as a torrent from Pirate Bay

Wikileaks teamed up with several news organizations, more this time than with the Afghan War Diary. You can find each organization’s dedicated pages below (Le Monde, at the time of writing, appeared to be the only one not to have a special Iraq War logs section), ranked in order of descending preference:

• The Bureau of Investigative Journalism—Iraq War Logs
• Al Jazeera—The Secret Iraq Files
• The Guardian—Iraq: The War Logs
• Der Spiegel Online International—Iraq War Logs
• The New York Times—The War Logs (includes Afghanistan)
• Channel 4 News (UK)—Iraq Secret War Files
• Iraq Body Count
• Le Monde—“Irak : l’horreur ordinaire révélée par Wikileaks”

These are some of the stories that came out about the release which we recommend:

1. United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights: “Iraq / Wikileaks: statement by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.”
2. Iraq War Veteran, Josh Stieber’s Letter to Congress: “An Iraq Surge Vet on Wikileaks: An Open Letter on the Needed Response to the Upcoming Wikileaks Report.”
3. Amnesty International USA: “Iraq’s Apt Pupils.”
4. Salon: Glen Greenwald, “The Nixonian henchmen of today: at the NYT” – but also read how NYT readers trounced the published smears about Assange, excellent commentary. In addition, more comments slamming NYT appear in Reddit, and CNN’s Atika Shubert, who wanted to do a personal character interview about sex allegations, prompting Julian Assange to walk out, gets torn to shreds by viewers on her Facebook page.
5. As a follow up, Greenwald has this striking article comparing international media with NYT’s coverage on the issue of torture, underplayed by the NYT: “NYT v. the world: WikiLeaks coverage.”
6. See the “The New York Times Torture Euphemism Generator!”
7. The Guardian: Pratap Chatterjee, “Iraq war logs: Wikileaks’ virtual memorial.”
8. The Guardian: “WikiLeaks Iraq war logs: Nick Clegg calls for investigation of abuse claims.”
9. The Independent: “Patrick Cockburn: Echoes of El Salvador in tales of US-approved death squads.”
10. The Telegraph: “Wikileaks: UN calls for US to investigate torture claims revealed in leaked reports.”
11. Associated Press: “WikiLeaks urges US to probe alleged rights abuses.”
12. Reuters: “Factbox: U.S. report to U.N. Human Rights Council.”
13. Agence France Presse: “Human rights campaigners voice disappointment with Obama.”
14. World Socialist Web Site: “Mounting evidence of British war crimes.”
15. The Telegraph: “Wikileaks Iraq war logs: key findings.” (See links within to further related articles.)
16. The Iraqi response? Their “Minister of Human Rights” appears in “Iraq has the right to sue WikiLeaks, says minister of human rights.”
17. One Israeli Knesset member’s response: “Ben Ari files UN complaint on US over Wikileaks reports.”
18. Raw Story: “Fox News editorial: WikiLeaks employees should be declared ‘enemy combatants’”
19. Jonah Goldberg: “All Quiet on the Black-Ops Front: Why isn’t Julian Assange dead?”
20. Stephen M. Walt: “In Defense of Wikileaks.”
21. Ellen Knickmeyer: “WikiLeaks Exposes Rumsfeld’s Lies.”
22. John Parker: “Lack of WikiLeaks coverage disturbing, but not surprising.”
23. Allen Moore: “Julian Assange: Life is Hard in a World Without Hippies.”
24. Journalism.co.uk: “Journalists across globe sign petition in support of WikiLeaks.”

THE CASE FOR WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN

“Digging in for the Long Haul in Afghanistan: How Permanent Are America’s Afghan Bases?” by Nick Turse features some of his work on the construction of multiple permanent bases in Afghanistan—and we learn of Turse’s amazing new edited volume, with some of the best contributors one can imagine: The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Here is one key extract from the article above:

Major General Kenneth S. Dowd — the Director of Logistics for U.S. Central Command for three years before leaving the post in June — offered this partial account of the ongoing Afghan base build-up in the September/October issue of Army Sustainment, the official logistics journal of the Army:

“Military construction projects scheduled for com­pletion over the next 12 months will deliver 4 new runways, ramp space for 8 C−17 transports, and parking for 50 helicopters and 24 close air support and 26 intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft. This represents roughly one-third of the air­field paving projects currently funded in the Afghanistan theater of operations. Additional minor construction plans called for the construction of over 12 new FOBs and expansion of 18 existing FOBs.”

If Dowd offered the barest sketch of some of the projects planned or underway, a TomDispatch analysis of little-noticed U.S. government records and publications, including U.S. Army and Army Corps of Engineers contracting documents and construction-bid solicitations issued over the last five months, fills in the picture.  The documents reveal plans for large-scale, expensive Afghan base expansions of every sort and a military that is expecting to pursue its building boom without letup well into the future.  These facts-on-the-ground indicate that, whatever timelines for phased withdrawal may be issued in Washington, the U.S. military is focused on building up, not drawing down, in Afghanistan.

IS CANADA WITHDRAWING FROM AFGHANISTAN?

No. See “Afghan plan includes up to 1,000 troops,” and “NATO says 900 trainers needed for Afghan forces.” The Prime Minister promised to respect Parliament’s will (not to mention that of the majority of Canadians), that after two extensions of the Canadian mission, there would not be a third, and the “military mission” would end. Then came the weasel words as the U.S. ratcheted up pressure on Canada to stay—it became a “combat mission” instead, that would end, but a “military training mission” would take its place. In the meantime, the B Team to the ruling Conservatives, euphemistically known as the “Liberal Party of Canada,” has apparently signed on to the deal. The Canadian peace movement has of course reacted—see the Canadian Peace Alliance’s “A Better War is Not Possible. Don’t Extend It. End It.”

THE ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS OF MILITARISM

“The Pentagon is the largest single consumer of oil in the world, using one-quarter of the world’s jet fuel. Yet the military’s use of energy and contribution to global warming is rarely discussed. Barry Sanders tackles the relationship between militarism and environmental destruction in his recent book The Green Zone: The Environmental Costs of Militarism. Sanders is a prolific author and was, until his retirement a professor of the history of ideas and English at Pitzer College in Claremont, California.”

MILITARIZING ASIA: THE CREATION OF A REGIONAL NATO BY THE U.S.

Written by Rick Rozoff, “Southeast Asia: West Completes Plans for Asian NATO,” the article gives us a detailed overview of plans for a U.S. coordinated military pact in Asia, an Asian extension of NATO, that would seem to relieve the need for direct U.S. intervention in future conflicts. This seems to be motivated by a realization of the fact that “for the first time in half a millennium the founding members of NATO in Europe and North America are confronted with a planet not largely or entirely under their control.”

EE: Report #7, 16—21 October 2010

Encircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period. They are intended to be useful for those interested in: ● contemporary and critical political anthropology ● public anthropology ● imperialism and imperial decline ● militarism/militarization ● the political economy of the world system ● hegemony and soft power ● counterinsurgency ● revolution ● rebellion ● resistance ● protest ● activism ● advocacy ● critique.

In this issue: NGOs in Afghanistan; Nation Notes; Wikileaks; Political Activism and the Web; and, Public Anthropology Notes.

[Special thanks to Catherine Moore, Lyn DeWald.]

The leading quote for this week comes from former Afghan Member of Parliament, Malalai Joya (more from Joya below):

“In the United States, many looked to the ballot box and hoped for real change when Barack Obama was elected President in 2008. To be honest, I never expected that he would be any different for Afghanistan than President George W. Bush. The truth is that Obama’s war policies have turned out to be even more of a nightmare than most people expected. Obama talked a lot about hope and change, but for Afghanistan the only change has been for the worse. After almost two years of Obama, the number of U.S. troops occupying Afghanistan has more than doubled. And the number of drone attacks in Pakistan has increased. Obama’s so-called surge of troops has resulted in increased Afghan civilian deaths. The documents released by Wikileaks prove what we have been saying about war in Afghanistan. There are more massacres by NATO forces than they wanted us to believe. Now the whole world should know this war is a disaster. All this is why, for our people, Obama is a warmonger, like another Bush. These are the reasons that throughout Afghanistan more and more people are taking to the streets to protest the U.S. occupation.”

NGOs SAY THE SOONER TROOPS LEAVE AFGHANISTAN, THE BETTER

In “Troop boost in Afghanistan ‘a mistake’,” we hear from Laurent Saillard, Director of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR)—ACBAR has been “working with the people of Afghanistan since 1988 and represents more than 100 local and international non-government groups, including World Vision, Save the Children and Care International.”

Some of the key statements made by Saillard:

“International military presence is not going to make a big difference. Actually, the sooner the troops withdraw, maybe the better for the Afghans.”

“I’m afraid the momentum is such now that it is probably impossible to reverse it, reverse it and defeat the Taliban.

“More troops, more combat will produce more instability, more frustration and increase the level of anger of the population against foreign presence. So, no, it’s not going to help.”

“The security of aid workers mainly rely on the quality of their relationship with the community, on what we call acceptance, and not on the presence of foreign troops.”

Apparently a few “humanitarian aid workers,” as some in the U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System actually dare to label themselves, do not realize that if you need an armed escort, it means you’re not wanted.

NATION NOTES

Afghanistan:

NATO murders a detainee

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is reporting that an Afghan died while in detention by coalition troops, and that he may have been murdered. ISAF said its detainee had been “found dead in his holding cell” in the southern province of Kandahar. Except that he was not just “found dead,” we learned a mere one day after ISAF’s attempt at understating and whitewash: in fact, the detainee had been shot in the head. A U.S. soldier is now in custody. He can expect not to be shot in the head while he is a detainee.

This Electoral Fraud Brought to You by NATO and Western Taxpayers

“This isn’t ‘Afghan good enough,’ as Petraeus and his friends are fond of saying. It’s not even progress. This is the theft of the government and the silencing of the voice of Afghans as the U.S. sings the praises of the ‘new Afghanistan.’ Only the most cynical could call this democracy.”—Robert Greenwald

In September Afghanistan completed what is now at least its third successive fraudulent election, with the aid and support of occupying forces. In “Afghanistan tosses out thousands of votes amid fraud probe” (LA Times) we are told that the Independent Electoral Commission has invalidated results from 571 polling centers—out of more than 5,500 that operated on election day. Votes from another 1,277 centers have been recounted and adjusted. Votes from 120 polling centers had been nullified because of “serious electoral violations.” Later in the week we learned that “1.3 million votes were disqualified out of 5.6 million — meaning about 23 percent of ballots — because of ballot-box stuffing or manipulated totals.” Even so, nearly 5,000 complaints of fraud and irregularities are still being investigated. In an earlier report also from the LA Times, “Thousands of complaints filed over Afghan elections,” by which time 4,169 complaints had been filed, we were told that of those complaints 55% are considered serious enough that they can shape the outcome if they’re upheld under investigation. Of 2,500 candidates, 175 have been accused of fraud. Out of those candidates accused of fraud, 25 are current members of parliament. On election day, 18 September 2010, more than 1,500 polling centres were shut down because of security concerns.

In “Pervasive Fraud: A Quarter of Afghan Votes to Be Thrown Out,” we learn that nearly a quarter of all votes cast will be thrown out. As Jason Ditz also reported in “Afghan Election Disaster: Evidence of Fraud Rises, Leaving Results in Doubt” :

“Though Western officials praised the election as a ‘success’ the data has shown a far lower than expected turnout, higher than expected violence and absurd levels of fraud. One provincial election chief was even arrested for overtly rigging votes, while the release of the preliminary vote results has been delayed by the overwhelming number of complaints.”

We also have a photo slideshow of the elections from one international election observer. American Caroline Wadhams of Democracy International, who was based in Kabul and deployed to Balkh and Samangan provinces, met with analysts, academics, journalists, parliamentary candidates, election officials, U.N. officials, NGO workers, and others from Afghanistan and abroad.

And what is probably the best item of them all, Robert Greenwald’s “Caught on Video: Ballot Stuffing in Afghanistan” :

As Greenwald writes,

“The backers of the current counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan have reminded us again and again over the past year-and-a-half that their strategy can’t work without a legitimate government in Kabul. If that’s the case, even they should admit that their plan is sunk.”

“And, while we continue to extol the virtues of democracy to the Afghans, we’re furiously funding and training a massive military force that will answer to a government full of election-stealing thugs. If the Kabul government can’t be trusted to run a legitimate election, they certainly can’t be trusted with U.S.-bought weapons and a massive U.S. taxpayer-funded military force.”

And as Greenwald points out in the video,

“In one clip, we can see an Afghan Border Police Officer dutifully standing watch as votes are stuffed for a particular candidate.

“In another, we see people with clearly marked fingers (the indicator that one has already voted) casting new ballots.

“In still other clips, we find clearly underaged voters casting ballots and people haggling over the price of a bought vote.”

Are the Peace Talks a Hoax?

Interesting, alleged peace talks, where every Taleban source denies that there any talks, or that they would even want such talks, and where the U.S. uses the opportunity to claim a “win.” Hakimullah Mujahed, former Taleban ambassador to the United Nations and a member of a government council tasked with exploring contacts with the Taleban, himself called the reports a “propaganda campaign” :

“If these people were sincere in taking part in negotiations, it would not be in the media, it would be secret and underground and through some friendly government.”

Indeed, we are presented with the preferred U.S. military gloss to justify the surge, ahead of a December review in Washington:

“the view of U.S. military commanders [is] that NATO troops have damaged the insurgency following the surge of more than 30,000 U.S. forces ordered by President Barack Obama”

“Richard Holbrooke, U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, attributed an increase in contacts with individuals linked to the Taliban to stepped up military pressure that NATO and its Afghan allies were placing on the insurgents.”

In the meantime, Kai Eide, a Norwegian diplomat and the UN’s former envoy to Afghanistan, played down reports of current negotiations:

“My feeling is that this is a lot of spin that the war strategy is working — that things are moving forward more than they are.”

Much like the spin presented on a daily basis, where it seems that NATO is not only killing massive numbers of Taleban, but they are all also senior leaders and commanders.

For their part, the Taleban issued two statements on their website: “Peace talks in conditions of the presence of foreign forces are meaningless and futile,” and, “Known figureheads and the Futile Reconciliation Slogans.” Both deny any participation of the Taleban, while denouncing the peace council set up by Karzai, and swear against any talks while the foreign occupation continues.

Arguing for Continued Occupation

In this highly suspect article by Praveen Swami in The Telegraph, quoting some unnamed “Taliban commander” –see “Taliban: ‘Britain is our greatest source of funding’” – two points are projected: one, Britain’s Muslim community is not to be trusted, because it supplies the Taleban with funding; two, it is important to continue the occupation, because as former Prime Minister Gordon Brown stridently exclaimed, it will help keep the Taleban off the streets of Britain. Here this unnamed commander says: “an attack on Britain and Europe could happen ‘at any time’.” Yes, we are scared, very, very scared.

In another equally suspicious, even offensively propagandistic piece by Praveen Swami in The Telegraph— “Al-Qaeda training camp uncovered in Tajikistan” –where major political opponents to the one-party dominance of dictator Emomali Rahmon are cast as allies of Al Qaeda—how convenient. Additional expedience is offered for the argument for open ended war in Afghanistan, seeing that Al Qaeda is so ominously omnipotent that it cannot be allowed a whole country to itself.

And suddenly, some “good news,” thanks to The New York Times’ dutiful service to the U.S. military, and in good time for a review of the “surge” just a few weeks away: “Coalition Routs Taliban in Southern Afghanistan.”

Australia: Failure in Afghanistan; Parliamentary Debate

See “Troops ‘overwhelmed and cannot defeat Taliban’” : Australian Defence Brigadier Mark Smethurst says the Taleban have overwhelmed foreign forces and, this report tells us,

“While successive governments have stated we are in Afghanistan to deny al-Qaeda terrorists a base, the brigadier says the key reason is to maintain the U.S. alliance.”

He does not call for withdrawal from Afghanistan—even if much of what he outlines is a recipe for prolonger, costlier failure—and emphasizes that the coalition must not be seen as failing in Afghanistan.

What we can say is that it is more likely is that failure will indeed happen, along with an intense media blitz to cover up the failure and make it look like success, even while NATO has already promised itself that it will not get bogged down in any more Afghan-like adventures in the foreseeable future.

For Smethurst’s original report, see: “Called Creating Conditions for the Defeat of the Afghan Taliban: A Strategic Assessment.”

This week also saw the start of debate in the Australian federal parliament on the war in Afghanistan. Defence Minister Stephen Smith of course defends the war saying, “We are there because it is in our national interest to be there.” He also dismissed the Smethurst paper above, saying “we” have come “a long way” since that paper was written. That is not the general consensus, unless by coming a long way he means a significant deterioration in NATO’s situation. The Australian Department of Defence also presented the following “fact sheets” to support the government’s side in the debate.

While the two dominant parties, the Labour and Liberal parties, are led by those supporting continued involvement in the Afghan war, one Liberal MP broke ranks and said there was no longer any logic behind Australia’s military presence in Afghanistan. See: “MP breaks ranks ahead of Afghanistan debate.”

This is a critical, even momentous debate for Australia: it is the first time in nine years that Australia’s parliament is even seriously debating the issue of participating in the occupation of Afghanistan.

For more on the parliamentary debate, see:

“Talk won t turn tide”  (The Age) – where we read that Tony Abbott, head of the Liberal Party, went as far as declaring that the Taleban had intentions of imposing their “brutal system” on “the whole world.”

“More Australian soldiers will die in Afghanistan, warns Smith” (Sydney Morning Herald) – in which Defence Minister Stephen Smith claims that the Afghan intervention is in Australia’s “national interest” – and what an incredibly expansive, adventurous, over reaching and costly “national interest” that is.

Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister and current Foreign Minister, also published his “Parliamentary Statement on Afghanistan,” which is as idealistic and simplistic as any “neo-con” speech one has ever heard about the Afghan war. The speech, a collection of what could easily be tweets, makes these points among others:

“what is our national mission in Afghanistan today?

“Put simply, it is to help protect innocent people, including innocent Australians, from being murdered by terrorists.

“Put simply, it is to support our friends and our allies in achieving this mission.

“Put simply, it is to work with them to defend, maintain and strengthen an international order that does not tolerate terrorism.”

Put simply, it falls on all these points, as an amateurish piece of transparent fear-mongering and questioning allegiance to a foreign policy made for Australia in Washington DC. While declaring support for the U.S., oddly enough Rudd goes so far past Obama that he does not realize, in arguing for what is effectively a permanent occupation of Afghanistan.

Covering the Afghanistan debate in parliament, via twitter, were:

• Johnny Barrington
• triplejHack

Canada: What Was Achieved in Afghanistan? Why Canada Withdraws

More from Malalai Joya: “more Canadian troops have died. Why are Obama and Harper wasting so much money on this war when they cannot give jobs or even houses to their own poor people? There are many homeless in Vancouver, but instead Harper spends billions of dollars and new weapons of war…. Afghans don’t want so-called democracy and so-called elections where guns and money have the first and last word. Your foreign minister, Peter MacKay, and your Prime Minister Harper call this ‘democracy’ and ‘progress.’ But Afghans call this a bad joke.”

She adds:

“Today Stephen Harper and the Canadian government are trying to deceive the Canadian people about the war in Afghanistan. Harper is speaking out of both sides of his mouth. On one side, he is saying Canadian troops will leave Afghanistan in 2011. But on the other side Harper is saying to US and NATO, don’t worry, Canada will stay with troops and help in different ways to occupy Afghanistan. And Harper is saying that Canada will stay to do ‘training’ of troops of puppet Karzai regime. We Afghan people don’t need any more ‘training’ from Canadian government after 2011. We Afghans don’t want any more bombing after 2011. We Afghans don’t want any more torture by NATO and Afghan puppet forces.  We Afghans don’t want any more occupation by NATO. Instead of staying after 2011, it is better that Canadian troops leave sooner, leave now.”

Speaking of Prime Minister Harper, the New York Times chose to focus on one side of his mouth—see “Canada Poised for 2011 Withdrawal From Afghanistan,” where we read:

“[no one] should assume that Mr. Harper’s fondness for the military will prompt him to find a way around that [2011 withdrawal] deadline. Not only is the Canadian public weary of deaths and controversies generated by the fighting, but there also are increasing signs that many in the military, and perhaps even Mr. Harper himself, think it’s time to leave the battlefield in Afghanistan.

“After earlier championing the Afghan mission, Mr. Harper has since been careful never to suggest that the deadline might be extended. Unofficial talk in the Canadian bureaucracy and military indicates that he is now frustrated by the situation and the lack of a clear end. His most blunt public assessment came last year during an interview with CNN.

“‘We’re not going to win this war just by staying,’ Mr. Harper said. ‘Quite frankly, we are not going to ever defeat the insurgency’.”

For more NYT coverage specifically focusing on the U.S.’ allies in the war in Afghanistan, see this.

Haiti: The Impacts of Bill Clinton and Neoliberal Dogma

On Anthropology Works, see Alex Dupuy’s “Ideological dogmatism and United States policy toward Haiti,” detailing the tragic confluence of political economic decisions, often imposed on Haiti, that created the depth of misery and inequality witnessed today. Dupuy recounts the failures of what is elsewhere known as industrialization by invitation in creating anything resembling sustainable development. In addition, Haitian trade barriers to food imports were removed, creating both food dependency and undermining Haitian agriculture, which would prove disastrous. Read the article for details of how the Clinton administration in the U.S. directly intervened to further Haitian vulnerability, dependency, and extreme poverty.

Pakistan: U.S. Sends “Aid” to Itself

It is difficult to imagine a phonier, more transparently manipulative form of “aid” than the one to be sent by the U.S. to Pakistan:

“The U.S. is preparing a new USD 2 billion security assistance to Pakistan over the next five years to bolster the country’s anti-terrorism capability.”

That’s not “aid” – that is payment for local forces to do the job of the U.S. for the U.S., as if the purpose of the Pakistani state was to pursue the interests of the U.S., which it has in fact been doing, and which is untenable.

UK: The Costs of Junior Partnership Catch Up, U.S. Applies Pressure

Britain is instituting the “largest cuts to public spending since World War II…aimed at virtually eliminating Britain’s deficit, which stands at over 10 percent of gross domestic product,” and as part of that, cuts to military spending. The government is promising cuts “likely to total as much as 3 billion pounds ($4.8 billion) from the defense ministry’s annual budget of about 37 billion pounds ($59 billion).” The cuts will include a reduction of more than 7,000 army troops, and personnel from the air force and navy will be cut from Britain’s ranks of about 175,000.

We are also told that “the U.S. has already raised worries that cuts could leave its ally unable to take on a major role in military missions in the future.” Jim Townsend, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe and NATO said:

“This is not a time where you can slacken in the need to keep strong and to invest in your military.”

Obama reportedly told Prime Minister Cameron that “he hoped the changes would allow the U.K. to ‘retain the full spectrum of military capabilities that permits our forces to partner effectively together around the world’.”

Apparently the expectation was that the UK would make the investments in the same advanced military technologies as the U.S., to ensure “interoperability.” That is expecting a lot, of an economic basket case whose defense cuts are far too modest, to support U.S. hopes of global dominance.

U.S. Ground Zero Politics: Where War Crimes and Racism Combine to Increase One’s Electoral Chances

If there was ever a great representative, in the flesh, of imperial degeneration, it is Ilario Pantano, celebrated war criminal turned politician:

“From accused murderer to member of Congress? An ex-Marine who killed two unarmed Iraqis and embraces Islamophobia could wind up in Congress.”

WIKILEAKS:

From Concordia University’s student newspaper, The Link, comes another good article, this time about Wikileaks—see Nadim Kobeissi’s “The Internet War” :

“The resulting aggression we see today is a sign of a shock at the dimensions of the fight. No nation has ever fought, or even imagined, a war with a nation that has no homeland and a people with no identity. And thus does the U.S finds both its rulers and its laws punishing the truth-speaking and fighting those who stick by their own motto of truth and bravery.”

“The only way this war will end is if both sides realize that this is the closest we have come to a war-of-the-worlds: the Internet and the real world are that far apart. This is a battle of applied ethics: informatio n transparency versus the ideal that some are more fit to know than others.”

Pentagon & NATO Now Admit “No Harm Done” But At Yale They Still See Dead People

This is one of our top recommendations for this week, Glenn Greenwald’s scathing review of mainstream media propaganda that followed lockstep behind early Pentagon assertions that Wikileaks’ release of the Afghan War Diary would put U.S. soldiers at risk as well as Afghan informants. Instead, NATO is now saying that there has not been a single case of an Afghan informant needing protection or to be moved to avoid reprisal, and the Department of Defense says that no sensitive intelligence was released. Yet, examine the calls for attacking Julian Assange and the wild claims that he had aided and abetted Al Qaeda and the Taliban, in Greenwald’s “How propaganda is disseminated: WikiLeaks Edition.”

Senator Carl Levin: “there quite clearly was damage”

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell: “already threatened the safety of our troops”

Conn Carroll, Heritage Foundation: “[Assange] is a murderer of American and Afghani people. His carelessness has killed people.”

Liz Cheney: “He has blood on his hands.”

And now the Yale Political Union: “Resolved: Wikileaks should not have published classified documents” where a speech affirming that Wikileaks was wrong, stated: “it is never acceptable to sacrifice real human beings for abstract concepts….many lives were lost and will likely continue to be lost, and so many resources have been needlessly squandered….For all the lives lost as a result of his disastrously didactic ego and unabashedly narcissistic drive to see his name in lights, I hope Assange and his cohorts rot in hell.”

Pentagon Tries to Push Media to Ignore Wikileaks

Pentagon spokesman, Colonel David Lapan issued instructions to the mainstream media (how unusual to do this so publicly, when normally they understand each other so well in private): “News organizations should be cautioned not to facilitate the leaking of classified documents with this disreputable organization known as WikiLeaks. The concern is that WikiLeaks as an organization should not be made more credible by having credible news organizations facilitate what they’re doing.”

Sweden Continues: This Time It’s a Denial of Assange’s Residency Application

As the Swedish state continues to let dangle in the air the rape and sexual violence allegations—two months later, still “investigating” (perhaps rape is a much more subtle, ambiguous, and mysterious thing than any of us realized)—it has landed another punch against the editor-in-chief of the organization that condemns the Afghan war and NATO (i.e., the same war in which Sweden has invested itself militarily and politically, along with allies who form part of NATO). Now Sweden, for “reasons unknown,” has denied Julian Assange’s residency application.

Wikileaks Fights Wired…about a release date?

In a recent article, Wired printed the following: “Measured by size, the database will dwarf the 92,000-entry Afghan war log WikiLeaks partially published last July. “It will be huge,” says a source familiar with WikiLeaks’ operations, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Former WikiLeaks staffers say the document dump was at one time scheduled for Monday, October 18, though the publication date may well have been moved since then.”

It is claimed that over 700 news media published stories based on Wired’s claim. Julian Assange says they were wrong to reproduce that claim.

Wikileaks tweeted:

@wired has spoken to no ‘staffers’. No publication dates have slipped. @wired has agenda, doesn’t check facts and is not to be trusted.

Indeed, Wired’s controversial Kevin Poulsen, and Kim Zetter, make no indication whatsoever that they got their information from, or ever tried contacting, the only legitimate source on what is to be released and when, which would be Wikileaks itself.

Wikileaks stated before the tweet above:

Where do all these claims about WikiLeaks doing something on Iraq today (Monday) come from? A single tabloid (cont) http://tl.gd/6hqu1n

When the first reports came out that Wikileaks would release a massive number of Iraq war documents, the only statement from it was:

We have no comment as to the claim that our next release is related to the Iraq war.

The story first came via Newsweek on 09 September. It is still not clear, giving this growing list of anticipated releases, what Wikileaks will publish, and when (especially given that the site has been down for weeks).

In sum, this is the way that Wikileaks characterized Wired, and it is a generally accurate and reasonable assessment:

But Wired’s blog is not just any source that lacks credibility. It is a known opponent and spreader of all sorts of misinformation about WikiLeaks. This dramatically ramped up since we demanded an investigation into what role they played in the arrest of the alleged journalistic source, US intelligence analyst Bradley Manning:

We condemned Wired magazine for that conduct and the magazine has been oppositional ever since. The two blogs concerned, ‘Threat Level’ and ‘Danger Room’, while having produced some good journalism over the years, mostly now ship puff pieces about the latest ‘cool weapons system’ and other ‘war tech toys’ as befits their names – ‘Threat Level’ and ‘Danger Room’.

These two blogs, and in particular editor Kevin Poulsen, have been responsible for a tremendous amount of other completely false information about WikiLeaks.

A post today on ‘Danger Room’ begins with:

‘We’re still waiting for WikiLeaks to make good on its pledge to reveal hundreds of thousands of US military documents on the Iraq war.’

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/doc-of-the-day-wikileaks-didnt-blow-u-s-afghan-intel-sources/

Another fabrication.

WikiLeaks does not speak about upcoming releases dates, indeed, with very rare exceptions we do not communicate any specific information about upcoming releases, since that simply provides fodder for abusive organisations to get their spin machines ready.

Julian Assange

Editor-in-chief

How does Wired respond? In part by repeating irrelevant personal comments: “Assange is notoriously sensitive to critical press. He has a strong personality, and at times his reaction reflects that.”

For some background on the connections between Wired’s Kevin Poulsen and the hacker that entrapped Bradley Manning, read this excellent in-depth review by Glenn Greenwald: “The strange and consequential case of Bradley Manning, Adrian Lamo and WikiLeaks.”

But the problem now is that Wikileaks has gone much further in its denunciations of the press. Referring to an AFP article (no link), Wikileaks tweeted: “AFP is incorrect. We did not say we were publishing something on Iraq.” Strictly speaking, that is true, all Wikileaks said was “no comment.” However, it was Newsweek that reported statements by Iain Overton, editor of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, who informed Newsweek that “his organization has teamed up with media organizations—including major television networks and one or more American media outlets—in an unspecified number of countries to produce a set of documentaries and stories based on the cache of Iraq War documents in the possession of WikiLeaks.”

POLITICAL ACTIVISM AND THE WEB

Biz Stone, co-founder and creative director of Twitter Inc., produces a response to Malcolm Gladwell: “Exclusive: Biz Stone on Twitter and Activism.” Everyone is an expert on activism these days, seemingly by virtue of being experts on social media. Interesting, because being an expert on issues concerning newsprint did not make one an expert on the Communist revolution in 1917. Stone’s argument in this article? Little things can make a big difference. He is unable to point to any “big difference” beyond media hype of discrete events. Sometimes little things are just that.

Evgeny Morozov’s forthcoming book, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom, argues instead that “we must stop thinking of the Internet and social media as inherently liberating and why ambitious and seemingly noble initiatives like the promotion of ‘Internet freedom’ might have disastrous implications for the future of democracy as a whole.” Though the book is still being prepared, two chapter excepts are being made available online: chapter 1 and chapter 7.

PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY NOTES

A new publication of direct interest to those interested in contemporary issues of militarism and empire is:

Breaking Ranks: Iraq Veterans Speak Out Against the War
Edited by Matthew Gutmann and Catherine Lutz
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010
Breaking Ranks brings a new and deeply personal perspective to the war in Iraq by looking into the lives of six veterans who turned against the war they helped to fight. Based on extensive interviews with each of the six, the book relates why they enlisted, their experiences in training and in early missions, their tours of combat, and what has happened to them since returning home. The compelling stories of this diverse cross section of the military recount how each journey to Iraq began with the sincere desire to do good. Matthew Gutmann and Catherine Anne Lutz show how each individual’s experiences led to new moral and political understandings and ultimately to opposing the war.

In connection with this, see the full text of the review by Zoe Wool, “Breaking Ranks” : “…In their curation of the stories, Gutmann and Lutz also demonstrate the ways that war insinuates itself into civilian life in America, making military service seem like the best possible option for many Americans whose lives are made hard or unstable by the exigencies of family expectations, national pride, poverty, and youth.… Breaking Ranks strikes me as an important, accessible, and eminently teachable book that speaks of the conflicted experiences of soldiers in war, the political failings of America’s doctrine of pre-emptive war, and the contingent evolution of personal conflict into political action. It would be well suited to undergraduate classes on war, trauma, social movements, public or activist anthropology, and—given its format—methods courses that discuss life-story interviews and practices of ethnographic writing.”

EE: Report #6, 09—16 October 2010

Encircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period. They are intended to be useful for those interested in: ● contemporary and critical political anthropology ● public anthropology ● imperialism and imperial decline ● militarism/militarization ● the political economy of the world system ● hegemony and soft power ● counterinsurgency ● revolution ● rebellion ● resistance ● protest ● activism ● advocacy ● critique.

A shorter EE Report for this week, focusing mostly on public calls for withdrawal, and public opposition to the war in Afghanistan in a series of nations with occupation forces in the country.

[Special thanks to Dominique Esser and Lyn DeWald.]

DISSENT IN THE AGE OF OBAMA

Cindy Sheehan’s critical article on Al Jazeera, “Dissent in the age of Obama” details astonishingly violent FBI raids on the private homes of peace activists, that have gone without notice by the corporate media, and without protest from the American so-called “left.” As Sheehan notes:

“I submit that if George Bush were still president, or if this happened under a McCain/Palin regime, there would be tens of thousands of people in the streets to protest. This is one of the reasons an escalation in police state oppression is so much more dangerous under Obama – even now, he gets a free pass from the very same people who should be adamantly opposed to such policies.”

Continue to her article to read more about the extreme powers being amassed in the hands of President Obama as the national security state goes on steroids.

In addition, check the website Peace of the Action.

THE UN EXTENDS ITS OCCUPATION OF HAITI: HAITIANS REBEL

In Resolution 1944, the UN Security Council voted on 14 October 2010 to renew its military occupation of Haiti for another year. The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) comprises 8,940 troops and a police component of up to 4,391 officers. The next day, anti-UN protesters in Haiti blocked the UN military base. Meanwhile, of all the reconstruction funds promised by the U.S., none has arrived.

THE EXPENSIVE TASTE OF FOREIGN OCCUPATION

“An Easter menu I picked up [at] a military base in 2008 offers soldiers Cornish hen, grilled trout and chocolate-covered bunnies. Mark Larson, a military blogger who recently returned from Afghanistan, wrote that ‘Camp Phoenix is known for its large PX and barbecue tent that serves everything from steak to ribs daily on a very nice outdoor patio. And after dinner, soldiers can wash down their meal with a smoothie at Green Beans Coffee.’ None of these come from local markets: they are shipped in on trucks like the ones going up in flames in Pakistan. The volume of supplies has expanded so much that Matthew Nasuti, a former US Air Force captain and blogger, estimates that the average US army division needs in excess of 3,000 tons of supplies per day. (By comparison, a German Panzer division needed between 30-70 tons of supplies per day in 1942; and a North Vietnamese army division needed less than 10 tons of supplies per day in 1968.)”

For more, see Pratap Chatterjee’s “America’s chocolate bunny wars: To maintain morale, the US pampers its troops at exorbitant cost – and a grim toll in the lives of underpaid local workers.”

REVIEW YOUR IMPERIAL HISTORY

Peter Dale Scott and Robert Parry authored an article titled: “Surprise—The Very Dark Side of U.S. History.” Judging from the sanctimonious and ever self-flattering praise for the goodness of their nation that we continue to read from American commentators, it is no surprise that such articles are still needed. In a relatively short space, the authors write about the Indian Wars, the war in the Philippines and Vietnam, support for the Sukarno dictatorship in Indonesia and assistance in the massacre of dissidents there, and on to the Reagan administration and U.S. involvement in counterinsurgency proxy wars in Central America. Given the topics covered, it is far too short, too selective, and with little in the way of explanation. On the other hand, for audiences with limited attention spans, it might be perfect.

You can also download a free copy of Smedley Butler’s famous booklet, War is a Racket.

NATION NOTES: NEWS FROM SOME OF AFGHANISTAN’S OCCUPIERS

Australia: Leave Afghanistan

On the ABC news website, Ben Eltham takes to task the official justifications for continued Australian participation in the war in Afghanistan—see: “Obscuring the truth about the war.” Eltham methodically dismantles each justification, from the alleged threat of terrorism, to the Bali bombings, to the need to aid in reconstruction, to the fictions of progress spread by the Australian Defence Forces and their outstanding restrictions on media freedom. He concludes:

“As everyone knows but few are prepared to openly admit, Australia is not involved in Afghanistan because of the threat of terrorism originating there. Nor are we…involved because of our great love for the Afghan peoples. We are involved because America is. We are there because we believe it is the price of our friendship with the great and powerful United States.”

Tariq Ali has also been visiting Australia, and told audiences that, “Australia Should Leave Afghan War.” At the same time, he condemned Obama for being far worse of a threat to Afghanistan and Pakistan than Bush ever was, in this noteworthy statement:

“So, as far as Pakistan-Afghanistan is concerned, he is worse than Bush in terms of what’s going on and you will recall that event when the Iranians killed the demonstrator Neda on the streets of Teheran and the whole world was weeping in public and a moist eyed president appeared on the lawn of the White House to speak to the press corps, that very same day, a US drone killed 50 people, mainly women and children in Pakistan and it was barely reported outside the country. So, that is what we are confronted with double standards every single day.”

Canada: There Will Be No Victory in Afghanistan

Ex-diplomat says NATO can’t win: “On Thursday, the ninth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, a former Canadian diplomat called on NATO countries to devise plans to leave the war-torn country. ‘It’s been almost 10 fruitless years on the ground,’ said Louis Delvoie, a senior fellow in the Centre for International Relations at Queen’s University who has written extensively on Canadian foreign and security policy and international relations. ‘It’s time to discuss an exit strategy.’ Delvoie, Canada’s high commissioner to Pakistan 1991-94 with diplomatic responsibility for Afghanistan, spoke Thursday at the Robert Sutherland Building on the university’s campus.” Among Delvoie’s other diagnoses:

• There will be no victory in Afghanistan;
• The Taliban will have to be accommodated in a new government;
• A new Afghanistan government should not have Hamid Karzai as its leader; and,
• Any agreement reached in peace talks will likely have a short shelf life.

Italy: Withdrawing from Afghanistan

In 2011, Italy will join Canada and the Netherlands in withdrawing ground forces from Afghanistan. Italian Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa announced that Italian training of Afghan forces will continue, but otherwise troops assigned to active combat duties will be withdrawn. This was also confirmed by Reuters-Italia. In that sense then, it is only a partial withdrawal, compared to what the Netherlands have done, and what Canada is supposed to do.

On 09 October, four Italian soldiers were killed in a blast. Il Giornale, writing in the action-oriented present tense as if the writer had been both a witness and participant in the attacks, produced a dramatic but largely uninformative account, added to this article about one of the soldiers killed who recently posted in Facebook that “it is better to die on one’s feet than living a life on one’s belly” –he did neither: he was blown up sitting in his vehicle. Corriere della Sera carried an account by the Taleban about the attack on the Italian forces, noting that they claimed to have fully destroyed 10 military vehicles that formed part of a convoy in Gulistan, in the province of Farah.

Also from the Italian media, this massive six article write-up in conjunction with Wikileaks by L’Espresso, “Afghanistan, ecco la verità” (“Afghanistan, Here’s the Truth”). In an editorial by Bruno Manfellotto “La pace con le bombe” (“Peace through Bombs”), he demands what has been sorely lacking from both left and right mainstream political parties: transparency and democratic maturity in informing the citizenry of why Italian troops remain in Afghanistan, and what is their mission (sold as a “peace” mission by Italian governments thus far).

UK: Withdraw from Afghanistan

An editorial in The Guardian, “Afghanistan: War without end,” argues that “there is a clear and pressing need to end the monumental folly of prosecuting a war in Afghanistan.”

U.S.: The Public Sees it as Another Vietnam

“The latest poll from CNN and Opinion Research Corporation found only 37% of all Americans favor the war, 52% say the war in Afghanistan has turned into a Vietnam.”

And the surge is working…for the Taleban:

“The insurgency in Afghanistan is gaining strength and new recruits in areas where the Taliban has not previously been prominent, according to a new report from the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) in Kabul. In the third quarter of this year, it says, armed attacks by insurgents were 59 percent higher than in the same period of 2009….insurgents are now operating advanced administrations in the south and east, and field reports suggest that insurgents are attracting non-Pashtun support in the north from elements within the Turkmen, Uzbek and Tajik communities.”

But Before We Go, Let’s Pretend We Support Women’s Rights…

Laura Bush, wife of former President George W. Bush, is  an honorary adviser of the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council. She leads the Women’s Initiative at the Bush Institute in Dallas. In an essay published dutifully by the Washington Post, “Afghanistan must embrace women’s rights,” Laura Bush proclaims:

“Afghanistan’s leaders must defend women’s rights with action and policy, not just lofty rhetoric. True reconciliation cannot be realized by sacrificing the rights of Afghan women. To do so would reverse Afghanistan’s progress and return its people to the perilous circumstances that marked the Taliban’s rule.”

She begins her piece with another run at the engineered propaganda stunt about “Bibi Aisha.” How lucky for her then that the U.S. was able to find this one Aisha. How unlucky for her that her husband teamed up with warlords whose long list of atrocities includes those against women, and whose husband presided over air force bombings of villages that killed scores of women.

WIKILEAKS NEWS AND PRETEXTS FOR WAR

“Stay tuned” as the next big Wikileaks release may be coming in the next couple of days: “Pentagon bracing for release of 400,000 secret Iraq reports.” In addition, the remaining 15,000 Afghan war documents, promised to be released since the end of August, are also due to come out.

Two of the other main stories that attracted attention this week were:

(1) “WikiLeaks says funding has been blocked after government blacklisting” – “Founder Julian Assange hits out at decision by Moneybookers, which collects the whistleblowing website’s donations,” where we read that Moneybookers has clearly been pressed into terminating its business relationship with WL since WL was placed on a blacklist and watchlist by the governments of Australia and the U.S.

(2) An explosive article in the Los Angeles Times, “WikiLeaks and 9/11: What if?,” by Coleen Rowley (who was a special agent/legal counsel at the FBI) and Federal Air Marshal Bogdan Dzakovic (who once co-led the Federal Aviation Administration’s Red Team to probe for vulnerabilities in airport security). If 9/11 was not an “inside job” it certainly does not meant that the events happened with the aid of an inexplicable amount of criminal negligence on the part of knowledgeable U.S. authorities, with the facts formally excluded from the 9/11 Commission report.

But no U.S. government would ever knowingly sacrifice any of its own citizens just to deliberately provoke war. Right? Read this in the Huffington Post: “Gen. Hugh Shelton: Clinton Official Suggested Letting U.S. Plane Be Shot Down To Provoke War With Iraq.”

I was reminded of an earlier search by a U.S. government for a pretext to justify military intervention in Cuba—see this 13 March 1962 memo from the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff: “Justification for U.S. military intervention in Cuba.”

And while Mahmoud Ahamdinejad did not say 9/11 was an inside job, former Minnesota Governor and celebrity Jesse Ventura said on 15 October: “I’m suggesting that governments do things to get us into wars…I’m saying 9/11 was to get us into Iraq and get us into Afghanistan.”

PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY NOTES

Thanks to the notification from Martijn de Koning (see his blog, CLOSER: Anthropology of Muslims in Europe), we learn about a seminar about to take place in The Netherlands on 05 November 2010, “Anthropology and/in Publicity.” On the blog for the seminar, we are told that “the focus of this meeting will be the dissemination of anthropological knowledge to relevant groups in the societies to which anthropologist belong and the societies where they conduct their research. The participants will reflect on the reasons for the underexposure of anthropological knowledge and explore ways to improve its dissemination and application in society.” The program is available here. Among the participants will be Ulf Hannerz and Thomas Hylland Eriksen.

This weekend I am sad to be missing the 7^th Annual Public Anthropology Conference at American University, with this year’s conference titled “Revolutions! Building Emancipatory Politics & Action.” If anyone who participates wishes to write up a report, or share a paper they presented at the conference, we will gladly publish it on ZA.