Informed Comment

Portugal’s Green Energy Revolution and the true Cost of Gas, Coal and Oil

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Juan

Don’t miss Elisabeth Rosenthal’s important and well-written piece at NYT on Portugal’s energy policy. With remarkable clarity given the potentially technical subject matter, she explains exactly how the Portuguese government went from generating 17% of its electricity from alternative sources a few years ago to 45% today. (That is electricity, not all energy; so they’re still filling up their automobile tanks with gasoline and heating their homes with natural gas for the most part. It will be a decade before even a third of their over-all energy comes from alternative sources).

Key, she says, was the virtual nationalization of the power grid, so that the state could ensure that power generated in remote, wind-swept or sunny areas, could actually get to the cities where it is needed. Likewise, the Portuguese scientists and engineers came up with ingenious solutions to the problem of intermittency (the inability to generate, e.g., solar power at night or when it is very overcast, or the inability to generate wind power when it is still). They use computers to make complex mixture calculations to keep the whole thing going, and, e.g., use blustery nights to pump water uphill with wind-generated power and then produce hydroelectric power with that during the days when energy use is intensive.

The next step is to build electric power stations and move to electric cars powered by the wind, sun and hydroelectric. The Portuguese officials involved point out that their success shows that such transformations can be accomplished relatively quickly.

Rosenthal is pessimistic about this model being replicated in the US, where much energy policy is legislated by individual states, and where the big electricity and coal companies have a great deal of sway over both state and federal governments. Likewise, the European Union’s sanctions on hydrocarbons helped the Portuguese, whereas there is no similar pressure coming from Washington.

I only have one criticism of Rosenthal’s excellent article, which is that when she speaks of the higher cost of electricity in Portugal, she neglects to note that cheap electricity in the United States is only cheap if one looks at the industry in a vacuum. Acid rain and air pollution from coal burning plants, the hidden but extreme environmental damage of fracking for natural gas production, and the creeping, insidious harm of global warming (which may well be implicated in Russia’s forest fires, Pakistan’s unprecedented floods, and the collapse of a Greenland ice shelf this week, the first two via a super-charged and unusually northerly jet stream) are only some of the costs of carbon-generated electricity that are not figured into the price paid by consumers on their monthly bills. But if that cost were included, then clean Portuguese energy would look cheap indeed.

I have noticed that the environmental costs of hydrocarbons are often viewed as an externality by reporters on economic issues, possibly because the American way of doing economics encourages such blinders. But as climate change accelerates in the coming decades, this ‘economic man’ way of thinking will increasingly seem anachronistic, in a world where a holistic accounting of the environment will be crucial for calculating human welfare.

Posted in Energy, Environment | Leave a comment

Cutting off Aid to the Lebanese Army Hurts US Interests

Posted on August 11, 2010 by Juan

The Israel lobby in the US Congress is trying to hold up US military assistance to Lebanon after last week’s exchange of fire at the border between Israel and Lebanon. Withholding or blocking US military aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces, however, is a short-sighted policy that will harm US interests in the Middle East and will also have negative implications in the medium to long term for Israel.

The allegation, which originates in propaganda offices in Israel, that the Lebanese armed forces have somehow been taken over by or infiltrated by Hizbullah is frankly ridiculous. The most powerful officers are Maronite Christians, and President Michel Sulaiman had been chief of staff before becoming president. Hint: Michel is not a Muslim name. Sulaiman proposed building up the armed forces in response to the border misunderstanding, and all the political factions in Lebanon– Christian, Sunni, Shiite and Druze, praised him for it. Again, this initiative is coming from the Christian leadership. Whether Hizbullah really wants the army of the central government strengthened is not clear, but they could hardly protest the shoring up of a national institution (despite being Shiite fundamentalists, Hizbullah has consistently supported a strong, united Lebanon and is among the foremost purely Lebanese nationalist forces in the country).

The silly allegation about Hizbullah and the LAF is a smear, and derives from Tel Aviv’s unease with not being able to have its way with Lebanon at will. In particular, Israeli hawks have long coveted the water resources of south Lebanon, and don’t want a strong Lebanese army and state that would put an end to that expansionist dream.

Lebanon has a small, weak, and poorly equipped army that is affected by the deep rifts of a sectarian nature in Lebanese society. A good recent study is [pdf] that of Aram Nerguizian at CSIS.

In 2008, Lebanon had only 56,000 men under arms, about half the strength of Jordan (100,000), which is not itself a signficant military power. Israel with 176,000, Syria with nearly 300,000, and Egypt with 460,000, are all towering giants in comparison. Lebanon is demographically small, at only 4 million or so, whereas Jordan is closer to 6 million, Israel to 7.2 million, Syria to 20 million, and Egypt to 81 million. So Lebanon’s small military is in part a function of its small population, though the country needs a bigger military for internal security purposes and the government should be spending 4 to 5 percent on the military budget, which it does not.

Lebanon’s army collapsed in the mid-1970s in the face of the Civil War. In the 1990s after that war was ended by a new national pact brokered at the Saudi resort city of Taef, the army began being rebuilt. It had a rival in the south of the country in the form of the Hizbullah fundamentalist Shiite militia. The LAF was stunted by the Syrian occupation, which ended in 2005. It was a bystander in the 2006 war, though the Israelis killed some officers and struck at a barracks in Beirut and at facilities as far north as Tripoli (none of these Israeli strikes on the LAF had anything to do with Tel Aviv’s war on Hizbullah. There are no Shiites in Tripoli). Since the Likudniks are saying that the Israeli officer who unfortunately died in last week’s border incident was “executed,” one would like to know if the 49 Lebanese officers Israel killed in 2006 were also executed.

A big post-2005 test of the Lebanese Armed Forces was its battle against the Fath al-Islam fundamentalist terrorist group based in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, which it at length won.

When Lebanon was in political chaos in the 1970s and 1980s, that instability spilled over onto the United States. An Israeli strike on Lebanon in the mid-90s was among the things that angered 9/11 hijackers Muhammad Atta and Ziad Jarrah (the latter a secular Lebanese Sunni).

For the US to cease supporting the strengthening of Lebanon’s armed forces will have the following effects:

1. In general, a weaker army means a relatively stronger Hizbullah paramilitary, and other non-state militias such as those in the Palestinian camps would also be relatively stronger

2. The army’s attempts to assert control in the Shiite south of Lebanon will be impeded, helping Hizbullah

3. If the US does not give military aid to the Lebanese armed forces, then other global and regional actors will, including Iran. Is that what the Israel Lobby in Congress wants, to push Lebanon into Tehran’s arms?

In contrast, if the US helps quietly build up the Lebanese armed forces, at some point they will naturally overshadow Hizbullah. It is not desirable that the army be positioned as anti-Hizbullah nor that it take on the militia militarily. But in the medium term, a strong army would just be able better to assert its prerogatives. And it is better if that army is close to NATO powers, not to Iran.

As for Israel, the likelihood of the Lebanese armed forces becoming so powerful as to become a genuine military threat to Israel in its own right is vanishingly small. Israel has a nuclear arsenal and has been massively equipped by the US (Lebanon has no air force to speak of and not even much in the way of anti-aircraft weapons). The main role of the LAF is likely to remain internal. If you want al-Qaeda-type organizations like Fath al-Islam proliferating and Hizbullah becoming unchallenged and a general power vacuum that favors forces of disorder and terrorism, then cut off your nose to spite your face and deprive little Lebanon of its $100 million this year for its military.

Sometimes what the Likud Party in Israel wants and what is good for United States interests just aren’t the same thing, and the US Congress will have to decide which it wants to represent.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

2 Marines Killed, Base Attacked in Afghanistan;
Civilian Surge in Doubt

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Juan

A prisoner trying to escape a US detention center in southern Afghanistan grabbed a gun and killed two US Marines before being cut down. The two US deaths brought the NATO total of fatalities for the weekend through Monday to 8, with the others having been killed by roadside bombs.

In Paktika Province in the southeast, the Taliban boldly mounted an attack on 3 US base camps, but were repulsed and 7 killed. In this case, however, the loss of 7 fighters surely meant less to the Taliban than their demonstration that they could mount an assault on US bases in this province.

A United Nations report finds that in the first 6 months of 2010, the number of civilians killed or wounded in the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan between the Kabul government and its challengers rose by nearly a third over the same period in 2009. Some 75% of the civilian casualties were caused by the Taliban or similar guerrilla groups. A caution, though, that in such conflict situations the public often blames both sides for casualties, because they see the fighting between the two as what generates them; and, faced with a choice of putting the major blame on their cousins or on foreigners, they often excoriate the latter. This report will be seen as a propaganda point by US hawks, but on the ground it may well not work out that way.

Meanwhile, President Hamid Karzai slammed the 30,000- 40,000 private security guards in Afghanistan, saying that the Afghanistan security forces are perfectly capable of keeping order and that the foreign security men should leave the country. (Karzai is unlikely actually to try to expels these security guards any time soon, so his complaint is a piece of political theater for the moment. He may get rid of them after 2013 when NATO troops are largely planning to have withdrawn).

The 8 NATO troop deaths this weekend came in the wake of the revelation that a couple of weeks ago a team of medical aid workers, including 6 Americans, were killed in rural Badakhshan province. Reports differ as to whether the killers were common thieves or Taliban suspicious that the foreigners were missionaries. Time Magazine correctly asks whether President Obama’s notion of a ‘civlian surge’ is plausible in the face of such brutal violence against civilians even in a relatively calm province.

ITN has video:

Posted in Afghanistan | 3 Comments

Pakistan Flooding Threatens Grain Crop

Posted on August 10, 2010 by Juan

Two million more people have been affected by Pakistan’s floods– 13 million — than were affected by the 2005 tsunami in the Indian Ocean and the Haiti earthquake combined. (The other disasters surpassed Pakistan’s floods in their over-all death rates).

The entire city of Muzaffargarh in Pakistani Kashmir is being evacuated and is abruptly on the move– three quarters of a million people, children, women and men. Pakistanis say they can think of nothing like these scenes except for the mass displacements of the 1947 Partition of the subcontinent into Pakistan and India, at the very birth of the state.

Muzaffargarh alone is half again the pre-Katrina population of New Orleans, and it is just one affected city. It is as though Katrina had also struck everyplace in the American Midwest up through Kansas City all the way to Chicago.

Oxfam America is taking donations for the Pakistan relief effort. So far the international response has been disappointing, and quite apart from the crying need of the victims, the last thing we need is for the Pakistani public to feel yet again abandoned by the West.

The town of Ghouspour in Sindh far to the south is now completely underwater.

Aljazeera English reports that the flooding is threatening Pakistan’s farming on some of its most fertile ground:

Aljazeera English also reports on the flood’s damage to infrastructure in the Swat Valley, an area where hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis had already been displaced by a Pakistani military campaign against the Pakistani Taliban:

Landslides are making it hard for relief workers to do their job in the Swat Valley.

Posted in Pakistan | 2 Comments

Abedin: The Illusion of a ‘limited war’ against Iran

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Juan

Mahan Abedin writes in a guest editorial for Informed Comment:

The Illusion of a ‘limited war’ against Iran

The frank admission by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and America’s highest ranking officer, that the U.S. has plans to attack Iran to prevent that country from acquiring nuclear weapons, is being treated with the utmost seriousness in political, intelligence and military circles in Tehran.

This is the first time that a high-ranking U.S. official has spoken about the existence of military plans to prevent the Islamic Republic from crossing the nuclear threshold. There is considerable evidence that Mullen’s frank statement, coupled with the Obama Administration’s increasingly hostile and dismissive attitude towards Iran, and reinforced by the fourth round of United Nations sanctions imposed in June (followed by even harsher unilateral sanctions imposed by both the European Union and the United States), has radically altered the Tehran regime’s strategic calculations on the possibility of a military confrontation with the United States.

Hitherto the conventional wisdom amongst strategic policy makers in the Islamic Republic was that the U.S. would adhere to the ‘no war no peace’ policy, irrespective of the bellicose rhetoric of American leaders and officials. The policy of ‘no war no peace’ has characterized Iranian-American relations since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in February 1979.

The basic premise of this policy is that at different stages Iran and America edge towards war or peace – depending on the prevailing strategic scenario in the region – but never quite actually achieve either. The result is that most of the time the two states are somewhere in the middle conducting a Cold War, in which leaders and officials from both sides trade insults and engage in ideological and political grandstanding, but stop well short of the point where further escalation of tensions might trigger a hot war.

For the past thirty-one years this policy has benefited most of the key stakeholders, including hardline political factions in both countries, the regional Arab states, Turkey, Pakistan and Israel. All have benefited from this Iranian-American Cold War, insofar as the paucity of diplomatic and political relations between Iran and America has continuously opened up a wide range of strategic, political and economic benefits. By the same token, these stake holders would have much to lose if Iran and America actually engaged in real fighting. While this argument has manifold shortcomings, nonetheless it does capture a large part of the reality of Iranian-American relations since 1979. In any case it is what key Iranian strategic policy makers have believed all along. Until now that is.

Despite the fact that a few days before Mullen’s statement, the supreme commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC—Sepah-e-Pasdaran in Persian), Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Jafari, dismissed U.S. threats, claiming that America “would not dare to attack Iran”, other IRGC leaders have in recent months continuously warned of the immediate and long-term fallout of any military confrontation. The head of the IRGC’s political-ideological unit recently warned of “dire” threats to regional security in the event of an American military attack. Meanwhile Ahmad Vahidi, Iran’s defence minister and a former commander of the IRGC’s elite Qods Force (responsible for special foreign operations), has pledged a “robust” response to any American military aggression against Iran.

It has been clear for months that the mood of IRGC commanders has been changing and Mullen’s statement appears to lend credence to the strategic calculations of the Revolutionary Guard commanders. This development is of the utmost significance, since in the event of an Iranian-American military confrontation, the IRGC is expected to be at the forefront of containing the American assault and retaliating with military measures of its own.

In fact, in the event of a military confrontation Iranian leaders are likely to relieve the regular Iranian military from fighting, so as to keep them out of harm’s way and maintain the integrity and fighting strength of the regular armed forces. There is another reason for this decision and that has to do with the depleted capabilities of the national military; in the past thirty years the national armed forces have insidiously lost power and prestige to the IRGC. It is worth noting that Iran is the only country in the world that operates two completely independent military commands; one centred on the regular armed forces, and the other on the IRGC, which operates its own ground forces, navy and air force, as well as a myriad of intelligence and security services. Moreover, the IRGC controls all of Iran’s strategic military assets, including mid-range ballistic missile capability.

It has become fashionable to paint the IRGC as an economic conglomerate more interested in making money than fighting for the values of the Islamic Revolution. Much of the reporting on IRGC economic activity is inaccurate and disingenuous and is indicative of the faux-naif style of analysis often employed by Western journalists and analysts.

The truth is that whilst the IRGC has a sizeable economic wing centred on the Khatam ol-Anbia complex (Qarargah-e Khatam ol-Anbia), its economic and financial activities are kept strictly separate from its fighting units. In any case, the IRGC is foremost an ideological army that is totally and unequivocally committed to the survival of the Islamic Revolution, and the political-religious system that emerged from that revolution. Even former reformist president (and now opposition leader) Mohammad Khatami referred to the IRGC as the “most ideological armed force in the world.”

American political and military leaders would be mistaken if they believed they could get away with a “limited” military strike on Iran, designed to destroy that country’s nuclear infrastructure. Any military strike on Iran by the United States will be interpreted by Iran’s rulers, and their IRGC enforcers, as a direct assault on the integrity and the very existence of the Islamic Republic. From a strategic point of view, IRGC commanders will interpret any American strike as the beginning of an existential conflict, and will respond appropriately.

A top priority for the IRGC high command is to respond so harshly and decisively so as to deter the Americans from a second set of strikes at a future point. The idea here is to avoid what happened to Iraq in the period 1991-2003, when the former Baathist regime was so weakened by sanctions and repeated small-scale military attacks that it quickly collapsed in the face of American and British invading armies.

The range of predictable responses available to the IRGC high command include dramatic hit ad run attacks against military and commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf, the use of mid-range ballistic missiles against American bases in the region and Israel and a direct assault on American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. All these options are likely to be used within 48 hours of the start of hostilities.

What is less predictable is the response of the IRGC Qods Force, which is likely to be at the forefront of the Pasdaran’s counter-attack. One possible response by the Qods force is spectacular terrorist-style attacks against American intelligence bases and assets throughout the region. The IRGC Qods Force is believed to have identified every key component of the American intelligence apparatus in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are likely to put this information to good use, especially since the Qods Force suspects that the CIA had a hand in last October’s Jundullah-organised suicide bombing targeting IRGC commanders in Iran’s volatile Sistan va Baluchistan province.

The IRGC navy will also play a key asymmetrical role in the conflict by organising maritime suicide bombings on an industrial scale. By manning its fleet of speedboats with suicide bombers and ramming them into American warships and even neutral commercial shipping, the Pasdaran will hope to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly 40 percent of world crude oil supplies pass.

The combination of these asymmetrical forms of warfare with more conventional style missile and even ground force attacks on American bases in the region will likely result in thousands of American military casualties in the space of a few weeks. The IRGC has both the will and wherewithal to inflict a level of casualties on American armed forces not seen since the Second World War.

Even if the United States manages to destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and much of the country’s military assets, the IRGC can still claim victory by claiming to have given the Americans a bloody nose and producing an outcome not dissimilar from the Israeli-Hezbollah military engagement in the summer of 2006.

The political effect of this will likely be even more explosive than the actual fighting. Not only will it awaken the sleeping giant of Iranian nationalism, thus aligning the broad mass of the people with the regime, it will also shore up Iran’s image in the region and prove once and for all that the Islamic Republic is prepared to fight to the death to uphold its principles. Suddenly Iran’s allies in the region – particularly non-state actors like Hezbollah and Hamas – would stand ten feet tall.

Ironically U.S. military aggression will likely accelerate the actualisation of the very scenario that American political and military leaders insist they are determined to prevent, i.e. a nuclear armed Iran. Even if we accept the contentious proposition that Iran’s nuclear programme has a military dimension, the immediate reaction of Iran’s rulers to military aggression would be to start a crash programme to produce a nuclear weapon, as a means of deterring future aggression.

Contrary to what Mike Mullen and other American military commanders appear to believe, a military attack on Iran really is the very worst option. Its consequences for Iran, the region and the United States are dangerously unpredictable, to the extent that any decision to attack would be nothing less than stunningly reckless and quite possibly the worst strategic mistake in American military history. Responsible actors in the international system should exert the maximum effort to avoid an Iranian-American War.

Mahan Abedin is a Middle East analyst.

Posted in Iran, Uncategorized | 33 Comments

Rudolph: Can You Pass the Terrorism Quiz?

Posted on August 8, 2010 by Juan

Jeffrey Rudolph writes in a guest editorial for Informed Comment

Can You Pass the Terrorism Quiz?

Misconceptions about terrorism, regularly promoted by the mainstream media, have facilitated harmful US government actions—two wars, domestic legislation that curtailed civil liberties, excessive national security spending. That basic, factual information about terrorism is so rarely reported thus serves to reinforce the power of those who benefit from a fearful population.

It should be banal to read in the mainstream media that the US not only engages in terrorism but often aggravates it; that if the current crop of terrorists in, say, the Middle East were killed, new terrorists would simply arise if the underlying political and social conditions remained unchanged; and, that if a particular country is perceived as actively supporting dysfunctional political and social conditions in a part of the world, it will become the target of anger and, possibly, violence. Yet, instead of such obvious conclusions about terrorism, we are daily exposed to much bias and distortion.

Several years ago my local newspaper, the (very mainstream) Montreal Gazette, published a piece I had written with only one change: Jewish “terrorists” was edited as Jewish “fighters”—needless to say, “Arab terrorists” remained unchanged. To counter such inadequate journalism, I have prepared the following quiz.

The Terrorism Quiz:

1. Who made the following statement? “To watch the courageous Afghan freedom fighters battle modern arsenals with simple hand-held weapons is an inspiration to those who love freedom.”

-Ronald Reagan: President of the United States, 1981-1989.

(http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1983/32183e.htm)

-Photo of President Reagan meeting with the Mujahideen:

- “In August 1998…President [Clinton] ordered missile strikes…to kill [freedom-loving] Osama bin Laden and his men in the camps in Afghanistan.” And, later, after 9/11, the US …

-The Afghan freedom fighters “had been encouraged and funded by America to join in the anticommunist Afghan campaign. … The problem was that the genie of jihad would not go back in the bottle.” (Fawaz A. Gerges; Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy; Harcourt; New York: 2006; p. 114)

2. Which official report stated the following? “the Iraq War has become the ‘cause celebre’ for jihadists…and is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives.”

-The US government’s National Intelligence Estimate on “Trends in Global Terrorism: implications for the United States.” (http://motherjones.com/politics/2007/03/iraq-101-iraq-effect-war-iraq-and-its-impact-war-terrorism-pg-1)

-According to a study by terrorism experts, Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, “the Iraq War has generated a stunning sevenfold increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and thousands of civilian lives lost…” (http://www.stwr.org/united-states-of-america/the-iraq-effect-war-has-increased-terrorism-sevenfold-worldwide.html)

-To counter the threat of terrorism, the US should not invade other countries but coordinate its intelligence and police action with other states.

3. Approximately how many North Vietnamese civilians were killed by the US’s three-and-a-half years Operation Rolling Thunder bombing campaign?

-According to U.S. estimates, 182,000 North Vietnamese civilians were killed. http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/timeline/index2.html

-“Late in Gillo Pontecorvo’s…film, The Battle of Algiers,…a scene occurs in which Ben H’midi, the captured political leader of the FLN, is asked by a French journalist how he could justify murdering innocent French civilians. In a reference to the French use of napalm and carpet-bombing in the countryside, H’midi replies: ‘Let us have your bombers and you can have our women’s baskets.’ In other words, atrocities are atrocities. And if the oppressed appear to use more ‘primitive’ means, it is because they are forced onto unequal ground.” (Jonathan Barker; The No-Nonsense Guide to Global Terrorism; Between the Lines; Toronto: 2008; p. 80)

4. True or False: Studies have repeatedly found that the bulk of terrorists are normal.

-True. Many people may believe “that since what terrorists do is not ‘normal’…there must be something about the terrorist too that is ‘abnormal’”. Yet, according to interviews, very few terrorists were pathological or otherwise insane. “In fact, given the difficulties involved in planning and pulling off the kind of spectacular terrorist operations that al-Qa’ida favors, it often requires people who are intelligent…at least for the leaders of any operation.” (Kenneth M. Pollack; A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East; Random House; New York: 2008; pp. 173 and 175)

-“[E]xperts seem to agree…that suicide bombers are normal individuals; they are not ‘crazy’ or born with a psychopathology that predisposes them to violent activism.” (Mohammed M. Hafez; Suicide Bombers In Iraq: The Strategy and Ideology of Martyrdom; United States Institute of Peace Press; Washington D.C.: 2007; p. 8 )

-“The fact that most terrorists are not psychotic, sociopathic, or otherwise psychologically damaged suggests the importance of environmental factors in their decision to join a terrorist organization.” (Kenneth M. Pollack; A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East; Random House; New York: 2008; p. 175)

5. How many suicide bombings had Iraq experienced before the 2003 US invasion?

-None. “[I]raq…never experienced suicide terrorism before 2003 [yet after the invasion Iraq]… has produced the largest arsenal of ‘martyrs’ ever seen…” (Mohammed M. Hafez; Suicide Bombers In Iraq: The Strategy and Ideology of Martyrdom; United States Institute of Peace Press; Washington D.C.: 2007; p. 5)

-Iraq’s experience provides additional evidence of the possible relationship between occupation by a democratic country and suicide bombings. Other examples are Lebanon, Kashmir and Sri Lanka. (http://www.amconmag.com/article/2005/jul/18/00017/)

6. In 1958, according to the United States National Security Council, what was the main reason the Arab people hated the US?

-“In a staff discussion…president Dwight Eisenhower described ‘the campaign of hatred against us (in the Arab world), not by the governments but by the people’. His National Security Council outlined the basic argument: the US supports corrupt and oppressive governments and is ‘opposing political or economic progress’ because of its interest in controlling the oil resources of the region. Post-September 11 [2001] surveys in the Arab world reveal that the same reasons hold today, compounded with resentment over specific policies [such as the US’s]…crucial support for Israel’s harsh military occupation…” (http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20020907.htm)

-It seems that the main reason for Muslim Middle Easterners hatred is the perception “that we [the US] support the autocratic regimes that they (rightly) hold responsible for their misery. … Thus the anger and despair they feel because of the actions (and inaction) of their own governments get transferred to the United States in the belief that we are the ultimate power behind the local autocrats.” (Kenneth M. Pollack; A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East; Random House; New York: 2008; p. 199)

7. Who stated the following to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 2005? “Our [the US’s] policies in the Middle East fuel Islamic resentment.”

-Lowell E. Jacoby: U.S. Vice Admiral, then director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. (Fawaz A. Gerges; Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy; Harcourt; New York: 2006; p. 267)

8. Who said the following? “Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples [in the Middle East].”

-David Petraeus: US Army general. (http://www.haaretz.com/news/u-s-general-israel-palestinian-conflict-foments-anti-u-s-sentiment-1.264910)

9. True or False: Revenge is an important cause of terrorism.

-True. For example, “The University of Toronto sociologist Robert Brym carefully studied all 138 suicide bombings between September 2000 and mid-July 2005. He concluded that in the vast majority of cases the suicide bombers themselves—whatever their ideological predispositions, or the groups that claimed responsibility—had lost a friend or close relative to Israeli fire. They acted, he wrote, ‘out of revenge.’” (Bernard Avishai; The Hebrew Republic; Harcourt; New York: 2008; p. 255.)

-“A new study by America’s National Bureau for Economic Research looking at the circumstances around 4,000 civilian deaths in Afghanistan found a high correlation between NATO killing of even two civilians in an area and a spike of attacks on NATO and US troops. … A heavy footprint and more NATO operations likely will create the monster Washington fears, a growing insurgency, rather than ‘blunting the momentum’ of the ‘Taliban’…” (http://www.juancole.com/2010/07/civilian-casualties-rethinking-afghanistan-pt-4.html)

10. What was the main objective of al-Qaeda for the 9/11 attacks?

-“[B]in Laden, Zawahiri, and company [in the late 1990s] were pursuing bigger ambitions [than other jihadists]—waking the Muslim community from its slumber. … In a secret 1998 letter to another militant—recovered in 2001 from captured Al Qaeda computers in Kabul—Zawahiri points out that Al Qaeda had escalated the fight against ‘the biggest of the criminals, the Americans’ to drag them for an open battle with the nation’s masses[…]” Bin Laden and Zawahiri “expected a Muslim response similar to that following the Russian invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Their goal was to generate a major world crisis, provoking the United States…; American attacks on Muslim countries world reinvigorate and unify a splintered, war-torn jihadist movement and restore its credibility in the eyes of [Muslims]… When the United States invaded Afghanistan, however, Al Qaeda found itself on its own. … No religious authority lent his name and legitimacy to repelling the American troops. … Most jihadists were opposed to what bin Laden had done, some even within his own wing of the movement.” “[S]heikh Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar in Cairo, the oldest religious institution in the Islamic world, swiftly dismissed bin Laden’s jihad credentials as ‘fraudulent’ and warned young Muslims against…Al Qaeda’s call to fight in Afghanistan.” “In contrast to the war in Afghanistan, the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq triggered a torrent of angry responses by Islamists, ulemas, secular Muslims, and religious Muslims alike. … Institutions and clerics urged Muslims to join in jihad with their Iraqi brethren and repel the American invaders. (Fawaz A. Gerges; Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy; Harcourt; New York: 2006; p. 181, 203-4, 209-10, 240-1)

-Group (i.e., non-state) terrorism is done for various reasons including to sabotage a peace process; to exact revenge; to attract attention and resources to an issue; and, to try and induce an entity to overreact in order to augment support for the group.

11. True or False: Over 20% of the respondents of a 2005 Gallup poll of ten predominantly Muslim countries felt the 9/11 attacks were fully justified.

-False. Only 7% felt the 9/11 attacks were fully justified; moreover this 7% was no more or less religious than the other 93%. (Kenneth M. Pollack; A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East; Random House; New York: 2008; p. 209)

-Even “The Hizbollah leadership distanced itself from September 11 and went public in its criticism of Al Qaeda.” (Fawaz A. Gerges; Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy; Harcourt; New York: 2006; p. 189)

12. True or False: Of the seventy-nine worst al-Qa’ida and other Salafi terrorists, more had attended madrasas than regular universities.

-False. 54% attended regular universities and 11% attended madrasas. Indeed, of those who had attended secular institutions, 48% had gone to Western schools. (Kenneth M. Pollack; A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East; Random House; New York: 2008; p. 210.)

13. True or False: The majority of terrorists come from the lower-classes.

-False. “[N]umerous academic and government studies find that terrorists tend to be drawn from well-educated, middle-class or high-income families. Among those who have…studied the issue, there is not much question that poverty has little to do with terrorism. … Most terrorists are not so desperately poor that they have nothing to live for. Instead they are people who care so deeply…about a cause that they are willing to die for it.” (Alan B. Krueger; What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism; Princeton University Press; New Jersey: 2007; pp. 3-4.)

-Throughout history “The leaders of revolutionary movements and their offshoot terrorist groups are almost invariably scions of the middle class, with exceptions from the upper class being at least as prevalent as those from the lower classes.” (Kenneth M. Pollack; A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East; Random House; New York: 2008; p. 178.)

-Terrorists are disproportionately from the middle-class because members of this class suffer most from betrayed expectations. “The unfulfilled expectations of the middle class derived from the [Middle East] region’s economic problems, coupled with (and in part caused by) crippling political practices, is almost certainly a powerful element driving many members of the Arab and Iranian middle classes to opposition and, at the extreme, membership in terrorist organizations.” “[E]conomic factors like poverty or unemployment typically produce revolutionary and/or terrorist responses only when they are coupled with oppressive political forces that deny the individual any hope of bettering his (or her) situation but also serve as a tangible focus of anger.” (Kenneth M. Pollack; A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East; Random House; New York: 2008; pp.180 and 186)

14. Which groups committed the following terrorist acts in Palestine to further nationalist goals?

i) July 22, 1946: Terrorists blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem killing or injuring more than 200 persons.

ii) December 19, 1947: Terrorists attacked a village near Safad, blowing up two houses, in the ruins of which were found the bodies of 10 persons, including 5 children.
iii) December 30,1947: Terrorists attacked the village of Balad al Sheikh, killing more than 60 persons.

iv) March 3, 1948: Terrorists drove an army truck up to a building in Haifa and detonated 400 pounds of explosives that killed 14 persons and injured 23.

-i) The Irgun: Zionist paramilitary group led by future prime minister Menachem Begin. It was classified as a terrorist organization by Israel itself when it became a state in 1948. (http://guardian.150m.com/palestine/jewish-terrorism.htm)

-ii) The Haganah: Jewish paramilitary organization which became the core of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Members of the Haganah included future prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon.

-iii) The Palmach: Elite fighting force of the Haganah. (The Palmach’s last operation as an independent unit was against the Irgun. Perhaps right-wing Jews should not be so smug when they hear of fighting between Fatah and Hamas.)

-iv) The Stern Gang: Radical Zionist paramilitary group that split from the Irgun in 1940. Future Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir was among its leaders.

-“[T]errorism arises when there are few effective alternative means for an extremist group to pursue its aims. If a movement is strong enough to mount a full-fledged civil war, it will wage a full-fledged civil war. I think terrorism tends to arise in situations in which the odds are against the group that is perpetrating the terrorist acts. The tension between Israel and the Palestinians is an example. Israel dominates militarily. A full-fledged war was never a possibility. Historically there were some cases in which terrorism did achieve the goals of an organization, or at least brought the organization closer to achieving its goals. You could probably say that about the formation of the state of Israel.” (Alan B. Krueger; What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism; Princeton University Press; New Jersey: 2007; p. 154)

15. If a terrorist act can be linked to a country or group should that preclude diplomacy with that country or group?

-No. Otherwise North Vietnam and the US—two perpetrators of terror—could not have negotiated in the 1960s/70s, ditto for Egypt and Israel, The US and the USSR, Britain and the IRA, South Africa and the ANC, etc.

-Only actions are unambiguously terrorist or non-terrorist. People and organizations make more or less use of terrorism often in conjunction with other kinds of political action. Terrorism, much of it state terrorism, has been integral to warfare between government and guerillas, just as it has been part of state-on-state warfare.

16. True or False: The internationally respected Goldstone Report accused Israel of terrorizing Gaza’s civilians during the December 2008 Gaza invasion.

-True. Although Israel justified the Gaza invasion as self-defense against Hamas rockets, the Goldstone Report concluded that the attack was “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.” (Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (25 September 2009).)

17. True or False: The religion of Islam is an important cause of terrorism.

-False. Most Arab terrorists “espouse religious zealotry (although many do not actually practice it), but it is their anger and desperation, derived from their circumstances, that drives them to religion and so to the militant groups, not the other way around. Indeed, the slums…of the Arab world are almost uniformly hotbeds of Islamism and provide a seemingly endless supply of new recruits (mostly foot soldiers, but a few leaders) for the Salafi terrorists.” (Kenneth M. Pollack; A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East; Random House; New York: 2008; p. 183)

-“Given that notions of jihad and martyrdom are contested concepts subject to competing interpretations…[i]s the charisma of fanatical leaders sufficient to convince young people to make the ultimate sacrifice, or must there be additional factors such as societal conflicts or cultural facilitators that push individuals to give up their lives?…[T]he causal link between religious inspiration and suicide attacks is not a direct one. One must situate these appeals in broader societal conflicts that allow radical ideologies to resonate with the wider public.” (Mohammed M. Hafez; Manufacturing Human Bombs: The Making of Palestinian Suicide Bombers; United States Institute of Peace Press; Washington D.C.: 2006; p. 10)

-Rather than Islam in particular, it seems that religion in general is what aggravates volatile situations. For example, “Christian fundamentalism is partially to blame for fueling Muslim militancy. Lebanon’s Christians killed and pillaged in the name of the cross…Religious coexistence gave way to estrangement [in the 1970s]…Waving holy banners, neighbor railed against neighbor. People seized upon their communal identity in a desperate effort at self-preservation. The state of war pushed people into their sectarian bunkers and turned an open, tolerant society into a jungle. … Christian fundamentalism, which was xenophobic and supremacist, fed into parallel tendencies in the Muslim camp. More than a hundred thousand people perished in the Lebanese Civil War. A million people—a third of the country’s population—were displaced.” (Fawaz A. Gerges; Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy; Harcourt; New York: 2006; p. 82-83)

18. Which Middle Eastern country suffered an 18 October 2009 Baluchi terrorist attack that killed dozens and that was condemned by the US?

-Iran. “‘We condemn this act of terrorism and mourn the loss of innocent lives,’ said Ian C. Kelly, a State Department spokesman.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/world/middleeast/20iran.html

-Iran also suffers terrorist attacks from Salafis.

-It should be noted that there is not a single known instance of an Iranian suicide-bomber since the end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988. (Robert Baer; The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower; Crown Publishers; New York: 2008) For more details on Iran see “Can You Pass the Iran Quiz”.

19. What are the Annual Risks for an American to die from: Heart disease? Criminal homicide? Lightning strike? Terrorism?

-Heart disease: 1 in 300 people in America typically die of heart disease in a given year; Criminal homicide: 1 in 18,000; Lightning strike: 1 in 3,000,000; Terrorism: 1 in 5,293,000. (Alan B. Krueger; What Makes a Terrorist: Economics and the Roots of Terrorism; Princeton University Press; New Jersey: 2007; p. 139)

-Perhaps if Americans better understood the risk they face from terrorism they would fear it less and thus be less susceptible to manipulation.

20. Has Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad ever deliberately attacked American targets?

-No. However, the PLO, currently the US’s favored Palestinian group, did deliberately attack US targets in the past. The “last attacks that can be tied to elements of the PLO coalition are the 1985 Achille Lauro hijacking by the Palestine Liberation Front and the 1986 hijacking of an American airliner by the Abu Nidal Organization.” (Kenneth M. Pollack; A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East; Random House; New York: 2008; p. 170.)

-Unlike the revolutionary al-Qaida, Hamas is looking to achieve concrete results for occupied and oppressed Palestinians.

-“Central to the IRA’s decision to decommission its weapons was Sinn Fein’s inclusion in the political process. … As Hamas enters and achieves representation within the political process, can this induce it to curtail its campaign of suicide terrorism, as the IRA’s inclusion led to a curtailment of its campaign of terror? [Yet, Israel, the US and other states immediately imposed sanctions on Hamas following its 2006 election victory.]” (Mohammed M. Hafez; Manufacturing Human Bombs: The Making of Palestinian Suicide Bombers; United States Institute of Peace Press; Washington D.C.: 2006; p. xii)

-For more information on Hamas see, “Can You Pass The Hamas Quiz?”

21. True or False: A majority of the people in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates support al-Qa’ida’s goal of creating an Islamic state.

-False. “[T]he vast majority of Arabs and Muslims ardently desire the kind of political pluralism (even democracy…) that bin Ladin and his ilk have declared antithetical to Islam—at least their version of Islam.” (Kenneth M. Pollack; A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East; Random House; New York: 2008; p. 209)

22. True or False: In 1997 a declassified CIA training manual detailed torture methods used against suspected subversives in Central America during the 1980s.

-True. The CIA manual refuted claims by the agency that no such methods were taught by it. The CIA also declassified a Vietnam-era training manual which also taught torture. (Jonathan Barker; The No-Nonsense Guide to Global Terrorism; Between the Lines; Toronto: 2008; p. 85)

Jeffrey Rudolph, a college professor, was the Quebec representative of the East Timor Alert Network, and presented a paper on its behalf at the United Nations. He prepared the widely-distributed “Can You Pass the Israel-Palestine Quiz,” “Can You Pass the Iran Quiz,” and “Can You Pass the Hamas Quiz.” (Comments or questions concerning the quizzes should be emailed to: Israel-Palestine-Quiz@live.com.)

Posted in Afghanistan, Iraq, al-Qaeda | 13 Comments

12 Million Affected by Pakistan Floods

Posted on August 7, 2010 by Juan

The horrific flood in Pakistan, the worst in its history, has now destroyed more homes (650,000) than the 2005 earthquake. And, some 12 million Pakistanis, nearly 10 percent of the country’s population, have been at least somewhat affected by the floods. About 1600 persons have been killed.

The floods, having hit first the Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa Province and the Swat Valley (earlier menaced by the Pakistani Taliban), and then southern Punjab, the floods are now heading toward Sindh, a major agricultural region.

The flooding is also shutting down power plants in a country that only generates 80% of the electricity it needs.

The ruling Pakistan People’s Party is being widely criticized for its failure to respond to the massive needs of the people, generated by this catastrophe. And President Asaf Ali Zardari’s visit to the UK, where he met with British Prime Minister David Cameron, has provoked a firestorm of criticism from Pakistanis who think he should have stayed home and helped manage the crisis.

Anything that could pull down the government, as an inept response to the flood could, has security implications in the fight against the Taliban. (The Pakistani Taliban have actually taken advantage of the chaos to launch some attacks).

Aljazeera English has video on the Punjab situation:

And here is AJE’s report on the Swat Valley:

Posted in Pakistan, Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Pentagon Quest for Wikileaks Mirrors Plot of Eisler Thriller

Posted on August 7, 2010 by Juan

The Pentagon is pressuring wikileaks not only not to release more classified documents about the Afghanistan war but to take down the files already posted.. A reader at reddit.com said that the statement showed that the Pentagon does not understand how the Internet works.

The CSM quotes a former FBI official who concedes that probably the Department of Defense cannot do anything about the leaks. But she means legally. Julian Assange posted a large encrypted file called ‘insurance’, presumably to avoid rendition, a non-legal solution.

It struck me that many of these plot elements strongly resemble those of Barry Eisler’s riveting new thriller, Inside Out.. The quest for sensitive classified information, the Internet insurance file, the pressure, the spinning of the leaker… It is eerie.

As you head off to the beach, do yourself a favor and take Eisler’s novel with. As a former CIA analyst, he knows how it is done.

My fans will be interested to know that a namesake of mine makes a cameo appearance.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Dispute over Civilian Casualties Roils US-Afghan Relations

Posted on August 6, 2010 by Juan

Between 4 and 12 civilians were killed by US troops in a nighttime raid in Nangarhar province on Wednesday, NATO admitted today. Nangarhar has repeatedly been the scene of public protests against the foreign troop presence. In fact, the wikileaks Pentagon documents show that local protests against US and NATO troops have been widespread, routine, and largely unreported in the Western press. In Nangarhar, protesters have sometimes blocked main roads, demanding that the Yankees go home.

NATO is still denying a massacre of civilians in Sangin, Helmand Province, last month. But on Friday the presidential palace in Afghanistan issued a report finding that 39 civilians were killed in the fighting. Civilian casualties are the main cause of dissatisfaction on the part of most Afghans with the NATO & US troops in their country, and the Sangin finding signals an unwillingness of President Hamid Karzai to play the issue down down or sweep it under the rug.

Brave New Foundation has video interviews with the survivors at Sangin:

That the Pentagon and NATO cover up Afghan civilian deaths on a routine basis is clear from the Wikileaks documents on the Afghanistan war, and it is hard not to see the Pentagon’s stonewalling on Sangin as part of this long-term and widespread pattern.

The usually unflappable Tom Engelhardt is exercised that White House and Pentagon officials denigrated Wikileaks founder Julian Assange as having blood on his hands when the very documents they are trying to cover up or from which they wish to avert attention are chock full of reports of innocent civilians killed, with GIs sometimes covering up the killings via euphemisms or incomplete reporting. Engelhardt is also right that the US press reaction to the leaked documents was to mostly ignore the issue of Afghan civilian deaths, unlike the Guardian in the UK.

What you want to bet that at some point the Pentagon comes forward, and admits that there were after all some Afghan civilians killed at Sangin, but that they will do it after the controversy has died down, and they will minimize the numbers (that 4-12 thing is a pretty good trick, since they hope people will focus on the ’4′ and will also disregard Afghan claims of many more killed.)

For more reporting on the Forgotten War, see Ann Jones at Tomdispatch, who has lived and breathed it on the ground.

In all wars, control of press reporting on the war effort is one key to success and public support. Since the fighting in Afghanistan is so hard to cover up close for independent reporters, they are mostly forced to do a Soviet-style embed, where they risk losing their objectivity and are sometimes turned into active-duty soldiers themselves. Being embedded thus becomes highly desirable, and can be doled out to reporters as a privilege for cheerleading the war. Thus, reporters such as Michael Hastings, who wrote the McChrystal story for Rolling Stone that got the general fired, has been turned down for a spot as an embed.

That will teach him to tell the unvarnished truth about that war.

Posted in Afghanistan | 8 Comments

Mosque Building and Gay Marriage vs. Mob Rule by the Right

Posted on August 5, 2010 by Juan

The
decision of a US district court to strike down Proposition 8, the California referendum item that made gay marriage illegal after it had earlier been legalized ~~by the state assembly~~, was a blow for individual rights over a tyranny of the majority. In its form, it resembles the decision of the New York authorities to allow a Muslim community center to be built near Ground Zero, which Sarah Palin and other prominent Republican Party bigots have decried as “insensitive.”

Both in the instance of gay marriage and of mosque-building, the American Right mounts opposition on grounds of majority ideas and feelings triumphing over individual rights. No one denies that Muslims have a first amendment right to build a mosque, and it is hard to see why straight people should have a right to get married (which brings substantial social and economic perquisites) but gay people should not.

The right wing argues that Muslims and gays should give up their rights in deference to the moral sensibilities and emotional sensitivities of the majority. This is called a ‘tyranny of the majority’ and it is an evil of which Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and the other Founding Generation of Americans were well aware.

One principle Jefferson put forward for taming this tendency of the majority to whittle down the rights of the minority was of non-harm. His argument for freedom of religion, for instance, was that “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
– Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82

Thus, we could argue on Jeffersonian grounds that gay marriage or mosque-building does no material harm to other individuals, and therefore should not be prohibited by the government or by factions in control of the apparatus of government. In fact the judge in the Prop 8 case pointed out that no religious group had been required to recognize gay marriage, so Prop 8 could not be held to redress a wrong to such groups.

The Founding Generation thought that the default was individual freedom. You should be able to do as you please if it does not produce a property or contractual tort toward others.

The current iteration of the American right wing does not accept this Jeffersonian principle. Sarah Palin pleaded with ‘moderate’ Muslims not to build a Muslim community center near ground zero because it would hurt her constituents’ feelings. Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, a strident component of the Israel lobbies, likewise opposes the building of a Muslim community center in New York on the grounds that it would hurt the feelings of families of September 11 attack victims (even though those attacks were by a small mad cult, not by Muslims). He said that the issue was not rights but doing what is right. But he means by ‘what is right’ that the minority should relinquish its legal rights in order to avoid an affront to the sensibilities of the majority. That way lies, e.g. refusal to oppose Jim Crow. You wonder if Foxman thinks that there should be no synagogues near the US naval academy in Annapolis, Maryland, to avoid offending those who feel strongly about the Israeli attack in 1967 on the USS Liberty. Likewise, those who oppose gay marriage do so on the grounds that they think it is immoral, and that it devalues straight marriage. I.e. it hurts their feelings.

Legislating a reduction in the rights of some so as to avoid offending the majority is a tyranny of the majority. It is an evil temptation within any democratic system. Madison thought that representative government could temper the passions of direct democracy and so perhaps avoid the worst excesses of majoritarian oppression. The California referendum system that allowed a popular vote (bought in part with Mormon funding) to over-rule the government of California is precisely the sort of outcome Madison feared. But his other hope was that a separation of powers might work against a tyranny of the majority. For the moment, an independent judiciary has indeed weighed in. But the supreme court itself has increasingly become a tool of the majoritarian establishment, and it is not clear that it is capable at this juncture of playing the role envisaged for it by Madison.

But this is what is at stake in both gay marriage and Muslim mosque building from the point of view of those who believe in the American tradition of civil liberties for individuals, in the default position that the government has no business regulating unharmful individual activity. It is nothing less than the assertion of inalienable rights over the whims and emotions of a very large mob.

Posted in Islamophobia | 22 Comments