Change.org's War and Peace Blog

Chechnya's Security Brain Drain

Daniel J Gerstle — 2010-02-09T12:27:00-08:00

Chechnya, how long must this go on? In light of renewed advocacy for survivors of massacre in the Chechnya region of southern Russia from Amnesty, the Center for the Protection of Journalists, and other organizations, the institute for the study of everything should really do a follow-up study on the effects of brain drain on a region's security.

We've heard for a decade about the shift of the most educated and resourced people away from regions suffering economic or political collapse. But what about the self-selection process when progressive, peaceful, as well as cunning intelligent people, refuse careers in security, so that the third-tier candidates make up the ranks of security organizations?

Back in 2006 during my brief stint in Ingushetia, Chechnya, and North Ossetia, I had three talks with Russia's federal security bureau. Each time, young men who appeared to have been clawing their eyes out in their sleep (such were the red scratch marks above their cheeks), asked me some broad and some silly questions.

Their goal was to begin softly, then agitate with surprising questions to see if I slipped and contradicted myself. It's the usual welcome for all foreign aid workers to a region troubled by war and threat for two decades. Why did you come here? Why do you want to help Chechens? How did you meet your driver? Why do you give cows to farmers? Where do you get these "cows"?

No wonder they find it easier to lob mortars than to build partnerships for peace.

For newcomers to the topic, Russia's point of view is that they want to preserve their union and reduce an 18-year-old insurgency. However, their security forces, both Russian and local Chechen, Ingush, Dagestani, and Ossetian, have proven completely inept at winning the support of the population. To prevent insurgents from blowing up their police post, they tend to hunt the insurgents down by arresting neighbors, friends, and passersby, putting up blast walls around neighborhoods, blocking the flow of traffic and goods, and then, only after all of this, do they sit down and talk to the locals about how to improve their lot. Russians largely want peace and unity, but the government agents focused in the south seem to be obsessed with military counter-insurgency at the cost of democratic development.

For more on the opposition's critique of the Russian government in Chechnya, see this collaborative event led by PEN America. The event included a talk between Tanya Lokshina (Human Rights Watch) and Elena Milashina (Novaya Gazeta), and hosted by Ann Cooper (Committee to Protect Journalists), focusing on assassinated rights worker, Natalia Estimirova.

Props also to Almut Rochowanski for efforts of the Chechnya Advocacy Network. For a look at Dagestan, here's Robert A Horton's study backed by Timo Vogt's photography. And here are some photos from Ingushetia from yours truly.

Photo credit: Daniel J Gerstle (An Ingush women rides past destroyed buildings in Grozny, Chechnya)

Obama's Disappointing Record on National Security Law

jake horowitz — 2010-02-09T10:34:00-08:00

As the blogosphere remains abuzz over Sarah Palin's latest burst of political thunder, progressives are rightfully seething over the Cheney-esque attacks that she leveled against President Obama's national security policy during her keynote address to the Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee.

Resorting to the same crass and ideologically-driven language that so often filled her 2008 campaign speeches, Palin censured the Obama administration for its handling of the constitutional issues associated with the war on terrorism, declaring that in order to "win the war [on terrorism], we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law." Palin's poignant critique came in reference to her complaint that President Obama offered constitutional protections to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day underwear bomber.

In directly undermining President Obama's status as commander-in-chief, as well as renewing the tired Republican logic that civil liberties are necessarily antithetical to our national security, Palin's criticisms are certainly regrettable (Note: even conservative Fox News host Brian Kilmeade conceded that Palin showed disrespect for Obama's presidential authority). But, Palin's remarks are even more misplaced because of the regrettable extent to which President Obama has actually often failed to follow through on his all-important campaign pledge to restore and uphold the rule of law in the war against terrorism.

If only Obama were acting more like a professor of domestic and international law.

One wonders how the civilian victims of Obama's ever-expanding use of targeted assassinations and drone attacks inside Pakistan, the Arab-American citizens now subject to expansive racial profiling and invasive security checks at America's airports, or the families of the victims of Blackwater's Nisour Square massacre who have yet to see Obama hold private military contractors operating in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan accountable to the law, might react to Palin's latest statements.

Obama has hardly been a voice of progressive change on issues of national security law, and many human rights groups and civil liberties lawyers are fuming over his failure to embark upon a more wholesale departure from the Bush administration's handling of the rule of law in the "War on Terror".

At times, the two administrations have seemed indistinguishable. A quick review of the headlines from just the past two weeks reveal the extent to which the Obama and Bush national security policies bear striking resemblance:

- In a shocking admission bound to generate continued controversy in the coming weeks, Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, acknowledged in a congressional hearing last week that the President has the executive authority to authorize the assassination of U.S. citizens who are suspected of being involved in terrorism abroad. Renewing a policy that President Bush championed in the aftermath of 9/11, Obama has apparently personally authored a "hit list" of American citizens living abroad for the CIA to hunt down and kill. Never mind that this extra-judicial execution of U.S. citizens could very well violate both international human rights law and the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. constitution.

- As I have extensively documented elsewhere, the U.S. Special Operations Forces is now operating a network of secret detention sites throughout Afghanistan where prisoners are being aggressively interrogated and possibly even tortured. Much like the horrific scenes from Guantanamo Bay, Afghan detainees are being held underground for weeks on end, without access to the International Committee of the Red Cross or legal counsel.

- Obama's Justice Department has recently determined that nearly 50 of the remaining 196 detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay will be imprisoned there indefinitely, without access to trial. Considering these prisoners too dangerous to release, but unwilling to put the detainees on trial (largely because the government lacks the requisite evidence to convict), the Obama administration has continued Bush's reliance on indefinite detention, a practice that human rights advocates have deemed unconstitutional.

- According to Newsweek, the Obama administration is set to exonerate senior Bush administration lawyers who were instrumental in authorizing and implementing torture at Guantanamo Bay. In a report set to be released later this year, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) will clear both John Yoo and Jay Bybee -- the two Bush lawyers who drafted an August 2002 legal opinion that authorized CIA officers to use brutal methods when interrogating detainees -- of all misconduct. Evidently, Obama has no intention of faithfully upholding the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions, when it comes to prosecuting past crimes from the Bush era.

These are surely not the progressive policies one might have expected from a former distinguished liberal law professor who pledged to restore the rule of law in America's fight against al Qaeda upon taking office.

Palin's critiques get to the crux of the problem plaguing Obama throughout his first year in office: so eager to walk both sides of the political aisle and appeal to liberals and conservatives alike, he has alienated his progressive base, at times caving on the very key issues which had mobilized voters on the left to support the president throughout his 2008 presidential campaign.

There have been some encouraging signs: Obama's renunciation of secret CIA prisons and his decision to ban torture, along with his pledge to close Guantanamo Bay and his determination to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian courts, all represent positive steps in his quest to square the rule of law with America's national security policy. But, in his tireless effort to gain bipartisan support and walk the political center, he has too often been willing to sacrifice civil liberties and discard international law in trying to protect American lives.

As the 2010 mid-term election season rapidly approaches, Palin's comments are sure to reignite the Republican flame over Obama's national security policy and revive conservative critiques that the Democrats are soft on terrorism. If Obama bows to this partisan political pressure, however, his presidency will be remembered not for the "hopey-changey thing," in the words of Palin herself, but for his inability to take a firmer stand and distance himself from Bush administration policies on key areas of national security law.

Obama has made it abundantly clear that he will not follow Britain's lead by launching an investigation of former Bush administration officials for possible war crimes in the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War. Disappointing as this stance may be to his progressive base, if Obama is to move forward and uphold the rule of law in the ongoing fight against terrorism, he must disregard Palin and simultaneously serve as both a commander-in-chief AND a professor of the law.

Photo credit: Shallow Nation

Foreign Aid Reform: Enhance Disaster Preparedness and Peacebuilding

Daniel J Gerstle — 2010-02-09T06:54:00-08:00

Several years back, when I was heavily engaged in hunger prevention research on Africa and Central Asia, there was a fascinating dual between a BBC radio reporter and a representative of the World Food Programme (WFP) regarding Zambia and southern Africa.

The reporter, meaning well, hit hard with questions about why the WFP had sounded alarms for urgent fundraising to prevent thousands of famine deaths in the region, when in fact after the rush there turned out to be few deaths associated with the food shortages. The WFP rep sounded so bewildered by the question that you could hear him blinking in reaction to the reporter's lack of understanding, rather than defending the agency's move. The reporter nevertheless won the duel, slamming the agency for wasting everyone's time and funding a non-emergency.

The episode illuminates one of the terrific troubles in acting to prevent mass casualty disasters before they happen. Many donor representatives, though not all, still judge the urgency of an emergency by the rate of death, rather than the harder to gauge early warnings of coming death and suffering.

The ultimate irony is that in many cases when the agencies and governments made good decisions, or when the emergency rarely dissolves with a new round of trade agreements or rain, thus preventing mass casualties, the alarm-sounders have sometimes been accused of exaggerating the threat.

In fact, as aid evolves, experts are realizing that investing in preventive measures costs less over the long run both in financing and in lives. This ranges from earthquake retro-fitting, to carving logistical channels, building retaining walls to slow desertification, irrigating drying regions, educating people on preventive health, and to the ultimate mother of all preventive measures, peacebuilding.

Last week when I was in a rather dark place I wrote a post asking, "Why Does Humanitarian Donor Response Value the Dead Over the Living?" This is the very conundrum I was belly-aching about. Now that I've pulled my head out of my ass I thought I should jump in and write this follow up with clarity and solutions. Helena Kulyk and Doug Samuelson wrote in with important points of view on the question.

Helena wrote, "This country is far more apathetic than described. Just look in your own community to see the poverty." Meanwhile, Doug penned, countering my criticism, "We're constantly bombarded with dire warnings and pleas for aid...How many of those 200,000 people killed by the earthquake in Haiti would still be alive now if we had sent more food and clothing and blankets six months ago?"

Preventive measures are not simply more products delivered sooner, but are investments in protection systems much the same many Western countries have made over time. Take California and the American southwest, for example. See the photo above?

A building likely built before earthquake-sound building codes collapsed at great cost. Meanwhile, the neighboring building is just fine. That's why a horrific earthquake like 1997 San Francisco only killed a handful of people despite it's raw power while the same scale of earthquake kills 200,000 in Haiti. Building codes. Technology transfer. Emergency systems. It doesn't happen overnight, but once the construction companies are held to a standard, then every new building is one more family safe the next time the earth shakes.

With the U.S. government's bi-partisan effort to reform foreign aid, hopefully to be reflected also in domestic policies, there is another great opportunity for advocates for preventive measures to put their proposals ahead. The trouble is, as the story of Zambia points out, often prevention advocates only have small windows of time after mass casualty disasters to get the attention of donor representatives.

Sadly, donor representatives and policy-makers tend to assume the alarm-ringers are exaggerating when they claim a Pacific volcano is about to kill 50,000 people. But after the lava begins pouring molten rock over young Fatma and Gehildamet, then the purse-keepers will suddenly agree that it's a concern and slip a few extra coins into the account.

Again, compare California's dustbowl which ravaged the rural communities of the Depression era. Today irrigation channels make the region one of the best growers of oranges, limes, grapes, melons, and garlic. Similarly, the semi-arid areas of Somalia or Afghanistan could be saved, turned green again in many areas with the right investments in pasture retention, rain-water harvesting, and irrigation from water tables over several decades.

Consider the prevention advocates' early successes in the U.S. government Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance's Preparedness and Mitigation Programs. The projects are wonderful examples of how the U.S. is paying vital attention. But the examples are still relatively small. This is because democratization, education, and after-disaster response still rank highest on priority charts over preventive measures.

For an advanced look into the future of a reformed humanitarian aid world (given donors follow suit), check out the Inter-Agency Working Group's Humanitarian Horizons Project's A Practitioner's Guide to the Future. For donors and aid workers, this is an absolute must read. Thanks to Change.org veteran Michael Bear for forwarding it.

Finally, if you want to ring in on U.S. foreign aid reform in addition to Change.org's actions, check out USAID's vague starting outline for foreign aid reform plans. You can also write in your own priorities on Oxfam-America's write-in letter on US foreign aid reform.

Peace.

Photo credit: Hey Paul (A house built which withstood the Paso Robles earthquake beside one which failed at great cost)

Could an Iranian Counter-Revolution Go Velvet?

Daniel J Gerstle — 2010-02-08T14:40:00-08:00

Like many Iran followers, my every engagement with the people, language, and news from the country brings me back to the very same question. Would an Iranian counter-revolution go velvet?

In other words, if the democratic opposition in the country managed to shake the foundations of Iran and encourage serious reforms, could the transition happen peacefully? What if the Western nations finally lent their full support to the opposition?

In yesterday's New York Times and International Herald Tribune, some of our heroes of the Nobel Peace Prize left as well as a number of Nobel laureates in the sciences published a full page letter calling for the U.S., Russia, UK, and Germany to put the weight of their support behind democracy activists in Iran. As a huge fan of Elie Wiesel, Betty Williams, and Jody Williams, I am enthused to bring the news to you, and to encourage you to make the same calls for change.

However, in support of the call, I'm actually shocked that the letter did not directly address the reasons these governments have not yet put their full weight behind democracy advocates in Iran. Isn't that the most important detail in advocating for policy change? The U.S., for example, is not failing to support the Iranian reformers because they don't think the Iranian government hasn't done anything wrong. The U.S. is cautious for two huge, delicate reasons which must be reconciled before it is safe to put U.S. support behind the reformers.

First, Iranian security is sometimes using ties to U.S. government agencies, Western press, and political persuasion organizations like the Open Society Institute as flags to indicate which Iranian citizens to focus serious surveillance attention to, if not arrest. The Iranian government already executed two demonstration organizers. If the U.S. increased its support for reformers suddenly, Iran's security apparatus would dramatically increase arrests and threats to anyone connected to such support.

Second, although historical models are not always helpful, I think there's a case to be made that if the democrats manage to secure the beginnings of serious reforms it will create an avalanche that would not necessarily go velvet like lovely 1989 Czechoslovakia. More likely, given the circumstances, it would range somewhere from 2000s Indonesia (very painful yet somehow barely working out) to 1980s Lebanon (blood bath).

Perhaps our leaders in peace need to be more clear. Should we advocate for full U.S., Russian, UK, and German support to democracy reformers to the extent of more loudly criticizing the Iranian government alone? Funding reformers at a risk of increasing their troubles with state security? Or backing them even if the pressure turns the battle into civil war?

As for this writer, I obviously do not hold a Nobel, so admittedly I'm writing from the press box. However, I do think that calls for policy change should not simply criticize but should directly address the reasons the policy leaders are either indifferent or cautious.

We want to support reform in Iran, but we do not want to create a civil war. The forward, yet peaceful path requires passion but also finesse, detail, and nuance. We do hope to see democracy leaders working together with Islamic reformers in the current government with gradual changes, not a NATO war against the Ayatollahs with Iranian students as the cannon fodder.

Photo credits: Hamed Saber (Tehran democracy demonstration) and 27389271 (Tehran Basji offices besieged by protesters)

John Murtha's Legacy on the Iraq War

Michael A. Jones — 2010-02-08T12:52:00-08:00

Rep. John Murtha, the stalwart and hawkish Democrat from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, died today after complications arising from gall bladder surgery. Murtha was the first ever Vietnam combat veteran elected to Congress, and he spent most of his Congressional career focusing on issues of defense and military affairs.

In recent years, perhaps nothing defined Rep. Murtha's career more than his opposition to the Iraq War. After originally voting to authorize the use of force in Iraq in 2002, Rep. Murtha switched gears -- and got heads turning -- when in 2005 he called for an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and sharply criticized the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War.

Among certain circles, Rep. Murtha's criticism sparked a sea change in dialogue over the Iraq War. At the time Rep. Murtha was roundly praised by more conservative members of both parties as an authority on military affairs, commanding great respect from politicians and military leaders alike. His turn on the Iraq War not only was an about face in terms of his past votes, it also created space within the Democratic (and Republican, to some extent) parties for more fierce criticism of the way the Bush administration handled the Iraq War.

“The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring [U.S. troops] home," Murtha said in 2005.

Talk about becoming a thorn in the side of Bush administration policy. Murtha would later go on to say that the current Iraq War was his biggest regret, and that it ruined his friendship with former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Scandals and a reputation for delivering a lot of pork to his district certainly also shaped Murtha's political reputation. But his last few years in office will definitely be remembered as a time where he gave cover to opponents of war who were up until 2005 so often accused of not supporting the troops. With Murtha, you had someone who was mostly beloved by the military, conservative in his bonafides, but recognized that the Bush administration didn't have the talent or the skill set to deliver the peace in Iraq.

Photo credit: defense.gov

Sarah Palin on National Security

Michael A. Jones — 2010-02-08T08:37:00-08:00

Sarah Palin made the rounds this weekend, from the Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee to the tubes of Fox News, articulating a vision of U.S. national security less grounded in geopolitics than rooted in taunts of "We want a pitcher, not a glass of water."

Palin, who needed help from the palm of her hand in order to express her concerns with Obama's national security policy, taunted the President for being soft on national security issues. For Palin, in order to win the War on Terror, we need someone who will blow stuff up, not practice diplomacy.

"[Terrorists] know we're at war. And to win that war, we need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern!" Palin shouted on Saturday night to hoots and hollers from the Tea Party crowd. Yes, instead of a professor of law, maybe we need someone who took seven years to finish an undergraduate degree. In journalism.

Palin then went on Fox News the next morning, to talk about how President Obama could significantly boost his approval ratings if he were to call for a preemptive war with Iran.

"Say [Obama] played, and I got this from [Pat] Buchanan, reading one of his columns the other day, say he played the war card," Palin said. "Say he decided to declare war on Iran, or decided to really come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do ... if he did, things would dramatically change, if he decided to toughen up and do all that he can to secure our nation and our allies."

Didn't we learn last decade that preemptive war wasn't tough, but stupid?

Yowsa. Add to that getting foreign policy advice from a column written by Pat Buchanan -- you know, the guy who encouraged Nixon to use racism as a campaign tactic -- and you have to really wonder how this woman got within striking distance of the White House. Forget Canada. If Palin becomes President at any time in my lifetime, I'm moving to the moon Pandora.

Photo credit: auburnxc

Killing Vets Softly With Our Apathy

Daniel J Gerstle — 2010-02-05T12:39:00-08:00

Lily Casura, who runs the site HealingCombatTrauma.com, has been rallying vets and concerned citizens behind calls for the government to do more to reduce veteran suicides. Often the topic is not far from our minds, particularly for those who have served in the military and/or worked or lived in a war zone, but rarely does one figure out what to do about it.

She recommended this event recording from Swords to Ploughshares during which experts discuss this very question. To add background, I asked her if she'd list any must-reads for people new and old to the topic of combat stress and treatment.

"In five years of reading literally everything I can find on the topic, there are really only three articles that have stood out as superb," Casura said. 'The Long Shadow of War,' by Kathy Dobie, published in GQ, December, 2007; 'Denial in the Corps,' by Kathy Dobie, published in The Nation, January 31, 2008; [and] 'The Life and Lonely Death of Noah Pierce,' by Ashley Gilbertson, published in Virginia Quarterly Review, Fall, 2008.'

The topic of suicide among veterans reminds me of how difficult it is for many people, including active duty soldiers, to empathize with someone living with post-combat stress or unrelated stress as a combat vet.

Growing up, even learning my great uncles fought in the South Pacific and my uncle fired artillery in Vietnam, I never asked them about it. I'd gleefully dive into war films, even sensing the actors, young Martin or Charlie Sheen, going through some kind of mental metamorphosis, but I never thought that had anything to do with my uncles.

When I joined the US Marine Reserves eventually, I was too busy trying to be a bad ass to ask recent veterans of the first Iraq War, Lebanon, and Panama how they prepared themselves or treated themselves mentally. There were definitely four channels soldiers split into, however. There were thinkers and there were doers; there were those who would have to kill and those who would be in the back with the gear. The toughest group were the thinkers who would have to kill; toughest in spirit, but also the most vulnerable to mental wrestling.

Repelled from any hardcore emotional talk with fellow Marines due to the hyper-competitiveness of my units, I only really got it after going to war zones as a civilian.

Right after the Bosnian War ended in 1996, I traveled over land doing research and stayed in Zivinice with two brothers who were very recent veterans from trench warfare along the Banovici front. They split two ways.

Sadik, the younger brother, turned his needs outward. "My girlfriend is coming and we're going to fuck," he told me, a relative stranger. He ended up working for Brown & Root translating for Americans building US military bases. He was all about going out and meeting people and blowing off the war experience whenever he could. He told me he saw horrors, lost teeth, but generally thought it best to have physical catharsis.

But his older brother, Mehmet, was twisted inside. He showed me how he had lost the four fingers off of one hand when a grenade went off, killing his fellow soldiers. But more telling was what he wouldn't talk about.

His wife waited until he went out of the room and then explained how he was feeling guilty for being a burden on the family. It was hard for him to work, so he remained at home. However, his sleeping was so erratic and disturbed that even his two sons, aged 4 and 6, had begun having nightmares about their father having nightmares. The veteran was working on his own issues, only to have them spill over onto the rest of the family, and it overwhelmed him with guilt.

Veteran suicide is not only about the guy who volunteered for war. It's about him, about his wife and kids, his parents, the people he works with, the people who own the lot where he spends time pacing, the social service agencies, the people he fought to protect and on and on. Sometimes we have to mind our own business. But the least we can do as concerned citizens is respect that there's much more to a person than appearances, and that each vet is an equal part of our community, if not a leader among us.

Check out HealingCombatTrauma.com for additional reading and networking on these issues.

Also, see our very own Michael A Jones' previous post here on Change.org: "Veteran Suicide Rate Skyrockets."

Photo credit: Beverly & Pack

Torture Survivors Should Have the Right to Sue

Michael A. Jones — 2010-02-05T09:42:00-08:00

Imagine if your next door neighbor was a former foreign military official who ordered the use of torture, rape, and murder on innocent civilians in their home country. Wouldn't you like to see them brought to justice, instead of living an accountability-free life here in the United States?

If only common sense could judge this one. Instead, the U.S. Supreme Court will, when it hears arguments next month in the case of Samantar v. Yousuf. At issue will be whether the nine Justices believe that former foreign government officials who take up residence in the U.S. can have charges brought against them for egregious human rights violations they may have committed back in their home country.

Human rights abusers and torture proponents would like immunity here in the States. That would afford them a life where they can buy a nice home in the suburbs, snag a great cable TV package, have groceries delivered to their house, and put up a nice picket fence. Meanwhile, the people they tortured would still have to live with the daily nightmares of their pain and anguish.

Oh, Supreme Court. First you hand over our elections to foreign corporations. Now might you hand over immunity to human rights abusers, too?

Human rights groups aren't taking this one lying down. Instead, they're pummeling the U.S. Supreme Court with briefs urging the nation's highest court to rule that a piece of U.S. legislation -- the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act -- does not give immunity to foreign leaders who abuse their citizens. One of the briefs, signed by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, and Human Rights First (among others), argues that torturers shouldn't be given a Get Out of Jail Free card.

"Survivors of torture have a legal right to a remedy. U.S. courts must enforce that right," said Vienna Colucci, Senior Advisor for Policy at Amnesty International USA. Seriously, would Justice Scalia or Justice Alito really want to tell torture survivors to just keep their torments and pain to themselves?

The specific case in question centers around a former Somali military general, Mohamed Ali Samantar. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia now, but years ago he ordered the torture of Bashe Abdi Yousuf, a former Somali citizen who now lives here in the U.S. What did Samantar order? Well, he had military officers tie Yousuf up. He had officers electrocute Yousuf. And then he ordered that Yousuf be pinned under heavy rocks for hours at a time.

Does the U.S. Supreme Court really want to affirm that kind of behavior?

Photo credit: takomabibelot

Why Does Humanitarian Donor Response Value the Dead Over the Living?

Daniel J Gerstle — 2010-02-04T10:25:00-08:00

"Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering," wrote Dostoevsky. His words may have responded to the common habit we humans (I include myself here) have of ignoring people when they're alive, then rushing to their funerals with bushels of flowers.

Lately, the wildly popular response to the serious Haiti earthquake disaster, juxtaposed with widespread apathy for similarly deadly long-term crises like Congo, Somalia, maternal mortality and malaria, has me wondering whether we humans value the dead more than the living. Oh yes, prepare for a dark, dark, but honest blog post.

Funerals, memorials, and death scenes are big hits in human culture, as are war stories, murder, mysteries, and game shows in which contestants endure pain for money and cheers. Realizing this absurd, undeniable truth about our majority feels only more confounding when coupled with the second sad, undeniable truth that we tend to scoff at, ignore, and sometimes laugh at dire warnings that precede said tragedies.

Long before the earthquake killed tens of thousands in Haiti, there was a running civil conflict, horrific public health crises, et cetera. Aid agencies including the UN and U.S. government offices simply could not raise enough funds to prevent so much suffering from violence, tuberculosis, and other threats in Haiti.

But once tens of thousands, perhaps as many as 200,000, were pancaked under buildings, we're all rallying to send donations and get seats at the latest speeches and documentaries. Guess what? Though it is kind to help the many survivors, remember that the dead who we failed to help before the latest disaster can't eat canned goods.

Across the globe, there are millions of people who do call for help before mass casualties, including hundreds of thousands of aid workers who have been shouting into the global bull horns for help in Congo, Sudan, Somalia, and Haiti, and for maternal and child mortality, malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV.

However, donors historical, despite many attempts to update the trend, tend to categorize the "seriousness" of a crisis by the numbers dead, when it is often too late. Sadly, those who only respond with their pocket books and corporate logistics networks after mass casualties are the first to criticize those aid workers for not moving fast enough.

Surely the worst periods for Haiti were the day of the disaster -- when we wouldn't yet have been able to have moved resources in mass quantities -- and the period coming in about two or three weeks when donors begin to see the death toll taper off despite the fact that the needs of the living are beginning to rise in reaction to the growing gap in income.

Why do humans collectively ignore dire warnings of coming doom, then rally in force after people are killed and maimed? For cynics, the question leads to another, whether we value the recent dead more than the barely living?

Is it because we think the recent dead are arriving at orientation for Heaven and we're worried what they will fill out on their earth evaluation forms?

Or worse, perhaps we find it easier to respond to body counts than forewarnings because one can show compassion without obligation?

You may now throw tomatoes.

(Peter Daou makes a different, but similar case at UN Dispatch.)

Photo credit: Simminch

Israel’s Female Soldiers Inflict Greatest Suffering

jake horowitz — 2010-02-04T07:49:00-08:00

Women serving in the Israeli army in the West Bank are often more brutal and violent toward Palestinian civilians than their male comrades. That’s according to a report released this past weekend by Breaking the Silence, an organization of both male and female Israeli army reservists who are speaking out against their country’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The new report, which features the testimonies of more than 50 female soldiers who have served in various military posts in the West Bank, offers some truly grim revelations about life as a woman in the Israeli military. "We discovered that the girls try to be even more violent and brutal than the boys, just to become one of the guys,” said the project’s director Dana Golan.

In recent years, females have become increasingly involved in combat and field operations in the Israeli army, and many have daily encounters with Palestinian civilians at checkpoints, roadblocks, and in Palestinian communities in the West Bank. In order to prove their worth as “fighters” to both their Israeli male counterparts and the Palestinians, who, they believe, have a more difficult time obeying women in uniform, these women often inflict even greater suffering on Palestinian civilians.

According to one soldier, “A female combat soldier needs to prove more … a female soldier who beats up others is a serious fighter … when I arrived there was another female there with me … everyone spoke of how impressive she is because she humiliates Arabs without any problem.”

Since when did humiliating civilians become a badge of honor?

The accounts of violence are downright horrifying. The soldiers admit various instances in which they spit on Palestinian civilians for entertainment, took Palestinian men into army tents and beat them in their private areas, stole Palestinians’ food and vandalized their property, and fired rubber bullets into demonstrators’ chests for sport. Often, to break-up the boredom of monitoring checkpoints all day, some women say they would round up innocent civilians, blame them for crimes they did not commit, and proceed to mercilessly beat them.

Perhaps the gravest of the stories comes from Hebron, where one female soldier said that her unit had a hobby of firing toy guns at Palestinian children. She noted, “Those plastic pellets really hurt … you're sitting on guard and 'tak' you fire at a kid, 'tak' -– you fire at another kid.”

Since this graphic and chilling report was released, the Israeli army has attempted to discredit the female soldiers by questioning their “reliability” and attempting to cast them as just a “few bad apples”. When measured against the soldiers’ repeated and detailed accounts of systematic humiliation, cruelty, violence, theft, and killing, however, this thinly veiled attempt at damage control simply does not stand up.

Asked how the situation that the female soldiers face in the West Bank might be improved, one interviewee responded, “The system is deeply flawed. The entire administration, the way things are run, it's not right.”

Rather than distancing themselves from these women’s reports, the Israeli military and government would be well-served to look inward and thoroughly examine the society that not only forces teenage men and women to serve in the military, but also sends its soldiers on brutalizing and violent missions in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli government's egregious failure to recognize and end a military occupation in which beating and humiliating civilians has become an entertaining pastime is the real silence that must be broken.

Photo credit: Shuk One

Displaced Somalis Support American Haiti Response (Kind of)

Sidney Traynham — 2010-02-03T16:47:00-08:00

It’s a beautiful thing when the world comes together to support America’s efforts in Haiti. Just ask some war-displaced Somalis, Darfuris and Pakistanis.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) sent emails to its regional offices requesting that they cut their humanitarian budgets by 40 percent in order to support the massive humanitarian response in Haiti. And while there are some promises that these budget cuts will eventually be replenished, it all seems a bit, well … immoral.

As the humanitarian assistance arm of the U.S. Agency for International Development, OFDA oversees and funds the American government’s response to humanitarian catastrophes –- ranging from assisting cyclone survivors in Burma to supporting conflict-displaced Darfuris.

OFDA funds are not the budgets for long-term development projects that help poor people become less poor. This is the pool of money that helps people not die in the midst of humanitarian disasters. So effectively, the U.S. government is saving lives in Haiti by cutting humanitarian budgets elsewhere with some hopeful promises to replenish.

Even more strangely, OFDA may even have to reimburse the Department of Defense and FEMA for some of their roles in the Haiti response (apparently the U.S. military can pay for guns with inscribed Bible quotes, but not food for hungry earthquake survivors).

Absolutely, the human devastation in Haiti is astronomical –- and extraordinary U.S. government funding support is fully needed. But the solution is not to borrow against other humanitarian assistance programs across the globe.

Maybe I can offer up a few alternatives. How about buying less ‘smart’ bombs in the $708 billion 2011 defense budget? Or maybe skim a little off the top of the returned bank bailout money? Or how about imposing a Haiti tax on the forthcoming corporate investment in America’s elections?

But in all seriousness, Haiti needs a supplemental budget request. It does not need a loan from other disaster survivors.

Photo credit: IFRC

Applause for Guinea, But Troubles Not Over Yet

Daniel J Gerstle — 2010-02-03T12:57:00-08:00

On September 28th, 2009, Jean-Marie Dore protested the power moves of the new military junta of Captain Camara in Guinea, West Africa. Security forces beat him, killed at least 150, and abused scores more.

Today, Dore is the new Prime Minister in a unity government created carefully by West African leadership and the United Nations. It's an incredible example of how these organizations have succeeded to collect a wildly chaotic situation and miraculously glue together peace.

Of course, global citizens should not assume that Guinea is cured. The country still requires careful follow through and huge investments in peacebuilding. But applause is definitely appropriate. Go team!

A New York Times story by Adam Nossiter, "After Massacre, Guinea Sees Hope of Lifted Chains" provides more details. There are tremendous lessons here. The crisis included a seizure of power, an assassination attempt, dozens of revenge attacks, and a fear that leaders would lose control.

These threats still exist, but perhaps there are examples where the players chose wisely. Also, many watchers have been skeptical when West African leaders like Burkina Faso President Blaise Campaore get involved in a neighboring country's dispute, but here evidence is on the positive. Much more detail on Guinea's still volatile situation is available on the UN's ReliefWeb page on Guinea.

And to fulfill my promise of topping stories of far away places when possible with recommendations of music from the region, here is the legendary Mamady Kouyate and the Mandingo Ambassadors. They were recommended to me by my American acquaintance DJ Frank at West African Voodoo Funk. If you're in New York, you can catch them at Barbes in Park Slope every Wednesday eve. Peace.

Photo credit: Sigma Delta (A bus in Conakry, Guinea)

The Drone Civilian Casualty Equation

Michael A. Jones — 2010-02-03T10:07:00-08:00

The U.S. just carried out some of its heaviest attacks in Pakistan using drones, the unmanned buzzing vehicles that fly through the air in war zones but are commanded by military officials from computer labs in places like Nevada. Around 19 missiles were fired from drones along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border, killing an estimated 31 people.

Pardon the pun, but 2010 is turning out to be an explosive year for drones. The U.S. launched at least 12 different drone attacks in Pakistan in January, beefing up the use of drones since the December 30, 2009 suicide bombing of a CIA post in Khost, Afghanistan, which lies on the border with Pakistan.

And nobody seems to be arguing that the drones aren't effective. Since stepping up their use, the Obama administration has received plaudits for using drones to find and destroy members of the Al Qaeda network in northwest Pakistan. U.S. government officials contend that drones have been effective in weakening the Taliban and Al Qaeda by killing many of their senior leaders.

It's just that drones also tend to kill an awful lot of civilians, too. And that might not be in the best interest of the U.S., no matter how many members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda are blown up.

As Daniel Byman wrote earlier this week, killing terrorist leaders might seem like sound national security policy on one level, but when it involves killing a bunch of civilians, too -- an almost certainty with the use of drones -- the picture gets much more complicated. In Pakistan alone, Byman estimates that for every militant killed, 10 civilians are also killed by drone attacks. And that's not going to win the U.S. too many friends in the region.

"Beyond the humanitarian tragedy incurred, civilian deaths create dangerous political problems," Byman writes. "U.S. strikes that take a civilian toll are a further blow to its legitimacy -- and to U.S. efforts to build goodwill there."

If you need proof, just turn to Koto village in northwest Pakistan. Today, a bomb attack went off in the region that killed at least seven people, including three U.S. citizens, one Pakistani Security Guard, and three children. The reason for the bombing? Retaliation for U.S. drone strikes in the region.

And that's not just an isolated incident of retaliation. As Gilbert Mercier writes, anti-American sentiment in Pakistan is running really high right now, in large part due to civilian casualties caused by U.S. military activity.

"There is a tremendous opposition from a majority of Pakistanis towards the US drone attacks, and it is growing," Mercier writes. "The drone attacks have often resulted in civilian deaths, provoked anger among Pakistanis and are boosting support for the Taliban."

Drones may be the present and future of war. But are they the future to securing peace in the region and stabilizing the Afghanistan/Pakistan border? Sure doesn't seem so.

Weapons like landmines and cluster bombs have been criticized the world over for killing disproportionate numbers of civilians. International treaties now exist condemning the weapons. Might drones eventually head in that direction, too?

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Advice for Crisis Workers and Journalists With Disaster Stress

Daniel J Gerstle — 2010-02-02T14:51:00-08:00

If you're curious about how crisis workers, journalists, and soldiers overcome the specific stress of working in war and disaster zones, there is a rapidly growing family of resources. Here's a story for you.

On combat PTSD, you may have seen Ilona Meagher's PTSD Combat Blog and Lily Casura's Healing Combat Trauma Blog. But there is also a nice compendium of knowledge and advice for journalists and aid workers in the new article "Choosing a Psychotherapist," written by Elana Newman for the tremendously helpful Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma. For a personal reflection, with encouragement to crisis workers to take this seriously, here's some nuance.

There was a heroic force of an aid worker I used to know overseas who had run logistics for doctors in Rwanda, Burundi, and Somalia in the bloody mid-90s, then ended up retiring to low-risk reconstruction work. He loved to play the tough guy. Sometimes sleeping in the room beside mine, he'd wake me, screaming.

Next day I'd say, "What the Hell?" He'd just pound vodka and sing Oasis and reply, "Nothing. Shut the fuck up." His escape was liquor, women, and calls to his mom. Eventually, he confessed that there was once a canine in Burundi which had dug a hand out of a mass grave and showed up at the door with it clinched in its teeth. He thought he had been dreaming of this dog.

For years, I saw my friend's hero troubles as a kind of foreboding, that running around doing aid work and journalism in war zones might give me the ghosts, too. Of course, I'd finished my time in the military, so I was comforted not to have to consider killing to save.

But over time I did run into enough of the other kinds of war trauma, hiding from military patrols, sleeping in rubble with nearby shelling or shooting, and people close to death. I even lost a few co-workers. In time my dreams all began taking place in a post-apocalyptic landscape, if that's an indicator. It never kept me from having a good time; well, not for a while.

Quincampoix was the street. On a break from aid work in the Chechnya region of southern Russia, I flew to Paris to have a grand time with my girlfriend at the time, A. To this day I believe the main problem was that I was deadly allergic to the upholstery in the room we rented, but something got loose in my head and nearly ruined what should have been a romantic rendezvous.

We tiptoed from the 15th century walk up on Quincampoix along the cobblestone to the Marais. We found truly curious and wonderful cafes. And we talked and talked. But over a series of days I realized I wasn't telling A how wonderful she was. Instead, I was furiously explaining in minute detail about how my Ingush co-workers and I could do more to help more people in Chechnya if it wasn't for the barbs, bricks, and pitfalls strewn about the Caucasus.

Later, I had a dream that someone machine-gunned my Ingush and Chechen co-workers. Somehow I survived. In the morning, I woke early, having slept only a few hours. Too tired through the day to play. A, for her part, was kind. She didn't complain; she just hoped I would recover in time for a few special moments before she got on the plane.

Finally, as we walked through the Louvre I got extremely impatient. A was enjoying every artifact, but somehow I was bored out of my mind, unwilling to focus. Then I suddenly became trapped in a tractor beam of sorts in a large viewing room. I was seized by the Gericault painting, The Raft of Medusa.

Not traditionally a fan of oil painting, I couldn't understand what was so interesting to me about the piece. In the work, about twelve people have survived a shipwreck on a broken scrap of hull. Some are active, waving a nearby ship for help, while others die.

That was the moment I realized that I had to start taking people's advice about sorting out the disaster stress, reading info like that offered on the DART site, and considering options for long-term stress management. It wasn't just about me; it was about A, about my future girlfriend, and about my family.

Now that I've turned the corner, everything is coming around. Of course, what's needed more than a Frontline Club or stress management program is a great set of friends with similar experiences who can share, philosophize, and laugh in context. Realizing one's mortality is not only a deep reckoning, it can also be an opportunity.

Photo credit: Zoriah (A window in Asia)

Forty-Two Percent of Somalis Crushed by Disaster

Daniel J Gerstle — 2010-02-02T13:05:00-08:00

The UN's Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) in Nairobi reports that 42% of the entire population of Somalia are seriously threatened by the combination of harsher than normal drought conditions, economic knots, healthcare scarcity, and political violence. (That's at least 3.2 million of the country, not counting Somaliland which may be similarly affected.)

While Haiti has suffered a shocking new crisis, Somalia and other countries in chronic trouble are starved for resources and support.

"Emergency levels of acute malnutrition," the FSNAU clarifies, "continue to be reported, with 1 in 6 children in Somalia acutely malnourished and in need of specialist care. Of these children, 1 in 22 is severely malnourished and at a 9 times increased risk of death compared to well nourished children ..."

The FSNAU counts a whopping 1.39 million people displaced by fighting.

What is a concerned global citizen to do with this information? First, remember that Somalia has a diverse population with its peaks and plateaus; the danger affects very specific channels of people either fleeing out of a fighting area or barely surviving in traditional areas that are losing their green to desertification.

Part of the global response must be to slow current threats and suffering by rapidly protecting food, healthcare, and water development and distribution, supplementing it when there is nothing available within the region. But second, it is vital to contribute funding and attention to preventing the reasons these things keep happening. Here is where so many parties disagree.

The chronic political violence in the country must be dealt with, but like many other countries there are vast sections of the country that can be secured primarily by investing in improved rule of law and justice, peacebuilding, and protection of the agriculture, health, and education sectors.

Foreign intervention beyond the current African Union peacekeeper mission would not help.

The global community must prioritize local peacebuilding, security and justice sectors in cooperation with traditional clan councils, keeping in mind that it will take time, patience, and a strong stomach. If you'd like to donate, here's Alertnet's index of aid agencies working in the country. Somalia's not just a faraway desert. It's our neighbor in a shrinking world.

Photo credit: Daniel J Gerstle (Nomad matriarch, Awsane, Sanag, Somalia)

Secret Afghan Prisons May Trump GTMO Abuses

jake horowitz — 2010-02-02T06:59:00-08:00

Could the now infamous revelations of torture and abuse at Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan’s Bagram Air Base be just the tip of the iceberg? Hard to believe, no doubt. But, in an explosive story published in The Nation last week, Anand Gopal writes that the U.S. military in Afghanistan has regularly been conducting violent night raids in Pashtun villages, arresting suspects on scanty evidence, and transferring them to secret detention sites throughout the country where they are being aggressively interrogated and possibly even tortured.

Former prisoners held at these small and highly covert Field Detention Sites –- operated by U.S. Special Operations Forces –- allege widespread abuse and torture, claims that have been corroborated by Afghan government officials and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

Among the many alleged offenses, former detainees claim that U.S. interrogators working at the underground jails have employed some of the harshest interrogation tactics to date, including: blindfolding and chaining prisoners to the ceiling for hours, beating, slapping, and physically mutilating detainees, and unleashing dogs on inmates.

In some cases, U.S. interrogators may have outright murdered prisoners in the process of questioning.

These latest allegations follow the equally harrowing reports from November 2009 that the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is also operating a secret prison located somewhere on the Bagram Air Base known to prisoners as the “Black Jail,” where detainees have reportedly been subjected to forced nudity, sleep deprivation, extended isolation, and sexual humiliation. According to reports, prisoners held at the secret jail have also been detained for weeks at a time without access to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

So much for ‘winning’ the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.

Shrouded in an impenetrable cloud of secrecy, these secret detention sites have bred anger and resentment amongst the Afghan people, some of whom say they now fear U.S. military night raids and interrogation tactics more than the Taliban itself.

On just his second day in office, President Obama issued Executive Order No. 13491, designed to shut down secret prisons and ban torture practices utilized during the Bush administration. Yet, while CIA prisons may have been eliminated, interrogations sites operated by the Department of Defense clearly remain in place, and the abusive treatment of suspected insurgents has continued.

Given that the success of the Obama administration’s Afghan strategy is predicated on the ability to enlist the Afghan people in the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda, the JSOC secret detention system is directly undermining America’s mission in the country.

Human rights organizations are already calling on the Obama administration to launch an independent and comprehensive investigation into the use of the secret prisons. If President Obama does not heed these calls, address the latest allegations of abuse, and explain to the American and Afghan public why the JSOC is operating a network of secret prisons across the country, he surely risks losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, along with his ongoing fight to repair America’s tarnished image across the world.

Photo credit: ACS

War! What Is It Good For? $700 Billion

Michael A. Jones — 2010-02-01T14:43:00-08:00

When President Barack Obama spoke to cadets at West Point in late 2009 about what his administration's policy regarding Afghanistan would be, Obama made it a point to single out the expense of war.

"We can’t simply afford to ignore the price of these wars," Obama said during his primetime speech, referencing the two military battles being waged in Afghanistan and Iraq.

But with prices like these, how could anyone ignore the monetary cost of war? The Obama administration released budgets galore today, with the 2011 defense budget looking like it's going to cost a whopping $700 billion to implement. Sure, that's only a two percent increase from the Bush administration days ... but the U.S. military has been spared the budget cuts that many other spending programs are facing, drawing an unusual amount of attention to the defense budget, and causing a number of folks to ask whether military spending in the U.S. is sacrosanct.

Moreover, for the next year and a half, the Obama administration is looking to tap into $192 billion to fight the war in Afghanistan, hoping to spend the money on drones, helicopters and special forces.

Meanwhile, business is booming for defense contractors. In the wake of the Obama administration's defense budget proposal, stocks for Raytheon, General Dynamics, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin are all coming up roses. Lockheed Martin in particular is set to report earnings this week. They're the makers of the infamous drones, the weapons meet video games tool from the U.S. military that are making it big time in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Sure, their civilian casualty rates are high. Really high. Really, really high. But boy, are they profitable. For companies like Lockheed Martin, that is.

And expensive for the U.S. government. "We simply can't afford to ignore the price of these wars." Perhaps truer words were never said, Mr. President.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Dagestan: Where To From Here?

Daniel J Gerstle — 2010-02-01T11:15:00-08:00

Dagestan has been splitting in different directions and it's people are desperate for political solutions. Truth is, despite the media mono-reporting mantra of assassination, police repression, and Islamic radicalism ringing out of Moscow and the West, there is hope, diversity, and a rich culture with a strong future rising from beneath the political mess.

If you're new to the Dagestan situation, take a moment to acclimatize not with the traditional chronology of the dead but with the bright breath of regular life in the southern Russian republic. Here are two songs I recommend from the Dagestani pop charts crooned by the seductive Marina Mustafaeva and the pop heroine Patimat Kagirova.

Take a dance with these tunes and you'll see Dagestan is not only about Russian culture nor Islamic radicalism; there is a vibrant central, national culture with many different languages and styles. For future posts on places readers may not know much about, I'm going to do my best to recommend music like this. Video soundtracks help to remind people that war zones are about the living.

Why should Western readers care about Dagestan? Well, beyond the good sense in caring about the protection of freedoms and human rights everywhere, the concern in Dagestan is that if Russian and regional authorities do not choose their next moves wisely, the Islamic radicals in the region will shift from fighting for local justice back to fighting in the broader alliance with global terrorism.

In the news this week, the New York Times' Ellen Barry filed a new review of Dagestani political conundrums. The story reminds Russia watchers that even as the Kremlin found a least bad option in troublesome Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov and the regional body count remains low, there is still a very murky, potentially incendiary tension in Dagestan where there is a lack of solid leadership on the government side.

As my friend Robert A. Horton discusses in his report on the historical motivations behind Russia's counter-insurgency style there in HELO Magazine, regular non-political people throughout Dagestan who wish for a normal life feel that they can't trust either side in the conflict -- the government or the radical insurgents. While Russian and Dagestani authorities act as if it is a battle to consolidate power, locals may remind them it should be more a quest to earn the population's trust.

Photo credit: Timo Vogt (Street scene in Makhachkala, Dagestan, Russian Federation)

Protest Al Qaeda by Inviting Them To Your Hometown

Daniel J Gerstle — 2010-02-01T07:56:00-08:00

There have been some rather interesting arguments against trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., in a federal court in New York City. Would the trial give KSM a pulpit to convince the global public to join his group? Would the trial increase risk of new terror attacks?

But the trial has to take place somewhere, why not in a place where the city's survivors can witness it up close? And won't the trial bring investment in terms of security and media spending?

To these point, Slate writers Dahlia Lithwick and Michael Newman say "Tell us why [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] should be tried in your hometown." They invite readers to propose alternative locations for the controversial trial of one of the planners of the September 11th attacks, citing the call of Nicholas Valentine, Mayor of Newburgh, New York, for his Hudson Valley town as a potential site.

Opponents of hosting the trial in New York may prefer a site like Guam or Mars. In some respects, and in theory, having the trial somewhere like Saudi Arabia might actually make sense. But practically, this is going to be a virtual trial. No matter where this trial takes place there will be intense security and its contents will still be covered on hundreds of global networks. If Buckwheat, North Dakota, or Greenpoint, Brooklyn, want to take the investment funds, why not? Write in your vote by Monday afternoon at Slate.

Also, check out Tuesday's episode of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart for a clever and witty review of various sides of the debate from Wyatt Cenac.

Photo credit: Cliff1066

What Global Citizens Need to Know About This Week's Afghan Summit

Daniel J Gerstle — 2010-01-31T20:06:00-08:00

Last week's Afghanistan Conference events (covered by yours truly in London) offer valuable findings for global citizens. Some will evoke cheers, others may wake butterflies in the stomach, and still others will have people pulling their hair out.

The events included more than just the summit with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. There was also an event held at Canada House for Afghan NGOs and civil society leaders to call for more specific attention to community-building aid and impartiality in the way aid is applied; an event at the House of Commons during which Afghan women leaders called for the mainstreaming of women's representation; and an event at the House of Lords at which academics reviewed the policy options available to the Afghan government. Here's a re-cap.

Financing the War and the Peace: Kabul and NATO are still moving mountains with pennies. On the morning of the conference, an Oxfam-Great Britain campaign team staged a photo stunt (see above left) in which, dressed in bobbleheads as Japanese PM Yukio Hatoyama, Canadian PM Stephen Harper, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German PM Angela Merkel, and U.S. President Barack Obama, the team threw small change at a bucket labeled "Afghan poverty" -- and they often missed. Truth is, both the war and the peace processes for Afghanistan are extremely costly and yet, whichever choices are made there is still not even a fraction of the funding needed.

U.S. Troop Deployments are expected to peak this fall, then begin to scale down, but this is contingent upon growth in the Afghan military. Whether one agrees with the foreign troop presence or not, Afghanistan requires a minimum security presence simply to secure rule of law, even the kind of peacetime stabilization and policing one would see in any country. Planners estimated the growth of the Afghan military and police force to meet the minimum requirement. NATO troops are currently leading fighting, but the shift will focus on phasing Afghan forces in as NATO troops phase out. So on the ground, the fighting force as a whole will probably remain large for several years even as NATO withdraws. In some respects this will resemble Iraq, but inverted. In Iraq, U.S. and NATO forces pulled out of cities first. In Afghanistan, they will consolidate in cities first as they eventually move out. Planners hope that this kind of withdrawal will be a transfer of the conduct of the war as opposed to a rapid withdrawal that would potentially lead to the fall of the Karzai administration and a different kind of civil war.

The ferocity of U.S. Fighting will likely rise into the summer, with moderate casualties, then taper off again in late fall. U.S. forces have faced greater numbers of bloody conflicts this past year, and that will likely grow over the next months. However, planners estimates do look realistic in projecting that much of the fighting responsibilities will shift to Afghan government forces by next year. There are three questions. First, will investments in business and aid begin to give many insurgents cause to lay down their weapons and take jobs? Second, will efforts to woo moderate insurgents through political negotiations reduce the numbers opposing the government? And finally, will NATO be able to come to terms with the theory that radicals will remain too many to reintegrate, arrest, or defeat, but will likely have to remain contained for years to come?

Negotiations with the Taliban will likely take place, but not how one would think. Invitations to the Taliban to participate in talks will appear to have the central government trading liberal values like women's rights and democracy in exchange for peace, but in actuality few believe the Taliban hardliners would ever accept a unity government even if it were offered to them, so the negotiations are meant primarily to remind insurgents in the ranks that there are options other than dying, fighting, or fleeing.

Aid and Investment: There is still a huge need for investment and aid in Afghanistan; many believe this is more vital than the military intervention and call for changes. As the Aga Khan spoke in the summit, proposing a broad approach to bringing social and economic power back to local communities, aid agencies outside the conference called for a de-militarization of aid as a priority for reducing the interface between the war and the country's poorest.

Mainstreaming Women's Representation has moved forward in Afghanistan's larger cities, despite huge mistakes and gaps. While from the outside it appears that the Karzai administration has done no better than Iran or Pakistan in promoting women's rights protection -- true, this is nowhere near where nearly all aid, development, and democracy advocates believe they should be -- even Afghan women leaders admitted that there has been huge progress compared to the dark ages of the Taliban years. Women fear a return of the Taliban with its ultimate ban on all women's participation, work, and education, that they put their support solidly behind the current government, augmenting this with careful, pointed efforts to reform the government and urge justice for rights violations within this government. Shockingly, just as many women leaders were regaining confidence, the conference in London sorely lacked women delegates. Protests on this point were loud.

Threats by Al Qaeda Against the West have not been quieted at all in recent conduct of the Afghan War. Many peace advocates -- and three of the four protests at the conference -- proposed that withdrawal and de-colonization of Afghanistan were the best means not only of fighting the war, but also of reducing support for terror groups. Even U.S. Democrats including Senators John Kerry and Russ Feingold have considered the option of reducing the war only to a focus on surgical strikes against terror groups. However, other experts believe that the core Taliban is so fundamentally opposed to democracy and tribal structures in Afghanistan that they will continue to battle the government without a NATO presence. That would mean that a U.S. withdrawal, while reducing the number of anti-colonial fighters, would not necessarily reduce an insurgency bent on toppling Karzai and installing an anti-Western government with al Qaeda sitting right at the front.

Americans have invested sons and daughters and a great deal of funding, sometimes not by choice, in the conduct of aid and war in West Asia in order to reduce threats to Americans while helping troubled neighbors. Afghanistan presents the greatest puzzle modern earth has had to negotiate.

Fortunately, despite the militarism of the past decade and the Obama administration's pledge of more troops this year, it does appear that nearly all involved decision-makers are planning the transfer of security to the Afghan government and its growing forces and the phasing out of NATO troops in the relatively near future. With NATO forces phasing out of the region, then the next step is to ensure the Afghan government shifts its own efforts in the country from fighting to peacebuilding.

Photo credits: Daniel J Gerstle (Top: Oxfam-Great Britain Campaigners pose as world leaders in stunt outside Afghan Conference in London, Bottom: Afghan and US civil society leaders speak at Canada House)