The U.S. needs to stop with the moral superiority over Russia

In the last few months the civil war in Syria has become a diplomatic battle between Russia and the United States. This fight has focused around Russia’s arms sales to the Assad regime. Listening to American officials and the western media, a narrative has unfolded that pits the poor Syrian rebels against the evil Assad government; battling with little more than assault rifles and RPG’s against the superior military might of Russian made arms. Yet this narrative is both false and highly hypocritical.

There is no doubt that Russia is selling arms to the Assad regime. Both nations have had a long term deal with regards to arms trading stemming all the way back to the 1950’s. In the 1990’s Hafez al Assad relied heavily on Russian arms sales to suppress the Islamist uprising with in Syria. The problem with this narrative is that it is only one half of the story, and serves as a justification for neo-cons and liberal interventionists to push us into war with yet another Muslim nation.

Let us first examine a few facts that the West seems to forget when talking about the crisis in Syria. The U.S. is the single biggest arms dealer in the world, period. At a June 14th news conference Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro boasted that, “Despite the global economic strain, demand for U.S. defence products and services is stronger than ever.” Shapiro confirmed that in this fiscal year alone government to government arms sales have exceeded 50 billion dollars. It is worth noting that between 1950-1990, Russian arms sales to Syria totaled just 34 billion dollars. It is important to note that the top ten buyers of U.S. weapons in this fiscal year, which won’t end until September, are all gross human rights abusers. These ten reputable American allies include Honduras, the U.A.E, Algeria, Peru, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Israel, Qatar, and Djibouti. All of these nations are guilty in one form or another of suppressing civil society, freedom of speech and assembly; use of violence against religious and ethnic minorities; forced disappearance and extra judicial killings; threat of rape; and in the case is Israel, the 45 year occupation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. And don’t forget that peace loving America has not stopped the 1 billion dollar military aid program to Egypt. A billion dollar program to a military junta that has dissolved parliament, usurped power from the presidency, and is most likely working towards ensuring that Mubarak’s crony Shafik will be president. And yet, Russia is the evil actor in this perverse geopolitical drama.

The second part of this hypocritical morality lesson is the underreported and ignored fact that the United States is funneling weapons into Syria. Just the other day the NYT reported that the CIA was operating in Turkey; vetting various rebel groups to determine
who should receive arms. Qatar and Saudi Arabia are also guilty of sending arms into Syria. These two Gulf nations are simply a front for U.S. arms trafficking into Syria. This allows the U.S. plausible deniability that they are in providing weapons to rebel groups that may in fact be hostile to America. How is this any different from what Russia is doing?

This post is not meant to be an endorsement of Russian arms sales to Syria. Assad is no doubt an evil man guilty of killing his own people. Russia is certainty guilty of helping to slaughter Syrian people. But, this does not mean that America is good. America is culpable of suppressing human rights and slaughtering people around the world. America instead views helping their allies as somehow different.

Russia did not start arming Shia protesters in Bahrain while the U.S. backed government tortured and killed hundreds if not thousands. Bahrain is in America’s sphere of influence and was seen as out of bounds. In general Russia never calls out America for empowering their corrupt allies. Russia fully understands that in the game of geopolitics no power is good or bad. World powers do whatever they believe is in the national interest of their nation. Syria represents Russia’s last sphere of influence in the Middle East. If arming the Assad regime is deemed necessary to Russia’s national interest then they will arm them. Conversely, American elites believe that regime change in Syria and weakening Iran is in their interest. President Obama and Secretary Clinton care as much about the Syrian people as President Putin and Foreign Minister Lavarov do. Not at all.

June 22, 2012 – 3:07 pm Categories: International Relations, Middle East | Post a comment

The Atrocities Prevention Board will achieve nothing

President Obama announced today the formation of the “Atrocities Prevention Board”, which will be tasked with helping to prevent such horrible acts like genocide. The White House press release on this new initiative is basically a long list of talking points which will have no real impact on human rights, or genocide prevention. Many of these talking points are so obvious to the prevention of genocide, that it begs the question, why did the President feel the need to create this board? While others have simply never worked.

The section of the press release devoted to diplomatic efforts lays out this ground breaking new way of preventing atrocities:

“Diplomatic Initiative: The United States will engage with countries and other stakeholders around the world to expand and deepen international commitment and capacity to prevent and respond to atrocities.”

Mr. President, with all due respect this has pretty much been standard practice for diplomats when trying to prevent atrocities.

The section following this in the press release is devoted to the failed practice of sanctions. Sanctions are a colossal failure. Sanctions have not toppled the regimes in Iran or Syria; nor will they ever. Similarly, they were not successful in getting rid Saddam Hussein, and have had no impact on the Castro brothers grip on power in Cuba. Sanctions are quite successful at making those at the very bottom suffer.

The Presidents new Atrocities Prevention Board will also be tasked with “denying impunity” both in the U.S. and abroad for those accused of genocide and other mass crimes. Certainly one of the more laughable demands of the president’s new panel in light of the immunity deal they helped hammer out for former President Saleh.

The list goes on and on. Dominating much of this new initiative is the notion that the president wants the ability to be made more aware of when atrocities are happening. This insinuates that somehow world leaders are kept in the dark when war crimes are being committed. Somehow the intelligence community will now be better tasked with reporting information when these events are taking place.

The intelligence community will work internally and with our foreign partners to increase the overall collection, analysis, and sharing of information relating to atrocity threats and situations.

Here is yet another fallacy espoused by the president. World leaders, and the president of the United States in particular, know full well when war crimes and other atrocities are taking place. A reconfiguration of intelligence gathering will not lead to less atrocities taking place, because there is no intelligence gap when in comes to intel on atrocities.

Today’s announcement of the formation of the Atrocities Prevention Board will do nothing to stop genocide and war crimes from being committed. Instead it will create more bureaucracy, leading to nowhere, and hampering real methods to stop these despicable acts. The announcement is a nauseating display of political theater. Unable to do anything to stop the bloodshed in Syria, the president wants to give the impression that there will never again be another Syria. Instead of truly empowering the UN and other existing institutions tasked with preventing war crimes, the President decides to create another government entity to tell him what he already knows. Exploiting the civil war in Syria to make himself seem like a caring and just leader is not the way to fight war crimes.

April 23, 2012 – 5:16 pm Categories: International Relations, U.S. policy | Post a comment

Where’s the outrage?

After Staff Sgt. Bales murdered several civilians earlier this year the news media was a stir trying to explain the lack of outrage by the Afghan public. NPR’s Steve Inskeep interviewed an NPR correspondent in Kabul who presented the simplistic view that Afghan’s had simply gotten used to the violence. Many American commentators were perplexed by the muted response of average Afghans towards the reprehensible violence. A narrative began to develop here in the US that Afghans were cold and detached; no longer capable of empathy after years of endless war.
Well it seems as if the same can be said of the American public when it comes to gruesome images of soldiers desecrating bodies. This was the case with video footage of American soldiers urinating on dead Taliban fighters, soldiers committing human rights violations in Abu Graib, or the recent photos published by the LA Times. Where is the outrage over any of this? At best most Americans wrote off these incidents as a few bad apples. The actual photos though are not the real problem. Neither is the lack of anger that American soldiers, held in such high regard here in the US, are capable of doing this. Outrage should stem from the fact that war destroys human morality. To be a good soldier one has to view his enemy as less than human. NATO forces in Afghanistan are actively employing this view when it comes to fighting insurgents. Sec. Pannetta was certainly right when he remarked that war is awful and breeds this sort of behavior. This destruction of humanity should be neither accepted not excused. Instead it should trouble us immensely. Americans who simply shrug this off as a result of war are more heinous than the soldiers who commit these vicious acts. They grant cover to our elites to continue the cataclysmic interventionist foreign policy that has gained traction since 9/11.
The outrage should be directed towards our disgusting comfort with war, rather than soldiers doing what soldiers do under the most extreme and dehumanizing circumstances.

April 19, 2012 – 1:24 pm Categories: South Asia | Post a comment

Don’t get your news from George Clooney

Please, PLEASE, don’t get your news from George Clooney.  Liberal celebrity activist George Clooney has in recent years become the dominant news source for many when it come to the complex situation between Sudan and South Sudan.  His very public campaign to bring awareness to the genocide in Darfur has long been documented; with nearly every western media source reporting on his congressional testimonies and recent arrest outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington.  This is one of the more unfortunate repercussions of our celebrity obsessed nation.  Clooney’s new crusade is to bring to the public square a discussion on the increasingly dire situation in South Kordofan between the Sudanese army, the SPLA-N, and the Nuba people.  If this is the first time that you are hearing of this problem, or if George Clooney first brought your attention to it, than you are not reading enough news.  This has been widely reported by Al Jazeera English since the historic splitting of South Sudan from the North.  Below is a recent program on Al Jazeera on what is going on in the Nuba Mountains.

 

 

The two civil war’s between the North and the South lasted 37 years.  The most recent civil war lasted from 1985-2005 and would displace 4,000,000 people as well as take the lives of 2,000,000.  As Folly Bah Tibault explains in the very beginning of the Al Jazeera English special, “The conflict was fought over differences in ideology, politics, resources, land, and oil”.  Don’t let George Clooney be your guide through something this complicated.

April 9, 2012 – 9:58 pm Categories: Africa | Post a comment

What does Israel have to hide from the UNHRC?

Last night I read Danny Ayalon’s recent article on how Israel is not going to put up with the UN Human rights Council. Mr. Ayalon lays out how the UNHRC has a vendetta out for the Jewish state; consistently singling them out for investigation and scrutiny. He makes the very valid point that just 20 of the 47 nations on the council are considered free by Freedom House. Ayalon points out that the UNHRC is not investigating human rights abuses in Syria, Saudi Arabia or Cuba; the latter two currently sit on UNHRC. Ayalon then states that the Palestinians, and their non-democratic supporters, are using the UNHRC to diplomatically attack the Jewish state.
This predictable response from Israel enforces the fact that Israel is in fact a serial human rights abuser. What does Israel have to fear if there are no human rights violations? If in fact the UNHRC is biased and picking on Israel then let them come and see that there is nothing going on. The reason this will never happen is because Israel knows they are breaking international law. If Israel is a defender of minorities and religious groups, as Ayalon claims, they should have nothing to fear from the investigation.
The weakest claim made by Ayalon is this old notion that there are worse offenders out there. Yes, there are certainly many states in the world that are guilty of horrific human rights abuses, but that does not excuse what Israel does. If Israel truly is the only democratic state in the region they should be adamant about protecting human rights, rather then cower in the face of criticism. For one last example of how idiotic Ayalon’s critique is, look no further than Israel’s increasingly warm relationship with the repressive kleptocracy of Azerbaijan. Any doubt that Israel was not a gross violator of human rights disappeared when hey sold the government of Azerbaijan more than a billion dollars worth of arms.

April 2, 2012 – 12:47 pm Categories: Middle East | Post a comment

Only Americans have PTSD

The lawyer defending Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, John Henry Brown, is quoted by the AP today as saying that Bales suffered from “tremendous depression.”  This “tremendous depression” argument will eventually lead to PTSD as the root cause of why Staff Sgt. Bales murdered, and then set alight, seventeen Afghan civilians.  Clearly Bales was not playing with a full deck when he carried out his massacre.  His several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, multiple injuries, history of financial problems, as well as marital and alcohol abuse played a hand in what transpired.  But, what about the people of Afghanistan?  Are they incapable of suffering mentally from the horrors of war?

From many Afghans civilians life has consisted of endless war and conflict.  Yet anytime that an Afghan kills an American, we here in the U.S. write them off as coherent logical thinking people.  No time is spent trying to determine if the individual in question is perhaps suffering from PTSD or other combat related stresses.  Rather, they are deemed violent Muslims who hate Americans and their values.  There is no way that their brother or sister may have been murdered in a U.S. airstrike; or that they may be suffering from a traumatic brain injury brought about by an IED.  Brown is using the laughable defense that the lose of part of Bales foot somehow contributed to his mental collapse.  If losing a body part were a prerequisite for war crimes, than the thousands of maimed and crippled Afghans across the country should be free to use that defense.

I don’t doubt that Staff Sgt. Bales suffered from the trauma of war, or that his trauma contributed to his heinous acts.  I take issue with the disgusting nature with which this incident has been portrayed, and the way with which PTSD (only applicable to Americans) has been used as the scapegoat time and time again.  It is deplorable that the American public seems to think this somehow excuses the murder of nine children, and eight adults.  In order to make ourselves feel better, and differentiate, moral freedom loving Americans, from violent freedom hating Muslims, we use PTSD to absolve ourselves from the horror of our war in Afghanistan.  The most lamentable aspect is that no Afghan, and more broadly no Muslim, will ever be allowed to use PTSD as an excuse.

The next time an Afghan kills an American solider perhaps we should inquire if this Afghan has suffered from prolonged exposure to war; suffered from substance abuse problems; fought with his spouse; and was the victim of a traumatic brain injury.

March 29, 2012 – 9:42 pm Categories: South Asia | Post a comment

Jason Russell’s BFF arrests 100 opposition activists

On Monday 100 opposition protesters were arrested in Kampala. This most recent repressive act by Uganda’s dictator Yoweri Museveni goes to the heart of what is really wrong with the Kony 2012 video, and more broadly speaking, what’s wrong with Uganda.

There are many problems with what was said in the Kony 2012 video. But I feel as though most of them have been discussed widely at this point. For me the most painful and upsetting aspects of the video were not the factual exaggerations or inaccuracies. Nor were they the backwards and racist undertones of the “white mans burden” that were frequently expressed through out the film. The widespread financial manipulation and sad truth that many will now associate the LRA with a naked blathering white guy are tolerable in comparison to the real issue at hand.
It is the core backbone of their whole mission that is wrong. Invisible Children advocate the use of more violence to bring about an end to the LRA, as well as lend cover to a authoritarian leader. In there misguided attempt to help child soldiers, Invisible Children props up a man who has used child soldiers in his conquest to be leader of Uganda. Now if you were to ask any of the degenerate human rights abusers at Invisible Children they would tell you that you need to work with who’s in power at the moment. This is a patently false assertion; leaving aside for the time being that the person in charge has been in power since 1986. No respectable organization that defends human rights would ever champion the use of a dictator and of a dictators army in the pursuit of justice. If Invisible Children truly cared about the plight of Ugandans they would not be advocating for more support of Museveni. Using one monster to hunt another monster is morally wrong. What will happen if the Ugandan army does find Kony? He will be surrounded by a small army of brainwashed child soldiers. Children who’s lives have been shattered forever by Kony. These children will defend Kony and fight to the death. They will not let their leader be taken to the ICC as Invisible Children would have you believe.
This is not the way to go about solving problems in Africa. So when you feel the need to yell at some idiot for supporting Kony 2012 make sure it’s for the right reasons. Don’t criticize them for being part of a generation that thinks they can solve Africa’s
problems through Twitter and buying stickers. Criticize them for endorsing a dictator and more violence. And criticize them for legitimatizing Museveni to arrest 100 people asking for freedom on Monday March 26th 2012.

March 26, 2012 – 2:19 pm Categories: Africa | Post a comment

What just happened in Mali?

 

The fallout of the recent Libyan civil war and NATO intervention has yet to fully take form.  Immediate problems such as general instability and the proliferation of armed militias has been the most obvious thus far.  Many if not most of the various militias, organized by town and region, have not been De-militarized.  Rather than lay down arms they have decided to use their weapons as a means of gaining power and dominance in a country that has been stripped of civil society institutions after decades of dictatorial rule.  Torture and human rights abuses are still rampant throughout the vast country.  A culture of impunity has persisted as the central government in Tripoli scrambles to maintain power.  Gaddafi ‘s son Saif al-Islam is still being held incommunicado by the powerful Zintan militia.  And untold numbers of black Africans remain in jail being tortured.  So far this has not been entirely lost on the West, who so callously decided to pick sides in the civil war.  Overtures have been made by both President Obama and Secretary Clinton to offer assistance and help to the struggling NTC.  And yet the myriad of problems facing Libya have managed to over shadow a much more menacing issue effecting the whole Sahel region.  This has been the influx of anywhere from 800-4,000 heavily armed and well trained Tuareg fighters returning to Northern Mali.  These Tuareg have created a power vacuum in the north of Mali which has facilitated a group of low ranking army officers to over throw the democratically elected president Amadou Toumani Toure known as ATT.  Once a beacon of hope for democracy in West Africa, Mali now faces a growing number of problems that could drag in the surrounding nations into armed conflict, as well as the international community due to the increasing likelihood of drought and famine.

[Tuareg rebels]

The nomadic Tuareg people are an indigenous ethnic  group that is spread throughout the vast deserts of the Sahel.  Found in Algeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, and most prominently in Northern Mali.  It is here in Mali where the Tuareg have been most restive.  Long marginalized by Bamako and the more populous and urbanized south, the Tuareg have for decades fought for autonomy and their own independent state.  Major rebellions in 1962-1964, 1990-1995, and 2007-2009 have long plagued those in power in Bamako. With the ascendency of Muammar Gaddafi the Tuareg were able to find both a sanctuary and patron in the dictators country.  In Gaddafi’s bid to become a regional power he co-opted the Tuareg people, providing them with huge sums or money and arms in exchange for their support.  Many Tuareg fighters rose to prominent roles in the Libyan Army.  Fiercely loyal, it was the Tuareg who protected Gaddafi and his family in the final months of the uprising.  Both Saadi and Aisha Gaddafi are said to have been shepherded by the Tuareg to Niger and Algeria respectively.  When Gaddafi was murdered in October the Tuareg became public enemy number one.  Fearing reprisal from the NTC and militias thousands of Tuareg fighters began the long journey south to Mali.

[A Mali coup leader, Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo (left)]

And now we arrive at our current situation.  Arguably the best equipped and trained military force in the Sahel has returned to their ancestral homeland with the express desire of forming an autonomous state.  The various Tuareg groups formed the Mouvement National de Liberation de l”Azawad or MNLA as the new umbrella group of the Tuareg independence movement.  As a result of the recent Tuareg  rebellion two hundred thousand Malians have fled into neighboring countries.  Many fleeing into Niger, already racked by drought and lack of food, have put an enormous strain on the already fragile stability there.  Vastly under equipped the Malian army has tried in vain to put down the rebellion.  President Toure, the long beloved leader, was seen by the Malian public as wholly inadequate at combating the problem.  Protests in Bamako against government inaction turned so violent in February that Tuaregs living there had to flee, lest they face violence and even death.  The MNLA easily took control over large swaths of the North, attacking and killing scores of Malian soldiers.  This instability has led a group of low-level, and according to various reports drunk, army mutineers to overthrow President Toure.  Announced yesterday on state TV, coup leader Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo said that the new government known as the National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and State (CNRDR) had dissolved both the government and the constitution.  They claim they will hold free elections once stability has been restored to Mali.  The CNRDR main greivenace has been the lack of adequate means with which to combat the Tuareg rebels in the north.

But is this the real reason for the coup?  President Toure was due to step down after the presidential election on April 29th.  This begs the question as to why the army could not wait until a new leader was sworn in.  Or better yet continue to press ATT to be more assertive in fighting the Tuareg.  It is the view of Porkins Policy Review that this is simply just a coup.  Lofty ideas like fighting the Tuareg and restoring stability to Mali are being used as a smoke screen to gain power.  It is true that a segment of the Malian army has been vocal about the incompetence of President Toure in combating the Tuareg.  But it is also true that there is no way that a bunch of drunk low-level soldiers and officers  would have been able to overthrow the president with out some form of political support.  It is Porkins belief that there most certainly is a benefactor supporting the Malian mutineers.  And this benefactor in conjunction with the coup leaders plans to exploit unrest in the North as a justification to grab power and hold on to it.  While crushing the Tuareg rebellion is most likely on the list of things the CNRDR hopes to accomplish, their main goal will be to stay in power.  It also fails to be seen how overthrowing the President will somehow result in the army being better equipped to fight the Tuareg.  It is too soon to really make an educated guess as to what will happen in Mali.  The only thing anyone can definitively say is that the Sahel region is reaching its breaking point.  A massive drought has already effected Northern Mali and especially Niger, leading to conditions likely to result in famine.  Battle hardened Tuareg in Niger may also be dragged into the fight in Northern Mali.  This would putt an even greater strain on Niger which is still unstable after its most recent coup two years ago.  AQIM has consistently been on the rise through out the region; growing in influence and sophistication.  The Tuareg rebellion and now the coup are only adding fuel to the fire.

March 23, 2012 – 1:17 am Categories: Africa | Post a comment

Porkins is back

To my few faithful readers you may have noticed that the review has been absent for some time. I apologize for the absences, and I am here to say that the Porkins Policy Review is now back, and will resume posting.

February 16, 2012 – 2:52 pm Categories: Uncategorized | Comments (1)

Is this legal???

Gawker reported today on an article in the Atlanta Jewish Times, written by the editor, in which he lays out Israel’s three choices for dealing with Iran. The first two are predictable Israel-Firster policies, attack Hamas and Hezbollah, attack Iran. The third choice takes a very terrifying turn; assassinate President Barack Obama. Here is how owner and editor Andrew Adler describes how option three would work:

“Three, give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.

Yes, you read “three” correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?

Another way of putting “three” in perspective goes something like this: How far would you go to save a nation comprised of seven million lives…Jews, Christians and Arabs alike?

You have got to believe, like I do, that all options are on the table.”

As you can except this left me pretty floored. Gawker describes a “nervous” Adler trying to walk back his comments in the article. He claims that he didn’t really mean any of what he said, and wrote it merely to see what sort of reaction he would get. Even if this is true, which I don’t believe for a second, I am pretty sure that this sort of speech is not protected by the first amendment. The rule of thumb when writing or talking about assassinating the President of the Unites States is that you will definitely be investigated by the secret service. As well you should be.

Now I can already hear everyone yelling “he’s a yahoo, he wasn’t being serious”. At best he is an unadulterated moron for writing that Israel should not take of the table the option to murder the U.S. President. At worst he is a warmongering American citizen advocating killing his own leader so that Israel can “obliterate it’s enimies” and make the Middle East safe.

If a mentally deranged Muslim person went and xeroxed their newsletter saying we should kill President Obama, or better yet Prime Minister Netanyahu, I guarantee he would be arrested. I guarantee that the news would not stop talking about it either. Of course we should note that only white terrorists are capable of being the victims of mental disease. I can’t remember the last time I heard of a person of color accused of terrorism getting off due to insanity. Before we write this guy off as a nut job, let’s keep in mind that our current President has been the target of
more assassination attempts in recent years than previous administrations. It is this sort of political language that has destroyed the environment in which diplomacy

January 20, 2012 – 4:15 pm Categories: Middle East, U.S. policy | Post a comment