Great documentary by Al Jazeera’s Islamabad bureau chief on Balochistan and their fight for autonomy from Pakistan. An amazing look at the most misunderstood province in one of the most misunderstood countries. Make sure to pay close attention to the section dealing with the killing of Nawab Akbar Bugti, the powerful tribal leader in Balochistan. President Musharraf has been toying with the idea of returning to Pakistan and contesting elections, but could very well be tried again for his alleged role in ordering the killing. It also has a really great soundtrack.
Former CIA and NSA chief General Michael Hayden said at an event today that bombing Iran would only bolster the nation, and make it harder to stop the Islamic Republic. While still working for President Bush Hayden determined that attacking Iran would be a terrible idea. This follows on the heals of two former heads of Mossad saying that an assault on Iran could only bring more instability to the Middle East. It will be interesting to see how Congress will take these comments. In recent weeks members in Congress on both sides of the aisle have been ratcheting up the rhetoric towards Iran; on a seemingly disastrous course towards war. Most of the GOP candidates have repeatedly said that they would base their military decisions on the advice of their generals. That being said it will be interesting what response Romney, Santorum, or Gingrich will have to the Bush era generals thoughts on not attacking Iran
After my last post regarding the video of Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters I got to thinking about the reality of what that means. This is a war plain and simple. In a war really awful things are done by both sides. Rage and shock at these images, while justified, has more to do with Americans being so far removed from this decade long conflict in South Asia. We see so few real images of the war as it is, the few we do see make our skin crawl. But this misses the larger issue of how atrocious war is. This nation is so quick to send young men to go and fight their battles; yet lack the complexity to comprehend the magnitude of what we ask of them. I am not attempting to defend what these Marines have done, merely trying to explain why they might have what thy did. Soldiers, and Marines in particular, are killing machines. Their job description is to liquidate the enemy with extreme prejudice. In order to better kill your enemy you must view them as subhuman. Looking at the Taliban as less than human can be the difference between living or dying in Afghanistan.
This has of course been largely forgotten in the age of humanitarian intervention. All of those who are up in arms about the Marines urinating seem to miss the more sinister action here. These young men have killed a bunch of other young men. War is the legalization of murder. Of course the Marines are going to laugh at their “kills”, perhaps even urinate or desecrate their bodies. It may be the only thing that keeps them from turning their guns on themselves. For many of these young men the past ten years have been an endless cycle of violence. What do we really expect from them?
Even more abhorrent is that this intense psychological destruction seems to be lost by those in high office. Defense Secretary Panetta called the acts “deplorable”, while General Martin Dempsey said the actions were illegal. As if there are instances when acts of war are not deplorable or illegal. Young men who know nothing else aside from fighting and watching their friends die are mentally pushed to the limit. For Secretary Panetta to think that these are just a few bad apples is disgustingly naive at best. War looks like this. The sooner we stop thinking that somehow we are better than who we are fighting the better. Then and only then will we see that war is so horrific that it should truly never be used as a way of solving our problems.
To use an example from popular culture lets turn to one of my favorite shows The West Wing. In one episode Leo McGarry is persuaded by an Air Force General to drop a piece of war crimes legislation he is working on. Leo, being in favor of human rights, can not understand why. The General then reveals that while Leo was on a mission in Vietnam he accidentally bombed an village full of women and children, under the impression it was a Vietcong base. Horrified he asks why the General told him this. With a simple response the General tells him “All wars are crimes.”
There are no good parts war. There are no rules to how war is conducted. We can try and define what is ok and not ok, but this misses out on the fundamental enormity of the havoc that war brings to all people.
Amid growing reports of possible negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban, a video reminiscent of the Abu Grahib prison scandal has emerged. The video, showing Marines urinating on fighters and laughing, is pretty self explanatory. Former Taliban ambassador, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, who has acted as a spokesman for the group, has expressed his outrage over the video. He was also quick to point out that this was not an isolated incident. Der Spiegel recently exposed a group of soldiers operating a veritable death squad in Afghanistan.
The effect this will have right now on negotiations will most likely be a negative one. Images like this are a media coup for a group such as the Taliban. It is easy to see why; it is pretty abhorrent behavior. Many in the armed services will defend, or rather excuse these actions, as a manifestation of the horrors of war. That probably is the case. But during a time when the notion of “American exceptionalism” is bandied about constantly, it is hard to defend when viewing images such as these. For those who will defend it by saying “who cares their Taliban” are perhaps the most despicable. If a similar video of Taliban fighters emerged, members of Congress would be demanding that the ICC issues arrest warrants for war crimes.
Conversely, hearing the Taliban decry the video and the actions of the Marines in laughable. For a group with arguably one of the worst human rights records to cry foul is hypocritical at best.
The biggest loser in this new scandal will be neither the Taliban or NATO forces, but instead the Afghan people. Inevitably they will be the ones caught between the cross fire that will ensue over the video. Even for those who loath the Taliban still view those fighters as Afghan’s whose bodies should be treated with respect. The often simplistic phrase “this is why they hate us” comes to mind.
In less than an hour the first votes will begin coming in from the the New Hampshire Primary. Former Governor Mitt Romney at last check is still the front runner polling at about 37%. His nearest competitors Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman are polling at 17% and 14% respectively. Romney will win the New Hampshire primary, baring some sort of act of God. The amount that Romney wins by will be a strong indicator for how well his campaign truly is. If he were to win again with only 25% of vote, like in Iowa, than the win is really a lose. Romney winning by 30%, his second place finish in 2008, would also be pretty bad for the governor. Everyone from David Axelrod to Newt Gingrich would be able to spin that as proof that Romney really doesn’t have broad support in the country. Romney has got to win with about 37-40% to really be able to call it a win.
The other candidate that has been receiving a lot of attention, mostly from the media, is former ambassador and Governor Jon Huntsman. Huntsman has been making a mad dash to try and solidify votes in the granite state and pull off a big win. This seems increasingly unlikely. Huntsman has certainly seen a bump in his numbers the past couple of days, but he is still behind Ron Paul in a state that he has practically lived in. Even if he were to beat Paul he has no infrastructure in any other state to speak of. Huntsman’s strategy is either win or bust. New Hampshire has been a state that has turned in serious upsets, so it would not be unprecedented if Huntsman were to do well.
The biggest loser in New Hampshire is going to be Rick Santorum. Aside from Huntsman Santorum has spent the most time in the state. Yet, he seems destined to do pretty terrible. This will take away from this new status as the real alternative to Mitt Romney. The senator like Perry and Gingrich will be looking to South Carolina as their saving grace.
This is a clip from a recent documentary on the new North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. It was aired on state TV, and is supposed to coincide with his birthday. So far Kim Jong-un’s career has been dominated by a constant stream of propaganda. No one is quite sure if Kim Jong-un will actually start running the country. It is slowly being to emerge that the young Kim is ostensibly a figure head. So we can certainly expect a continued flow of these wonderfully terrifying videos of the Great Successor.
It is time for Washington and the citizens of the Unites States to wake up and realize that sanctions are failing to prevent Iran from building a bomb.
The latest round of sanctions were viewed in Iran as an act of war today. Iran’s finance minister, Shamseddin Hosseini, was quoted in the offical news agency IRNA as saying, “These sanctions are an economic war against us.” and “The enemies of the Islamic republic’s regime, with all their tricks, have not been able to chain the nation and now they want to chain the economy.”
The purpose of the sanctions is to weaken the Iranians and bring them to the negotiating table, not to raise tensions and bring us closer to conflict. Sanctions have only emboldened the Iranians to speed up their nuclear capabilities. The west has now made it impossible for the Iranians to halt building even if they wanted to. If Iran were to build a bomb, or be at a capacity in which they could construct one very quickly, they would no longer be kicked around by Israel and America. Recent events have shown what happens when a regime does back track on the building of a nuclear device. Gaddafi was convinced by the west to dismantle his nuclear facilities under immense international pressure; after he did he was victim to a military intervention and was executed. If Gaddafi had had a nuclear weapon there is no way NATO would have implemented a no fly zone. A bomb for Iran would mean never getting pushed around again by Israel and America.
For an even better explanation read Vali Nasr’s recent article in Bloomberg.
The head inspector of the Syrian defense ministry, Mahmoud Souleiman Hajj Hamad, has defected. In an interview with Al Jazeera he reveals several fascinating facts about the inner working of the regime. He made the decision to defect after going out and “…observing, inspecting and seeing in our own eyes that there are armed gangs among the protesters, and these gangs are killing protesters.” Aside from being in the defense ministry Hamad was also an auditor for the interior ministry. From this vantage point he was able to see the vast sums of money being transferred from the regime to the thugs killing protesters. Hamad said about $40 million had been spent on loyalist militias who’s goal is to destroy the protesters. Hamad also claims that Iran and Iraq have been giving Assad and the regime financial support. He praises the Free Syrian Army, and also claims that there are many officials who do in fact want to defect.
“I affirm to you that 80% of officials and employees in the government want to defect from this regime. They want to defect and I was one of them, but their fright about themsleves and families from a dissolute regime, this prevents them from defecting.”
What effect Mahmoud Souleiman Hajj Hamad’s defection will have on the political situation is unknown at this point. During Libya’s push to overthrow Gaddafi we saw scores of government officials defecting from the regime. These defections helped to isolate Gaddafi and his inner circle; adding to his eventual downfall. But Syria is not Libya. Most of the senior government positions are held by Alawite’s and staunch loyalists. These loyalists will lose everything if the regime falls, and would most likely be shunned by whatever government takes power after Assad. Every country involved in the “Arab Spring” has been different, and has reacted differently to internal change.
My best guess is that this will prove to be insignificant. Unlike Libya and Gaddafi, Assad still garners a lot of support with in the country. He is not universally loathed like many other authoritarian rulers ousted in the middle east. Christians, Alawites, secularists, and much of the middle class are terrified of what could happen were the regime to fall. That represents a large chunk of the population that is very invested in the longevity of Assad’s rule. Assad also has more or less been able to control the army and security forces. It does not seem likely that the army will help push him aside, as was the case in Egypt. Conversely, the regime can not win by simply going out and killing people. The opposition is only growing stronger in their resolve to see the regime disappear. There is no way that all of these people will simply go back to their houses are forget what has transpired these past months. Some form of negotiation is the only solution to the fighting. When that will actually happen is anyone’s guess. In the mean time another 5,000 civilians will likely perish.
When all the votes are counted who will drop out of the GOP nominating process?
After watching Rick Perry on Fox News just few minutes ago he seems ready to end it in the next few days. He has spent millions in Iowa and will finish in fifth place with around 10% of the vote. Having seen his campaign implode shortly after his first debate, it seems increasingly unlikely that Perry will be able to continue on. The Governors prospects of doing well in New Hampshire are extremely low, and his chances in South Carolina are just as bad if Santorum wins in Iowa.
Michelle Bachmann is headed towards an even worse finish in Iowa. As of right now she has not won even a single county in Iowa, and is polling at around 5%. She faces a similar problem that Perry does; a terrible campaign in Iowa, with no momentum going into the upcoming primaries. Bachmann does not have the financial resources that the governor does, and with no prospects of raising any capital in the near future, she will have no chance of accomplishing anything in the upcoming primaries.
If these two candidates do drop out this will be good news for Jon Huntsman. Huntsman will than be able to position himself as an alternative to the right wing conservative section of the GOP. He will have more air time in New Hampshire, where he has been feverishly campaigning all year, which will help him to stand out more.
Rick Santorum’s visits to all 99 of Iowa’s counties may have really payed of. So far 23 counties have gone to the former Pennsylvania Senator. Just as important though are Mitt Romeny’s number right now in Iowa. With 12 counties going to Romney, he commands the narrow lead over Santorum.
Porkins Policy Review 