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arab spring
Syrians Finally Won the Arab Spring. Can They Avoid Pitfalls and Win Democracy?
Overthrowing a dictator is very difficult, but it is no guarantee of liberty.
Dec 08, 2024
The Syrian Revolution of 2024 has succeeded in deposing the al-Assad dynasty, in power since 1970, throwing off the rule of the once mighty Syrian Socialist Baath Party, a feared and murderous one-party state. Rebel forces streamed into the capital, Damascus, Sunday morning, facing no significant resistance from government troops, amid rumors that dictator Bashar al-Assad had departed the country for parts unknown a day or two ago.
The tip of the spear of the revolution was the fighters of the Levant Liberation Council (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham or HTS), a hard-line fundamentalist organization that had run the province of Idlib in an authoritarian manner in recent years. It is not ISIL (ISIS, Daesh), though that is one path the victors could take if they were so inclined. So far, their behavior in Aleppo has presented a mixed picture, with some killing of Kurds but less turmoil, including for Christians, than some had feared.
The revolution has, however, now become a mass movement, and despite the Fundamentalist Vigilante (“Salafi Jihadi”) shape of the more effective militias, all sorts of people have joined in. Many of the expatriate supporters of the revolution are businessmen and liberals, who had hoped to come to power in 2011 before al-Assad deliberately provoked a civil war and drove the opposition into the arms of Turkey and the Gulf.
Syria is not well placed for a democratic transition, though stranger things have happened. It would be a shame if the people had to trade one form of authoritarianism for another, as happened in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Yemen, and Sudan. Overthrowing a dictator is very difficult, but it is no guarantee of liberty.
Al-Assad is the seventh long-ruling Arab dictator to fall since January 2011. The strongmen of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen fell in 2011-2012. The Bahrain monarchy, however, managed to stay in power, as did Al-Assad in Syria, though the cost to the Syrian people was a years-long civil war that left hundreds of thousands dead and half the country homeless.
I wrote a book about these “Arab Spring” youth revolts, based on field work, The New Arabs, which is still good background reading — if I do say so myself.
"Syrians are better off with the possibility of social evolution than with being locked in a political iron cage, even if the ride may turn very bumpy."
Another shoe dropped when a coalition of leftist labor unions, Sufi orders, and reformist officers overthrew Omar al-Bashir in Sudan on 11 April 2019.
Of the revolts, in Egypt the youth provoked a military coup and then pressured the army to go back to the barracks. In 2013, the army made a counter-coup and Egypt has been run in an even more authoritarian fashion ever since.
In Tunisia, there was a successful democratic transition with regular elections in which the losers went home, until 25 July 2021, when elected President Qais Saied made a self-coup and abolished democracy. Tunisia is now as authoritarian or more as under Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the general overthrown in mid-January, 2011.
Libya fell into civil war and a kind of partition. Nationalist forces led by Khalifa Hafter control the eastern part of the country, and Muslim fundamentalist forces control the West, along with the capital of Tripoli. They say they have made a government of national unity, but its success is murky. Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, the CIA, and Russia support Hafter. Turkey supports Tripoli.
Yemen fell into civil war, with 80% of the population now ruled by the Houthi Shiite Zaydi militia, which has attracted some Iranian support. A southern separatist militia and Muslim Brotherhood militias have positions in southern and eastern provinces, backed by the UAE and Saudi Arabia, respectively.
Sudan saw wrangling between civilians and the officer corps, which dragged its feet on going to the barracks. On October 25, 2021, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan staged a coup and arrested many civilian officials. Then the officer corps split, with the conventional forces backing al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) special operations forces mutinying, with the support of the United Arab Emirates (they get around). The country has plunged into civil war and the humanitarian disaster rivals Gaza in its intensity.
One reason these attempts at a democratic transition failed is that all these countries are desperately poor, except for Libya and Bahrain, which only have oil money, which functions anti-democratically to strengthen the state. Adam Przeworski at NYU, now emeritus, found that middle-income countries like Spain and Taiwan had a better chance of pulling off a transition from an authoritarian to a democratic system. Why is not clear. My guess is that in societies where the government is wealthier than the society, central state actors can overwhelm the public. Where a society has a lot of middle-class people and business interests that value democracy, as in South Korea, they just tell attempted coup-makers “no!”
It also matters what bargains elites make with each other and with the public. One problem everyone ran into in the aftermath of the Arab Spring was that a strong rural-urban divide emerged, which made it difficult to reach a satisfactory compromise. It was paralleled by a nationalist – Muslim fundamentalist divide.
In 2012-13, rural Egypt wanted the Muslim Brotherhood. Urban Egypt mostly hated the Muslim Brotherhood. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi took advantage of the split to make a coup that might satisfy both demographics.
The officer corps has collapsed in Syria, so it doesn’t look like Egypt. If it can move to elections and establish a representative government, Syrians could have a shot at a better life. But if it takes the path of Yemen or Libya, with fundamentalist militias fighting for power, then it will become (even more of) a basket case.
The fate of the 2.4 million Kurds in the northeast, and of 3.5 million Alawites in the northwest, and of possibly a million Christians — plus millions of secular-minded, nationalist Sunnis in Damascus and Aleppo, is very much up in the air. The danger of reprisals against the Alawites for having been the backbone of the Baath Party for 55 years is real.
Those considerations are for another day. Today, let the Syrians bask in the overthrow of a horrid dictatorship that tortured 10,000 prisoners to death, kept thousands of prisoners of conscience locked up, and killed hundreds of thousands of people with indiscriminate fire and barrel bombs, and sometimes chemical weapons. Syrians are better off with the possibility of social evolution than with being locked in a political iron cage, even if the ride may turn very bumpy.
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German Chancellor, Greta Thunberg Call for Release Hunger Striker Alaa Abd El Fattah
"There is no climate justice without social justice and human rights," the Swedish climate campaigner asserted.
Nov 08, 2022
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg on Tuesday joined the growing chorus of calls demanding that United Nations Climate Change Conference host Egypt release hunger-striking political prisoner Alaa Abd El Fattah.
" Human rights and climate movements are stronger when we stand in solidarity together."
El Fattah, who is Egyptian-British, has been jailed almost continuously for the past decade for his activism, especially his prominent role in the Arab Spring pro-democracy uprisings that swept the Middle East in the early 2010s. He is currently serving a five-year sentence after being convicted of spreading "false news undermining national security," a common charge against activists in Egypt.
El Fattah's health has dangerously deteriorated as a result of the hunger strike he's been on since April 2 to protest the torture--including brutal beatings and solitary confinement--and other abuses he says he's endured at the hands of authoritarian President Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's forces.
"It is depressing to see that human life is at risk," Scholz told reporters in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt on Tuesday. "A decision needs to be taken, a release has to be made possible so that it doesn't come to it that the hunger striker dies."
Referring to the U.N. climate conference, Thunberg wrote on Twitter that "during COP27, we urge the Egyptian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all those held simply for peacefully exercising their human rights, implementing criteria set by local NGOs for these releases: fairness, transparency, inclusiveness, and urgency. One of these prisoners is Alaa Abd El Fattah."
"A system that doesn't address the needs for climate justice and securing human rights is a system that has failed everyone--we need to keep both in mind," the 19-year-old Fridays for Future founder added. "Human rights and climate movements are stronger when we stand in solidarity together. There is no climate justice without social justice and human rights."
On Tuesday, Amr Darwish, an Egyptian lawmaker with close ties to el-Sisi, confronted El Fattah's sister, Sanaa Seif, as she spoke at a press briefing, accusing her of "inciting foreign countries to put pressure on Egypt" before being escorted away by security.
Human rights groups have sounded the alarm in recent months over the Egyptian government's persecution of climate activists, as well as voicing concerns that the official app being used at COP27 could be exploited to spy on environmentalists and other dissidents.
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Naomi Klein Spotlights Perils of UN Climate Summit Hosted by Despotic Egyptian Regime
"Unless political freedoms are defended, there will be no meaningful climate action. Not in Egypt, nor anywhere else. These issues are intertwined, as are our fates."
Oct 07, 2022
With a month to go until Egypt hosts the United Nations Climate Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker Naomi Klein on Friday drew attention to the human rights crimes and greenwashing committed by the country's dictatorship.
"This summit is going well beyond greenwashing a polluting state; it's greenwashing a police state."
In a deep-dive article published by The Intercept, Klein centers the story of Alaa Abd El Fattah, an Egyptian-Briton who is "arguably Egypt's highest-profile political prisoner" and has been jailed "almost continuously for the past decade" for his activism, especially his prominent role in the Arab Spring pro-democracy uprisings that swept the Middle East in the early 2010s.
El Fattah is currently serving a five-year sentence after being convicted of spreading "false news undermining national security," a common charge against activists. His health has dangerously deteriorated as a result of the hunger strike he's been on since April 2 to protest the torture--including brutal beatings and solitary confinement--and other abuses perpetrated by his jailers.
Klein asks, "If international solidarity is too weak to save Alaa--an iconic symbol of a generation's liberatory dreams--what hope do we have of saving a habitable home?"
The author zooms out to "the estimated 60,000 other political prisoners behind bars in Egypt where barbaric forms of torture reportedly take place on an 'assembly line'" and the "Egyptian human rights and environmental activists, as well as critical journalists and academics, who have been harassed, spied on, and barred from travel as part of what Human Rights Watch calls Egypt's 'general atmosphere of fear' and 'relentless crackdown on civil society.'"
Klein asserts that "it's hard [to] not think of the courageous youth leaders of the Arab Spring, many of them now prematurely aged by over a decade of state violence and harassment, systems that are lavishly bankrolled by military aid from Western powers, particularly the U.S."
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"Led by Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who seized power in a military coup in 2013 (and has held on to it through sham elections ever since), the regime is, according to human rights organizations, one of the most brutal and repressive in the world," Klein writes.
As such, she says the conference, COP27, will "have no authentic local partners" or "counter-summits where locals get to school international delegates about the truth behind their government's PR facade," because "organizing events like this would land Egyptians in prison for spreading 'false news' or for violating the protest ban--that is, if they aren't already there."
"International delegates can't even read up much on current pollution and environmental despoliation in Egypt ahead of the summit in academic or NGO reports because of a draconian 2019 law that requires researchers to get government permission before releasing information considered 'political,'" she adds.
"This summit is going well beyond greenwashing a polluting state; it's greenwashing a police state," Klein says. "And with fascism on the march from Italy to Brazil, that is no small matter."
"So far, hosting the summit has proved nothing short of a bonanza for Sisi, a man [former U.S. President] Donald Trump reportedly referred to as 'my favorite dictator,'" Klein writes, citing a rise in tourism and investment, including by an entity backed by the U.K. government--despite El Fattah's British citizenship.
"There may still be time... for the summit to become a searchlight that illuminates the many connections between surging authoritarianism and climate chaos."
"The clear implication has been that the summit is too serious and too important to be sidetracked by the supposedly small matter of the host country's shocking human rights record," Klein concludes. "The terrorized lives, brutalized bodies, and silenced truths have been treated, for the most part, as embarrassing collateral damage, an unfortunate price that needs paying in order to make climate progress."
Klein ends on a hopeful note: "There may still be time to change that sinister script, for the summit to become a searchlight that illuminates the many connections between surging authoritarianism and climate chaos around the world... There is still time to use the extreme conditions under which the summit will take place to make the case that climate justice--whether inside countries or between them--is impossible without political freedoms."
"There is still power and leverage to be organized and exercised," she insists. "The hour is late, but there is still just enough time to get this right. Human Rights Watch argues that the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat, which sets the rules for these summits, should 'develop human rights criteria that countries hosting future COPs must commit to meeting as part of the host agreement.'"
"That's too late for this summit," Klein adds, "but it's not too late for all of those who are concerned about climate justice to show solidarity with the revolutionaries who inspired millions around the world a decade ago when they toppled a tyrant."
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Report of Illegal $80 Million Arms Transfer by Erik Prince to Libyan Warlord Raises Question of Who's Backing Former Blackwater CEO
Prince has "been linked to the Trump administration, the Emirati leadership, and the Russians," noted one expert.
Feb 19, 2021
Erik Prince, the founder and former CEO of the mercenary firm Blackwater and a close ally of former President Donald Trump, sent weapons to a Libyan warlord in violation of a United Nations arms embargo, according to a confidential U.N. document reported Friday by the New York Times.
"To what degree did Trump help facilitate this war alongside Erik Prince?"
--Anas el-Gomati,
Sadeq Institute
The U.N. report, which investigators sent to the Security Council on Thursday, reportedly details how Prince sent foreign mercenaries armed with attack aircraft, gunboats, and cyberwarfare capabilities to support renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar during a major 2019 battle in eastern Libya.
According to the U.N. report, the mercenary operation cost $80 million and included a plan to form a hit squad to locate and assassinate commanders opposed to Haftar.
Haftar, a one-time CIA asset considered Libya's most powerful warlord, has fought to overthrow the North African nation's internationally recognized government during the country's second civil war since the overthrow of longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi in the 2011 Arab Spring revolts. Haftar has enjoyed various degrees of support from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Russia. British, French, U.S., and UAE warplanes have also assisted his forces.
In 2019, Trump reportedly granted permission for Haftar--who stands accused of ordering his troops to commit war crimes--to launch an air campaign against the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord, attacks which killed hundreds of civilians in the Libyan capital of Tripoli.
The U.N. report raises questions about whether Trump was complicit in Prince's violation of the international arms embargo against Haftar's forces.
Anas el-Gomati, director of Libyan think tank Sadeq Institute, told Al Jazeera that using mercenaries allows leaders to "outright refuse that you have any knowledge of what's going on."
"To what degree did Trump help facilitate this war alongside Erik Prince?" asked el-Gomati, who also wondered whether "Erik Prince was coordinating with Russian Wagner Group mercenaries in Libya, and has helped them establish a foothold in the way he helped the United Arab Emirates establish a foothold in Libya."
Another unanswered question is who funded Prince's $80 million operation. Wolfram Lacher, a Libya expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told the Times that Prince has "been linked to the Trump administration, the Emirati leadership, and the Russians."
"For me, the question is who is tacitly backing him?" asked Lacher.
Prince, a former U.S. Navy SEAL, founded Blackwater--now called Constellis after multiple sales--in 1997. He rose to prominence during the George W. Bush administration and the so-called War on Terror, in which the U.S. relied heavily upon private contractors. On September 16, 2007, Blackwater guards massacred 17 men, women, and children in Nisour Square in Baghdad, Iraq.
Last December, Trump pardoned four of the Nisour Square killers, who had been sentenced to 12 years to life in prison for crimes including first-degree murder.
Trump and Prince have long enjoyed warm relations. Prince was a major Trump donor whose sister, Betsy DeVos, was confirmed as secretary of education in 2017.
This isn't the first time Prince has been accused of breaking domestic and international laws against weapons transfers. In 2012 his anti-piracy security force in Somalia was accused by the U.N. of "the most brazen violation of the arms embargo by a private security company." Prince was also reportedly the target of an FBI investigation last year for weaponizing crop dusters.
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Turkey Could Deploy Troops to War-Torn Libya in January, Latest Acceleration of Multi-Country Proxy War
The country's main opposition opposes the move and warned on Monday that the conflict could spread across the region.
Dec 29, 2019
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could on Thursday receive permission from his country's parliament to send military personnel and equipment to Libya to support the North African country's United Nations-recognized leader Fayez al-Serraj, who is facing an uprising.
If approved, the deployment could further inflame tensions in the region.
The Erdogan government submitted the request to parliament on Monday while Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu met with legislators. Opposition leader Unal Cevikoz, deputy chairman for the Republican People's Party (CHP), told reporters that he opposed the proposed deployment in the strongest of terms.
"We will never accept Turkey to be a part of the proxy war in Libya and, by siding with one of the sides of the conflict, for it to be a cause of the shedding of Muslim blood," said Cevikoz.
Erdogan is widely believed to be engaging in the conflict to further Turkish territorial aims in the Mediterranean. Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, showed how Turkey is looking to expand its footprint in the region.
"Contact with Libyan sea space allows Ankara to cut into Israeli-Egyptian-Cypriot-Greek axis boxing Turkey in eastern Mediterranean," Cagaptay tweeted.
Libya is riven by a civil war between al-Serraj, who is backed by Turkey and Italy, and rebel leader General Khalifa Haftar, who is backed by Russia, Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates.
The U.S., despite its status as a major regional player, has been noncomittal about getting involved in the most recent phase of the war, which began in 2011 with the participation of then-President Barack Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The campaign, though brief, has had major consequences for the people of Libya and North Africa, including the reopening of slave markets for the first time in decades.
On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron and Egypt's dictator President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi issued a joint statement urging "restraint" on the part of Turkey.
Around 1,000 Russian mercenaries are reportedly helping Haftar. If Turkey joins the battle, the country's troops could be joined by Syrian fighters allied with the Erdogan government.
"The military's experience abroad will be very useful in Libya," a Turkish security official told Lebanon's The Daily Star. "However, there is the possibility of using the experience of Syrian fighters as well...and this is being evaluated."
CHP's Cevikoz said his party would try to find another solution for Turkish involvement in Libya.
"We believe diplomacy should be prioritized, rather than being a party to a proxy war," said Cevikoz. "What is being done is making preparations to worsen the current situation, and we conveyed to the minister that this is not right."
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A New Arab Spring in Lebanon and Iraq
Once again, people in the Middle East want democratic reforms and an end to corruption and foreign domination.
Nov 16, 2019
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Lebanese have been demonstrating in the streets against corruption and for democratic rights. The protestors come from all economic classes and religious/ethnic groups.
Like the Arab Spring uprisings that began in 2010, these protests are spontaneous and without traditional leaders. And they are sending corrupt political parties and foreign powers scrambling to manipulate the protests for their own nefarious ends.
The current protests raise many of the same issues as the Arab Spring, says David Dunford, a former US ambassador to several Middle East countries and author of From Sadat to Saddam: The Decline of American Diplomacy in the Middle East.
"People in both countries are sick and tired of sectarian jockeying and foreign influence," he tells me in a phone interview.
In my opinion, the uprisings expose false logic of the vacuum theory, which posits that US military withdrawal automatically benefits the villain du jour, whether Russia, Iran, or China. Instead, the protests show that the people of the Middle East don't want domination by Washington, D.C., or any outside power.
Lebanon crisis
On a trip to Lebanon earlier this year, I spoke with businessmen who warned of a coming economic crisis. The Lebanese currency was dropping against the dollar, and the businessmen saw an economic meltdown coming.
It wasn't hard to see why. Walking along Beirut's cornice, or seaside road, I passed by dozens of vacant, multi-million dollar condos owned as vacation homes or investments by Saudi sheiks and Emirati businessmen.
Meanwhile, working class Lebanese can't get basic services: electricity, garbage collection and protection from raging forest fires. The poverty rate is around 30 percent, according to the World Bank.
On October 17, spontaneous demonstrations began when the government imposed a new tax on the What's App program, widely used on cell phones to make free calls. But demonstrators quickly added corruption and lack of democracy to their list of demands. They called for the entire government to resign and an end to Lebanon's system by which certain government positions are guaranteed to each ethnic/religious group and hence to the corrupt political parties.
People sat down on major thoroughfares and set up roadblocks. Universities shut, and when they reopened, students refused to attend. Banks closed because depositors feared they couldn't access their money.
For the first time, Lebanese from different economic classes and religions joined together demanding an end to the country's sectarian political system. They opposed the old, corrupt parties, whether backed by the US, Saudi Arabia, or Iran.
People were particularly angry with Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who gave $16 million to his bikini model mistress. Hariri and his cabinet resigned October 29. All the parties in the ruling coalition, which was led by Hezbollah, scrambled to respond.
Amal and Hezbollah, the two parties with largely Shia Muslim support, initially supported the demonstrations. But so did Samir Geagea, the ultra right wing Maronite Christian leader and sworn enemy of Hezbollah.Hezbollah and Amal later withdrew support, having been accused of beating peaceful demonstrators.
Groundhog Day all over again
The Trump Administration, in what has become a Groundhog Day experience, didn't know how to respond to yet another world crisis, according to a former US diplomat who recently met with White House and State Department officials. Washington views Lebanon through the prism of Iran and Syria, he says. "They have no understanding of what's going on in Lebanon," the diplomat tells me, on condition of anonymity.
So far, the Trump Administration does not plan a military intervention but seeks to weaken Hezbollah, which it alleges is an Iranian proxy. But factions within the administration differ on tactics.
The White House's National Security staff believes Hezbollah controls the Lebanese government and has significant influence in the Lebanese Army. They want to pressure the Army and opposition parties to break with Hezbollah.
So on October 31, in a surprise move, the US stopped all aid to the Lebanese Army, including $105 million which had been already approved in September.
The State Department and Pentagon opposed the aid cut, arguing that the Army constitutes a stabilizing and pro-western force. Cutting US military aid, they argue, just provides more openings for Iran and Russia to exert influence.
All sides believe that the mass protests have weakened Hezbollah. But Hezbollah not only has a well-armed, battle-hardened militia, it can mobilize tens of thousands of civilian supporters in a matter of hours. It consistently wins seats in the Lebanese parliament and has proven adept at forming electoral alliances, even with former enemies.
Iraqis oppose US and Iran
Given Lebanon's unsuccessful system guaranteeing government positions to ethnic groups, you'd think the US would have tried something different in Iraq. Instead, Washington has created an equally flawed system and imposed it on a poorer, war-ravaged country.
In Iraq, the political parties break down by religious/ethnic group, resulting in a Shia Muslim prime minister and Kurdish president. Each party places its supporters in government jobs and issues government contracts to corrupt partners. As a result, the government functions as an ATM for the parties and the wealthy elite.
Meanwhile, ordinary Iraqis don't have safe drinking water and government-supplied electricity. Many complain that government services are worse today than under Saddam Hussein.
Protests against corruption and the party system broke out October 1. Demonstrators condemned corruption in the pro-US and pro-Iran parties in Iraq, and within the parties of the Kurdish region.
The government launched a brutal crackdown. To date, more than 300 protesters have been killed, mostly by uniformed security forces and government-affiliated snipers.
Protesters threw gasoline bombs at the Iranian consulate in Karbala and chanted anti-Iran slogans. Persons unknown launched seventeen rockets into a US air base.
Iraqis have long opposed US occupation of their country. But over the past few years, they've also grown angry at Iran's influence over certain political parties and Iranian-controlled militias affiliated with the Iraqi Army.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's leading Muslim cleric, has supported the demonstrations and opposed Iranian meddling. Moktada al-Sadr, whose political party won a plurality in the last parliamentary elections, has called for an end to all foreign interference, whether from Washington or Tehran.
The uprisings in Lebanon and Iraq show once again that people in the Middle East want democratic reforms, and an end to corruption and foreign domination. Nowhere is it written that countries must either support the US or Iran. It may be difficult, but people can determine their own future.
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The Real 'Troika of Tyranny' is Made Up of U.S. Allies
A threesome that just happen to be President Trump's best buddies in the Middle East
May 30, 2019
American foreign policy can be so retro, not to mention absurd. Despite being bogged down in more military interventions than it can reasonably handle, the Trump team recently picked a new fight--in Latin America. That's right! Uncle Sam kicked off a sequel to the Cold War with some of our southern neighbors, while resuscitating the boogeyman of socialism. In the process, National Security Advisor John Bolton treated us all to a new phrase, no less laughable than Bush the younger's 2002 "axis of evil" (Iran, Iraq, and North Korea). He labeled Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua a "troika of tyranny."
Alliteration no less! The only problem is that the phrase ridiculously overestimates both the degree of collaboration among those three states and the dangers they pose to their hegemonic neighbor to the north. Bottom line: in no imaginable fashion do those little tin-pot tyrannies offer either an existential or even a serious threat to the United States. Evidently, however, the phrase was meant to conjure up enough ill will and fear to justify the Trump team's desire for sweeping regime change in Latin America. Think of it as a micro-version of Cold War 2.0.
Odds are that Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, both unrepentant neocons, are the ones driving this Latin American Cold War reboot, even as, halfway across the planet, they've been pushing for war with Iran. Meanwhile, it's increasingly clear that Donald Trump gets his own kick out of being a "war president" and the unique form of threat production that goes with it.
Since it's a recipe for disaster, strap yourself in for a bumpy ride. After all, the demonization of Latin American "socialists" and an ill-advised war in the Persian Gulf have already been part of our lived experience. Under the circumstances, remember your Karl Marx: history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.
And add this irony to the grim farce to come: you need only look to the Middle East to see a genuine all-American troika of tyranny. I'm thinking about the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the military junta in Egypt, and the colonizing state of Israel--all countries that eschew real democracy and are working together to rain chaos on an already unstable region.
If you weren't an American, this might already be clear to you. With that in mind, let's try on a pair of non-American shoes and take a brief tour of a real troika of tyranny on this planet, a threesome that just happen to be President Trump's best buddies in the Middle East.
America's Favorite Kingdom
The Saudi royals are among the worst despots around. Yet Washington has long given them a pass. Sure, they possess oodles of oil, black gold upon which the U.S. was once but no longer is heavily dependent. American support for those royals reaches back to World War II, when President Franklin Roosevelt took a detour after the Yalta Conference to meet King Ibn Saud and first struck the devilish deal that, in the decades to come, would keep the oil flowing. In return, Washington would provide ample backing to the kingdom and turn a blind eye to its extensive human rights abuses.
Ultimately, this bargain proved as counterproductive as it was immoral. Sometimes the Saudis didn't even live up to their end of the bargain. For example, they shut the oil spigot during the 1973 Yom Kippur War to express collective Arab frustration with Washington's favoritism toward Israel. Worse still, the royals used their continual oil windfall to build religious schools and mosques throughout the Muslim world in order to spread the regime's intolerant Wahhabi faith. From there, it was a relatively short road to the 9/11 attacks in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals (and not one was an Iranian).
More recently, in the Syrian civil war, Saudi Arabia even backed the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda franchise. That's right, an American partner funded an offshoot of the very organization that took down the twin towers and damaged the Pentagon. For this there have been no consequences.
In other words, Washington stands shoulder to shoulder with a truly abhorrent regime, while simultaneously complaining bitterly about the despotism and tyranny of nations of which it's less fond. The hypocrisy should be (but generally isn't) considered staggering here. We're talking about a Saudi government that only recently allowed women to drive automobiles and still beheads them for "witchcraft and sorcery." Indeed, mass execution is a staple of the regime. Recently, the kingdom executed 37 men in a single day. (One of them was even reportedly crucified.) Most were not the "terrorists" they were made out to be, but dissidents from Saudi Arabia's Shia minority convicted, as Amnesty International put it, "after sham trials that... relied on confessions extracted through torture."
During the Arab Spring of 2011, the Saudi royals certainly proved anything but friends to the budding democratic movements brewing across the region. Indeed, its military even invaded a tiny neighbor to the east, Bahrain, to suppress civil-rights protests by that country's embattled Shia majority. (A Sunni royal family runs the show there.) In Yemen, the Saudis continue to terror bomb civilians in its war against Houthi militias. Tens of thousands have died--the exact number isn't known--under a brutal bombing campaign and at least 85,000 Yemeni children have already starved to death thanks to the war and a Saudi blockade of what was already the Arab world's poorest country. The hell unleashed on Yemen has been dubbed the world's worst humanitarian crisis. It has already produced millions of refugees and, at present, the world's worst cholera epidemic.
Through it all, Washington stood by its royals time and again, with The Donald far more gleefully pro-Saudi than his predecessors. His first foreign excursion, after all, was to that kingdom's capital, Riyadh, where the president seemed to relish joining the martial pageantry of a Saudi "sword dance." He also let it be known that the cash would keep flowing from the kingdom into military-industrial coffers in this country, announcing a supposedly record $110 billion set of arms deals (including a number closed by the Obama administration and ones that may never come to fruition). Son-in-law Jared Kushner even continues to maintain a bromance with the ambitious and brutal ruling Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
In other words, with fulsome support from Washington, sophisticated American weapons, and a boatload of American cash, Saudi Arabia continues to unleash terror at home and abroad. This much is certain: if you're looking for a troika of tyrants, that country should top your list.
America's Favorite Military Autocracy
The U.S. also backs--and Trump seems to love--Egypt's military ruler Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. At a press conference at the White House in September 2017, the president leaned toward the general and announced that he was "doing a great job." Hardly anyone inside the Beltway, in the media, or even on Main Street batted an eye. Washington has, of course, long supported Egypt's various tyrants, including the brutal Hosni Mubarak who was overthrown early in the Arab Spring. Cairo remains the second largest annual recipient of American military aid at $1.3 billion annually. In fact, 75% of such aid goes to just two countries, the other being Israel. In a sense, Washington simply bribes both states not to fight each other. Now, that's diplomacy for you!
So, how's Egypt's military using all the guns and butter the U.S. sends its way? Brutally, of course. After Mubarak was overthrown in 2011, Mohammed Morsi won a free and fair election. Less than two years later, the military, which abhors his Muslim Brotherhood organization, seized power in a coup. Enter General al-Sisi. And when Morsi supporters rallied to protest the putsch, the general, who had appointed himself president, promptly ordered his troops to open fire. At least 900 protesters were killed in what came to be known as the 2013 Rabaa Massacre. Since then, Sisi has ruled with an iron fist, his personal power, winning a sham reelection with 97.8% of the vote, and pushing through major constitutional changes that will allow the generalissimo to stay in power until at least 2030. Washington, of course, remained silent.
Sisi has run a veritable police state, replete with human rights abuses and mass incarceration. Last year, he even had a show trial of 739 Muslim Brotherhood-associated defendants, 75 of whom were sentenced to death in a single day. He also uses "emergency" counterterrorism laws to jail peaceful dissidents. Thousands of them have gone before military courts. In addition, in U.S.-backed Egypt most forms of independent organization and peaceful assembly remain banned. Cairo even collaborates with its old enemy Israel to maintain a stranglehold of a blockade on the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which the United Nations has termed "inhumane."
Yet Egypt gets a hall pass from the Trump administration. It matters not at all that few places on the planet suppress free speech as effectively as Egypt now does--not since it buys American weaponry and generally does as Washington wants in the region. In other words, a diplomatic state of marital (and martial) bliss protects the second member of the real troika of tyranny.
America's Favorite Apartheid State
Some will be surprised, even offended, that I include Israel in this imaginary troika. Certainly, on the surface, Israel's democracy bears no relation to the political worlds of Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Still, scratch below the gilded surface of Israeli life and you'll soon unearth staggering civil liberties abuses and a penchant for institutional oppression. After all, so extreme have been the abuses of ever more right-wing Israeli governments against the stateless Palestinians that even some mainstream foreign leaders and scholars now compare that country to apartheid South Africa.
And the label is justified. Palestinians are essentially isolated in the equivalent of open-air prisons in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip--not unlike the bantustans of South Africa in the years when that country was white-ruled. In the impoverished, refugee-camp atmosphere of these state-lets, Palestinians lack anything resembling civil rights. They can't even vote for the Israeli prime ministers who lord it over them. What's more, the Palestinian citizens of Israel (some 20% of the population), despite technically possessing the franchise, are systematically repressed in a variety of ways.
Evidence of an apartheid-style state is everywhere apparent in the Palestinian territories. In violation of countless international norms and U.N. resolutions, Israel imposes its own version of a police state--functionally, a military occupation of land legally possessed by Arabs. It has begun a de facto annexation of Palestinian land by building a "security wall" through Palestinian villages. Its military constructs special "Jewish only" roads in the West Bank linking illegal Israeli settlements, while further fracturing the fiction of Palestinian contiguity. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not only refused to withdraw those settlements or halt the colonization of Palestinian territory by Jewish Israelis, but during the recent Israeli election promised to begin the actual annexation of the West Bank in his new term.
Israeli military actions are regularly direct violations of the principles of proportionality in warfare, which means that the ratio of Israeli to Palestinian casualties is invariably absurdly disproportionate. Since last spring, at least 175 Palestinians (almost all unarmed) have been shot to death by Israeli soldiers along the Gaza Strip fence line, while 5,884 others were wounded by live ammunition. Ninety-four of those had to have a limb amputated. A staggering 948 of the wounded were minors. In that period, just one Israeli died and 11 were wounded in those same clashes.
Life in blockaded Gaza is almost unimaginably awful. So stringent are the sanctions imposed that one prominent official in a leaked diplomatic cable admitted that Israeli policy was to "keep Gaza's economy on the brink of collapse." In fact, back in 2012, one of that country's military spokesmen even indicated that food was being allowed into the blockaded strip on a 2,300 calories a day count per Gazan--just enough, that is, to avoid starvation.
Through it all, with President Trump at the wheel, Netanyahu can feel utterly assured of the near limitless backing of the United States. The Trump team has essentially sanctioned all Israeli behavior, thereby legitimizing the present state of Palestinian life. Trump has moved the U.S. embassy to contested Jerusalem--admitting once and for all that Washington sees the holy city as the sole property of the Jewish state--recognized the illegal Israeli annexation of the conquered Syrian Golan Heights, and increased the flow of military aid and arms to Israel, already the number-one recipient of such American largesse.
Sometimes, in the age of Trump, it almost seems as if "Bibi" Netanyahu were the one guiding American policy throughout the Middle East. No wonder Israel rounds out that troika of tyranny.
Wag the Dog?
Beyond their wretched human rights records and undemocratic tendencies, that troika has another particularly relevant commonality as the U.S. reportedly prepares for a possible war with Iran. Two of those countries--Israel and Saudi Arabia--desperately desire that the American military take on their Iranian nemesis. The third, Egypt, will go along with just about anything as long as Uncle Sam keeps the military aid flowing to Cairo. Think of it as potentially the ultimate "wag the dog" scenario, with Washington taking on the role of the dog.
This alone should make Washington officials cautious. After all, war with Iran would surely prove disastrous (whatever damage was done to that country). If you don't think so, you haven't been living through the last 17-plus years of this country's forever wars. Unfortunately, no one should count on such caution from John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, or even Donald Trump.
So settle into your seats, folks, and prepare to watch the empire swallow the republic whole.
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Autocrats and Uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa
Spring stirrings and misgivings
May 02, 2019
"Al-Shebab," said my student Jerry early in the fall 2010 semester. "We're calling our small group al-Shebab. It means 'The Youth.'" From his name alone, I wouldn't have guessed his background, but he was proud of his family's Egyptian roots and had convinced his classmates to give their group an Arabic name.
As usually happens when the semester ends and my dozens of students scatter, Jerry and I lost touch. The following April, however, we ran into each other at a rally organized by students at my university to support the Arab Spring. Like many others around the world, I'd watched transfixed as brave unarmed civilians faced down riot police on the bridges leading to Cairo's Tahrir Square. I'd celebrated on February 11, 2011, when the corrupt and authoritarian Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak resigned as the military took control of that country.
Jerry's eyes sparkled when he saw me. "Isn't it amazing?" he shouted. Yes, it was amazing... until it wasn't.
This spring, eight years later, there has been a new set of popular uprisings in northern Africa, from Algeria to Morocco, to Sudan. Let's hope they have more lasting success than Egypt's Arab Spring.
It's All About the Military
The victory over Hosni Mubarak was indeed amazing, perhaps too amazing to last, since the real arbiter of events in Egypt was then, and continues to be, its military. In the parliamentary elections of November 2011, the long-suppressed Muslim Brotherhood took almost half that body'sseats. In June 2012, the Brotherhood's candidate, Mohammed Morsi, became the country's first elected president, winning a runoff race with just under 52% of the vote.
That August, Morsi made the move that would eventually doom him, replacing his defense minister with Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. He also quickly turned in an increasingly autocratic direction, issuing decrees granting himself more power and proposing a new constitution that would do the same (which was approved by more than 60% of the voters in a low-turnout referendum).
By June 2013, many Egyptians were frustrated both with Morsi's increasingly authoritarian rule and the stagnation of the economy. Once again, millions of people gathered in Cairo, this time to call for his removal, at which point the military pushed him out, installing the head of the constitutional court, Adly Mansour, as interim president. Muslim Brotherhood supporters responded with violent attacks, burning police stations and government buildings. The government repression that followed was fierce enough that, in October 2013, the Obama administration suspended the further transfer of U.S. military equipment to Egypt. Eventually, new elections were held and, in May 2014, Morsi's Defense Minister, el-Sisi, won the presidency with a suspicious 96.9% of the vote. By then, the Muslim Brotherhood had been outlawed and would soon be declared a terrorist organization.
In April of this year, el-Sisi, running essentially unopposed, was reelected. Never one to slight an authoritarian ruler, President Trump immediately called to congratulate him and then invited him to the White House to discuss "robust military, economic, and counterterrorism cooperation" between the two countries. A few weeks later, in a "snap referendum," the Egyptian constitution was altered to allow el-Sisi to retain the presidency until at least 2030 -- essentially, that is, for life. That move also cemented the country's military, long its dominant economic power, as its sole political power, too.
Trump Goes A-Wooing in the Middle East and North Africa
From Russia's Vladimir Putin to Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, the American president who "fell in love" with North Korea's Kim Jong-un has rarely met an autocrat he didn't take to (though his bromance with Kim may finally be souring). So, it's no surprise that el-Sisi's trip to Washington was a success and his country is now on course to remain the second-largest recipient of U.S. aid after Israel. Ninety-four percent of that aid goes to "peace and security" -- in other words, to Egypt's military and police.
Trump is, however, distinctly polyamorous when it comes to Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) autocratic types, as his long-standing love affair with Israel's recently reelected prime minister, Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, indicates. Given Trump's own history of racism, Bibi's embrace of Israel's 2018 "Nation-State" law undoubtedly only turned up the heat on their relationship. This infamous legislation moves Israel further in the direction of apartheid. It legalizes Jewish-only communities, demotes Arabic from its status as an official language, and states that "the right to exercise national self-determination" in Israel is "unique to the Jewish people."
While the world waits less than breathlessly for Jared Kushner's long-promised Israel-Palestine peace plan, President Trump keeps gift-wrapping pieces of disputed territory and handing them directly to Bibi in his own spontaneous version of an Israel First peace plan. In December 2017 came the announcement of his administration's decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump claimed that "recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital would advance the peace process and make a permanent status agreement between the two sides easier." Maybe he saw this as a move towards peace because it unilaterally took the ultimate status of Jerusalem, one of the pieces in any such plan, off the Israeli-Palestinian playing board.
Next up came the Golan Heights, a slice of territory on Syria's western border, captured by Israel in 1967 during the Six Day War between Israel and Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. In 1981, Israel passed a law annexing the area, an act rejected by the U.N. Security Council, whose resolution stated that "the Israeli decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction, and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and without international legal effect." As a permanent member of the Security Council, the United States joined that unanimous vote. Nonetheless, this spring, just before a very close Israeli election, President Trump reversed longstanding policy and announced his recognition of Israel's annexation of the Heights. Happy Birthday, Bibi.
In the days before the election, Netanyahu then doubled down on annexation, proclaiming his intention to make Jewish settlements on the West Bank a permanent part of Israel along with the Golan Heights. In so doing, he'll be fulfilling Ariel Sharon's decades-old boast about Israel's intentions for the Palestinians:
"We'll make a pastrami sandwich out of them. We'll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank, so that in twenty-five years' time, neither the United Nations nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart."
Meanwhile, Trump seems to have developed a new crush, this time on a Libyan military figure the New York Times calls a "would-be strongman": 75-year-old self-styled "Field Marshal" Khalifa Hifter. Based in the eastern part of Libya, where he has been aligned with one of that divided land's several rival governments, Hifter, a former CIA asset, launched an attack on the capital, Tripoli, on April 5th. Though not successful so far, his assault has already caused hundreds of deaths, with more likely to follow.
A Mediterranean port in the northwestern corner of the country, Tripoli houses Libya's internationally recognized government headed by Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj, which doesn't actually do much governing. Ever since the Obama administration and NATO intervened to topple autocrat Muammar al-Gaddafi, power in Libya has been divided among multiple militias, including Hifter's military, and Islamist groups like ISIS.
When the field marshal attacked Tripoli, the initial Trump administration response was swift and negative. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement indicating the opposition of "the administration at the highest levels," announcing that"we oppose the military offensive." He urged Hifter to immediately "halt... these military operations." His reaction accorded with that of "most Western governments and the United Nations," which, according to the New York Times, "have also condemned the attack and demanded a retreat."
Hours later, however, President Trump personally called Hifter (as National Security Advisor John Bolton had done earlier) and essentially encouraged him to keep up his assault on Tripoli. According to a White House statement:
"The President recognized Field Marshal Hifter's significant role in fighting terrorism and securing Libya's oil resources, and the two discussed a shared vision for Libya's transition to a stable, democratic political system."
Why is Donald J. Trump supporting a Libyan warlord, even as his move to take Tripoli seems to be failing? Perhaps because Hifter also has the support of Trump's other MENA buddies, Egypt's el-Sisi, the Saudi Arabian government of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman --which only recently executed 37 people (36 beheaded and one crucified), including several who confessed under torture and were minors at the time of their alleged crimes -- and the leaders of the United Arab Emirates. Those Arab powers are betting that Hifter can suppress any Libyan version of the Muslim Brotherhood. And there's one more autocrat backing Hifter, Trump's old flame Vladimir Putin. Indeed, for once Russia and the United States find themselves on the same side in the U.N. Security Council, where they joined to block a resolution demanding a ceasefire and condemning Hifter's military moves. Meanwhile, in a gesture of love for the Saudis, Trump vetoed a resolution passed with rare bipartisan congressional support that would have ended U.S. backing for the Kingdom's brutal war in Yemen.
For all his love of authoritarians, there is, however, one Middle Eastern nation that hasn't won Trump's affections: Iran. In May 2018, he pulled the United States out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPA), an international accord under which Iran had agreed not to develop nuclear weapons. In return, economic sanctions on that country were eased, while it was allowed to resume selling oil on the international market, and regained access to billions of dollars in frozen assets overseas.
The JCPA's other signatories included Russia, France, Great Britain, and China, along with Germany and the European Union. None of them followed Trump's lead. Only recently, his administration has threatened sanctions against any country buying oil from Iran after May 1st, a move mainly affecting China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Turkey. This attempt to economically starve Iran into submission comes even as his administration declared that country's Revolutionary Guards a " foreign terrorist organization." As the hardliners in both lands face off, further escalation becomes increasingly, and dangerously, likely.
Spring Stirrings
As we brace for a possible future conflict with Iran (what could possibly go wrong?), it's sometimes easy for those of us who have spent our lives opposing U.S. military actions to forget that Washington isn't, in fact, behind every world event. Other peoples have their own struggles and their own agency -- on display this spring in two MENA countries that have long suffered under corrupt and authoritarian governments: Algeria and Sudan. (And there appear to be stirrings in Morocco, as well.)
Algeria: Every semester I show the students in my Ethics: War, Torture, and Terrorism class The Battle of Algiers. Director Gillo Pontecorvo's classic film depicts the first urban uprising against French colonial power by Algeria's National Liberation Front (FLN), brutally suppressed by France's paratroopers between1954 and 1957. It contains enough war, torture, and terrorism to fuel a semester's worth of conversation. Inevitably, students want to know what happened in Algeria after the French were finally driven out in 1962. "That," I tell them, "is a sad story."
Indeed it is. After leading Algerians to victory over France, the FLN ruled the country for almost two decades, mostly under military control after a 1965 coup. Following popular uprisings in 1988, a new constitution opened political space for other parties, while reducing the army's role in government. The most popular of those parties turned out to be the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), which was devoted to a fundamentalist version of political Islam. When it appeared clear that the FIS would win both local and national elections, the FLN and the military stepped in to prevent it, resulting in a series of coups and an ongoing civil war.
Eventually, a new FLN leader, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, came to power in 1999 and never left. Earlier this year, he announced through intermediaries -- he has not been seen in public since 2014 -- that he would seek a fifth term. Evidently suffering from stomach cancer, he had a stroke in 2013 and has been out of the country much of the time since for medical treatment, most recently in Switzerland.
The latest announcement finally provoked a full-scale popular uprising, led by--and this should sound familiar to readers of this piece--al-shebab, the youth, many of whom had known no other president. ("Youth" is attractive, which is probably why a terror group in Somalia has also taken that name.) In an oil-rich country where a quarter of those under 30 are out of work, the younger generation is fed up with behind-the-scenes military rule, a sick autocrat, and the pervasive corruption that goes with it all. For weeks this spring, Algerians in their millions poured into the streets, demanding that Bouteflika leave office. On April 2nd, facing this massive, determined, non-violent resistance -- and with a push from the military -- he resigned. Seventy-seven-year-old Abdelkader Bensalah, like Bouteflika a veteran of the war of independence, has replaced him until new elections in July.
The protesters haven't, however, let up, arguing that Bouteflika may be gone but the power structure that kept him in office--"le pouvoir"--is still running the government. Perhaps as a sop to the movement, on April 22nd, the police detained five of the country's most powerful businessmen on accusations of corruption. It remains to be seen whether the strength of this new resistance can be converted into a political version of people's power for the long term.
Sudan: Meanwhile in Sudan, weeks of similarly massive popular uprisings have dislodged another autocrat, forcing that country's military to remove President Omar al-Bashir. He is now reportedly in prison, while a search of his home turned up bags containing more than $100 million in cash.
As in Algeria, many of the demonstrators are young and in Sudan a majority of them appear to be women. The most organized among them is a group of doctors, other health workers, and lawyers known as the Sudanese Professionals Association. As in Algeria, the key question is whether this movement will be able to hold out against the power of the military until a genuinely civilian government can be installed.
The original Arab Spring--Tunisia possibly excluded--ended in bloodshed and autocratic or military rule. Still, the youth in parts of the region clearly remain both dissatisfied and hopeful enough to take to the streets to try to bring democracy and clean government to their countries.
An American Spring?
Speaking of aging autocrats, we've got one of our own in Washington, D.C. So where are the American millions in the streets? Where is our American Spring? Admittedly, we were there when he first took office, but two years of constant outrage seem to have worn us down or out. As a whirlwind tour of the MENA region suggests, the death and destruction Donald Trump has had a hand in producing extends far beyond our own borders. And we can add to the list of horrors perhaps the greatest one of all: his apparent determination to hasten the collapse of civilization by pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accords and doubling down on fossil fuels.
And then there's the question of our own quaint constitution with its attachment to the rule of law. Now that we have the (redacted) Mueller report, isn't it time for Americans to stand up for democracy and clean government here at home? I can understand Nancy Pelosi's reluctance to begin impeachment proceedings, given the unlikelihood of a conviction by a Republican Senate. But if we don't want to end up like so many other countries, replacing one autocrat with another, we have to find a way to hold the one we now have accountable for his high crimes and misdemeanors.
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Judging U.S. War Crimes
Chelsea Manning, who bravely exposed atrocities committed by the U.S. military, is again imprisoned in a U.S. jail. On International Women's Day, March 8, 2019, she was incarcerated in the Alexandria, VA federal detention center for refusing to testify in front of a secretive Grand Jury. Her imprisonment can extend through the term of the Grand Jury, possibly 18 months, and the U.S. courts could allow the formation of future Grand Juries, potentially jailing her again.
Mar 09, 2019
Chelsea Manning, who bravely exposed atrocities committed by the U.S. military, is again imprisoned in a U.S. jail. On International Women's Day, March 8, 2019, she was incarcerated in the Alexandria, VA federal detention center for refusing to testify in front of a secretive Grand Jury. Her imprisonment can extend through the term of the Grand Jury, possibly 18 months, and the U.S. courts could allow the formation of future Grand Juries, potentially jailing her again.
Chelsea Manning has already paid an extraordinarily high price for educating the U.S. public about atrocities committed in the wars of choice the U.S. waged in Iraq and Afghanistan. Chelsea Manning was a U.S. Army soldier and former U.S. intelligence analyst. She already testified, in court, how she downloaded and disseminated government documents revealing classified information she believed represented possible war crimes. In 2013, she was convicted by court-martial and sentenced to 35 years in prison for leaking government documents to Wikileaks. On January 17, 2017, President Obama commuted her sentence. In May of 2017, she was released from military prison having served seven years.
"Where you stand determines what you see." Chelsea Manning, by virtue of her past work as an analyst with the U.S. military, carefully studied footage of what could only be described as atrocities against human beings. She saw civilians killed, on her screen, and conscience didn't allow her to ignore what she witnessed, to more or less change the channel. One scene of carnage occurred on July 12, 2007, in Iraq. Chelsea Manning made available to the world the black and white grainy footage and audio content which depicted a U.S. helicopter gunship indiscriminately firing on Iraqi civilians. Twelve people were killed, including two Reuters journalists.
What follows is part of the dialogue from the classified US military video footage from July 12th:
US SOLDIER 1: Alright, firing.
US SOLDIER 4: Let me know when you've got them.
US SOLDIER 2: Let's shoot. Light 'em all up.
US SOLDIER 1: Come on, fire!
US SOLDIER 2: Keep shootin'. Keep shootin'. Keep shootin'. Keep shootin'.
US SOLDIER 2: Alright, we just engaged all eight individuals.
Amy Goodman described the next portion of the video:
AMY GOODMAN: Minutes later, the video shows US forces watching as a van pulls up to evacuate the wounded. They again open fire, killing several more people, wounding two children inside the van.
US SOLDIER 2: Bushmaster, Crazy Horse. We have individuals going to the scene, looks like possibly picking up bodies and weapons.
US SOLDIER 1: Let me engage. Can I shoot?
US SOLDIER 2: Roger. Break. Crazy Horse one-eight, request permission to engage.
US SOLDIER 3: Picking up the wounded?
US SOLDIER 1: Yeah, we're trying to get permission to engage. Come on, let us shoot!
US SOLDIER 2: Bushmaster, Crazy Horse one-eight.
US SOLDIER 1: They're taking him.
US SOLDIER 2: Bushmaster, Crazy Horse one-eight.
US SOLDIER 4: This is Bushmaster seven, go ahead.
US SOLDIER 2: Roger. We have a black SUV --- or Bongo truck picking up the bodies. Request permission to engage.
US SOLDIER 4: Bushmaster seven, roger. This is Bushmaster seven, roger. Engage.
US SOLDIER 2: One-eight, engage. Clear.
US SOLDIER 1: Come on!
US SOLDIER 2: Clear. Clear.
US SOLDIER 1: We're engaging.
US SOLDIER 3: I got 'em.
US SOLDIER 2: Should have a van in the middle of the road with about twelve to fifteen bodies.
US SOLDIER 1: Oh yeah, look at that. Right through the windshield! Ha!
Democracy Now, in the same segment, asked former U.S. whistleblower Dan Ellsberg for comments about releasing the video. "What were the criteria," Ellsberg asked, "that led to denying this to the public? And how do they stand up when we actually see the results? Is anybody going to be held accountable for wrongly withholding evidence of war crimes in this case...?"
Chelsea Manning's disclosures also led to public awareness of the Granai massacre in Afghanistan. On May 4, 2009, Taliban forces attacked U.S. and Afghan forces in Afghanistan's Farah province. The U.S. military called for U.S. airstrikes on buildings in the village of Granai. A U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber was used to drop 2,000 lb. and 500 lb. bombs, killing an estimated 86 to 147 women and children. The U.S. Air Force has videotape of the Granai massacre. Ellsberg called for President Obama to post the videotape rather than wait to see if Wikileaks would release it. To this day, the video hasn't been released. Apparently, a disgruntled Wikileaks employee destroyed the footage.
Were it not for Chelsea Manning's courageous disclosures, certain U.S. military atrocities might have been kept secret. Her revelations were also key to exposing U.S. approval of the 2008 coup against the elected government in Honduras and U.S. dealings with dictators and oligarchs across the Middle East, which helped spark the Arab Spring rebellions.
Prior to her arrest in 2010, Chelsea Manning wrote: "I want people to see the truth, regardless of who they are. Because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public."
Chelsea Manning's principled and courageous actions provide guidance for us to control our fears. We must seek an end to war crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq and other areas where the U.S. terrifies and kills civilians.
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What's Really Going On in Kashmir?
The geopolitics behind the recent military attacks from India and Pakistan
Mar 09, 2019
Diplomats and the mainstream media focused on the danger of another war between the two nuclear-armed countries. But the major media provided less information about the flashpoint for the crisis: India's brutal occupation of Kashmir.
Assistant Professor Junaid Ahmad, director of the Center for Global Dialogue at the University of Management and Technology in Lahore, Pakistan, said in a phone interview that the conflict reflects "the bitterness and anger that remains from the British partition of the region back in 1947."
Why the conflict?
Years ago, I reported from a farm near the Pakistani controlled part of Kashmir. It was only accessible by four-wheel drive vehicle or on foot. Kashmir is spectacularly beautiful, with rolling hills and a lush valley. In years past it was a tourist destination and could be again if the conflict is ever resolved.
But if you live near the border with India these days, you're hunkering down in bomb shelters to avoid errant Indian artillery fire. Civilians on the Indian side of the border face the same danger when Pakistani guns overshoot their targets.
I learned from my hosts that a number of major rivers flow through Kashmir, a vital source of drinking water, irrigation, and hydroelectric power for both countries. Whatever country controls the water has a major impact on the entire region.
Many years ago US water expert David Lilienthal wrote, "No army, with bombs and shellfire could devastate a land as thoroughly as Pakistan could be devastated by the simple expedient of India's permanently shutting off the sources of water that keep the fields and the people of Pakistan alive."
A 1960 treaty allows Pakistan to use most of the water, but India has consistently tried to take back as much as it can.
Prof. Ahmad said Kashmir also occupies an important geopolitical location in an area that borders India, Pakistan, and China. The country that dominates Kashmir has "strategic leverage" in the region, he said.
In 1947, when India took control of Jammu and Kashmir, as the Indian state is formally known, "battle lines were drawn," he said. "Indian leaders refused to let go. It gives India an excuse to keep 800,000 troops near the border with Pakistan." Western media sources estimate the number of troops at closer to 500,000.
Colonial rule and Kashmiri rebellion
The British colonial presence in the Indian subcontinent dates back to the 1700s. British rulers used classic divide-and-conquer tactics by inciting conflict between Hindus and Muslims.
When India gained independence in 1947, a bitter struggle broke out. India was to become a predominantly Hindu country while Pakistan was overwhelmingly Muslim. A Hindu maharaja ruled over the principality of Kashmir, which was mostly Muslim. The Maharaja brought Kashmir into India. A war broke out; India took control of land containing the majority of the Kashmiri population and Pakistan took the thinly populated remainder. The countries fought two more wars over Kashmir in 1965 and 1999.
Indian leaders have continuously argued that Kashmir is legally part of India. The opposition to India's rule is fueled by Pakistan, they claim and is dominated by Muslim terrorist groups. They further assert that the people of Jammu and Kashmir are happy with Indian rule.
In reality, the people of Kashmir have never acceded to Indian occupation. Human rights groups, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, have accused the Indian military of detention without trial, torture, and murder. Indian repression has resulted in 100,000 civilians deaths between 1989-2011, according to Pakistani media. The Associated Press estimates 70,000 deaths between 1989 to the present.
In 1989, Kashmiris launched an armed rebellion against Indian rule. Indian authorities claimed that the Kashmiris were armed by Pakistan and led by Muslim extremist groups. But the movement's leading organization, the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, was secular. As Ahmad explained, the movement contained both secular and religious components, much like the Arab Spring of 2011.
The key element, he said, was that the 1989 uprising "was entirely indigenous. It was a mass uprising."
The mid-1990s saw the rise of conservative political Islamist groups sponsored by the Pakistani military and intelligence services, which sought to control the Kashmiri movement for their own interests.
The Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM), for example, has bombed civilians and engaged in plane hijacking. It took credit for the suicide explosion that killed the Indian soldiers last month. JEM adheres to a right-wing ideology based on political Islam and an extremist interpretation of Sharia law.
India accuses the Pakistani government of supporting and giving sanctuary to the JEM. "If the Pakistani state is not supporting them," conceded Prof. Ahmad, "it's certainly not stopping them. That's unfortunate because it allows India to portray the struggle as dominated by terrorists."
Other major protests broke out in 2010 and 2016. The Kashmiri resistance includes secular and religious forces, including extremists, according to Prof. Ahmad. But the recent demonstrations indicate a unified opposition to Indian rule across ideological lines. "All of the previous divisions within the resistance have collapsed."
For decades Kashmiris have called for a plebiscite to determine the future of their region. But India has refused. The results of an authoritative 2010 poll by the British Chatham House explained why.
The survey found that 43% of respondents in both Indian and Pakistani controlled Kashmir supported independence. Fifteen percent favored unity with Pakistan. Only 21% favored unity with India, and that was almost exclusively within the Indian/Hindu population.
US Role
I think that a resolution of the Kashmir crisis will require forceful diplomatic pressure. The US claims neutrality, but has in recent years, tilted towards India. In his second term, President Barak Obama sought a strategic shift to Asia in which he wanted to ally with India to combat China. President Donald Trump continued the tilt last year by reducing US military aid to Pakistan. Trump, like his predecessors, has never forcefully condemned Indian brutality in Kashmir.
I think the US should commit to genuine neutrality in the India-Pakistan conflict. The US could be an honest broker in arranging a referendum in Kashmir and guaranteeing that all parties adhere to its results. It would be a good step forward in replacing military conflict with diplomatic action.
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