Just came across some unfortunate news. Apparently, the brother-in-law of Osama bin Laden was murdered in his hotel room today by an armed gang in Madagascar. "The murder happened around 1:30 am (2230 GMT) in the morning around Sakaraha. Jamal Khalifa was attacked by about 10 bandits. He was in a hotel. They stole a laptop computer and a suitcase," Ramananarivo (the chief investigator of the murder) told the Associated Free Press.
The question is: who did this? And, perhaps more importantly, why? Was this just an armed gang taking some very obscure vengeance for the bombing of a US embassy in Tanazania by al-Qaeda? It seems utterly illogical that they would. Madagascar and Tanzania have very peripheral ethnic relations with one another. Aside from that, there is very little association between the two countries that would cause the murderers to feel any sort of kinship with those killed in the terrorist attacks. Additionally, Jamal was only a brother-in-law to Osama bin Laden. The family has already disowned Osama and maintain no contact with him. So killing his brother-in-law wouldn't really be a major blow against the man. But, then again, killing Jamal might have been the worst a mob of thugs in a backwater African country could do.
More likely, it was simply a coincidence that Jamal has any relation to Osama bin Laden. Mr. Khalifa was a gem trader in Madagascar with several other businessmen from Saudi Arabia. It may very well have been that the killing was just something that happened as a side-effect of a theft. The armed thugs might have been aware of some valuable information on the gem industry in Madagascar on his laptop.
But there is a sneaking suspicion that surrounds the killing. It smacks of the same distastefulness and political intrigue that went with the murder of Litvinenko. There were no radioactive isotopes involved here. But who has an interest in Africa, a desire to capture Osama bin Laden, a lot of money to throw around, and a tendency to not have any moral qualms with committing acts of murder? A lot of countries and agencies come to mind. But chief among them is the United States of America and their CIA.
Was Jamal still keeping in touch with his brother-in-law Osama bin Laden? Did the NSA get wind of some suspiscious communication traffic from Jamal's laptop? Did the CIA commission some vagrants in the streets of Madagascar to kill Jamal, take his belongings, and drop them off for their reward? It's possible. But like the murder of Litvinenko, we may never know why Jamal Khalifa died. And that, in itself, feels like a sore defeat for democracy and human rights.
Thursday, February 1, 2007
An Ode To MATO
First of all, I have to apologize for the long delay between posts. A combination of schoolwork and getting ready for my family's visit to Europe have gobbled up a huge bulk of my time and this has prevented me from writing as much here as I would have liked. I had a burning desire to write about the executions in Iraq and a few other topics but those are a little out-dated to be writing about by now.
An article appeared recently in the current edition of TIME magazine that got my interest. This particular piece dealt with the question of establishing effective peace and security in the Middle East while thwarting Iran's imperialist ambitions. The answer that the writer came to was this: MATO. The nomenclature is dumb, but the idea behind the name of this organization was most certainly not. MATO, or the Middle East Anti-Terrorism Organization (technically it should be MEATO, but I think that's even a less appealing acronym to be known by), would be more or less like NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It would provide collective security for all of its member states and would coordinate to provide humanitarian, peacekeeping and peacemaking operations throughout the Middle East. For all intents and purposes, it would be NATO- just concerned with a specific geographic area of the world. Instead of the Soviet Union as the "big bad guy", it would be Iran. Open military conflict between the MATO member states and Iran would, in theory, never have to break out because the threat of so many neighbour states uniting against it would be enough to intimidate Iran out of its crazy foreign policy.
There are some problems with this idea, however. It assumes that Tehran is rational and will understand such basic concepts as Mutually Assured Destruction. But notice that we just said that the hope was MATO would scare "Iran out of its crazy foreign policy". Crazy implies a lack of rationality. So it is entirely possible that some whackjob in Tehran might hit the big red button that blows up the Middle East anyway. This, though, was the line of thinking during the Cold War: NATO would never work, no amount of nuclear weapons would ever work, because Moscow was certifiably insane. It's possible that Iran will realize that its citizens will not be very supportive of war, especially not war with fellow Muslim countries. But even that might not be enough if the government in Tehran is too detached from the people. After all, when was the last time you saw a photo of Ahmadinejad surrounding himself with ordinary people in Iran? He's only ever seen hanging out with his buddies from the Revolutionary Guard and their opinions are hardly representive of the thoughts and beliefs of the Iranian people.
Another problem is that the organization's intentions might be different from what we in "the West" want. The principle "enemy" of MATO could easily shift from Iran to Israel, the organziation becoming an easy modicum for coordinating attacks against the single non-Muslim state in the region. In order to prevent this from happening, it would be necessary to have Israel hold a seat in this organization. As all member states would be acceeding to a collective security agreement, it would stand that no member state could attack another member state. MATO, in effect, could be a kind of legal means by which many Arabic countries would be prevented from attacking Israel. With this kind of hard and fast guarantee of security, support for the Zionists in Israel would be greatly depleted and proper progress could be made on peace talks between Israel and Palestine. The Israeli issue would be solved because they have their guarantee of security from their neighbours, the Palestinian side would be solved by the withdrawal of support for Hamas by their chief Arab backers as well as the threat of the entire region acting to force compliance.
While this idea has its holes and its flaws, it shows promise. MATO would be a headache. It would require huge amounts of work and compromise between people and states that have rarely shown a willingness to work together. But given the alternative- continued conflict in the Middle East- it doesn't look so bad. We are all entitled to our differences. I'm just a fan of resolving them with words instead of guns.
An article appeared recently in the current edition of TIME magazine that got my interest. This particular piece dealt with the question of establishing effective peace and security in the Middle East while thwarting Iran's imperialist ambitions. The answer that the writer came to was this: MATO. The nomenclature is dumb, but the idea behind the name of this organization was most certainly not. MATO, or the Middle East Anti-Terrorism Organization (technically it should be MEATO, but I think that's even a less appealing acronym to be known by), would be more or less like NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It would provide collective security for all of its member states and would coordinate to provide humanitarian, peacekeeping and peacemaking operations throughout the Middle East. For all intents and purposes, it would be NATO- just concerned with a specific geographic area of the world. Instead of the Soviet Union as the "big bad guy", it would be Iran. Open military conflict between the MATO member states and Iran would, in theory, never have to break out because the threat of so many neighbour states uniting against it would be enough to intimidate Iran out of its crazy foreign policy.
There are some problems with this idea, however. It assumes that Tehran is rational and will understand such basic concepts as Mutually Assured Destruction. But notice that we just said that the hope was MATO would scare "Iran out of its crazy foreign policy". Crazy implies a lack of rationality. So it is entirely possible that some whackjob in Tehran might hit the big red button that blows up the Middle East anyway. This, though, was the line of thinking during the Cold War: NATO would never work, no amount of nuclear weapons would ever work, because Moscow was certifiably insane. It's possible that Iran will realize that its citizens will not be very supportive of war, especially not war with fellow Muslim countries. But even that might not be enough if the government in Tehran is too detached from the people. After all, when was the last time you saw a photo of Ahmadinejad surrounding himself with ordinary people in Iran? He's only ever seen hanging out with his buddies from the Revolutionary Guard and their opinions are hardly representive of the thoughts and beliefs of the Iranian people.
Another problem is that the organization's intentions might be different from what we in "the West" want. The principle "enemy" of MATO could easily shift from Iran to Israel, the organziation becoming an easy modicum for coordinating attacks against the single non-Muslim state in the region. In order to prevent this from happening, it would be necessary to have Israel hold a seat in this organization. As all member states would be acceeding to a collective security agreement, it would stand that no member state could attack another member state. MATO, in effect, could be a kind of legal means by which many Arabic countries would be prevented from attacking Israel. With this kind of hard and fast guarantee of security, support for the Zionists in Israel would be greatly depleted and proper progress could be made on peace talks between Israel and Palestine. The Israeli issue would be solved because they have their guarantee of security from their neighbours, the Palestinian side would be solved by the withdrawal of support for Hamas by their chief Arab backers as well as the threat of the entire region acting to force compliance.
While this idea has its holes and its flaws, it shows promise. MATO would be a headache. It would require huge amounts of work and compromise between people and states that have rarely shown a willingness to work together. But given the alternative- continued conflict in the Middle East- it doesn't look so bad. We are all entitled to our differences. I'm just a fan of resolving them with words instead of guns.
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