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.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Can Africa Do It?
The smoke has cleared in Somalia. The Islamic Courts Union, whether its rule was good or bad, is now nothing more than a memory. During the ICU control of Mogadishu, several Internet cafes were set up throughout the city- a sign of some kind of "Western" normalcy pleasantly replacing the khat-induced bloodbaths that were such a vivid memory of the UN Operation Enduring Hope. The ICU, acknowledging that khat does make you crazy, banned the use of the drug which had become a daily activity for many Somalis. The price of an AK-47 assault rifle in the open-air arms bazaars of the city shot way up as supply reduced when the ICU reined in the Klinsyr clan and its particularly ambitious warlord- the same group responsible for smuggling a huge volume of small arms and light weapons from the Middle East into Somalia as well as some of the recent acts of piracy in the Suez Canal.
There was a brief flurry of violence as the Ethiopian military and the small vestiges of the legal government of Somalia pushed into Mogadishu to displace the ICU. The Americans dropped a rain of bombs for good measure, claiming those crazy al-Qaeda guys were hiding in random villages, but succeeded only in killing swathes of civilians. The Internet cafes closed down. The price of AK-47's continued to increase as demand now went up and the supply remained at a fairly small trickle because of the recovering Klinsyr operations. It could have been a disaster in the making- another "Black Hawk Down", but this time with Ethiopians against Somalis in the heart of Mogadishu.
But the Ethiopians did something smart. They realized that if they moved their troops into the capital of their neighbour, it would be interpreted as an act of war by the people of Somalia. The Ethiopians would not be liberators, come to save them from an oppressive Islamist regime. Instead, they would be seen as conquerors come to deliver the final death blow to Somalia- so fearful of the might of the Cish people. The propaganda prospects would simply be unlimited for the ICU. They could whip the people of Mogadishu up into such a frenzy, they wouldn't need khat to get every man, woman and child to grab the nearest inanimate object and use it as a weapon against the hapless Ethiopian force.
Knowing this, the Ethiopians stopped their force outside Mogadishu's outskirts and told the Somali government's forces to seize the capital themselves. If the legitimate government wanted to exert its legal authority over Mogadishu, it would have to do it with legitimate government forces, not their friends. This was an interesting juxtaposition from the Americans, who micro-manage many of the conflicts they become involved in internationally. The Americans are only now just making serious efforts to hand over authority for peacekeeping and policing in Iraq to the actual Iraqi government. For the longest time, the Americans simply disempowered the new regime in Iraq by insisting on using American forces to solve Iraqi problems. The Ethiopians, on the other hand, had their strategy quite well-conceived before moving into Somalia to oust the ICU.
The Ethiopians even have an exit strategy. This will make sure that the Somali people, and any demagogues that might try to advantage of the situation, do not see that the Ethiopian force is an occupation force intent on either absorbing the troubled country into itself or is trying a neo-imperial gambit in the region. Who will be taking Ethiopia's place in assuring security in the country while the UN-sponsored government asserts its control? The African Union.
If you're apprehensive about the idea of African Union troops trying to ensure security in Somalia, you're not the only one. The African Union has made little progress in stopping the Janjaweed massacres in Sudan. In fact, nearly every pan-African collective security agreement and peacekeeping operation has failed miserably. The history of mistakes, errors, and poor planning is a long one. Explaining what went wrong and how things could have been done better in the history of the African Union and its predecessors, the Union of African States and the Organization for African Unity, could easily be the topic of a thesis, and is far too detailed a topic to get into here. Sudan is a nasty place. The Janjaweed have a great deal of resources at their disposal, what with having the support of the Sudanese government in Khartoum. But Somalia is an even more difficult place, having a long history of internecine warfare and being heavily armed through American and Soviet meddling during the Cold War (Colt and RSA used Somalia as a weapons proving ground, equipping rival militias with experimental weapons, then watching the news to find out how many casualties their weapons were able to inflict, then modifying their weapons accordingly). If the African Union has its hands full with Sudan, how can it seriously hope to handle Somalia?
When one looks at the list of countries providing troops to the Somalia operation, ones hopes are not dramatically raised. South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda, and Malawi. South Africa has a very advanced war machine at its disposal. The Nigerians try hard, and make up for the lack of weapons technology with their effort. Uganda was the home of Idi Amin, and it is still believed that Hutu generals escaped from Rwanda into Uganda and continue to mastermind the chaos of the Congo from the comfort of Uganda. Malawi has long been embroiled with rebels of various causes that keep giving the government a hard time through guerilla warfare. It's not encouraging.
So the question is: Can African do it? Can Africa break the long tradition of botched operations and dependency on Europe to get anything done in terms of providing security and defending human rights? I suppose we'll find out soon enough. The first detachments of the African Union peacekeeping mission are due to arrive in Somalia to begin relieving Ethiopian troops next week.
There was a brief flurry of violence as the Ethiopian military and the small vestiges of the legal government of Somalia pushed into Mogadishu to displace the ICU. The Americans dropped a rain of bombs for good measure, claiming those crazy al-Qaeda guys were hiding in random villages, but succeeded only in killing swathes of civilians. The Internet cafes closed down. The price of AK-47's continued to increase as demand now went up and the supply remained at a fairly small trickle because of the recovering Klinsyr operations. It could have been a disaster in the making- another "Black Hawk Down", but this time with Ethiopians against Somalis in the heart of Mogadishu.
But the Ethiopians did something smart. They realized that if they moved their troops into the capital of their neighbour, it would be interpreted as an act of war by the people of Somalia. The Ethiopians would not be liberators, come to save them from an oppressive Islamist regime. Instead, they would be seen as conquerors come to deliver the final death blow to Somalia- so fearful of the might of the Cish people. The propaganda prospects would simply be unlimited for the ICU. They could whip the people of Mogadishu up into such a frenzy, they wouldn't need khat to get every man, woman and child to grab the nearest inanimate object and use it as a weapon against the hapless Ethiopian force.
Knowing this, the Ethiopians stopped their force outside Mogadishu's outskirts and told the Somali government's forces to seize the capital themselves. If the legitimate government wanted to exert its legal authority over Mogadishu, it would have to do it with legitimate government forces, not their friends. This was an interesting juxtaposition from the Americans, who micro-manage many of the conflicts they become involved in internationally. The Americans are only now just making serious efforts to hand over authority for peacekeeping and policing in Iraq to the actual Iraqi government. For the longest time, the Americans simply disempowered the new regime in Iraq by insisting on using American forces to solve Iraqi problems. The Ethiopians, on the other hand, had their strategy quite well-conceived before moving into Somalia to oust the ICU.
The Ethiopians even have an exit strategy. This will make sure that the Somali people, and any demagogues that might try to advantage of the situation, do not see that the Ethiopian force is an occupation force intent on either absorbing the troubled country into itself or is trying a neo-imperial gambit in the region. Who will be taking Ethiopia's place in assuring security in the country while the UN-sponsored government asserts its control? The African Union.
If you're apprehensive about the idea of African Union troops trying to ensure security in Somalia, you're not the only one. The African Union has made little progress in stopping the Janjaweed massacres in Sudan. In fact, nearly every pan-African collective security agreement and peacekeeping operation has failed miserably. The history of mistakes, errors, and poor planning is a long one. Explaining what went wrong and how things could have been done better in the history of the African Union and its predecessors, the Union of African States and the Organization for African Unity, could easily be the topic of a thesis, and is far too detailed a topic to get into here. Sudan is a nasty place. The Janjaweed have a great deal of resources at their disposal, what with having the support of the Sudanese government in Khartoum. But Somalia is an even more difficult place, having a long history of internecine warfare and being heavily armed through American and Soviet meddling during the Cold War (Colt and RSA used Somalia as a weapons proving ground, equipping rival militias with experimental weapons, then watching the news to find out how many casualties their weapons were able to inflict, then modifying their weapons accordingly). If the African Union has its hands full with Sudan, how can it seriously hope to handle Somalia?
When one looks at the list of countries providing troops to the Somalia operation, ones hopes are not dramatically raised. South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda, and Malawi. South Africa has a very advanced war machine at its disposal. The Nigerians try hard, and make up for the lack of weapons technology with their effort. Uganda was the home of Idi Amin, and it is still believed that Hutu generals escaped from Rwanda into Uganda and continue to mastermind the chaos of the Congo from the comfort of Uganda. Malawi has long been embroiled with rebels of various causes that keep giving the government a hard time through guerilla warfare. It's not encouraging.
So the question is: Can African do it? Can Africa break the long tradition of botched operations and dependency on Europe to get anything done in terms of providing security and defending human rights? I suppose we'll find out soon enough. The first detachments of the African Union peacekeeping mission are due to arrive in Somalia to begin relieving Ethiopian troops next week.
Friday, January 12, 2007
The Compass Is Broken
After killing some time while waiting for another class to start at University, I came across the following Political Attitudes test. It had been one I took a while back, and I managed to stumble across it again. The URL is www.politicalcompass.org
It's curious to see how ones beliefs and opinions on matters can change so profoundly over the course of only a few years. According to this test, when I originally took it two years ago my political attitudes were more in line with a Red Tory: strong government involvement in the economy and socially conservative. Now I seem to be more in line with a liberal egalitarian: personal freedom, small government becoming involved in the economy only in a moderate role to ensure some measure of social justice.
One peculiar thing, however, about these political attitudes quizzes is that they also take into account the personal biases of the person designing the test. The questions tend to be more normative and qualitative. Stuff like "The government has no place in the bedroom." The test then asks you to either "Strongly Agree", "Agree", "Disagree" or "Strongly Disagree" with this very interpretative question. The example stood out in my mind and might not be the best choice to illustrate my point, but it seems that the political attitudes of the test designer are highly reflected in the results received by the people taking the test. To a left-wing socialist, I might find myself being placed on the right-side of the spectrum of ideologies. To a neo-conservative, I will probably be judged as a socialist bringing my crazy ideas from Europe with me like the carrier of some viscious disease.
In other words, take political attitudes tests with a grain of salt. They over-simplify very complex systems of philosophy and world-view. Even calling someone a "liberal egalitarian", precise a term as that might seem, is over-generalization. What is a "liberal"? The word "liberal" is usually defined in everyday language as "numerous" or "generous". For example, "He fired into the forest, liberally." Or "He is very liberal with his money." This could mean that a liberal would promote "liberal", that is to say "numerous", controls over the economy of a country through Crown Corporations, public works projects and heavy taxation/susidization. But liberal is also conceived of as being "forward-thinking" and "socially progressive". Forward thinking? In what society? In Iran, forward thinking would be questioning the current social status of women as being "half of a man" in terms of legal rights. In Canada, forward thinking might be construed as... well, I don't think we've decided what forward thinking is yet. European Union ascension? Gay marriage? Legalized marijuana? The Political Compass says I should be libertarian on all of those things as I'm a very mild liberal. But there's only one of those three things that appeals to me and it definitely has nothing to do with drugs that could drastically damage my liver, brain and lungs nor does it have anything to do with forcing religious figures to perform ceremonies that are against their moral conscience. If you haven't guessed it yet, I'm a big fan of the EU and believe firmly that Canada would be better served through closer economic and political ties to Europe than to the United States.
The reason for this rant? Ambiguity of political language. One man's liberal is another's conservative. Political Attitudes tests are good fun for wasting time and entertaining notions about whether you really could be compared to the Green Party in Germany and at the same time be as socially libertarian as Nelson Mandela. Quizzes that claim to be the be all and end all of determing political ideology are jokes. And, to a degree, it does a discredence to the discipline of Political Science when there are no fundamentally univeral terms by which we can associate different people's beliefs into roughly working systems without confusing the heck out of everyone else in our field. But, then again, we probably don't want to wind up with such specific terms as Philosophy that we wind up losing our breath when referring to our own self-label. "Deontological liberal egalitarian with utopia-welfarist tendencies" somehow seems less appealing to the common voter than "liberal" or "idealist".
It's curious to see how ones beliefs and opinions on matters can change so profoundly over the course of only a few years. According to this test, when I originally took it two years ago my political attitudes were more in line with a Red Tory: strong government involvement in the economy and socially conservative. Now I seem to be more in line with a liberal egalitarian: personal freedom, small government becoming involved in the economy only in a moderate role to ensure some measure of social justice.
One peculiar thing, however, about these political attitudes quizzes is that they also take into account the personal biases of the person designing the test. The questions tend to be more normative and qualitative. Stuff like "The government has no place in the bedroom." The test then asks you to either "Strongly Agree", "Agree", "Disagree" or "Strongly Disagree" with this very interpretative question. The example stood out in my mind and might not be the best choice to illustrate my point, but it seems that the political attitudes of the test designer are highly reflected in the results received by the people taking the test. To a left-wing socialist, I might find myself being placed on the right-side of the spectrum of ideologies. To a neo-conservative, I will probably be judged as a socialist bringing my crazy ideas from Europe with me like the carrier of some viscious disease.
In other words, take political attitudes tests with a grain of salt. They over-simplify very complex systems of philosophy and world-view. Even calling someone a "liberal egalitarian", precise a term as that might seem, is over-generalization. What is a "liberal"? The word "liberal" is usually defined in everyday language as "numerous" or "generous". For example, "He fired into the forest, liberally." Or "He is very liberal with his money." This could mean that a liberal would promote "liberal", that is to say "numerous", controls over the economy of a country through Crown Corporations, public works projects and heavy taxation/susidization. But liberal is also conceived of as being "forward-thinking" and "socially progressive". Forward thinking? In what society? In Iran, forward thinking would be questioning the current social status of women as being "half of a man" in terms of legal rights. In Canada, forward thinking might be construed as... well, I don't think we've decided what forward thinking is yet. European Union ascension? Gay marriage? Legalized marijuana? The Political Compass says I should be libertarian on all of those things as I'm a very mild liberal. But there's only one of those three things that appeals to me and it definitely has nothing to do with drugs that could drastically damage my liver, brain and lungs nor does it have anything to do with forcing religious figures to perform ceremonies that are against their moral conscience. If you haven't guessed it yet, I'm a big fan of the EU and believe firmly that Canada would be better served through closer economic and political ties to Europe than to the United States.
The reason for this rant? Ambiguity of political language. One man's liberal is another's conservative. Political Attitudes tests are good fun for wasting time and entertaining notions about whether you really could be compared to the Green Party in Germany and at the same time be as socially libertarian as Nelson Mandela. Quizzes that claim to be the be all and end all of determing political ideology are jokes. And, to a degree, it does a discredence to the discipline of Political Science when there are no fundamentally univeral terms by which we can associate different people's beliefs into roughly working systems without confusing the heck out of everyone else in our field. But, then again, we probably don't want to wind up with such specific terms as Philosophy that we wind up losing our breath when referring to our own self-label. "Deontological liberal egalitarian with utopia-welfarist tendencies" somehow seems less appealing to the common voter than "liberal" or "idealist".
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
War From Afar
The United States is an empire. This has become an unequivocal fact. Even the most staunch pro-America fanatics could not excuse the actions of the Bush Administration when it unilaterally invaded Iraq, committing an act explicitly deemed illegal and against human interests by the United Nations. During the Cold War, imperialist acts could be excused as being part of a greater world-wide struggle against the forces of communism- a battle for the freedom of humanity in all corners of the globe. During the War on Drugs, the invasion and oppression of numerous Latin American countries was excusable, perhaps, because illicit narcotics being produced in those places were hurting Americans and, indeed, people all around the world.
But the war on terrorism is a stretch as an excuse for breaches of international law. The Americans stretched it to the breaking point in Iraq. And it would seem Bush realizes this. Or, at least, someone in the Pentagon does, as the American imperial war machine has taken up a new way of exerting its interests and agenda upon other states: war by proxy, and war by strategic bombing.
The war by proxy is something that has been going on in the news for the past couple of weeks. On New Year's Eve 2006, Ethiopian bombers attacked Mogadishu Airport as a prelude to an overt invasion and seizure of power from the Islamist regime that had displaced the warlords. Ethiopia did not do this because they felt particularly threatened by Somalia. It is true that Somalia has been, and could again be, a problem for Ethiopian security. During the 1960's, the Mogadishu government managed to achieve widespread support through the utilization of a policy similar to Hitler's "Lebensraum". That is to say, the Somali government decried the way East Africa was carved up by the British and other colonial powers at the end of the World Wars. The predominant language spoken in Somalia is Cish and, as some may be already aware, language is often believed to be the main basis for the determination of a national group. So, using this argument, Somalia claimed to be the appropriate political representation of those peoples in East Africa that speak the Cish language. Unfortunately, due to the way the Europeans ignorantly carved up Africa, large numbers of Cish speakers were left living as minority groups in Kenya and Ethiopia. Somalia eventually invaded both Kenya and Ethiopia in 1965, the Somali-Ethiopian War not ending until 1966 with the defeat of the Somali invasion, due in no small part to the interference of British Special Forces units operating in Somalia in support of Ethiopian and Kenyan troops.
Perhaps with memories of this war, or due to a more sinister agenda, Ethiopia was only too willing to fight America's war against the Somali Islamists, who were making promises to people in Mogadishu that "all Somalis will some day live under the same flag". But the issue with Somalia is not solely Ethiopia's.
Apparently, the Americans have an agenda there too. How is this known? Because the Americans, being bad poker players, finally showed their hand- all the while without exposing themselves to gunfire, in keeping with their war by proxy. Yesterday, an AC-130 gunship (for those unfamiliar with these things, they're massive plains capable of dropping thousands of rounds per second from multiple machineguns and cannons, used extensively during the Vietnam War as part of the American strategic bombing campaign that left thousands of civilians dead) flew over the town of Amfadow in the southern tip of Somalia, not far from the border with Kenya. The reason? Suspected al-Qaeda operatives were hiding out there. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Americans have moved a small segment of the fleet they have standing watch over the Persian Gulf to Somalia- blockading what little sea traffic exists off the coast of the country. From these naval vessels, several helicopters launched today to engage in a series of rocket attacks on the same town- Amfadow. Unconfirmed reports from the Somali Defense Ministry, now again controlled by the "legal" government of Somalia that went into exile when the Islamists seized Mogadishu in a bloodless coup, state that 31 civilians were killed. The designation of the American helicopters are presumed to be Apaches, given the extent of the damage (an Apache attack helicopter is practically a small army in a flying tin can due to the sheer amount of firepower it packs, a complicated interface allows the pilot to see exactly where he is aiming through cameras mounted just under the muzzle of each gun and filtered into a display that projects the image directly into the retina- effectively allowing the human to merge with the machine in something almost out of a sci fi movie).
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman had this to say about the attacks: the bombings were "based on intelligence that led us to believe we had principal al-Qaeda leaders in an area where we could identify them and take action against them. We're going to remain committed to reducing terrorist capabilities where and when we find them." Gee. That sounds an awful lot like the line about "Iraq possesses or intends to possess weapons of mass destruction. Iraq also harbours terrorists." Maybe someone didn't read the memo about Saddam being hated by al-Qaeda for his secular policies and Sunni background. If that's the case, here's a memo for the Pentagon: "We're onto you. We've heard this story over and over again- the boogeyman is out to get us. And guess what? It's not funny any more and, one of these days, we're going to put a stop to your oppression."
But the war on terrorism is a stretch as an excuse for breaches of international law. The Americans stretched it to the breaking point in Iraq. And it would seem Bush realizes this. Or, at least, someone in the Pentagon does, as the American imperial war machine has taken up a new way of exerting its interests and agenda upon other states: war by proxy, and war by strategic bombing.
The war by proxy is something that has been going on in the news for the past couple of weeks. On New Year's Eve 2006, Ethiopian bombers attacked Mogadishu Airport as a prelude to an overt invasion and seizure of power from the Islamist regime that had displaced the warlords. Ethiopia did not do this because they felt particularly threatened by Somalia. It is true that Somalia has been, and could again be, a problem for Ethiopian security. During the 1960's, the Mogadishu government managed to achieve widespread support through the utilization of a policy similar to Hitler's "Lebensraum". That is to say, the Somali government decried the way East Africa was carved up by the British and other colonial powers at the end of the World Wars. The predominant language spoken in Somalia is Cish and, as some may be already aware, language is often believed to be the main basis for the determination of a national group. So, using this argument, Somalia claimed to be the appropriate political representation of those peoples in East Africa that speak the Cish language. Unfortunately, due to the way the Europeans ignorantly carved up Africa, large numbers of Cish speakers were left living as minority groups in Kenya and Ethiopia. Somalia eventually invaded both Kenya and Ethiopia in 1965, the Somali-Ethiopian War not ending until 1966 with the defeat of the Somali invasion, due in no small part to the interference of British Special Forces units operating in Somalia in support of Ethiopian and Kenyan troops.
Perhaps with memories of this war, or due to a more sinister agenda, Ethiopia was only too willing to fight America's war against the Somali Islamists, who were making promises to people in Mogadishu that "all Somalis will some day live under the same flag". But the issue with Somalia is not solely Ethiopia's.
Apparently, the Americans have an agenda there too. How is this known? Because the Americans, being bad poker players, finally showed their hand- all the while without exposing themselves to gunfire, in keeping with their war by proxy. Yesterday, an AC-130 gunship (for those unfamiliar with these things, they're massive plains capable of dropping thousands of rounds per second from multiple machineguns and cannons, used extensively during the Vietnam War as part of the American strategic bombing campaign that left thousands of civilians dead) flew over the town of Amfadow in the southern tip of Somalia, not far from the border with Kenya. The reason? Suspected al-Qaeda operatives were hiding out there. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Americans have moved a small segment of the fleet they have standing watch over the Persian Gulf to Somalia- blockading what little sea traffic exists off the coast of the country. From these naval vessels, several helicopters launched today to engage in a series of rocket attacks on the same town- Amfadow. Unconfirmed reports from the Somali Defense Ministry, now again controlled by the "legal" government of Somalia that went into exile when the Islamists seized Mogadishu in a bloodless coup, state that 31 civilians were killed. The designation of the American helicopters are presumed to be Apaches, given the extent of the damage (an Apache attack helicopter is practically a small army in a flying tin can due to the sheer amount of firepower it packs, a complicated interface allows the pilot to see exactly where he is aiming through cameras mounted just under the muzzle of each gun and filtered into a display that projects the image directly into the retina- effectively allowing the human to merge with the machine in something almost out of a sci fi movie).
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman had this to say about the attacks: the bombings were "based on intelligence that led us to believe we had principal al-Qaeda leaders in an area where we could identify them and take action against them. We're going to remain committed to reducing terrorist capabilities where and when we find them." Gee. That sounds an awful lot like the line about "Iraq possesses or intends to possess weapons of mass destruction. Iraq also harbours terrorists." Maybe someone didn't read the memo about Saddam being hated by al-Qaeda for his secular policies and Sunni background. If that's the case, here's a memo for the Pentagon: "We're onto you. We've heard this story over and over again- the boogeyman is out to get us. And guess what? It's not funny any more and, one of these days, we're going to put a stop to your oppression."
Sunday, December 24, 2006
We Need Guns... Lots of Guns
The defence policies of the current government are really starting to bother me. Talking about re-naming JTF-2, Canada's Special Forces unit, to the 1st SS Regiment was one thing. Now they've gone and done something really crazy. Defence Minister O'Connor, with a big proud grin on his face, announced yesterday that Canada was purchasing several M-777 mobile 150mm howitzers from the British. That must sound like a bunch of gobbly gook to most, so I'll explain exactly what the Harper government is preparing to buy from the British: big guns.
Currently, the biggest "gun" Canada has for its artillery units are 105mm howitzers- long-barrelled cannons that fire huge high-explosive shells long distances, blowing up buildings or huge swathes of people in one blast. The 150mm howitzer will have a much better range and the shells it will fire have a much more explosive yield as the cannon can fire larger shells. The bigger the bomb, the more explosives you can cram into it.
The problem with this is that we don't need bigger bombs or bigger guns. 105mm howitzers are, indeed, out-dated weapons. But, from a modern military perspective, artillery is a largely out-dated concept as well. Gone are the days when armies assembled in huge formations on tabletop battlefields to blow the snot out of one another. "Gentleman's warfare" is a thing that passed at the end of the Korean War. The insurgencies of Iraq and Afghanistan have been informed by the successes of guerrilla warfare against the archaic militaries of the superpowers. The Vietnamese beat the Americans because they presented no real target for the US war machine to strike, instead spreading out their forces and engaging in hit-and-run attacks. The Taliban beat the Soviet Union through the same means.
An artillery piece, by its nature, is created with the intention to devastate an enemy position. As the infantry move up and engage the enemy in fortified positions, they call for artillery support. The cannons, kilometres away from the fighting, then rain hot death on the enemy bunker. But the Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan do not have fortified positions. They do not have bunkers. And they do not have strong enough numbers to warrant the cost of the shells fired from the howitzer to kill them. They are not a standing army that occupies territory. They are, as the Harper government fails to understand, an insurgency that never stays in one place and requires a new way of thinking from the tactics of WWII.
Whose fault is it that these big guns were bought when the Department of National Defence could have bought equipment much more appropriate for the troops on the ground? Probably the officer corps within the Canadian Forces. There is still a very strong Cold War mentality within the officers of the prior generation, I found during my time in uniform. They were trained to fight an ultranationalist regime that could have seized power in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. When you've been raised with a certain set of preconceptions about how to do something, it's hard to learn a new way of doing it. But they're going to need to realize very quickly here that the Taliban are not Russians or Germans. They are not going to be so polite as to set their troops in nice rows for their howitzer shells to knock them down. What they are going to do, however, is use the addition of this mobile artillery to our arsenal as propaganda against the Coalition Forces. A way to get the local populace to turn against your occupation and back the insurgency is to make it easier for the insurgents to dehumanize you in the minds of the people. With the Canadian Army increasingly hiding away in armoured behemoths and touting city-destroying cannons, it will be very easy to paint the picture of Canada as conqueror.
Currently, the biggest "gun" Canada has for its artillery units are 105mm howitzers- long-barrelled cannons that fire huge high-explosive shells long distances, blowing up buildings or huge swathes of people in one blast. The 150mm howitzer will have a much better range and the shells it will fire have a much more explosive yield as the cannon can fire larger shells. The bigger the bomb, the more explosives you can cram into it.
The problem with this is that we don't need bigger bombs or bigger guns. 105mm howitzers are, indeed, out-dated weapons. But, from a modern military perspective, artillery is a largely out-dated concept as well. Gone are the days when armies assembled in huge formations on tabletop battlefields to blow the snot out of one another. "Gentleman's warfare" is a thing that passed at the end of the Korean War. The insurgencies of Iraq and Afghanistan have been informed by the successes of guerrilla warfare against the archaic militaries of the superpowers. The Vietnamese beat the Americans because they presented no real target for the US war machine to strike, instead spreading out their forces and engaging in hit-and-run attacks. The Taliban beat the Soviet Union through the same means.
An artillery piece, by its nature, is created with the intention to devastate an enemy position. As the infantry move up and engage the enemy in fortified positions, they call for artillery support. The cannons, kilometres away from the fighting, then rain hot death on the enemy bunker. But the Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan do not have fortified positions. They do not have bunkers. And they do not have strong enough numbers to warrant the cost of the shells fired from the howitzer to kill them. They are not a standing army that occupies territory. They are, as the Harper government fails to understand, an insurgency that never stays in one place and requires a new way of thinking from the tactics of WWII.
Whose fault is it that these big guns were bought when the Department of National Defence could have bought equipment much more appropriate for the troops on the ground? Probably the officer corps within the Canadian Forces. There is still a very strong Cold War mentality within the officers of the prior generation, I found during my time in uniform. They were trained to fight an ultranationalist regime that could have seized power in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. When you've been raised with a certain set of preconceptions about how to do something, it's hard to learn a new way of doing it. But they're going to need to realize very quickly here that the Taliban are not Russians or Germans. They are not going to be so polite as to set their troops in nice rows for their howitzer shells to knock them down. What they are going to do, however, is use the addition of this mobile artillery to our arsenal as propaganda against the Coalition Forces. A way to get the local populace to turn against your occupation and back the insurgency is to make it easier for the insurgents to dehumanize you in the minds of the people. With the Canadian Army increasingly hiding away in armoured behemoths and touting city-destroying cannons, it will be very easy to paint the picture of Canada as conqueror.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Any Name But That Name
I thought I'd break away from this talk of international law and the politics of globalization for just a moment. Being formerly of the military, I still have a lot of friends still in the Canadian Army who keep me apprised of goings-on in the Canadian Forces. As we were, and some of my friends still are, in The Calgary Highlanders- the premier infantry Reserve unit in the country- a few people I knew wanted to someday become members of JTF-2. JTF-2, for those who don't know much about things military, is Canada's Special Forces unit. On top of that, JTF-2 is ranked as a Tier One counter-terrorism and special operations group which means it is considered to be of an equal level of ability and prestige as more famous Special Forces units in the world like the British Special Air Service (SAS) or the American Navy SEALs.
Joining the JTF-2 is difficult. Extremely so. And nearly all members of the unit are drawn from infantry regiments, almost exclusively being composed of crack troops from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and The Calgary Highlanders. So having the dream or ambition of being JTF-2 in Canada is a big deal and requires huge amounts of work. It's a pity that becoming an Operator in such a well-trained unit is seen as being somehow "lower" in prestige as becoming a doctor or a lawyer, considering a person would have sacrificed far more to join JTF-2 than they would have getting through law school- and for far less pay.
So it is distressing, given the honour that is attached to Canada's Special Forces, that Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor has been proposing a name change to JTF-2. He is suggesting that the unit be named the First Special Services Regiment. Or, in other words, the 1st SS Regiment. As in the Waffen-SS, the elite troops of the Nazi German war machine who were beholden to the National Socialist Party and not to the German state. Obviously a lot of people in uniform are a bit anxious about this as they're having something they were prepared to sacrifice their entire lives for being turned into a parody.
Now I can understand the reason for a name change. JTF-2 has reached a near legendary status after its actions in Afghanistan. There is a story I heard while doing my infantry training that a JTF-2 sniper, during a sand storm near Kandahar, was able to snipe a driver of a jeep on a mountainside more than a kilometre away with a Heckler and Koch PSG-1 sniper rifle. That's a near impossible shot. Well, allow me to correct myself, that is an impossible shot. But these are the stories being told about our country's special forces not just to Canadian troops training at home, but to American, British and Dutch troops in Afghanistan. The troops from other countries, hearing the stories for the first time, naturally ask "What's JTF-2?" It's a little difficult to explain to someone why it is even called "Joint Task Force 2". What happened to Joint Task Force 1? Why is it "Joint"? No one really knows for sure why it was given the name it was given. There are a lot of theories flying around on the drill hall floors of the country's armouries. It was "Joint" because the original idea was that it would be a unit composed of both American and Canadian soldiers, fighting side-by-side, goes one theory. Another proposes that it is "Joint" because the unit, in theory at least, draws equally from the three branches of the Canadian Forces: Army, Navy and Air Force. But this theory falls flat on its face when you notice that nearly every member is drawn from two infantry units and the members are entirely Army.
The British named their Special Forces unit, after it was originally decimated during the Second World War as Unit 5 Commando, the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment. There were no preceeding units. This is not the 22nd iteration of the unit. It was just given the number. So why couldn't Mr. O'Connor come up with something else? The 16th Special Operations Regiment? The 403rd Elite Canadian Regiment? Seeing as so many members of the unit are drawn from regiments and battalions descending from the 110th Canadian Rifles, they could always name the unit "The Gallant Canadians" after the old poem written about that unit's heroic actions during the First World War.
On the fly, I've suggested three other things which JTF-2 could be named which would be more appropriate than having the Nazi connotations or the confusing "Joint Task Force" misnomer. But, for some reason, General Hillier had his mind switched off when he proposed this on the Defense Minister's behalf. Something quite out-of-character for the man as he's usually been well-put-together in the past. Maybe he just had a lapse in judgement.
If that's the case, however, he had better get a hold of himself soon. The men and women who have the guts to go after the glory of being in one of the world's most elite Special Forces units deserve better than a General who doesn't pay attention to what he names his units and the bad reputation that would go with being given a name similar to that which one of the most evil organization in the world was named. The job of JTF-2 is to worry about catching war criminals, not to be concerned with being associated with war criminals.
Joining the JTF-2 is difficult. Extremely so. And nearly all members of the unit are drawn from infantry regiments, almost exclusively being composed of crack troops from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and The Calgary Highlanders. So having the dream or ambition of being JTF-2 in Canada is a big deal and requires huge amounts of work. It's a pity that becoming an Operator in such a well-trained unit is seen as being somehow "lower" in prestige as becoming a doctor or a lawyer, considering a person would have sacrificed far more to join JTF-2 than they would have getting through law school- and for far less pay.
So it is distressing, given the honour that is attached to Canada's Special Forces, that Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor has been proposing a name change to JTF-2. He is suggesting that the unit be named the First Special Services Regiment. Or, in other words, the 1st SS Regiment. As in the Waffen-SS, the elite troops of the Nazi German war machine who were beholden to the National Socialist Party and not to the German state. Obviously a lot of people in uniform are a bit anxious about this as they're having something they were prepared to sacrifice their entire lives for being turned into a parody.
Now I can understand the reason for a name change. JTF-2 has reached a near legendary status after its actions in Afghanistan. There is a story I heard while doing my infantry training that a JTF-2 sniper, during a sand storm near Kandahar, was able to snipe a driver of a jeep on a mountainside more than a kilometre away with a Heckler and Koch PSG-1 sniper rifle. That's a near impossible shot. Well, allow me to correct myself, that is an impossible shot. But these are the stories being told about our country's special forces not just to Canadian troops training at home, but to American, British and Dutch troops in Afghanistan. The troops from other countries, hearing the stories for the first time, naturally ask "What's JTF-2?" It's a little difficult to explain to someone why it is even called "Joint Task Force 2". What happened to Joint Task Force 1? Why is it "Joint"? No one really knows for sure why it was given the name it was given. There are a lot of theories flying around on the drill hall floors of the country's armouries. It was "Joint" because the original idea was that it would be a unit composed of both American and Canadian soldiers, fighting side-by-side, goes one theory. Another proposes that it is "Joint" because the unit, in theory at least, draws equally from the three branches of the Canadian Forces: Army, Navy and Air Force. But this theory falls flat on its face when you notice that nearly every member is drawn from two infantry units and the members are entirely Army.
The British named their Special Forces unit, after it was originally decimated during the Second World War as Unit 5 Commando, the 22nd Special Air Service Regiment. There were no preceeding units. This is not the 22nd iteration of the unit. It was just given the number. So why couldn't Mr. O'Connor come up with something else? The 16th Special Operations Regiment? The 403rd Elite Canadian Regiment? Seeing as so many members of the unit are drawn from regiments and battalions descending from the 110th Canadian Rifles, they could always name the unit "The Gallant Canadians" after the old poem written about that unit's heroic actions during the First World War.
On the fly, I've suggested three other things which JTF-2 could be named which would be more appropriate than having the Nazi connotations or the confusing "Joint Task Force" misnomer. But, for some reason, General Hillier had his mind switched off when he proposed this on the Defense Minister's behalf. Something quite out-of-character for the man as he's usually been well-put-together in the past. Maybe he just had a lapse in judgement.
If that's the case, however, he had better get a hold of himself soon. The men and women who have the guts to go after the glory of being in one of the world's most elite Special Forces units deserve better than a General who doesn't pay attention to what he names his units and the bad reputation that would go with being given a name similar to that which one of the most evil organization in the world was named. The job of JTF-2 is to worry about catching war criminals, not to be concerned with being associated with war criminals.
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