by Wayne White
Last week, Jasmin Ramsey pointed out how problematic the recent US decision to deliver attack helicopters to Egypt is in terms of US human rights policy. The move also portrays the US as actively taking sides in a conflict pitting a repressive regime against armed opposition, with potentially [...]]]>
by Wayne White
Last week, Jasmin Ramsey pointed out how problematic the recent US decision to deliver attack helicopters to Egypt is in terms of US human rights policy. The move also portrays the US as actively taking sides in a conflict pitting a repressive regime against armed opposition, with potentially adverse consequences for the US and its citizens. It mirrors Washington’s decision earlier this year to send Iraq’s abusive Shi’a-dominated government advanced weaponry to use against Sunni Arab militants. And then there is the possibility that Egyptian leaders might not have done all they could to secure Sinai, in part to extract US military aid.
Smokescreens and inconsistencies
Seemingly in no mood to help Washington defend its decision, Egypt declared officially on April 24 — two days after the delivery of 10 US Apache helicopters and $650 million in military aid to Egypt was announced — that its army had “complete control over the situation” in the Sinai! This statement directly contradicted the Pentagon’s rationale for delivering the helicopters: to “counter extremists [in Sinai] who threaten US, Egyptian and Israeli security.”
The Egyptian army’s claim appears to be unfounded, merely self-serving propaganda. A less questionable source, a recent Reuters investigation, concluded several hundred militants were still at large in Sinai and “are nowhere near defeat.” To wit, the day before the army’s announcement, a Sinai-based group almost certainly carried out a bombing that killed an Egyptian police general near Cairo (in addition to various attacks by Sinai militants in recent weeks).
Jihadist activity in and emanating from Sinai soared following the military’s overthrow of former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi last year. Three groups stand out: Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM), Ansar al-Sharia of Egypt, and, since early this year, Ajnad Misr (AM). Although there have been attacks against the Israeli border and foreigners, the vast bulk of them since Morsi’s overthrow have targeted Egyptian military and police personnel.
Despite the army’s sweeping public reassurance concerning Sinai, senior Egyptian officials must have shared a more sober assessment with Washington. Indeed, more pessimistic Egyptian analysis was likely discussed during Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s exchange with his Egyptian counterpart last Tuesday.
Meanwhile, US policy aimed at reducing repression in Egypt, already struggling, has been further undermined. To justify the helicopter delivery, Kerry on April 29 cited in his news conference with Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Fahmy the passage of the Egyptian constitution as a “positive step forward.” This is hardly in line with the facts. It hands more power to the military, and was passed with a highly suspicious 98% of the vote amidst relatively low turnout. Kerry himself back in January expressed great concern about the entire constitutional process, noting “the absence of an inclusive drafting process or public debate before the vote, the arrests of those who campaigned against it, and procedural violations during the balloting.”
The decision to go forward with the helicopter delivery became especially embarrassing on April 28 when the Egyptian government resumed its harsh repression in a stunning fashion: a judge sentenced Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie and nearly 700 supporters to death. This threw Kerry even more on the defensive; while sticking with the helicopter decision, he conceded in the same news conference, among other things, that “disturbing decisions in the judiciary process” pose “difficult challenges.”
Terrorism trumps pluralism and human rights
An ominous pattern of US regional policy choices appears to be taking shape that, effectively, sweeps aside very real concerns about widespread repression and abuse in order to help regimes friendly to the US crackdown on Muslim extremists.
To place this in perspective, despite what many believe, extremists do not typically place a high priority on attacking Americans, the US and other foreigners. Most are highly localized franchises, seeking mainly to overthrow local regimes. And even when they do target foreigners, attacks almost always involve only those inside countries where the violence is taking place.
Related to the pattern noted above, for years the US has pressed Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to end his exclusionist, repressive policies toward much of Iraq’s Sunni Arab community. Maliki ignored these appeals. Mostly the result of Maliki’s purging from government, arresting, and even assassinating Sunni Arabs, al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) — nearly defeated during Iraq’s Sunni Arab “Awakening” (welcomed by the US, but largely shunned by Maliki) — has rebounded dramatically in a devastating wave of violence.
Then, with its fortunes declining in Syria, fielding a sizeable Iraqi component, and responding to protests against Baghdad’s ill treatment of Sunni Arabs, a contingent of the jihadist Sunni Arab Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group seized and held the Iraqi city of Fallujah (and a few portions of nearby Ramadi) in early January; it was joined by some disgruntled Sunni Arab tribesmen. Unable to oust ISIL from Fallujah, Maliki appealed for urgent US military aid.
Despite Maliki’s role in provoking Sunni Arab violence and ignoring US pleas for moderation, Washington quickly dispatched Hellfire air-to-ground missiles, as well as ScanEagle and Raven drones to help him retake Fallujah. Since then, ISIL and its allies in Fallujah have suffered significant losses from Hellfire missile strikes.
There was, of course, a long history of American military assistance to governments with loathsome human rights records going back decades — driven by Cold War imperatives and the “friendliness” of such regimes. More recently, however, with the emergence of robust militant Islamic groups, a new driver for such aid emerged: terrorism. This trend became especially compelling after 9/11.
Potential anti-US blowback
There is, however, danger associated with such assistance: the US risks becoming a far more important target of extremist groups on the receiving end of regime repression than is the case now.
With respect to Algeria, the US distanced itself from a military-backed regime never close to the US during most of the 1990’s in reaction to its anti-democratic and ruthless behavior that played a major role in triggering and sustaining a huge Islamist uprising. Up to 200,000 died in a savage conflict that eventually spawned several extremist groups.
By contrast, France helped the Algerian regime crush the rebels and became a prime target for extremist reprisals. When the last militant holdouts morphed into al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), they shifted their operations out of Algeria into the weaker nations of the Francophone Sahel.
France was compelled to step in militarily last year to prevent Mali from being overrun by a collection of northern Malian separatists, AQIM and other extremists. In defeat, AQIM and closely aligned militants fell back into a lawless portion of Libya, but quickly lashed out at a southern Algerian natural gas facility in order to get their hands on foreigners there.
Likewise, Sinai extremists along with ISIL in Syria and Iraq, especially in their bitterness if and when they are defeated, could shift from a narrow focus on Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi government targets toward Americans and the US. Yet, whether Iraq (where Maliki never retook Fallujah), Syria (where ISIL’s woes stem mainly from regime forces and rebel rivals), and Egypt (where US military aid probably will not determine the outcome in Sinai), the US could loom far larger as an enemy and scapegoat.
In Sinai, for example, surviving jihadists could make a far more serious effort to target the largely American Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) peacekeeping contingent based along the southern coast. Until now, MFO has been left alone except for one September 2012 attack against its base camp.
Egyptian scheming?
Lastly, Egyptian leaders appear to assign Sinai security a much lower priority than Egypt proper despite US and Israeli concerns. I learned when I served a year in Sinai as a peacekeeper that Egyptian troops loathed duty in Sinai, regarding it as a wasteland of little value compared to Egypt’s Nile Valley core. And unlike more rugged south Sinai, the north (where most attacks occur) is considerably less difficult to monitor.
This negative Egyptian attitude toward Sinai, combined with the government’s keen desire to secure renewed US military support, might have inclined Egypt’s military brass not to pursue Sinai security full-bore. If true, not pressing the fight to the maximum while Sinai simmers might be meant, at least in part, to increase Egypt’s chances of getting US policymakers to do precisely what Cairo wanted: release their hold on attack helicopters of great value in suppressing opposition in Sinai, but also in Egypt proper.
Photo: Sinai militia carrying al-Qaeda flags head for a funeral of killed militants on August 10, 2013. Credit: Hisham Allam/IPS.
]]>by Larry Wilkerson
Now that we have heard Secretary of State John Kerry’s emotional plea for us to believe the still rather ambiguous intelligence on chemical weapons use in Syria, there are far more substantive answers to be sought from the Obama administration.
Putting aside the remaining ambiguities as [...]]]>
by Larry Wilkerson
Now that we have heard Secretary of State John Kerry’s emotional plea for us to believe the still rather ambiguous intelligence on chemical weapons use in Syria, there are far more substantive answers to be sought from the Obama administration.
Putting aside the remaining ambiguities as well as all the experience those of us over 60 years old have with any administration’s unequivocal assurances preceding its use of military force, the basic context surrounding that use against Syria still requires intense analysis.
Forget about those prematurely-born babies stripped from their cradles in the maternity wards in Kuwait, later demonstrated as a figment of war advocates’ vivid imaginations; forget about the utter certainty with which every principal in the G. W. Bush administration assured Americans of Saddam Hussein’s WMD; and forget about for a moment John Kerry’s overly emotional remarks about Syria. Just examine some pertinent facts.
First, tens of thousands of North Koreans have died from hunger imposed by at least two of the latest DPRK dictators. Is dying of hunger somehow better than dying of chemicals? Or might it be that the DPRK has no oil and no Israel? Of course, there are other examples of dastardly dictators and dying thousands; so where does one draw the line of death in the future?
Second, how does one surgically strike Syria, as the Obama administration asserts it wishes to do? That is, to use military force without becoming a participant in the ongoing conflict, simply to send a signal that chemical weapons use will not be tolerated?
Kosovo is a lousy example– where the promised three-days-of-bombing-and-the-dictator-will-cave, turned into 78 long days and a credible threat of ground forces before he actually did cave. Not to mention all the death and destruction wrought by Serbia while much the same was being hurled at it.
Libya is a lousy example because Libya is now a haven for al-Qaeda and next-door-neighbor Mali is destabilized because of it. Libya itself is hardly stable — except in the eyes of those who no longer want to look at it. Of course, the light sweet crude seems to be getting out and to the right people…
Egypt is dissolving; Iraq is returning to civil war; Lebanon is becoming destabilized by the refugees pouring into it from Syria; Jordan is looking dicey having absorbed countless Iraqis from that country’s war-caused diaspora and now taking on Syrians.
How are cruise missiles and bombs and whatever else we choose to send to Syria short of ground forces going to ameliorate this mess?
Moreover, what do we do when President Bashar al-Assad ignores our missiles and bombs and continues right on with his war? Even, perhaps, uses chemical weapons to do so? Hit him again? Remember, we are not going to become participants in the civil war, we are not going to own Syria.
The man or woman who believes that he or she can be surgical with military force is an utter fool. No plan survives first contact with the enemy. No use of military force is surgical. It is blunt, unforgiving, tending to produce results and effects never dreamt of by the user. In for a penny, in for a trillion.
Go ahead, President Obama. Strike that Syrian tarbaby. If your hands, feet and head are not eventually stuck in its brutal embrace — if you stop, reconsider, back out and are allowed to get away with it — what have you accomplished? Preserving your credibility?
US credibility in this part of the world is shot to hell already — largely by the catastrophic invasion of Iraq (not Obama’s fault, to be sure; but just as surely, America’s fault — foreigners do not differentiate presidents.) Credibility has been further shredded by continued drone strikes, by a failure to take any actions against the flow of arms from Saudi Arabia into Syria; by tacit support of the Saudi reinforcement of the dictatorship in Bahrain; and most powerfully by the failure to remain balanced — and therefore of some use — in the issue of Israel and Palestine.
When I survey that long, sunken black granite wall near the Lincoln Memorial and consider the over 58,000 names etched on it, and the two and a half million Vietnamese who, if they had such a wall, would be similarly inscribed, I get angry.
I know that President Johnson’s team, notably his national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, assured the President that US prestige was at stake in Vietnam. LBJ’s team knew they could not win the war, but they thought they could preserve US prestige.
I just wish they had had to tell that to the families of every name on that wall — and every Vietnamese who would be on that country’s wall if it had one: you all died for prestige.
– Lawrence Wilkerson served 31 years in the US Army infantry. His last position in government was as secretary of state Colin Powell’s chief of staff. He currently teaches government and public policy at the College of William and Mary.
]]>by Wayne White
Mali finally signed a ceasefire with Tuareg separatists negotiated by the UN and the EU, potentially opening the way for the return of a central government presence to the key Saharan provincial capital of Kidal. Mali also recently secured a major Western aid package. Yet, tensions between the government [...]]]>
by Wayne White
Mali finally signed a ceasefire with Tuareg separatists negotiated by the UN and the EU, potentially opening the way for the return of a central government presence to the key Saharan provincial capital of Kidal. Mali also recently secured a major Western aid package. Yet, tensions between the government along with its southern Malian base and the northern Tuaregs remain high. Meanwhile, with foreign troops inside Mali, Islamic extremist groups with ties to al-Qaeda have shifted their base of operations to southern Libya, have become more difficult to track, and lately have been raiding Mali’s vulnerable eastern neighbor, Niger.
Late last year, militants of the MUJWA (Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa) capitalized on a Tuareg separatist rebellion in northern Mali to thrust south in an attempt to seize the entire country, advancing nearly to the Malian capital of Bamako. French forces intervened, along with some allied African forces, especially from Chad, to drive them mostly out of Mali, killing hundreds of extremist fighters. That left the Malian Tuareg in peril in their surviving enclave in the north centered on Kidal. The ceasefire with the Tuareg NMLA (National Movement for the Liberation of the Awazad — the Berber Tuareg name for the hazy Saharan region spanning northern Mali, northwestern Niger and southern Algeria) was needed to recover the rest of Mali before the national elections scheduled for July 28.
The humbled NMLA had little choice in the matter. Malian forces had been advancing on Kidal, threatening to attack if no agreement was reached (in which the NMLA agreed to disarm). Deep tensions persist because southern Mali’s African populations remain angry and resentful toward the NMLA for accepting jihadist aid that nearly led to the collapse of the country, and the Tuareg remain fearful of renewed southern repression. An Amnesty International report released last Friday accused the MNLA of abuses (holding southern prisoners, as well as robbing, beating and executing them), but also described Malian security forces’ overall human rights record as “appalling,” which is the reason why French and Chadian forces in Mali have only reluctantly turned militant prisoners over to Malian authorities. They fear more Malian government executions and torture, seen in various areas across the south.
So although a ceasefire has now been worked out with the MNLA, carrying with it the possibility of greater autonomy for the Tuareg north, restoring any real trust will take time. Nonetheless, relations between Tuareg and southerners in Mali must be repaired to the extent that both sides can settle into some sort of working relationship. This means, most importantly, no further Tuareg-Malian government violence or jihadist penetration into the Tuareg north because one inevitably leads to the other.
In dealing with the threat posed by the MUJWA and other jihadist groups — all with links to al-Qaeda — Mali cannot be viewed in isolation. The largely Saharan Sahel region from Mauritania in the west to Chad in the east is much like Mali in terms of north-south tensions between southern capitals and populations tied closely to sub-Saharan Africa on the one hand and less settled Tuareg populations in the north with links to North Africa. So with southwestern Libya having precious little functioning central or even localized tribal militia governance, this trackless void now hosts most all the al-Qaeda linked extremist elements once thriving inside Mali. They now harbor ambitions to consolidate while continuing to lash out at western and unfriendly African targets.
First the notorious Mokhtar Belmokhtar unleashed his al-Qaeda linked break-away Islamist Masked Brigade in retaliation for French victories over jihadist forces in Mali against the Amenas natural gas facility in southeastern Algeria. It was seized along with hundreds of hostages in late January, triggering a major crisis. Then, probably responding to false reports of his death in April, he claimed partial responsibility for simultaneous May 23 MUJWA attacks against an army barracks in Niger’s northern provincial capital of Agadez and the French-owned Somair uranium mines at Arlit, deeper in the desert northeast of Agadez, killing 25. French forces had to intervene to wipe out the last of the Agadez barracks attackers. Also in May, apparently because Chad played the leading African role in Mali against the jihadists, a probable MUJWA attack on Chad’s consulate in the southern Libyan city of Sabha left one dead.
Belmokhtar and other extremist leaders have learned some survival skills from their defeat in Mali. French and Western forces using aerial surveillance to locate militant convoys for targeting have now observed that jihadis no longer travel in large convoys, but rather in single or only several vehicles difficult to distinguish from private and commercial vehicles (that frequently have to travel “off-road” because of the paucity of infrastructure). Also, MUJWA and other extremist groups have recruited large numbers of disaffected sub-Saharan Africans who can infiltrate countries like Niger better than their Algerian, Tuareg and other northern cadres. Despite French, US and British reconnaissance aircraft and drones participating in widespread monitoring of this huge region, a US official recently admitted: “At any given time, they could be anywhere.”
Another problem has been weak regional cooperation. Niger and more distant Chad are doing just about everything they can to help. But Algeria, from which much of this Islamic extremism originally emanated in the late 1990’s as Algerian rebel militants retreated farther into the desert, resents French involvement in the region. Algiers gave only minimal assistance to the campaign in Mali. And Mauritania flanking Mali to the West downgraded ties with Mali in 2010 over the Malian release of a Mauritanian al-Qaeda detainee in a hostage situation. Such local drawbacks caused French President Francois Hollande to concede in late May that, albeit reluctantly, French forces may have to be used elsewhere in the Sahel well beyond Mali.
Mali remains a work in progress with a dicey national election fast approaching to hopefully advance its transition back to a more democratic system lost in a 2012 coup. And clearly a lot remains to be done to achieve a final compromise with the MNLA in the north to suppress further bloodshed. These needs prompted last month’s generous $4.3 million Western aid package to help get Mali back on its feet. Meanwhile, still formidable extremist leaders and combatants regrouping in lawless southwestern Libya promise more regional violence and will remain a daunting challenge to counter-terrorism and anti-insurgency efforts elsewhere in this vast, arid, impoverished region.
]]>by Wayne White
Continuing extremist attacks in northern Mali are a reminder that this vast Saharan region, given to raiding and smuggling for more than a millennium, could remain an attractive haven even for a much weakened al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM). Now that sweeping French and allied African military [...]]]>
by Wayne White
Continuing extremist attacks in northern Mali are a reminder that this vast Saharan region, given to raiding and smuggling for more than a millennium, could remain an attractive haven even for a much weakened al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM). Now that sweeping French and allied African military operations have decimated AQIM’s larger forces and driven surviving AQIM bands to switch to localized terrorist assaults, concerned parties have shifted their priorities toward more enduring counterinsurgency operations and peacekeeping. Yet, for those seeking to deal further, lasting blows to AQIM must remain mindful of the ethnic complexity of the Malian Sahara.
Demonstrating it is still a force to be reckoned with, AQIM claimed responsibility for another attack on the northern Malian city of Timbuktu over the weekend. A checkpoint outside the city was bombed as a diversion to enable more than 20 fighters to infiltrate the city while defenders rushed first to the site of the bombing. A few infiltrators managed to gain brief access to the grounds of the Hotel Colombe (frequented by journalists and aid workers), possibly a prime target. The local Malian governor and his staff at the hotel had to be evacuated hastily amidst efforts to hunt down the infiltrators. One Malian soldier was killed; several Malian troops and one French soldier were wounded. A probable AQIM land mine placed on a road also recently inflicted casualties on African forces participating in operations in support of the Malian government.
Given the sheer size of the largely ungoverned northern third of the country, plus some of its forbidding terrain, most likely it would be impossible to fully eradicate AQIM, especially since small groups could take refuge in similarly trackless areas of neighboring Niger, Mauritania or Algeria from which they could continue such attacks. Consequently, all parties involved in addressing the problem are wisely shifting to more drawn out strategies.
French President Francois Hollande said late last week that French troops (originally slated for withdrawal after a few months) will now stay through the end of the year in limited numbers, and has offered 1,000 troops to stay even longer as part of a hoped for UN peacekeeping operation. He reiterated the latter on April 4. Meanwhile, the European Union has begun the first phase of a 15-month training operation under the guidance of military personnel from 7 EU countries with an initial contingent of Malian army trainees. The EU training mission eventually is slated to field 500 such trainers. On a mission to the Malian capital of Bamako on April 2, Senator John McCain said the US also would explore ways of providing equipment and training to assist the EU mission and technology to support the French efforts to help run down AQIM elements still at large. Intelligence sharing among the US, the UK, France and key EU governments on AQIM-related developments undoubtedly will expand.
Last week UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called upon the Security Council to authorize the transformation of the various African forces in Mali along with additional police assets into a UN peacekeeping force of over 12,000 (that the French could then bolster with troops of their own). Ban cited the challenge posed by AQIM’s “residual threat” as justification for the deployment of such a force in being. Clearly, statements by Hollande, Ban and McCain illustrate the international community has become more resigned to a continued presence in Mali to provide the Malian government a reasonable chance to bounce back from the recent AQIM challenge.
To head off potential trouble on a closely related front, however, both Malian authorities and their foreign allies must tread carefully around longstanding tensions between the Tuareg Berber population of the Saharan north and Mali’s dominant, sub-Saharan African peoples of the south. The Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad (NMLA), although wary — even hostile — toward AQIM, vainly attempted to coexist with AQIM as the latter embarked on its offensive against Malian government forces last year. With the AQIM routed by the French, the more secular NMLA last week named its own civil administrator for the key northern regional capital of Kidal; the NMLA and its core Tuareg constituency remain deeply suspicious — even hostile — toward Malian troops and central governance.
Those hoping to bring as much stability as possible to the situation in northern Mali must bear in mind that not only was there a protracted Tuareg rebellion in both Mali and Niger during 2007-2009, but what morphed into the AQIM power grab in Mali late last year started with an NMLA revolt in northern Mali in January 2012. At least some AQIM cadres probably are Tuareg; other Tuareg who are not, but participated in the Libyan civil war, likely remain especially restive. Yet, the Tuareg are far more knowledgeable than any others about the wild Saharan terrain in which many AQIM cadres have sought shelter, and could assist foreign — and perhaps even Malian — forces root out AQIM remnants. But that may well require serious concessions, perhaps toward a measure of self-governance, to address longstanding northern grievances.
]]>by James A. Russell
The confirmation hearings of John Brennan for director of the Central Intelligence Agency serve as the latest searing reminder of the intellectual rigamortis gripping the national security establishment and how brain dead we have become as a country in addressing strategy and strategic issues.
The sole focus [...]]]>
by James A. Russell
The confirmation hearings of John Brennan for director of the Central Intelligence Agency serve as the latest searing reminder of the intellectual rigamortis gripping the national security establishment and how brain dead we have become as a country in addressing strategy and strategic issues.
The sole focus of these hearings has been the country’s ongoing love affair with targeted assassinations carried out by drones against our Islamic extremist adversaries.
Instead of engaging in a real debate over the efficacy of these assassinations as an element of counter-terrorism strategy, we are left with the voices of Republicans who see nothing wrong with the state drawing up its monthly assassination lists and those of Democrats who worry about civil rights issues and want judges to review who the government proposes to assassinate each month.
If ever there was an example of tactics in search of a strategy, this is it. Sadly, this is only the latest example of the national security establishment confusing the two.
This country has witnessed the substitution of tactics for strategy during the last decade as a series of military and civilian leaders have trumpeted the benefits of “counterinsurgency strategy” as the correct approach to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet counterinsurgency is nothing more than a tactical approach on the battlefield, which, by the way, has mostly failed miserably when attempted by western militaries over the last century. It is not a strategy.
Killing terrorists by whatever means is also tactics masquerading as strategy — just like counterinsurgency. Our focus on assassinating suspected terrorist foes both by hellfire missiles from above and by Special Forces kicking in doors on the ground in fact reflects a specific approach to counter-terrorism called leadership decapitation. You won’t hear this mentioned in the hearings — but this is the strategic issue under discussion, without, of course, being discussed.
Leadership decapitation as a strategy is short-sighted, bound to ultimately fail, and may in fact increase threats to our country. What is the evidence to support this assertion and where has leadership decapitation been tried? The answer exists in almost every irregular war undertaken by occupying armies over the last century. The French perfected the technique during their occupation of Algeria in one celebrated example, though that war didn’t turn out well for them. Another current day example is Israel, which has routinely assassinated its adversaries in its futile attempt to prevent terrorist attacks over the last 60 years. Just as the French could not kill their way to victory in Algeria, Israel cannot kill its way to peace and security.
Although you might not realize it, the United States is by far the greatest modern day practitioner of leadership decapitation. How has this strategy worked out for us and why isn’t Brennan being asked about it in his confirmation hearings?
I recall sitting in on a briefing in Afghanistan back in 2010 and seeing the obligatory power point slide with all the red “X’s” through the Taliban’s leadership structure in the province I was visiting. Stupidly, of course, I mentioned to the briefer: “Well, we must be winning, then.” He laughed and responded: “You could have shown up here for every year for the last few years and seen the exact same slide. They just keep coming back.”
Therein lies the problem. The US has implemented the tactic of leadership decapitation on an industrial scale in Afghanistan over the last three years under the military leadership of General Stanley McChrystal and then his successor, David Petraeus. Both unleashed the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in Afghanistan just as they did in Iraq. In Iraq during 2007 and 2008, JSOC killed many Iraqis, which helped cover the US retreat but that’s about it. JSOC teams and the CIA drone mavens have also killed a lot of the Taliban, but has the Taliban given up?
Setting aside the moral and ethical issues related to state assassinations of people without due process, the broader strategic issue remains — we can’t kill our way out of disputes with Islamic militants that are currently on the receiving end of our hellfire missiles. They will keep coming back until a political settlement is reached or until they are all dead. Since we can’t kill them all, the war will go on.
Still worse, by intervening in what are essentially local political disputes in countries like Yemen, Mali and Afghanistan, we run the risk of provoking exactly the kind of attacks against us that we are supposed to be trying to forestall.
Leadership decapitation is a prescription for never ending war, which may be useful for political purposes in some US quarters (like it is in Israel), but remains a terrible strategy. Just ask the Israelis how it has worked out for them. Despite the comforting illusion of the cost-free, push-button war offered by our standoff drone strikes and our darkly clad soldiers jumping out of helicopters to gun down suspected terrorists, we are playing a dangerous game that may only increase threats to this country.
As much as we might want to believe otherwise, there is no military solution to the political problem of extremist violence. It is a square peg being inserted into a round hole. Al Qaeda-inspired militancy around the Islamic world is at heart a violent protest against modernity that commands no broadly based popular political support. Do we see Saudi citizens (or any citizens, anywhere, for that matter) mounting the barricades in a revolution supporting Al Qaeda’s call for a return to the caliphate? We should let Al Qaeda die its natural death. If anything, America’s military interventions in the developing world have prolonged the relevance of the handful of militants flocking to this banner.
At the very least, sound strategic thinking would deliver us the kind of debate that is so desperately needed on the strategic choices facing this country as we try to decide how best to protect ourselves. The recent confirmation hearings offered us the chance to explore these issues, but the silence from both the executive and legislative branches is deafening.
This country is tumbling into a de facto era of apparently endless drone wars with no critical assessment or alternative views being offered. It’s hard not to draw the parallel to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, with the United States ceaselessly lobbing missiles into an unpoliceable, dark, and impenetrable interior just as the ship did in Conrad’s story — firing away futilely at unseen targets in a world gone mad.
]]>The crisis affecting Mali and southern Algeria is only the latest phase in a long pattern of conflict. The often nomadic Saharan Tuareg, with populations spreading far beyond northern Mali, have never had a stable relationship with the more settled populations to the south. They have been in rebellion or on [...]]]>
The crisis affecting Mali and southern Algeria is only the latest phase in a long pattern of conflict. The often nomadic Saharan Tuareg, with populations spreading far beyond northern Mali, have never had a stable relationship with the more settled populations to the south. They have been in rebellion or on the verge of it for much of the last 22 years, and Libya as well as Algeria have played disruptive supporting roles in the course of that troubled period.
The latest blow-up in the southern Sahara cannot be viewed in isolation, especially as various outside parties cast about for ways of resolving it. Mali, neighboring Niger, or both have been wracked by a series of rebellions, largely Tuareg (1990-1995, 2007-2009), and a mix of Tuareg and Islamic extremists in 2012-2013. Tuareg grievances have ranged from greater freedom from central governments based along the Niger River to the south, to, increasingly in Mali, demands for outright autonomy or independence. Beginning nearly a decade ago, they have been taking on more of a militant Islamic character (once again, mainly in Mali).
Muammar Qadhafi was involved as an enabler in the first rebellion in Niger in the 1990’s, providing weapons, training and safe haven for Tuareg rebels fighting and raiding in Niger. In 2009 he played a role in ending the second rebellion, but the rebels again enjoyed access to Libya. The current rebellion was enhanced greatly by the massive infusion of Libyan arms brought down from a fractured Libya by Tuaregs and other militants present there as a result of the previous episodes (with some southerners even used by Qadhafi as combatants in his vain, bloody effort to stave off defeat).
Lately, the focus has been on Algeria because of the 4-day ordeal at the Ain Amenas natural gas complex in the Algerian southeast. Much media coverage has been sympathetic to Algeria’s long struggle against Islamist “terrorism.” The facts cast Algeria in a somewhat darker light.
The authoritarian, dysfunctional, notoriously corrupt, and military-heavy elite in Algeria panicked after the Islamic Salvation Front (or FIS, based on its French title) won the first round of Algeria’s only truly fair national assembly elections in 1991. The military cancelled the second round in January 1992, replacing a President and possible progress toward greater democracy with a military junta and a brutal crackdown. The Islamists, most previously relatively moderate, took up arms against this ruthless cabal (with support from many ordinary, downtrodden and neglected Algerians more generally).
Algeria was destabilized amidst what became a virtual civil war through 1997, taking the lives of up to 200,000 people. Ironically, in crushing the uprising, the Algerian military used many of the same ruthless tactics employed by the French during their war to suppress Algerian independence. Later in the conflict, quite a few embittered Islamist fighters turned to extremism, with one offshoot eventually forming the militant Salafist Group for Call and Combat (or GSPC from its French name). Splinter elements of the GSPC took refuge from Algerian forces in the north of an impoverished Mali over a decade ago.
Long shunned by much of the international community for its various abuses in the 1990’s, Algeria, led by authoritarian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika (reelected with purportedly over 90% of the vote in 2009), broke out of its isolation after 9/11. A Bush Administration eager to rope in any assistance curbed the US’ policy of wariness toward the Algerian regime, viewing the latter’s long battle with Islamist “terrorism” as a valuable resource, despite its dismal track record otherwise.
Fragments of the GSPC later morphed into al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), also setting up shop across the border in Mali. Although the GSPC engaged in kidnappings, drug trafficking, killings and even occasional terrorism back in Algeria, Algerian security forces did relatively little to cooperate actively with countermeasures aimed against the GSPC and AQIM beyond their own borders (despite the near absence of Malian central governance in its Saharan north). While still serving with the US Intelligence Community during an operation against a dangerous GSPC cell in northern Mali some years ago (when Mali had asked for American and Algerian assistance), the Algerians remained largely passive.
For decades there also has been a desperate need for political change in an Algeria where far too little of its growing oil and gas revenues reach the bulk of the population. Yet, the “Arab Spring” fizzled there. Even though demonstrations (including self-immolations) occurred in many locales causing President Bouteflika to terminate (at least formally) a 19-year state of emergency and promise reform, little has changed. Many Algerians remain cowed by the sheer scale of brutality during the grueling internal warfare of the 1990’s.
Many aspects of the hostage crisis at Ain Amenas bear the hallmarks of the chequered performance of Algeria’s government and security forces. First off, after agreeing to allow France over-flights and to provide some intelligence related to the French blitzkrieg against the extremists in northern Mali, Algiers should have been bracing for potential trouble days before the French struck. Instead, Algerian security was caught off guard (despite their familiarity with this highly mobile foe and a nearby Algerian Army base). Next, Algiers resisted meaningful international cooperation and instead launched its own initially clumsy rescue attempt during which Algerian helicopters reportedly blasted trucks containing hostages (hence the grumbling in some foreign capitals).
Stepping back a bit, a major factor to bear in mind as this crisis evolves more broadly is whether the problem will remain primarily confined to Mali — especially if and when French, Malian, and African forces press deeper into northern Mali. Borders mean precious little in this trackless area to either AQIM or the Tuareg. This mess could easily spill over into the adjacent and equally ill-governed deserts of Niger or Mauritania.
Photo: Tuaregs at the January 2012 Festival au Désert in Timbuktu, just before the MNLA launched the Azawadi rebellion later that month. By Alfred Weidinger (Wikimedia Commons).
]]>The Washington Post reports that the CIA is seeking greater control over drone assets around the world, especially those equipped to carry out targeted killings in the Horn of Africa, Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan:
The proposal by CIA Director David H. Petraeus would bolster the agency’s ability to sustain its [...]]]>
The Washington Post reports that the CIA is seeking greater control over drone assets around the world, especially those equipped to carry out targeted killings in the Horn of Africa, Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan:
The proposal by CIA Director David H. Petraeus would bolster the agency’s ability to sustain its campaigns of lethal strikes in Pakistan and Yemen and enable it, if directed, to shift aircraft to emerging al-Qaeda threats in North Africa or other trouble spots, officials said.
If approved, the CIA could add as many as 10 drones, the officials said, to an inventory that has ranged between 30 and 35 over the past few years.
…. The CIA’s proposal would have to be evaluated by a group led by President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, officials said.
The group, which includes senior officials from the CIA, the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies, is directly involved in deciding which alleged al-Qaeda operatives are added to “kill” lists. But current and former officials said the group also plays a lesser-known role as referee in deciding the allocation of assets, including whether the CIA or the Defense Department takes possession of newly delivered drones.
The US is also especially focusing on North Africa with the planned expansion. Whether this will end up being a short-term fixation due to the consulate storming in Benghazi, or a long-term expansion of US military operations in the Sahel and the Maghreb remains to be seen:
One U.S. official said the request reflects a concern that political turmoil across the Middle East and North Africa has created new openings for al-Qaeda and its affiliates.
“With what happened in Libya, we’re realizing that these places are going to heat up,” the official said, referring to the Sept. 11 attack on a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi. No decisions have been made about moving armed CIA drones into these regions, but officials have begun to map out contingencies. “I think we’re actually looking forward a little bit,” the official said.
White House officials are particularly concerned about the emergence of al-Qaeda’s affiliate in North Africa, which has gained weapons and territory following the collapse of the governments in Libya and Mali. Seeking to bolster surveillance in the region, the United States has been forced to rely on small, unarmed turboprop aircraft disguised as private planes.
In Mali, the US-trained military staged a coup last March against the democratically-elected government in order to take charge of the war against separatists who were bolstered by an influx of mercenaries and equipment from Libya during the 2011 civil war. Unfortunately for Malians, the new junta has so far failed to arrest the separatists’ progress, leading to a stalemate, while at the same time Islamist groups and criminal gangs have come to dominate the revolt.
With the region facing a humanitarian crisis, other African states are mulling direct military intervention in Mali, likely to be supported by the EU.
]]>As I reported last month, [...]]]>
UN Photo/WFP/Phil Behan
As Beyonce’s video celebrating World Humanitarian Day continues to make its rounds through the internet, humanitarian workers on the ground in the drought-affected Sahel arguably have bigger fish to fry as they try to stave off deteriorating conditions in Niger and Mali amidst staggering shortages in relief funding.
As I reported last month, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recently adjusted its needs projections for 2012 upward in light of what can be called a foreseeable escalation of the food crisis in the Sahel that started last fall.
Now it looks like cholera and locusts are further foiling already underfunded relief efforts across West Africa.
With four months left to the year, only 51 percent of the funding goal for the region has been met according to latest numbers by the U.N.’s Financial Tracking Service.
So far, an estimated 19 million people in the region are in dire need of assistance, many of whom were expected to rely on emergency food aid as primary means of sustenance by August.
In a special humanitarian bulletin on the Sahel crisis published last week, OCHA now warns of a developing locust infestation that could affect another 50 million people and diminish yields in the upcoming October harvest.
“Desert locust infestation remains dangerous as more egg-laying and hatching are expected in the coming weeks. Agricultural crop production, food and nutrition security, and the livelihood of some 50 million people in Chad, Mali and Niger are currently at risk, according to the FAO. This threat is the most serious since 2005.
Ground teams in Niger have treated 1,200 hectares against the pest since 5 June but ground surveys need to be scaled up to determine the scale and extent of current breeding, especially in those areas where rains have recently fallen.”
Still, rains are badly needed, as an early end to the current rainy season would further affect the upcoming harvest and increase food prices, according to a special report by the Famine Early Warning System Network.
As if that weren’t enough to juggle, cholera is now becoming an increasing worry in Niger, where refugee camps are a potential hotbed for the disease that could affect neighbouring countries along the Niger river, such as Mali, Nigeria and Benin.
About 52.000 people have fled political upheaval in Mali for Niger where 394,000 children under five will need treatment for severe acute malnutrition this year, according to UNICEF, which warns that malnutrition increases the chances of cholera outbreaks.
Nigeria has seen three times the number of cholera cases this year that it registered in 2011, according to Innocent Nzeyimana, the World Health Organization (WHO) Emergencies Manager in Niger in a recent OCHA story. “At this rate, we should be prepared for at least 9,000 cases by December.”
More from Nzeyimana:
“With high levels of water contamination and inadequate sanitation, our area is so prone to cholera. We’ve had cases in 2010 and 2011, but this time it is really getting serious.”
“In a closed environment like a camp, the spread is very fast and we may end up dealing far beyond the 9,000 projected cases. We don’t want that to happen.”
Prevention and treatment of cholera, meanwhile remains underfunded across the Sahel, with only 21 percent of the projected 53 million dollars needed for such programmes covered so far. In Niger only 30 percent of the roughly 8-million-dollar projected sanitation need has been met.
Organizations increasing their appeals
Last week, U.K.-based NGO Christian Aid doubled down on its aid appeal amidst reports by the World Food Programme (WFP) that without increased international support an estimated quarter million people fleeing political instability in Mali for neighbouring Niger, Mauritania and Burkina Faso, will go hungry in just weeks.
WFP is appealing for urgent contributions of 115 million dollars to address pipeline shortfalls for the next three months, according to last week’s OCHA bulletin, as the region is going through its lean season.
As the region awaits the fall harvest and food prices soar, many families continue to sell off their life stock, thus further diminishing their future capacity to foresee in their own livelihoods.
The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), which aims to build farmer’s resilience to future crises has seen less than 25 percent of its 112-million-dollar appeal met, threatening FAO’s ability to support preparations for the next food production campaign from October to December.
FAO is appealing for 10 million dollars to tackle the locust situation. So far France has contributed 550,000 dollars, and another 2.8 million has been pledged bi-laterally.
Last month, British NGO Development Initiatives released a comprehensive report on Humanitarian Aid that projected record shortfalls for 2012. Among other conclusions, the report showed a disproportionate funding for the 2010 mega-disasters in Haiti and Pakistan that syphoned away funds from other countries, including crisis prevention in countries in the now heavily affected Sahel region.
A quote from an OCHA rep in a recent AP article sums it up nicely, I think:
“Pictures of starving goats do not attract aid in the same way as images of dying children.”
Well, folks, we’re getting there.
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