a fool's errand...

General David Petraeus arrived in Kabul last Friday to become Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and of US forces in Afghanistan.
Confirmed by the Senate 99 to 0, he replaced General Stanley McChrystal, who was fired by President Obama after having criticized members of the administration in a reckless Rolling Stone magazine interview.
During a ceremony at NATO headquarters in Kabul on Sunday, the new commander declared, we are engaged in a tough fight. After years of war, we have arrived at a critical moment. We must demonstrate to the people and to the Taliban that Afghan and I.S.A.F. forces are here to safeguard the Afghan people, and that we are in this to win. That is our clear objective, according to the NYT.
The war is now in its ninth year, the General is commanding close to 150,000 troops (there are currently 93,000 US forces, there will be 105,000 by late Summer, and 50,000 troops from NATO and other countries); the US alone has spent over $281 billion to date, 1903 allied troops have been killed (including 1157 US soldiers), along with thousands of Afghans, and we are now being told by the US Commander that we must demonstrate to the Afghan people that we have their welfare at heart?
What have been doing these last eight years that the General felt the need to reiterate this commitment?
The admission that we have failed after eight years to make our intentions clear to the Afghans is an obvious sign that not only have we made no progress at all in Afghanistan, but are clearly failing in our mission to stabilize the country, if that is indeed our mission.
After his policy review last year, the President initially declared that he would send additional troops, and then begin a gradual withdrawal in July 2011.
That gave the Petraeus/McChrystal COIN strategy eighteen months to show results, which entailed pacifying the country significantly in order to allow the Afghan population to benefit from effective government, and entice the Taliban to lay down their weapons and negotiate a power sharing agreement with the Karzai administration.
How are we doing?
Leon Panetta, director of the CIA, implicitly recognized that the Taliban currently had no reason to cease fighting, on the contrary. We have seen no evidence that they are truly interested in reconciliation, where they would surrender their arms, where they would denounce al Qaeda, where they would really try to become part of that society. We’ve seen no evidence of that and very frankly, my view is that with regards to reconciliation, unless they’re convinced that the United States is going to win and that they’re going to be defeated, I think it’s very difficult to proceed with a reconciliation that’s going to be meaningful, he told ABC.
Things are not looking good. There’s not much sign of the turnaround that people were hoping for, Bruce Riedel, of the Brookings Institution, told the NYT.
The first offensive launched against the Taliban following the adoption of the Petraeus/McChrystal COIN strategy began in Marjah last February.
Alas, five months later, US troops still do not control the area.
In fact, the Taliban have become a more effective and efficient fighting force.
Their attacks are now more frequent and sophisticated wrote Jason Motlagh reporting from Marjah for TIME. Complex ambushes are on the rise, he added.
Furthermore, the IEDs being planted by the Taliban are bigger and bigger, according to Gunnery Sergeant Mathew Small quoted in TIME.
McChrystal himself referred to the situation in Marjah as a bleeding ulcer.
It’s harder, it’s slower than I think anyone anticipated, Leon Panetta told ABC.
That US officials should be reaching such conclusions after nearly nine years of war is dismaying. It evinces crass ignorance of the conditions in Afghanistan, the nature of the enemy we are facing and of the lessons of history.
As a result, the military campaign against a much more daunting target, Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold and the historical capital of their movement, has been postponed indefinitely. If anybody thinks Kandahar will be solved this year, they are kidding themselves, a senior military official told the NYT.
Not unsurprisingly, June was the deadliest month since the war began in late 2001.
One hundred and two NATO troops were killed, three times more than in May.
Some 322 troops have been killed since January 1st.
In 2009, 520 were killed.
This increase in violence has also affected ordinary Afghans. In the first four months of 2010, 90 civilians were killed by ISAF troops, a 250% increase over 2009.
Shootings at checkpoints and at convoys have increased significantly as well, and account for 42% of all civilian deaths and injuries.
For ordinary Afghans, such violence reveals the contempt foreign forces have for civilians. It is also telling them that foreigners believe themselves to be above the law, convinced that they can behave as they please in a land that is not theirs…
Moreover, it undermines NATO’s counterinsurgency strategy, conditioned on winning the hearts and minds of the local population.
The US and NATO’s lack of success on the battlefield coupled with their intention of initiating the withdrawal of troops starting next July has induced Afghan President Karzai to chart his own course in order to attempt to resolve the conflict.
As a result, he has begun secret negotiations with the Taliban, and been openly courting Pakistan.
The president has lost his confidence in the capability of either the coalition or his own government to protect this country. President Karzai has never announced that NATO will lose, but the way that he does not proudly own the campaign shows that he doesn’t trust it is working, Amrullah Saleh, the director of the Afghan intelligence service, told the NYT.
Mr. Saleh is a former aide to Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was known as the Lion of Panjsher. The leader of the resistance against the Soviets then the Taliban, Massoud was assassinated by agents of al Qaeda on September 9, 2001, two days before 9/11.
Like all Tajiks, Mr. Saleh does not trust either the Taliban or their Pakistani patrons, and therefore views suspiciously any negotiations with such partners. He resigned his position last month.
Hanif Atmar, interior minister, did likewise, considering that the President no longer trusted him.
In addition, the President also fired Bismullah Khan, chief of staff of the Afghan army, and also a Tajik, and a former leader of Massoud’s Northern Alliance.
President Karzai seems intent on eliminating all those who, like the Tajiks, may hinder his new policy of rapprochement with the Taliban and Pakistan.
Karzai has begun the ethnic war. The future is very dark, Mohammed Mohaqeq, a Hazara leader, told the NYT.
President Karzai seems to have concluded that since the US and NATO will eventually withdraw their forces, it is in his interest to seek support elsewhere.
Karzai told me that he can’t trust the Americans to fix the situation here… He believes they stole his legitimacy during the elections last year. And then they said publicly that they were going to leave, a Western diplomat told the NYT.
Yet, President Karzai’s new strategy is making other Afghans, those who unlike the President and the Taliban are not Pashtun, particularly nervous.
The Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara communities have not forgotten the exactions and persecutions perpetrated by the Taliban when they were in power, and have no intention of allowing President Karzai to negotiate a deal that would allow them to share power with the current government.
They have even vowed to fight if necessary to prevent the return of the Taliban.
Karzai is giving Afghanistan back to the Taliban, and he is opening up the old schisms. If he wants to bring in the Taliban, and they begin to use force, then we will go back to civil war and Afghanistan will be split, Rehman Oghly, an Uzbek member of Parliament, told the NYT.
The Tajiks, led by Massoud, refused to submit to Taliban rule and fought the Taliban government during its years in power. Their military organization, the Northern Alliance, helped the US overthrow the Taliban in the fall of 2001.
The success of President Obama’s COIN policy is conditioned on the ability of US and NATO forces to weaken the Taliban, militarily hold the areas from which the Taliban have been expulsed, then maintain law and order there so that a local civil society and economy can flourish, for the benefit of the entire local population…
A competent and dependable police force is thus crucial to allow sound local government and prevent the Taliban from returning.
The US and Germany in particular have been trying to establish a credible police force for the last eight years.
In fact, the US has already spent $6 billion on the program.
Currently, Afghanistan has some 90,000 police officers. Of those, not even 25% have received any formal training.
Western instructors are putting into place a new program designed to add an additional 30,000 by 2012.
The old system was broken. It just didn't work. Police couldn't shoot, or if they shoot, they can't hit…And then there are the reports of corruption, Marine Col. Gregory Breazile, a NATO spokesman for the training mission, told the WP.
The training course lasts eight weeks and attracts mostly rural Afghans with no education. 90% are illiterate, and 20% fail the mandatory drug test…
For the first time, the new program will include literacy classes…
The officers can't read, so when they ask for your papers, they can't read them. If you can't read an ID card, how are you capable of taking on a drug lord, an Afghan MP told the WP.
Police officers are paid about $240 a month, much less than what the Taliban offers its recruits. Since that is often insufficient to support a family, many officers extort bribes at checkpoints.
On average, 25% of the graduates of the program either quit or are killed within the first twelve months…1,600 have been killed in the past two years…
The establishment of rule of law in Afghanistan is an illusion, concluded one
German instructor.
Afghanistan’s police academy can only train 3,600 officers per year. Yet, NATO and Afghan officials estimate that the country needs 134,000 police officers trained by next July, when foreign forces should slowly start withdrawing.
We don't recognize the Afghan reality, and that's why we will fail there, one inspector told Spiegel.
Yet, before the police can move in, the Taliban must be driven out.
US and NATO forces however, have failed to make any significant headway on the battlefield against the Taliban.
In addition, the Afghan government, an essential component of the counterinsurgency strategy of which it is designed to be the principle beneficiary, is exploring other political options…
What happens to your COIN strategy when the government it is designed to buttress and reinforce no longer supports it, and has lost faith in you andyour ability to pacify the country?
Furthermore, even if the COIN strategy were to succeed, and the Taliban could be forced to negotiate on our terms, it could potentially lead to civil war, since the Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras, or close to 50% of the Afghan population reject any significant involvement of the Taliban and the Pakistanis in Afghan affairs.
In any case, the Taliban have absolutely no intention, at least for the foreseeable future, of negotiating with NATO and the US.
For, not only are they not losing the war, but they may actually prevail as time is on their side.
Should the US and NATO fail to make any significant progress on the ground in the next few months as casualties keep mounting, public pressure to withdraw the troops may prove overwhelming.
Nor are they interested, so they claim, in talking with President Karzai, as long as foreign troops remain on Afghan soil.
We do not want to talk to anyone - not to [President Hamid] Karzai, nor to any foreigners - till the foreign forces withdraw from Afghanistan.
We are certain that we are winning. Why should we talk if we have the upper hand, and the foreign troops are considering withdrawal, and there are differences in the ranks of our enemies, Zabiullah Mujahedd, a Taliban spokesman, told the BBC.
Where does that leave our mission?
Even if General Petraeus succeeds in stabilizing the military situation on the ground, how do we intend to prod Afghanistan’s various fractious ethnic groups to reach some kind of political modus vivendi in order to prevent the return of civil war that ravaged the country in the 1990s? First and foremost, how can we regain President Karzai’s support?
As far as I can tell, they have no plan what to do about this. They tried tough love; that didn’t work. They tried love bombing, and that didn’t work. The thinking now is, we’ll just muddle through. But that’s not a strategy, a senior Democratic Congressional aide told the NYT.
Have we not been muddling through for the better part of the last eight years, which accounts for our current predicament?
In the end, is it not probably the best we can do and hope for?
If so, why are we still in Afghanistan?
Our COIN strategy is in the process of disintegrating because it was an overweening project from the outset.
Was it wise to envisage that we could resurrect Afghanistan, and build a modern, stable and democratic state able to fend for itself?
Should we not have had narrower, more modest ambitions?
The only way in which we could move beyond the counter-insurgency theory, or the hundred other theories which buttress and justify the Afghan war, is by rejecting their most basic underlying premises and objectives. Instead of trying to produce an alternative theory (on how to defeat the Taliban, create an effective, legitimate and stable Afghan state, stabilize Pakistan and ensure that al-Qaida could never again threaten the United States) we need to understand that however desirable such things might be, they are not things that we -- as foreigners -- can do, wrote Rory Stewart, an Afghan expert and British Conservative MP, in Spiegel.
Were our initial objectives the byproduct of excessive idealism, or ignorance and arrogance?
In the end, it matters little.
The damage is already done.
The entire COIN strategy is a fraud perpetuated on the American people. The idea that we are going to spend a trillion dollars to reshape the culture of the Islamic world is utter nonsense, Douglas Macgregor, a retired colonel who attended West Point with McChrystal, told Rolling Stone.
As a result of these developments, opposition to the war is growing, including within the US Congress.
Last week, the $33 billion bill presented by the Obama administration to finance the troop increase passed by the smallest of margins, 215 to 210. Had not a host of domestic spending projects been added to the bill, it might never have been approved.
Obviously, a lot of people are understandably anxious. The sustainability of this war is in some doubt, Michael O’Hanlon, a foreign policy expert at the Brookings Institution, told the Washington Independent.
It’s a fool’s errand. Every dollar we spend in Afghanistan, every life we waste there, is a waste. … What makes us think, what arrogance gives us the right to assume that we can succeed where the Moguls, the British, the Soviets, failed, asked Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) at a press conference last week.
Rep. Tim Johnson (R-Ill.) also condemned the bill and the project it intends to finance.
We cannot force a culture to accept our values, and we cannot impose Western democracy on a people who don’t understand or accept it and whose leadership is corrupt and antidemocratic beyond repair. And we cannot continue to spend the billions and, arguably, trillions of dollars of the hardworking men and women in this country in a venture that has no objective, no end game, and no proximate connection to the well-being of our Nation, he told the House...
We have obviously lost our way in Afghanistan.
What is our mission?
The fundamental purpose, the mission that the president has laid out is that we have to go after Al Qaeda. We’ve got to disrupt and dismantle Al Qaeda and their militant allies so they never attack this country again, CIA Director Leon Panetta reminded us last month.
Does that necessarily entail occupying a fractious, third world, Muslim country with 150,000 troops at the cost of thousands of lives and billions of dollars a year?
We have been in Afghanistan for nearly nine years, and as Petraeus himself implicitly conceded, have accomplished next to nothing there.
Why should we suddenly find the key to stabilizing a country we have been unable to pacify for the last eight years?
Afghanistan is not in our vital interest-there’s nothing for us there, concluded Marc Sageman, formerly of the CIA.
Why are we still there?
(the photograph above can be found here)
　

A Gallic slice of self-destruction...

France’s dismal performance and abject behavior at the South African World Cup provoked consternation at home, and sardonic glee abroad.
Is the French football team, this feud-racked band of brats, to quote Roger Cohen, solely responsible for the shameful fiasco?
France’s spineless performance was such that the 2006 finalists were dispatched back to Paris after just three games, none of which they managed to win.
What happened?
We did not really play as a team, French mid fielder Yoann Gourcuff told the sports daily L’Equipe.
Undermined by what The Guardian called arrogance and complacency, the French team was unable to put its divisions and egos aside in order to fight collectively for a common goal: victory.
The squad, undoubtedly also due to Coach Raymond Domenech’s incompetence, never conglomerated into a unified whole with common objectives.
Riven by divisions, antagonistic clans coexisted uneasily within the squad: the inner city gang, comprising those who grew up in deprived projects surrounding Paris, including Ribery and Anelka whose profanity-laced assessment of Domenech led to his ouster from the team and the World Cup; the Caribbean gang, led by Henry and the small town gang, which included Lloris, Toulalan and Govou, who all play in Lyon, the best French team of the last ten years.
It seems that clan loyalty became more important than playing for France.
Hence, racial and perhaps even religious tensions (as some of the players are Muslim, such as Abidal and Ribery) have been undermining the team for months, if not years, and festering for that long due to Domenech’s total lack of leadership.
The absence of an undisputed leader on and off the pitch, such as Zinedine Zidane facilitated the disintegration process.
Yet a team can be divided and lose, without disgracing itself in front of the entire world.
It seems that some French players lacked essential qualities such as a sense of respect, for others but also for themselves.
What values do players the likes of Anelka actually embrace, if any?
Most of today’s players left school at a young age (Anelka was already playing for top teams at the age of 18), thus have little or no education at all. They come from a generation who come from the banlieues, and they don’t necessarily have the cultural background to understand what they did, Philippe Tétart, a sports historian, told the NYT.
What values have they extracted from the projects?
Locker room disagreements and outbursts are common.
Yet, what kind of individual treats another the way Anelka did?
The day after Anelka’s expulsion, the French team refused to practice to protest the French Football Federation’s decision to dismiss him. A fist fight almost broke out between the team captain Patice Evra and the fitness coach, in front of hundreds of television cameras
Though it was presented as a unanimous decision on the part of all 22 players, several players in fact (Lloris, Gourcuff and Sagna in particular), wanted to practice but were threatened with physical assault by Ribery, Abidal and Evra, should they try to get off the team bus.
The scabs relented so that no fisticuffs ensued.
Again, what kind of values does such behavior evince?
We now have proof that the French team is not a team at all, but a gang of hooligans that knows only the morals of the mafia, Alain Finkielkraut, a prominent writer and philosopher said in a radio interview.
The team does not represent France, with its clans, ethnic divisions, its persecution of the star pupil (Gourcuff). It is a reflection of it, and holds up a frightening mirror, in which we are forced to recognize ourselves, he told le JDD.
The French team had no common, core values, thus its paltry performance.
Does that imply that the French nation as a whole no longer exists, in the sense that no fundamental values bind all of its citizens?
Do Parisians, provincials, inner city dwellers, second and third generation immigrants (who are all French citizens) whether they be black, beur (of North African origin) Muslim or not have any values in common?
Does liberté, égalité, fraternité still mean anything, particularly to those who live in the banlieues that erupted in both 2005 and 2007? Nicolas Sarkozy was then Interior Minister, France’s top cop.
When President Sarkozy visited La Courneuve, outside of Paris, Wednesday evening, (it was a surprise nocturnal visit without any media presence), in Seine St. Denis, France’s poorest Départment, he was greeted by a youth who used language similar to Anelka’s: 'Vas te faire enculer connard, ici t'es chez moi. When the police tried to arrest him for insulting an official, a fight broke out and he suffered a broken nose…
Some in the political opposition contend that the French football team was merely the reflection of the France ruled by Sarkozy. The defeat of the French team is also Sarkozy’s, Jerome Cahuzac, of the Socialist party and President of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly, told Le Post. 2010 is different from 1998 (the year les Bleus won the World Cup hosted in France). The mood is different and the current climate within the team is in fact exalted by Sarkozy: individualism, selfishness, everyone for themselves, and the only way to judge human success is the check you get at the end of the month.
US society is highly individualistic and materialistic however, yet its team has displayed great dedication and team spirit. Great teams are built on great faith, faith in the team’s possibilities, in one’s teammates and their ability and desire to serve the team.
After the US came back from a two-goal deficit to tie the game against Slovenia last week, Landon Donovan, the great US player, said my guess is there's not many teams in this tournament that could have done what we did and arguably won the game. And that is what the American spirit is about. And I'm sure people back home are proud of that, according to the NYT. The US would have won had not an inept call by the referee deprived them of the winning goal.

The French team floundered because it has lost that French spirit, so present in 1998.
In essence, do the failure and gross deficiencies of the French team truly reflect the demise of France’s social and economic model and its inability to integrate its black, Muslim immigrant and now French population?
The 1998 victory by the Black, Blanc, Beur team was seen by many at the time as a validation of the French model of integration.
Did the model really disintegrate in the ensuing twelve years?
Was France really the racially harmonious nation that the French football team embodied with such class and ability in 1998?
We all wanted to believe this, but it was a delusion.
A mere four years later, outgoing Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin failed to make it to the second and decisive round of the 2002 Presidential election, outpolled by Jean Marie Le Pen, leader of the xenophobic and extremist Front National. Incumbent President Jacques Chirac then soundly defeated Le Pen.
Yet, the fact that Zidane, Henry and, yes, Anelka emerged to become rich and famous athletes is living proof that the system can work for minorities.
It was able to detect and nurture talent, and allow it the opportunity to flourish.
France was not a model of integration in 1998, and neither is the nation irremediably divided and torn by ethnic and religious tensions today.
Zidane’s great team did not win because Jospin was running the country, nor did the 2010 team lose because Sarkozy is President.
What is undeniable however is that the French model of integration has lost its credibility in the banlieues because the opportunities it does provide are far too few.
Not everyone can become Zidane or Djamel Debbouze, one of France‘s best paid entertainers.
The system needs to be able to provide everyone, and first and foremost, those who live in the most deprived neighborhoods with a decent education and the means to live a dignified, productive life. Sarkozy should revitalize his discrimination positive (affirmative action) program and devote the necessary means to revitalize these neighborhoods.
Only genuine economic opportunity can pacify les banlieues and give them faith once again in France’s model embodied by the Republic’s motto, Liberté, égalité, fratenité.
This will take considerable leadership, which has been lacking on this issue for the better part of thirty years.
It needs to be addressed if we do not want the likes of Anelka, Gallas and the other football prima donnas to become the sole role models for the children of the banlieues…
(the title of this post comes from David Hytner’s fine article in The Guardian;

the photograph above can be found here)

In Gaza, no one is dying, but no one is living...

There is no humanitarian crisis in the Strip, Yuval Diskin, head of the Israel Security Agency, the Shin Bet, told a Knesset committee last Tuesday.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu agreed. There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, he said recently. Earlier this month, he had also declared that there’s no shortage of food. There’s no shortage of medicine.
Four months ago or so, in Gaza, a baby boy Mohamed was diagnosed with a heart blockage that could only be treated in Israel, for the Strip has no pediatric surgery unit.
It took the Israeli authorities some two weeks to process his application for entry into Israel on medical grounds.
When the official approval finally arrived, the baby was already dead.
Why should it take so long for a days-old innocent baby with such a serious problem? No crisis? I lost my son. We're not treated like human beings. Let me ask you: Would Israelis accept to live under these conditions? his father Hajaj asked Edmund Sanders of the LAT.
Last year, 27 Gazans died in similar circumstances…
Gaza’s health infrastructure has been badly battered by the siege and the three-week onslaught launched by Israel on the Strip in January of last year.
So far as health services are concerned, what we’re concerned with is the declining quality of care available primarily because of the blockade, Tony Lawrence, head of the West Bank and Gaza office of the World Health Organization, told The CSM.
Medical equipment is routinely blocked for months on the Israeli-Gaza border.
Some equipment is simply not authorized at all.
Israel bans the import of uninterrupted power supply systems, arguing that their batteries could be used to make bombs. But that means when Gaza's power goes out, as it frequently does, medical equipment stops running, and its shelf-life is reduced by frequent power shortages, wrote The CSM.
In addition, many of the most complex medical and surgical procedures are not available at all in Gaza.
Essential medicines (15 to 30% at any given time) are also hard to obtain.
It must be said however, that this is also because the conflict between Hamas and The Palestinian Authority has had adverse effects on the medical supply chain.
The state of the health care system in Gaza has never been worse. Health is being politicized: that is the main reason the system is failing, concluded Eileen Daly, a health coordinator for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
In addition, the IDF damaged or destroyed 15 of Gaza’s 27 hospitals and 43 of its 110 primary health care facilities during the war last year.
Little rebuilding has been done since Israel bans the entry of construction material into the Strip.
In fact, the siege compounded by the damage wreaked by last year’s Israeli onslaught has devastated the territory’s economy: 98% of Gaza’s factories had to close down due to the lack of raw materials, and Israel’s ban on the export of goods produced locally.
As a result, 120,000 Gazans lost their job.
The unemployment rate is currently at 42%.
The Strip’s sole power plant (it was damaged by Israel in 2006, which never authorized its repair) only receives enough fuel to run at about 67% of its capacity.
Hence, houses in Gaza are deprived of electricity between 35 and 60 hours a week…
Furthermore, since Israel also bans the entry of gasoline and diesel fuel, many Gazans have reverted to the use of donkey carts to move both people and goods.
Today, in terms of volume, Gaza imports less than 25% of what it did in 2005, before the siege was imposed.
The UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees Unrwa’s list of household items that have been refused entry at various times includes light bulbs, candles, matches, books, musical instruments, crayons, clothing, shoes, mattresses, sheets, blankets, pasta, tea, coffee, chocolate, nuts, shampoo and conditioner, wrote Heather Sharp, of BBC News.
As there is no official, published list of what is authorized, no one knows what is actually banned, apart from construction materials and weapons, which are smuggled through the tunnels beneath the Egyptian-Gaza border.
What is banned today may be authorized tomorrow and vice versa…
According to UNRWA, 80% of Gazans depend on some kind of food assistance.
As a result of this deterioration in the quality and quantity of products consumed by the Gazans, 33% of children and young women are anemic.
One of Israel’s objectives in imposing the siege was to undermine Hamas, hoping that harsher living conditions inside the Strip would goad the Gazans into overthrowing the Islamic movement.
Ironically, it seems that the siege has only further buttressed Hamas’ rule.
The destruction of Gaza’s economy has led to the marginalization, if not the outright demise, of its influential business community.
Gaza’s traditional sectors, such as construction, agriculture, furniture making and textiles, which exported much of their production, have been devastated by the siege, and the ban on importing raw materials and exporting finished products.
I can’t get cocoa powder, I can’t get malt, I can’t get shortening or syrup or wrapping material or boxes. I don’t like Hamas, and I don’t like Fatah. All I want is to make food, Mohammed Telbani, who operates a cookies and ice cream factory, told The NYT.
As a result, most if not all of Gaza’s economy has, literally, gone underground.
We are now a nation of tunnel diggers. The tunnels were seen as a tool to overcome the hardship. Now they have become socially, politically and morally acceptable, Omar Shaban, an economist, told The Observer.
The black market has thrived to the point that the Gaza economy is now entirely black, asserted Mr. Shaban.
The tunnel owners and operators constitute Gaza’s new elite and the former business establishment is left with little choice but to invest directly in the new tunnel economy.
Hamas deprived of tax revenues by Israel and the Palestinian Authority is capitalizing on the tunnel economy.
Tunnel owners must by licenses from the Hamas administration, which also taxes the products illegally entering the Strip.
Hamas has turned the siege to its own advantage. Instead of being squeezed by the blockade, Hamas has become stronger and more powerful, Mkhaimar Abusada, a political science professor at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, told The Observer.
Instead of weakening Hamas, it has consolidated its grip and its power over the Gaza Strip. Hamas has already won the battle of the siege, he added.
As such, one may wonder if Hamas is indeed keen on seeing the siege eventually lifted…
Because of the tunnel economy, Gaza does not lack essentials, and certainly not food.
Products imported from the US and Europe are available, as are fresh products such as meat, eggs and vegetables.
Yet, very few can afford them since they cost two to four times the conventional market price…Many Gazans have little money because they are unemployed…
There is food. But there is no work. We have a high percentage of unemployment. A high number of workers are sitting in their houses, not working. There is no money for a person to buy the daily food for his children, Ashraf al-Koumi, owner of a small food store, told VOA.
Hence, the new moneyed elite imports and buys whatever it wants and needs, while the bulk of the population must rely on UNRWA and other organizations to survive.
The current situation is more and more untenable, particularly since the raid on the Mavi Marmara thrust the plight of the Gazans back into the international media spotlight.
The ICRC even stepped in to demand the end of the siege.
The whole of Gaza's civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility. The closure therefore constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law, the organization declared in a statement.
The ICRC also demanded that Hamas allow its Israeli prisoner, Gilad Shalit, to receive regular visits from his family, something it has refused to do.
On Thursday, Israel accepted the principle of allowing more goods to enter Gaza.
It was agreed to liberalize the system by which civilian goods enter Gaza and expand the inflow of materials for civilian projects that are under international supervision, the authorities declared.
All types of food will now be authorized.
Since last week, Gazans can enjoy cookies, sodas and snacks, goods previously banned, as were toys, for security reasons, no doubt…
Many observers were skeptical however, since no details were released concerning what would be authorized. Would raw materials now be allowed?
Would exports be as well?
This announcement makes clear that Israel is not intending to end its collective punishment of Gaza's civilian population, but only ease it. This is not enough, said Malcolm Smart, of Amnesty International.
The time has come for Israel to ask serious questions about how three years of closure have promoted the goals it declared for itself and what has been the effect on 1.5 million people whose right to travel and to engage in productive work has been denied.
We don't need cosmetic changes. We need a policy that recognizes the rights of Palestinian residents of Gaza not just to consume but also to produce and to travel, Gisha, an Israeli human rights organization, declared.
Israel seems to be tinkering with the policy of the last three years, rather than reconsidering it, Sari Bashi, the director of Gisha, told The NYT.
Yet, is the Israeli announcement genuine, or simply designed to appease Israel’s many foreign critics seething with anger following the raid on the Turkish ship?
Two official statements came out of the Prime Minister's Office in regard to the security cabinet meeting – one in Hebrew for the Israeli media and another in English for the foreign media and foreign diplomats. The English version said that "It was agreed to liberalize the system by which civilian goods enter Gaza [and] expand the inflow of materials for civilian projects that are under international supervision." The Hebrew version addressed mainly remarks made by Netanyahu, but failed to mention any decision or agreement, wrote Haaretz on Friday.
Time will tell if Israel is indeed serious.
Until the siege is lifted however, Israel will have to contend with international human rights activists determined to help the Gazans.
Two ships, the Mariam and the Naji al-Ali will soon be sailing from Beirut and heading for Gaza, intent on breaking the siege.
The German Jewish Voice, part of European Jews for a Just Peace also plans to sail to Gaza next month.
We want Israel to behave in a way that it can be recognized as a democratic state. Now it is recognized as a criminal state. That is not what we want, Kate Katzenstein-Leiterer, of the German movement, told Haaretz.
The whole blockade, the whole siege of Gaza is illegal. It is against international law and human rights. We want to deliver musical instruments and school material. The children are deprived of every kind of school material; clothes, shoes, candies. We don't see that that is any kind of safety risk, she added.
The ships will keep coming until Israel significantly changes policy, and allows Gazans to lead civilized lives…
In Gaza, no one is dying, but no one is living, Amr Hamad, deputy secretary general of the Palestinian Federation of Industries, told The NYT.
All Gazans should not have to bear the consequences of Israel’s obsession with Hamas.
The siege has failed, because Hamas still rules the Strip and is not going anywhere.
The siege must end because it is ineffectual, but also immoral.
We should urge our leaders to do their utmost to put an end to it.
Our indifference and apathy has enabled Israel to punish an entire population for no visible gain, out of pure spite
Putting an end to the siege is the only moral, decent thing to do, and if our leaders cannot muster the determination to do so, then it is likely that the Mavi Marmaras will keep coming until even the Israelis come to the conclusion that the siege is more trouble than it is worth.
(the photograph of the children playing in the rubble of a building in Gaza is by Ayman Quader)

A darker night of despotism...

One year to the day after President Ahmadinejad’s fraudulent election victory, would opposition supporters fill the streets of Iran’s cities to voice once again their outrage, as they had done on June 15, 2009, when some three million people demonstrated in Tehran alone?
A heavy security presence ensured that those brazen enough to demonstrate would be taken care of accordingly. Iran’s security forces almost outnumbered a few thousand opposition supporters in Tehran on Saturday to avert a rally on the first anniversary of the disputed presidential election, wrote The Financial Times.
Potential protesters had also been threatened with retribution by the regime should they participate in banned demonstrations.
Any illegal move to disrupt public order and trouble people will not be tolerated and will be dealt with, the governor general of Tehran, Morteza Tamadon, told IRNA.
Any revival of street protests is unlikely. But if the sedition movement creates a security crisis, we will confront them with full force, had added Reza Farzaneh, a senior IRGC commander.
In addition, the regime’s campaign of intimidation included the following text message the Intelligence Ministry sent out randomly: Dear citizen, you have been deceived by the foreign media and are cooperating with them. If repeated, you will be dealt with according to the Islamic punishment law, an opposition website reported.
The leaders of Iran‘s opposition, Mir Hussein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi had cancelled plans to hold a demonstration in order to protect the lives and property of people.
Yet, some were determined to demonstrate come what may.
In addition, the night before, many Iranians once again shouted Allah o Akbar (God is Great) on the city’s rooftops, an act of defiance against the regime.
Protesters gathered at Revolution Square, at Tehran University, and near Azadi Avenue.
At Tehran University, they chanted slogans, and shouted liar, liar (in reference to President Ahmadinejad) as theywere beset by plain-clothed police officers.
In Enghelab square, close to Tehran University, Basijis [militiamen] are beating people with batons. They have closed the street and we have moved to Daneshgah street, one witness told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda.They beat everybody close to Tehran University. Anybody who stops gets beaten up, another said.
Basijis were seen patrolling downtown on motorcycles clutching truncheons, some shouting Death to Mousavi.
Skirmishes ensued with protesters chanting Death to the Dictator.
The police tried to arrest an old woman under Hafez Bridge for shouting anti-government slogans, yet scores of protesters rushed to the scene, thereby preventing them from doing so…
Security forces also used paint guns and rubber bullets to disperse the crowds.
Yet, many simply refused to be cowed by them.
There were so many plainclothes officers, that we didn't know who was with us or who against us. But people were not afraid at all, which must be worrying for the government, one protester told the WP.
We came to the streets to show we will not cave in and we want real change. We want to prove that pressure on people will be counterproductive, and the huge number of anti-riot police and Basiji (militiamen) today with surgical masks in the streets shows who is afraid of whom, another told the LAT.
Some, anywhere from a handful to two hundred, were arrested.
Demonstrations also took place in other cities such as Mashhad, Shiraz and Isfahan.
In essence, the turnout was modest due to the mood prevailing in the capital and across the country, one of repression and suffocation, according to an Iranian journalist, since the regime cracked down ruthlessly on those demonstrating against President Ahmadinejad’s fraudulent reelection victory last year.
Since the, some 5,000 people have been arrested.
More than eighty received stiff jail sentences of up to fifteen years.
Seven have been executed, and sixteen are currently on death row.
The regime’s brutal campaign to prevent opposition activists from staging mass protests in the streets has been very effective.
My friends who took part in previous rallies are in jail or are banned from pursuing their studies. I cannot endanger my future by taking part in any anti-government rally, a young student from Shiraz told The Telegraph.
The people are more aware than before, but they stay quiet on fear of death. They have killed so many of the young and the well intentioned. Even the shah did not kill like this. They rule the people at the tip of a spear, but the people don’t want them anymore, an old woman told the NYT.
The presence of the armed forces is palpable. People want to demonstrate but they won't. They're afraid of being arrested and tortured or raped, a resident of Tehran told The Independent.
The police are even now scouring the streets looking for young men and women whose appearance is deemed insufficiently Islamic.
A few weeks ago, the police started a new morality campaign, which in practice translates into harassment of young boys and girls about their attire or their haircut and such. Everyday on my way home, I see at least one car being pulled over, one Iranian journalist told The Telegraph.
The authorities have begun filming women they deem insufficiently covered to use as evidence in court. The police have begun issuing fines that some people say exceed $1,000 for beauty treatments deemed inappropriate, like heavily tanned skin. Provocatively dressed women are stationed on street corners, and men who stop to flirt are arrested.
“The opinion of the people with respect to their government was bad, and now they are making it worse,” said a 25-year-old hairdresser, wrote the NYT.
The repressive campaign has led Mousavi to accuse the regime of having what he called an inclination toward dictatorship.
Once again, hard-liners and repressive forces are being organized to attack defenseless and innocent people, Mousavi wrote on his website last Thursday.
In such a difficult context, what can the Green Movement do?
Is it still a viable enterprise?
Mousavi and Karroubi know that in such a climate of repression, the movement cannot exist politically, for it has no room to maneuver.
Mousavi has vowed that the movement will persist in its intention of opposing the regime while shunning all violence, and continue our peaceful methods.
If the regime controls the streets of the nation’s cities, then the Green Movement will strive to dominate its cyberspace, in order to expose the regime’s mendacity, brutality and incompetence. We need to spread awareness, this is what they fear. This is their vulnerable point. If we can spread awareness, there will be a huge popular force behind the demand for change…We have to expand social networks, websites, these are our best means. These work like an army. This is our army against their military force, he wrote on kaleme.com.
Excluded from politics and traditional mass media outlets, it may have no other option.
This strategy of educating the public and seeking to increase its audience and influence in the country should not yield results any time soon, however.
Nevertheless, many opposition sympathizers believe that Mousavi’s reluctance to lead and his indecisiveness have weakened the movement and thus helped the regime reassert the control it seemed in real danger of losing last summer.
The movement opposes the regime but refuses to confront it directly in the streets.
Mousavi does not want to organize mass demonstrations which could lead to the death of many supporters at the hands of the regime’s ruthless security apparatus.
Yet, how the regime responds to peaceful demonstrations is its responsibility, not Mousavi’s.
True enough, the regime has never hesitated to shoot and kill unarmed civilians, thus displaying its true, barbaric face to the nation at large.
That is one additional reason why this regime must be deposed as quickly as possible.
Would mass demonstrations accomplish this, and is the Green Movement still capable of mobilizing such huge crowds?
The question is no longer relevant as Mousavi now refuses to go down that road.
At the heart of it, this was and remains a brutal fight, a raw assertion of power. Facebook has no answer to the vigilantes of the Basij roaming the streets of Iran looking for prey. Twitter can't overcome the Revolutionary Guard with the wealth and resources granted them by a command economy they have managed to organize to their own preference, wrote Fouad Ajami, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, in the WSJ.
Seeking to disseminate the truth about the regime on the internet is no doubt useful politically, but it shall be insufficient to topple it.
Moreover, it is far from certain that toppling the regime is Mousavi’s ambition.
He is a reformist, not a revolutionary.
As such, what doest the Green Movement want?
What are its objectives?
What strategy has it devised to realize them?
The fact that these questions have not received adequate answers has alienated some opposition supporters.
What have the opposition leaders been able to do for my friends who are still in jail? I am a backer of the reform movement. But what can we do without any leadership? a student from Mashhad told the NYT.
It seemed to many that the Green Movement leadership had only one initial strategy, support the spontaneous mass demonstrations, and when that failed to compel the regime to concede the election was fraudulent, and its security apparatus was able to crack down on the protest movement and jail thousands, Mousavi hesitated, then failed to propose a viable alternative to achieve his objectives.
The absence of a clear political strategy to oppose the regime undermined Mousavi’s position and status as opposition leader.
Since the election, many lost their lives. Many were jailed ... but what has changed? Mousavi does not deserve to be our leader. He is part of the regime, a demonstrator arrested last year and now free told Reuters.
Some opposition supporters no longer believe in seeking accommodation with the regime, and believe instead that, due to its ruthless repression, it has forfeited its moral right to rule.
Why risk our lives to make a change, when it is completely unclear what the outcome will be? First we made our voices heard on the street, but we did not have a Plan B when faced with the harsh reaction of the state, an office manager told the WP.
Without clear leadership, the Green Movement runs the risk of becoming irrelevant and superfluous.
Should we conclude that the Green Movement is a spent force, which, in the end, serves no useful purpose?
Hardly.
Though calm seems to have been restored across the nation, many Iranians can sense what they call the fire under the ashes.
There is fire beneath the ashes. Anything can make this fire blow again, agreed Shirin Ebadi, a human rights lawyer who won The Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, and is now currently in exile in Europe.
The Green Movement did succeed in compelling the regime to reveal its true nature to Iran and the world. By cracking down on a movement that simply wanted to know where is my vote, the regime revealed its ruthless, cynical and nihilistic nature.
The nation was not ruled by a cast of enlightened clerics, but by thugs in the security apparatus, dominated by the IRGC that did not intend to relinquish its privileges in order to respect the will of the people.
This was now clear to all: the lines have been drawn. There is no longer any pretense. On one side are the Revolutionary Guards, the security/intelligence apparatus, a small faction of reactionary and ultraconservative clerics, and a narrow social base, probably about 15-20 percent of the population. On the other side is everyone else, wrote Muhammad Sahimi in tehranbureau.
In retrospect, it could be said that the first Islamic Republic (1979-2009) had fallen, and that a second republic, more cruel and unapologetic in its exercise of power, had risen, wrote Fouad Ajami.
A darker night of despotism has settled upon the weary people of Iran, he added.
The regime is now dominated by the IRGC, which, during last summer’s unrest, played a key role in preserving the power of Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The leadership of the Guard has been handsomely rewarded for the services rendered.
It has been granted lucrative contracts recently, such as an $850 million pipeline deal granted to GHORB. The company has close links with the Guard.
In addition, the Guard was also awarded a $7 billion oil project in the South Pars oil and gas fields. The Revolutionary Guards are making the case that they are the guarantors of the regime's survival and security. From Ahmadinejad's perspective, this is case of 'you do our business and we'll give you yours', Mark Dubowitz, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies policy institute, told The Telegraph.
The Guards have also earned handsome profits from the smuggling networks that they control.
In addition, the IRGC and Basijis hold thirteen of twenty-one cabinet positions in the Iranian government.
Has Ahmadinejad thus won the day?
Although the IRGC is clearly in control of the country, there are signs that internal divisions are undermining it, a number of officers who recently defected to Turkey revealed.
One suggested that the IRGC was able to repress the protest movement only by enrolling young and poor recruits from the countryside. The older guards seemed to have refused to shoot at unarmed demonstrators.
Secondly, the Supreme Leader has been badly battered by the events of the last twelve months.
By forsaking his traditional role of arbiter, and openly supporting Ahmadinejad against the people, he has lost much of his authority and credibility, and undermined the very function of Supreme Leader, thus the regime itself.
An important psychological barrier has been broken: Khamenei is now explicitly held responsible for the ills of the nation, wrote Muhammad Sahimi.
Mousavi himself, hitherto a regime insider from the earliest days of the Islamic Republic of Iran, no longer hesitates to criticize the Supreme Leader.
Those at the top (of the ruling system) think they are special creatures of God almighty and that God pays special attention to (him); that whatever he says must be carried out ... and there is no belief in collective logic, he wrote, according to the NYT.
The regime, now dominated and controlled by the security apparatus is politically impotent and incapable of addressing the nation’s ills.
More than 90 percent of people would support a settlement between the camps, because people want the problems solved. But it is as if they do not want any solution, Abbas Abdi, a political analyst, told the WP.
Maintaining the status quo, from which it so lavishly benefits, is the regime’s top priority.
Yet, other ills may prove far more threatening to the regime’s political longevity.
Many Iranians lament their low salaries, and the high inflation and unemployment rates.
The regime will have to tackle these issues if it does not want the opposition to exploit the countries economic woes and see embittered workers and the unemployed join the ranks of the political opposition.
Concomitantly, the Green Movement has also succeeded in encouraging Iranians to be more autonomous and politically aware.
People have absolutely gained something, a certain degree of individual independence. They began to decide for themselves that they would go out to protest, to follow the news. This is something that has happened for everybody. In different areas of their lives they are losing patience and are not likely to say anymore that they will put up with things, a medical student told the NYT.
There is little we can do in the West to, practically speaking, help Mousavi and the Green Movement.
Any overt interference would bolster the regime’s claims that they are being manipulated by the West to overthrow the Islamic Republic.
Yet, we could more emphatically support their efforts to democratize the nation’s political system.
In addition, why are we so obsessed with Iran’s nuclear program, yet so indifferent to its flagrant human rights violations?
Shirin Ebadi has dismissed the West’s approach to Iran as hypocritical.
Would it not be wiser to support Iran’s democratic opposition that, should it come to power would be probably much more amenable to negotiating a deal with the West on the nuclear issue then the current regime?
We have once again failed to support those who defend values we purport to embody, and with what results?
There is no guarantee that categorical American support would have altered the outcome of the struggle between autocracy and liberty in Iran. But it shall now be part of the narrative of liberty that when Persia rose in the summer of 2009 the steward of American power ducked for cover, and that a president who prided himself on his eloquence couldn't even find the words to tell the forces of liberty that he understood the wellsprings of their revolt, concluded Fouad Ajami…
It is not too late.
Let us hope that MM. Obama, Sarkozy, Cameron and their colleagues will at last find the words and wholeheartedly support the valiant democracy activists in Iran…
(the photograph above of the Green supporter is by Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters)
　
　
　
　

The Srebrenica massacre was genocide...

Today, only Bosnian Serbs live in Srebrenica.
The city’s former Bosniak (Muslim) inhabitants return only every July 11, to commemorate the fall of their city in 1995.
The Bosnian Serbs had begun their offensive by first shelling the city for several days.
The day before Srebrenica fell, thousands of Bosniaks fled, many seeking refuge in the Dutch base at Potocari.
Srebrenica had been declared a UN safe area, and some six hundred Dutch troops were stationed near by at Potocari in order to protect the local population.
When the city fell, thousands of Bosniak sought safety in the surrounding hills.
Those Muslim men who could not were separated from the woman and children, and taken away in trucks.
Bound and blindfolded, they were executed and dumped into mass graves by the Bosnian Serb army.
General Ratko Mladic’s Drina Corps murdered over 8,000 Bosniaks.
Some 6,400 of those have been identified thanks to DNA analysis.
Fifteen years later, bodies are still unearthed in the hills surrounding the city.
Last Thursday, seven Bosnian Serbs were convicted by the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for their role in the killing of these 8,000 Muslim boys and men in 1995.
Vujadin Popovic, 53, and Ljubisa Beara, 70, were found guilty of genocide and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Mr. Popovic was a Lieutenant Colonel and an assistant to the head of security of the Drina Corps of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS).
The court found Mr. Popovic to have been part of what it called a joint criminal enterprise to murder.
Popović knew that the intent was not just to kill those who had fallen into the hands of the Bosnian Serb Forces, but to kill as many as possible with the aim of destroying the group. Popović’s ensuing robust participation in all aspects of the plan demonstrates that he not only knew of this intent to destroy, he also shared it, the court declared.
Mr. Beara was a colonel and chief of security in the VRS.
According to the court, he was the driving force behind the murder enterprise.
Furthermore, the judges declared, the scale and nature of the murder operation, with the staggering number of killings, the systematic and organized manner in which it was carried out, the targeting and relentless pursuit of the victims, and the plain intention to eliminate every Bosnian Muslim male who was captured or surrendered proves beyond reasonable doubt that this was genocide.
In the context of the war in the former Yugoslavia, and in the context of human history, these events are arresting in their scale and brutality.
Another Bosnian Serb officer, Drago Nikolic received a jail sentence of thirty-five years for aiding and abetting genocide.
The trial of the seven Bosnian Serbs lasted four years, and some 315 witnesses were heard.
The judges at the trial chamber established that there was a genocidal intent to destroy a group, or a part of a group, based upon their ethnic background. That is very important, Merdijana Sadovic, the director of the International Justice program in Sarajevo for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, told RFE/RL.
Moreover, the verdict may have a considerable impact on the current trial of Radovan Karadzic. Also accused of genocide, he was the political leader of the Bosnian Serbs at the time of the Srebrenica massacre.
Because Popovic and Beara were subordinate to Karadzic, if their genocide conviction is confirmed by the appeals chamber, it would seem only logical that Karadzic would also be found guilty of genocide if all other evidence provided in this trial supports these convictions… In case the appeals chamber confirms this conviction, it will definitely make it easier for the prosecutors to prove genocidal intent and Radovan Karadzic's responsibility for genocide [at Srebrenica], Merdijana Sadovic added. Karadzic had issued a directive to create an unbearable situation of total insecurity with no hope of further survival or life for the inhabitants.
Yet, the genocide conviction may be overturned by a UN appeals court, for there is a precedent.
Radislav Krstic, a deputy commander of the Drina Corps in Srebrenica, was convicted of genocide in 2001, but the verdict was overturned in 2004 due to insufficient evidence. Instead, Mr. Krstic was convicted of aiding and abetting genocide, and is now serving a thirty-five year prison sentence.
Equally significant for the case against General Ratko Mladic, also accused of genocide, last Thursday’s ruling establishes that MM. Popovic, Beara and Nikolic were all subordinates of General Mladic, commander of the Drina Corps.
The families of the victims were satisfied by the verdict.
Kada Hotic, of the Association of Mothers of Srebrenica, considered the verdict significant because it confirmed that the VRS did commit genocide in Srebrenica and systematically and intentionally execute men and boys, according to The Independent.
Yet, for some, nothing will ever console them for the loss incurred.
Whatever the sentence is, it's not enough, one woman who has lost a husband, two sons and a brother told The Guardian.
Guernica, Oradour, Katyn, Auschwitz are but a beginning in Europe's litany of 20th-century infamy. The list lengthened towards the century's end to include Srebrenica, a small hill town by the river Drina on Bosnia's eastern border with Serbia, wrote Ian Traynor in The Guardian.
In light of these despicable precedents, that Europe stood by and allowed the mass murder of civilians is unconscionable and disgraceful.
It was the worst massacre in Europe since the Nazi era, emphasized Ian Traynor.
Had the hideous twentieth century taught us nothing?
Perhaps the lessons of history have no lasting value if you do not have the courage to heed them…
We certainly had little in July 1995 as we insensitively watched thousands of civilians be executed without lifting a finger to help them.
Today, the ICTY at The Hague is trying to atone for the callousness and pusillanimity we so blatantly evinced that fateful July…
Yet, if we are serious in our endeavor to see that justice is done, then Ratko Mladic must be caught.
It is difficult to seriously entertain the thought that an individual can so easily evade capture for so long (he has been on the run for fifteen years), unless we have no genuine interest in arresting him.
Interestingly, Mr. Mladic’s wife, Bosiljka Mladic, was arrested last Tuesday on weapons charges. Are the Serbs finally making an earnest effort to seize him by putting pressure on his family? Their hopes to join the European Union depend on his capture…Ratko Mladic’s family had been urging the Serb government to declare the general officially dead…
In the meantime, we can only hope the European continent will never again be sullied by another Srebrenica, and that next time, if there should be a next time, we shall have the wisdom and courage to prevent acts of barbarity that defile all those who purport to be civilized.
We owe the relatives of the victims of the Srebrenica massacre at least that much…
(the photograph of an old woman mourning the victims of the Srebrenica massacre is by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)
　
　
　
　
　

The power of global citizen action...

Staff Sergeant S., whose full identity cannot be disclosed for security reasons according to the IDF, should soon be rewarded with a medal of valor for his role in the assault on the Mavi Marmara.
He single handedly shot dead six of the nine activists killed in the Israeli raid while striving to protect three of his comrades wounded during the operation.
S. did a remarkable job. He stabilized the situation and succeeded in hitting six of the terrorists, his commander Lt-Col. T told the Jerusalem Post.
When I hit the deck, I was immediately attacked by people with bats, metal pipes and axes. These were without a doubt terrorists. I could see the murderous rage in their eyes and that they were coming to kill us, S. told the Jerusalem Post.The IDF claims that its commandos were attacked by a well-trained group of mercenaries, according to the newspaper.
The murderous mercenaries, to quote the IDF once more, were in fact organized into squads of twenty mercenaries, and were armed with either bats, slingshots, metal bars, knives or stun grenades, according to the newspaper.
The IDF later concluded, in a post-operation analysis that members of the group were affiliated with international global jihad elements and had undergone training in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan.
If no weapons were found on board, it was because the terrorists threw their weapons overboard after the commandos took control of the vessel, according to the paper.
Yes, nine people have died, conceded Raphael Schutz, Israel‘s ambassador in Madrid.. But 155 died in a terrorist attack in India last week. Who cares about that? Have you heard anything about it? Twenty-three Spaniards died on the roads this weekend…We are talking about people on board [the flotilla] who are connected to al-Qaida. Fifty of the people who left Turkey are known for their connections with Hamas, with al-Qaida. Are these people pacifists? They hide behind a few Europeans, he told the El Periodico newspaper.
If the IDF was about to confront some fifty dangerous terrorists, then why were the commandos equipped only with paint ball guns and pistols?
In short, the Israelis claim that we had no choice but to kill the terrorists in order to protect oursleves.
The autopsy results of the nine victims released Saturday by the Turkish authorities revealed that they were shot thirty times, and at close range.
Five of the nine were shot three times or more, and five to the head and neck.
Aliheyder Bengi, 39, was shot six times.
Furkan Dogan, the nineteen-year-old American, was shot five times at close range, from less than 45 centimeters, according to the report quoted by The Guardian.
He was hit in the face, back of the head, back, left leg and left ankle.
Are the results of this report compatible with the IDF version of events, that the commandos, whom one witness, Dr. Coskun described as disoriented and frightened, beset by a mob, were only trying to save their own lives?
Some activists were not convinced.
Ismail Patek, chairman of Friends of al-Aqsa, a pro-Palestinian group based in Leicester, UK, accused the IDF of conducting a shoot to kill policy.
The Israelis argued that the fact that the victims were shot several times does not undermine their contention that they acted in self-defense.
The only situation when a soldier shot was when it was a clearly a life-threatening situation. Pulling the trigger quickly can result in a few bullets being in the same body, but does not change the fact they were in a life-threatening situation, an Israeli spokesman in London told The Guardian.
Andrew Slaughter, a British MP, considered that the evidence revealed by the autopsy reports only reinforced the need for a comprehensive inquiry into the raid on the Turkish vessel.
Given the very disturbing evidence which contradicts the line from the Israeli media and suggests that Israelis have been very selective in the way they have addressed this, there is now an overwhelming need for an international inquiry, he told The Guardian.
The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has advocated the creation of an international commission to investigate the incident, which would be led by the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Geoffrey Palmer, an expert in international maritime law.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the proposal on Sunday.
I told [Ban] that the investigation of the facts must be carried out responsibly and objectively. We need to consider the issue carefully and level-headedly, while maintaining Israel's national interests as well as those of the Israel Defense Forces, he said at a cabinet meeting, according to Haaretz.
If the Israeli view prevails, then it seems more likely than not that the truth shall never be established.
For, if preserving the interests of the IDF and Israel are to condition the mandate and scope of the investigation, then it is certain to be neither thorough nor objective, but merely designed to exonerate Israel of all responsibility in the deaths of the nine activists.
Will the international community settle for such a limited and skewed inquiry?
Turkey most certainly will not.
We want to know the facts. If Israel rejects these, it means it's also another proof of their guilt. They are not self-confident to face the facts. We are ready, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told CNN.
Turkey demands to know why our nine civilians were killed in international waters. This is a very good question, and we will ask this question in all international forums, he added.
We think it is very important that there is a credible and transparent investigation... there should be an international presence at minimum, British Foreign Secretary William Hague declared Sunday in Paris during a joint press conference with the French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
Eight of the nine victims were buried Thursday in Turkey, during an emotional ceremony conducted at the Istanbul mosque.
The next day, Turkish Prime Minister, Teyyip Erdogan, visibly still furious over the deaths of the nine activists, accused Israel of having no respect for even its holiest texts. I am speaking to them in their own language. The sixth commandment says 'thou shalt not kill'. Did you not understand?
"I'll say [it] again. I say in English 'you shall not kill'. Did you still not understand? So I'll say to you in your own language. I say in Hebrew 'Lo Tirtzakh', according to Haaretz.
Currently, two opposing version of the events that unfolded on the Mavi Marmara are being put forward. Israel says the commandos resorted to force only after activists attacked them with knives, crowbars and clubs, as well as two pistols wrested from soldiers. Activists say the Israeli servicemen fired first, as The Independent put it.
Let us try to reconstitute the bloody assault on the Turkish vessel.
The initial Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara occurred during dawn prayers, when most of the men would be occupied fulfilling their religious duties.
According to witnesses interviewed by The Independent, Israeli commandos initiated the attack on the Marmara with stun grenades, paintballs and rubber-cased steel bullets. This may have precipitated the violent altercation.
Some of the activists, hearing the pop of the plastic bullets and the sound bomb, believed they were being shot, according to witnesses, including some wounded now in an Ankara hospital, wrote the NYT.
Instead of having dispersed the activist, the preliminary attack may have had the opposite effect, and galvanized the more determined militants.
Some fifteen dinghies each carrying about twenty commandos sped alongside the ship.
They hunted like hyenas – moving up and ahead on the flanks; pushing in, then peeling away; and finally, lagging before lunging, wrote the journalist Paul McGeouch, who was present at the scene.
The activists on the ship used water hoses to prevent the commandos form boarding the vessel. The latter were also on the receiving end of a shower of whatever its passengers found on deck or could break from the ship's fittings, according to Paul McGeouch.
Unable to board from the sea, the IDF then tried helicopters.
Two ropes were dropped from one helicopter so that IDF commandos could slide down onto the ship’s deck. Of the two ropes that were dropped simultaneously from the helicopter, one was grabbed by men on board the boat and tied to an antenna, Israeli officials said. The pilot released it to avoid being tethered to the boat, and the commandos then slid down only one rope, slowing the incursion and leaving them vulnerable, wrote the NYT.
The first commandos to land on the vessel were therefore easily captured by the activists. Some of the people caught the first commando before he touched the deck – a few started to hit him, but a lot of people moved in to shelter him with their bodies, Another soldier with a bleeding nose was brought in ... a few people threw punches, but not as many as I would have expected, Srojan Stojiljkovic, a Serbian cameraman told Paul McGeouch.
It seems that it was at this juncture that the commandos then used lived ammunition (yet, only minutes after the start of the operation, according to Staff Sergeant S.).
Some witnesses however, insist that the IDF began shooting from the very outset of the raid.
It felt a bit surreal. I couldn't quite believe they were doing what they were doing. There was live ammunition flying around and I could hear the sounds of the bullets flying and the whirr of the helicopter blades as people were dropped down onto the roof. What I saw was guns being used by the Israelis on unarmed civilians, Sarah Colborne, of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, wrote in The Guardian.
There was a second helicopter hovering over the ship, trying to lower Israeli soldiers down on a rope. On either side there was tear gas being thrown in from the boats, canisters which they were firing from a sort of gun. One man was shot in the top of the head from the helicopter. He collapsed on the ground. I snatched a microphone from one of the Turkish reporters to say one man had been killed. As I did that another man was shot. Those people died instantly.
Until that point I had not yet seen an Israeli soldier on deck. As far as I am concerned, it's a lie to say they only started shooting on deck. Only then did I see an Israeli soldier on deck.
The men who were dead had been fired on from above, wrote Jamal Elshayyal, a British producer for the Al Jazeera network, in The Independent.
At least two other eyewitnesses saw soldiers firing from above the ships before they landed on the Marmara's deck. It is possible that this is what prompted the fierce resistance to the soldiers when they dropped down. Several passengers recount how organisers urged their peers to stop hitting the soldiers, aware of how it would harm their claim to be peaceful protesters, wrote Catrina Stewart in The Independent, in a report on the raid.
They are using live ammunition,” said a man standing in front of a camera. “We cannot protect ourselves.”
Ismail Yesildal, who was shot in the back as he stood on the lower deck away from the fighting, said doctors were overwhelmed with the wounded. By the end of the confrontation — around 5:08 a.m., according to the surveillance video — two dozen people were hurt.
“I saw wounded people everywhere,” he said. “People were panicked. There was helplessness in their faces, wrote the NYT.
Journalists also appear to have been targeted.
Kevin Ovenden of Britain, an activist on the ship that arrived in İstanbul on Thursday, also said a man who had pointed a camera at the soldiers was shot directly through the forehead with live ammunition, with the exit wound blowing away back of his skull, wrote the Turkish daily Todays Zaman.
The entire operation took less than ninety minutes.
Various witnesses however, have made some very serious accusations.
Hence, only a thorough and impartial investigation can establish the facts.
That should be the sole priority of any inquiry, and not preserving the interests of the parties involved…
The interception of the Rachel Corrie was a much more peaceful undertaking.
The ship, boarded shortly after noon on Saturday in international waters, was transporting school supplies, wheelchairs, paper, sports equipment and children’s shoe.
Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire who was on board the Rachel Corrie, described the objectives of the flotilla, we are inspired by the people of Gaza whose courage, love and joy in welcoming us, even in the midst of such suffering gives us all hope. They represent the very best of humanity, and we are all privileged to be given the opportunity to support them in their nonviolent struggle for human dignity, and freedom. This trip will again highlight Israel’s criminal blockade and illegal occupation. In a demonstration of the power of global citizen action, we hope to awaken the conscience of all.
The ship was then taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod. The eleven activists and nine crewmembers were arrested upon arrival.
Greta Berlin, of the Free Gaza Movement, expected them to be treated with kid gloves. The world is watching, according to The Guardian. The fact that Israel boarded a civilian boat in international waters is a violent act, she added.
Incidentally, the Israeli navy referred to the ship as the Linda, its previous name, and not the Rachel Corrie, named after a young American activist crushed to death by an IDF bulldozer in 2003.
The Israelis were clearly relieved that no blood had been shed this time.
Today it was much easier. People were much more polite and did not attempt any violent provocations. Some of them, like the Filipinos who were part of the crew, didn't really understand why they're here.
They came off the boat and arrived to us in a civilized manner, did not riot, and did not swear at our inspectors or looked at them with hatred in their eyes. Compared to the previous people they were very calm, an immigration official told Ynet.
The Israelis stated anew that they did not intend to lift the siege, the sole means of preventing the establishment of an Iranian port in Gaza, contended Mr. Netanyahu.
Yet, the botched assault on the Mavi Marmara may have had the unintended consequence of undermining the very siege the operation was meant to preserve.
For the first time since it was imposed, the siege made front-page news around the world, and for several days at that.
As such, the organizers of the flotilla have succeeded in awakening the conscience of all, to quote Mrs. Maguire.
Hamas, clearly reveling in the attention Gaza was receiving thanks to the bloody assault on the Turkish vessel, and obviously enjoying the painful and embarrassing predicament Israel now found itself in, sensed that a new phase, and perhaps the end of the siege itself may be in the offing.
Now not only Gazans speak of the blockade, but also the [UN] security council and the international community. Everyone is demanding the siege be lifted, Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas Prime Minister of Gaza said Friday. We have had warm words about the pain of Gaza but now we want these words to turn into action. Today we are in a new era of victory, he added.
The tragic events on the Mavi Marmara did remind the international community of Gaza’s plight. Many leaders now seem uncomfortable with the current situation and sense that preserving the status quo is no longer politically tenable.
What’s important right now is that we break out of the current impasse, use this tragedy as an opportunity so that we figure out how we meet Israel’s security concerns, but at the same time start opening up opportunity for Palestinians, President Obama said Thursday night.
We are working urgently with Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and other international partners to develop new procedures for delivering more goods and assistance to Gaza.
The current arrangements are unsustainable and must be changed, Mike Hammer, National Security Council spokesman declared.
The UN reiterated last week that the siege itself is illegal.
International humanitarian law prohibits starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and it is also prohibited to impose collective punishment on civilians, declared Navi Pillay, the UN Commissioner for Human Rights.
Rising poverty, unemployment and food insecurity in Gaza, compounded by the recent 23-day Israeli offensive, have increased the threat of child malnutrition, say UN agencies, health ministry officials and healthcare NGOs in Gaza. UN World Health Organization (WHO) officials are concerned by the warning signs, including rising malnutrition indicators - like increased cases of stunting, wasting and underweight children - and continuing high rates of anemia among children and pregnant women, wrote IRIN in April 2009.
Something must be done to relieve the miserable living conditions in Gaza.
A concerted international effort to improve the lot of the Gazans may prove successful this time.
This is the beginning of the end of the blockade. Israel cannot keep punishing the people of Gaza, denying our human rights to travel, destroying our economy, stopping us from rebuilding our homes by blocking the construction materials from entering.
The leaders of the world know that this situation cannot continue, Mohammed Abu-Dayyah, owner of the PLO Flag Shop in Gaza City, told The Sydney Morning Herald.
Despite a very modest relaxation on the entry of some supplies into Gaza in the past months, entry of major essential goods like materials for reconstruction remains in limited quantities or is barred. 'As a result, three-quarters of the damage and destruction caused to civilian infrastructure during Israeli military Operation Cast Lead has still not been repaired or reconstructed 17 months on, Jeremy Hobbs, executive director of Oxfam, told the paper.
Yet, it remains to be seen whether Israel is willing to make the necessary concessions on this issue. Is it even capable of doing so?
According to the NYT, an Israeli official said that Israel displayed flexibility all the time concerning what is authorized to enter the Strip. Why are living conditions there so horrendous, then?
The siege was imposed to force Gazans to overthrow Hamas (elected democratically in 2006, defeating the PLO of current President Abbas), stop the firing of rockets into Israel, and secure the release of Gilad Shalit, an IDF soldier captured by Hamas in 2006.
None of these objectives has been reached, and yet Israel refuses to revise a policy that has visibly failed.
Israel claims that only the siege can prevent Hamas from obtaining weapons from Iran.
Yet, the activists on board the Rachel Corrie had proposed that the Israelis inspect the ship to ascertain that no weapons were on board, and then let it proceed to Gaza. Israel refused.
Why, if Israel’s sole preoccupation is preventing arms shipments from entering Gaza?
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner suggested that the EU would be willing to undertake the mission of inspecting the cargo of all ships bound for Gaza to ensure no weapons entered the Strip. Kouchner indicated the EU could play the same role at Rafah, Egypt’s border crossing with Gaza.
It seems that preserving the siege is of paramount importance even if it has become a foreign policy nightmare for Israel.
The Israeli leadership no longer seems capable of adjusting the country’s policies to changing circumstances, as if any evolution or concession would create a dangerous precedent and be construed as a sign of weakness by its enemies.
Israel seems thus to have become deaf to all criticism, even the constructive kind.
Israel has real enemies like Iran and Hezbollah. Human psychology is such that fear often leads to freezing and hanging on to the same course of action, even if it proves disastrous time and again. As a result Israel doesn’t listen to criticism - either from inside or from outside.
This inability to listen is reinforced by self-righteousness: Israel is stuck in the belief that it is right, and everybody else is wrong and hence incapable of admitting that Israeli policy vis-à-vis the Palestinians has been disastrous; that Israel should have engaged with the Arab League peace initiative years ago, and that a U turn needs to be made. Admitting that one has been wrong is always difficult; but Israel’s need for self-righteousness makes it even more difficult, wrote Carlo Strenger in Haaretz.
Israel may have no choice but to revise its policies if it does not want to be compelled to do so by an international community exasperated by the fact that this issue still has not been resolved.
Outside actors, like the flotilla activists, have vowed to pursue their mission, one they believe they were forced to undertake due to the fecklessness of Western leaders concerning the Palestinian issue, until the blockade is lifted.
We will continue until we break the siege of Gaza, warned Greta Berlin.
Another activist considered the raid on the Mavi Marmara may indeed have been a turning point. This has been the Soweto or Sharpeville of the movement for Palestinian solidarity. It is the equivalent of the apartheid assaults that changed world opinion, and I believe this will be a turning point that will accelerate the day the siege is lifted, Kevin Ovenden told The Independent.
Predictably, therefore, plans for other flotillas are already underway.
A German-Jewish organization called Jewish Voice for Peace in the Middle East intends to sail for Gaza this July. Because of limited space, there will be school equipment, candy, and mainly musical equipment, and there'll be musicians aboard who'll teach the children of Gaza. They need to see that Jews are not how they are drawn in their eyes, Kate Leitrer, of the organization, told Ynet.
Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan himself is considering traveling to Gaza, according to Haaretz. The Turkish navy may accompany future flotillas, setting up a potentially dangerous confrontation with the Israeli navy.
Even Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are making plans to send shipments to Gaza and escort future flotillas bound for the Strip.
It is time the Israelis listened to reason and lifted the blockade, for the siege will end one way or another, either after another series of violent confrontations or through a negotiation process that caters to the interests of all relevant parties.
Let us hope that the nine activists who were killed on the Mavi Marmara will be the last to die for Gaza…
(the photograph of the Rachel Corrie is by AP)