Category: News

As far as tonight’s presidential debate is concerned, the proceedings are largely predictable, especially since the topic is exclusively foreign policy. In the first two debates, the candidates barely spoke about foreign policy – mindful, probably, that only about 4% of likely voters consider it an important topic.

One reason it is predictable is because of how these debates are executed: formats are planned, moderators are chosen, issues are predetermined. These debates must be arranged as such, otherwise it will be difficult for the candidates to accomplish their goal: to spend 90 minutes reciting well-rehearsed lies and distortions.

The moderator will be Bob Shieffer, who is enough of a stalwart hawk to be so completely blinded by his imperial biases that he incredulously quibbled with Ron Paul last year against the claim that the 9/11 terrorists were motivated by brutal US foreign policy and not by our coveted freedoms. The fact that the CIA, the State Department, the FBI, and all of the academic literature ever written on the subject are in consensus on this issue did not deflate Sheiffer’s intransigence.

Another reason it is predictable is because Americans got something of a preview during the vice presidential debates a couple weeks ago. Vice President Joe Biden and contender Paul Ryan spent a fair amount of time on foreign policy issues and what was clear was that both candidates appeared to argue over everything, but on every substantive issue – including defense spending, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iran – there was no discernible difference in policy between the two.

And we can expect that to be the case tonight as well, for the most part. The punditry are saying this morning that Mitt Romney is expected to lose. This is primarily because he and many other Republicans aim to be on the hawkish side of the foreign policy issues, talking about American military might and ruthless global dominance. But they have found it difficult to go further to the right than President Obama. There’s no room for Romney to be more of a hawk than Obama, and he’s certainly not going to criticize him for being too willing to bomb other countries or expand American military presence around the world.

Here are five issues, central to US foreign policy, that will not be addressed in tonight’s debate:

The (il)legitimacy of the drone war: The administration is in direct violation of several domestic and international laws in its drone war. They have invented a definition of “imminence,” a required element for justifying the use of force for self-defense in international law. They’re ignoring a Reagan-era statute that bans extra-judicial assassinations. And they appear to be violating the decision of the Supreme Court in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, which said due process must be “accorded to a US citizen deprived of liberty in connection with hostilities (this was ignored, for example, when the administration targeted and killed three US citizens without due process, including a 16-year old boy).

For these and other reasons – like the fact that the drone war in Pakistan and Yemen kills and terrorizes civilians – at least two UN investigators have called the legality of Obama’s drone wars into question. Christof Heyns, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions called on the Obama administration to explain under what legal framework its drone war is justified and suggested that “war crimes” may have already been committed. The UN human rights chief Navi Pillay also called for a UN investigation into US drone strikes in Pakistan, noting their questionable legality and that they indiscriminately kill innocent civilians.

The failure and cruelty of the Iran sanctions: While Iran will certainly be talked about, the issue of sanctions will only range from harsh to harsher. What will not be discussed is the fact that sanctions have historically failed to change the policies of the targeted regime, and indeed appear to be failing to change the Iranian regime’s policies as well. Especially ignored will be the horrible humanitarian consequences that have already begun to manifest in Iran: The Charity Foundation for Special Diseases, a non-governmental medical organization supporting six million patients in Iran, has warned publicly that the sanctions are putting millions of lives at risk by causing deep shortages of medicines for diseases like hemophilia, multiple sclerosis and cancer.

“The sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of Iran have had significant effects on the general population,” UN Secretary General warned in a statement earlier this month, “including an escalation in inflation, a rise in commodities and energy costs, an increase in the rate of unemployment and a shortage of necessary items, including medicine.”

“The sanctions also appear to be affecting humanitarian operations in the country,” he wrote. “Even companies that have obtained the requisite licence to import food and medicine are facing difficulties in finding third-country banks to process the transactions.”

This, all while the consensus view in the entire US and intelligence community is that Iran has no nuclear weapons and has not made the decision to begin to develop nuclear weapons, which they are years away from technologically anyways.

Government secrecy and surveillance powers: Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the Obama administration has led one of the most secretive, over-classified, and surveillance-prone governments in a long time – maybe ever. And again, Romney would only try to appear less transparent, so this topic will not be discussed tonight.

In 2011, the federal government spent $11 billion just on keeping secrets from the American public (this number did not include costs incurred by the CIA and the NSA and other spy agencies, because those figures are classified). The worst of government secrecy has occurred under the Obama administration, which has hailed itself as the most transparent administration ever. According to the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO), the government made a whopping 76,795,945 classification decisions in 2010, an increase of more than 40% from 2009. Document reviews conducted by ISOO in 2009 discovered violations of classification rules in 65% of the documents examined, with several agencies posting error rates of more than 90%.

The Obama administration has fought tooth and nail to keep the details of its surveillance activities hidden from the public. But documents recently released by the Justice Department after years of litigation with the ACLU have revealed that “federal law enforcement agencies are increasingly monitoring Americans’ electronic communications, and doing so without warrants, sufficient oversight, or meaningful accountability.” Homeland Security has also recently been found to have illegally spied on peace activists.

The idiocy of aiding the Syrian rebels: The conflict in Syria has primarily been framed by both parties as a humanitarian crisis that America is morally obligated to intervene in militarily. What most Americans don’t know – and won’t find out at tonight’s debate – is that the rebel fighters that the US is aiding and helping send arms to have committed war crimes and are increasingly fighting under the banner of al-Qaeda groups intent on setting up a Salafi Islamist state if the Assad regime falls. The US military and intelligence community is aware of these concerns, but still the Obama administration has not stopped the aid, which is by most expert accounts only serving to prolong the conflict and worsen the humanitarian situation. The Romney campaign agrees with this policy, but has hinted that it would try to get more weapons to these al-Qaeda fighters if elected. This has blowback written all over it.

US-backed Israeli crimes against the Palestinians: Simply put, US economic, military, and diplomatic support of Israel enables the Israeli leadership to commit blatant crimes, in direct violation of international law. The Likud Party, now in power in Israel, currently receives $3 billion a year from Washington and all the vetoes the UN Security Council can take. But the Likud Party Charter declares Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza as “the realization of Zionist values” and describes the whole of the West Bank and Jerusalem as belonging to Israel. This not only goes directly against official US support for a negotiated two-state solution, but it violates international law prohibiting forced relocation of occupied people and the settlement of conquered or occupied lands.

The strictly-imposed Israeli blockade on Gaza, also, violates international law prohibiting collective punishment and is creating a humanitarian crisis in the small strip. Recently released documents show that the Israeli military meticulously and callously calculated the number of calories Gaza residents would need to consume in order not to starve, and used those calculations to inform how to impose a harsh economic blockade, as if Gaza residents were dogs in a cage. But this is a banished issue, and will not be mentioned at tonight’s debate.

From the ACLU, a post-9/11 intelligence sharing and surveillance program spied on peace groups, including activists like Cindy Sheehan and the late Howard Zinn:

We now have proof of what peace groups and activists have long suspected: Boston Police officers have worked within the local fusion spying center, the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC), to monitor the lawful political activity of local peace groups and track their movements and beliefs. This information has been retained in searchable electronic “intelligence” reports bearing labels such as “Groups – Civil Disturbance,” “Groups–Extremists,” “HomeSec-Domestic” under the heading “Criminal Act.”

Under what interpretation of the US and Massachusetts Constitutions can the non-violent First Amendment activity of groups like Veterans for Peace and United for Justice with Peace be routinely classified as a criminal act?

If you have glanced at the US Senate subcommittee report on fusion centers that came out earlier this month, you may not be surprised to hear that Boston’s fusion center has been collecting dubious “intelligence” and violating civil liberties in the process.

The Senate Homeland Security subcommittee reviewed more than 600 reports from these fusion centers and found the giant bureaucracy surrounding the program produced almost nothing that had to do with countering terrorist threats.

“The subcommittee investigation could identify no reporting which uncovered a terrorist threat, nor could it identify a contribution such fusion center reporting made to disrupt an active terrorist plot,” the report said.

“When fusion centers did address terrorism, they sometimes did so in ways that infringed on civil liberties,” the AP reported. “The centers have made headlines for circulating information about Ron Paul supporters, the ACLU, activists on both sides of the abortion debate, war protesters and advocates of gun rights.”

Some of these intelligence centers even investigated Muslim-American community groups and their book recommendations. No evidence of criminal activity was ever found, but the government did store the information, which it is prohibited from doing for First Amendment activities.

Again and again, history proves that the state views antiwar activists and peaceful dissident political speech as grave threats to “national security.” Antiwar.com was reminded of this, perhaps too personally, when it was revealed last year that the FBI had their eyes on us too.

Check out this video the ACLU put together about the state’s spying on people exercising their first amendment rights:

Joshua Keating on the FBI sting that led a 21-year-old Bangladeshi to attempt to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank of New York:

The FBI report on the Federal Reserve plot is here.  Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis had been in touch with the FBI’s undercover informant since July. Nafis apparently came to the U.S. with the intention of waging jihad, and — according to the report — came up with the idea of bombing the Federal Reserve himself, after first considering the Stock Exchange.  But it’s pretty clear that he was nudged along in his plan by the agent posing as an al Qaeda member and facilitator, who gave him the impression that his actions were approved by al Qaeda leadership.

For instance, in September, Nafis said he wanted to return to Bangladesh prior to the attack, but was told by the agent that while he was “free to return home at any time, NAFIS could not travel internationally if NAFIS truly intended to carry out his attack with al Qaeda’s assistance.” The source even accepted an article from Nafis, giving him the impression that it would be published in Inspire magazine.

This is going to raise more questions about the degree to which law enforcement agents are actually the ones concocting these plots by Muslim immigrants who did not, actually, have any connection to al Qaeda —  though Nafis seems to have been a more active participant than some of his predecessors.

He’s right to point out that this case follows a pattern of FBI targeting of impressionable malcontents with zero connection to al-Qaeda:

the story is similar to that of Rezwan Ferdaus, who was arrested last September in the midst of a plot to attack the Capitol with a remote-controlled aircraft. …The case is also similar to that Farooque Ahmed, who thought he was going to blow up the DC Metro system in 2010, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, who thought he was going to blow up a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Portland Oregon in 2010, David Williams, who thought he was going to blow up a Bronx synagogue in 2009, and the “Fort Dix Five,” who thought they were going to attack a New Jersey military base in 2006.

This week the New York Times published an article confirming what we at Antiwar.com have been warning about for months: “Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists,” according to top US officials and Middle East diplomats.

This has been known for some time. While the Obama administration has provided Syrian rebels with tens of millions of dollars, communications gear, intelligence, etc., US allies in the Persian Gulf like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait have sent in weapons. But this was a coordinated effort: President Obama sent dozens of CIA agents to the Turkish border in order to facilitate the delivery of weapons from the Gulf states to rebels.

All along, they claimed they had a proper vetting process which allowed them to pick and choose which of Syria’s disparate, unorganized rebel groups would receive the assistance, and avoid the thousands of jihadist fighters, many of whom are fighting under the banner of al-Qaeda. But this was a farce. A US official told the Washington Post early on that the CIA knew very little about who was receiving US support, nor could they control exactly where it ended up. “It’s still the case that without actual access to Syria, it’s hard to know exactly who they are,” the official said. The New York Times also reported that the Obama administration has been “increasing aid to the rebels” even though “we don’t really know” who is receiving it.

“The evidence is mounting that Syria has become a magnet for Sunni extremists, including those operating under the banner of Al Qaeda,” reported the New York Times almost four months ago. “The presence of jihadists in Syria has accelerated in recent days in part because of a convergence with the sectarian tensions across the country’s long border in Iraq.” Many other news reports corroborated these findings. Foreign jihadists “intent on turning Syria into an autocratic theocracy have swollen the ranks of rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad,” Reuters reported in September.

Exactly how much of the aid from the Gulf states is coordinated with the US and how much is done on their own initiative is hard to know. But Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait are supposed to be client states. The great thrust of America’s Grand Strategy in the Middle East is about propping up these Gulf dictatorships so that they conform to US demands on key strategic issues. How is it that Washington is helping deliver lethal aid from our allies in the Gulf to nefarious insurgent groups of the same type that were labeled “terrorists” when fighting against US forces in Iraq?

“As it has in other conflicts throughout the Muslim world,” writes Frank J. Mirkow, a Washington, DC based international attorney who has lived in Saudi Arabia for several years, Saudi Arabia is aiming to bolster “those elements of the opposition whose aims are limited to the establishment of a narrowly defined Sunni, Salafist government, one that takes its religious inspiration from the Wahabi government in Riyadh.”

The irony of all this was pointed out boldly by renowned Middle East journalist Robert Fisk not long ago. “President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, say they want a democracy in Syria,” Fisk wrote. “But Qatar is an autocracy and Saudi Arabia is among the most pernicious of caliphate-kingly-dictatorships in the Arab world.”

“Rulers of both states inherit power from their families – just as Bashar has done – and Saudi Arabia is an ally of the Salafist-Wahabi rebels in Syria, just as it was the most fervent supporter of the medieval Taliban during Afghanistan’s dark ages,” he added.

US-Saudi interests were similarly aligned back when the Soviets invaded and occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s. The CIA funneled money to the mujahideen through Pakistan while Saudi Arabia – its Gulf neighbors in lock-step – contributed money, weapons, and actual fighters to join in the insurgency. As former State Department advisor Aaron David Miller has recognized the Syria situation could have similarly dangerous consequences. “We saw the blowback in Afghanistan, where Saudi-inspired Wahhabi doctrine motivated a cadre of Arabs to fight first against the Russians and then against the West,” he wrote. Former Middle East analyst at the CIA, Paul Pillar, has also made this connection.

US policy in Afghanistan in the 1980s is now almost universally looked upon as shortsighted in the context of the blowback America later reaped because of it. What we’re doing in Syria may attract similar consequences. These are the makings of blowback. These are the ingredients of the unintended consequences preached about by everybody who managed to say “I told you so,” following the September 11th attacks.

But perceived geo-political interests too often trump common sense. Washington has long had the Syrian regime on its sights for regime change. They’re eager to take advantage of the conflict to shape a post-Assad government to their own liking, hubris be damned. It appears that the most hazardous aspect of the foreign component of the Syria conflict – radical Sunni authoritarian monarchies – are being let loose to shape the conflict to be the next jihad. And decades of nefarious alliances with these regimes are taking a front seat to US interests.

In election seasons, the two parties toe the line even more than usual. And since both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney largely agree that we ought to be aiding unscrupulous rebels in Syria, repeating the mistake of a generation ago, the arguments against doing so are excluded from the debate. And that’s not in anybody’s interest.

The tireless Dana Frank has a brand new piece up at Foreign Affairs about the Obama administration’s support of the 2009 military coup in Honduras, and how US military funding “has increased every year since” despite a dramatic increase in human rights abuses.

“Since early 2010, there have been more than 10,000 complaints of human rights abuses by [US funded and trained] state security forces,” she writes, and “in many ways, Washington is responsible for this dismal turn.”

The situation brings back haunting memories of other U.S. involvements in Latin America. Washington has a dark track record of supporting military coups against democratic governments and then funneling money to repressive regimes. In 1964, the United States backed a military coup in Brazil; in 1973, it supported a military coup headed by Augusto Pinochet in Chile; and during the 1980s, it threw millions of dollars at the leaders in El Salvador. All of these U.S.–backed governments ruled with enormous brutality. In Honduras today, the United States’ hands are already dirty: A botched drug raid in the Moskitia region on May 11, carried out by agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Honduran security forces, left four civilians dead, two of whom were pregnant women.

The increased support for the abusive and corrupt military regime in Honduras has occurred in tandem with an increase in US military presence in the country and penetration by commando-style militias from the Drug Enforcement Administration. There have been a number of cases in recent months of joint US-Honduran raids and gunfights with alleged drug traffickers, but it hasn’t cracked down so much as it has made the country more dangerous. In one such incident in May, DEA agents and Honduran forces shot and killed four civilians, including two pregnant women, with total impunity beyond having to say they were sorry.

The drug war is at best a side issue for the US in Honduras, especially considering the regime Washington supports is rife with politicians and government officials who themselves participate in the drug trade and organized crime. Dana Frank sheds some light on the true strategic calculus:

The State Department is pursuing such a misguided policy for larger strategic reasons in the region: to push back against the governments in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador, and others, which have moved considerably to the left in the last 15 years. Above all, Washington’s Honduras policy is a deliberate message to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Endorsing the coup served as a not-so-subtle threat that the others could be next. Paraguay only proves the point further — in June, the State Department looked the other way when Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo was overthrown.

So Washington is afraid of what it has always been afraid of in Latin America: losing control of it. Too many countries are unwilling to simply obey US demands, therefore, support for tyranny is justified.

This is not the first time this has happened:

Two US servicemen were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of gang-raping a Japanese woman in Okinawa, reports said, as anti-American feeling runs high on the strategically vital island.

The incident comes amid swelling protests over the recent deployment on the island of 12 Osprey transport aircraft, with the plane’s perceived poor safety sparking concern among local residents.

…One of sailors admitted carrying out the attack, but the other has denied it, according to TV Asahi.

Tens of thousands of US troops have been stationed in Japan since WWII, and the local population has been firmly against the occupation with frequent protests urging their removal. Up to 85% of the Okinawan population wants US troops out. Not only do they not want to be occupied by a foreign military, but they’re fed up with the outrageous behavior of the American Marines. Between 1972 and 2009, there were 5,634 criminal offenses committed by US servicemen, including 25 murders, 385 burglaries, 25 arsons, 127 rapes, 306 assaults and 2,827 thefts.

Japanese leaders can’t submit to the will of the people on this issue for obvious reasons: the mafia don in Washington won’t allow it. “In 2010, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama pledged to relocate the U.S. base, then backtracked under US pressure,” reports the Washington Post. “Outraged Okinawans staged public protests, demonstrations spread to Tokyo, Hatoyama’s approval rating plummeted to 25 percent  and he resigned.”

The Post continues:

Opposition to the U.S. base at Okinawa has been a big deal in Japan for years. “Local newspapers in Okinawa, which are strongly anti-base, give intense coverage to crimes by American military personnel and their families,” the New York Times explained. It’s also about the base itself, which is in the middle of a dense residential neighborhood and surrounded by schools. The recent arrival of new American aircraft, the tiltrotor V-22 Osprey, which locals believe is too dangerous, provoked “unexpectedly fierce opposition.” And maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that this historically nationalist society isn’t crazy about an enormous foreign military presence on its soil.

The bases in Japan were some of the most important Far East outposts in the American Empire in the years following WWII, and they’ve retained their geo-political importance to those in Washington who demand having military bases the world over. But the bases in Japan have garnered renewed importance since President Obama announced his strategic pivot to Asia-Pacific. The base now serves as an important show of force to China, a country on the rise economically and militarily, which Washington wants desperately to contain.