Category: News

This story from Der Speigel laments German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s reverting back to Germany’s post-WWII pacifist doctrine after years of gradual “steps towards normality” – where “normality” is militarism.

On April 2, 1993, the cabinet of then Chancellor Helmut Kohl approved the Bundeswehr’s first international combat mission, allowing German soldiers to participate in monitoring the no-fly zone over Bosnia. It was the first war in which the Bundeswehr was involved in combat operations.

Bosnia marked the beginning of a long path to normalization that Germany has followed since the end of the Cold War. Today the Bundeswehr is involved in 11 missions that have been approved by the parliament. Some 6,540 soldiers are currently deployed on foreign missions in the Balkans, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa. “The mentality of Germans has changed when it comes to the use of military force,” says Defense Minister Thomas de Maizière. “We’ve come a long way in this respect.”

Horay! How pedestrian of them to have been so timid in their resumption of militarism.

The author goes on to bemoan Merkel’s cautious tempering of military engagement. The “coalition government consisting of Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP)” the author writes, “is in the process of dismantling the progress Germany has made in this respect.” Again, “progress” meaning shedding its aversion to militarism.

Be it out of conviction or the fear of voters, German foreign policy, under the leadership of Merkel and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, has returned to its former insecurity and unwillingness to engage. From Berlin’s abstention in the UN Security Council vote on Libya to its minimal involvement in Mali and its passive approach to the conflict in Syria, the country is avoiding military involvement at all costs.

This is doing serious harm to Germany’s international reputation. The concept of a “culture of military restraint,” which the foreign minister mentions at every opportunity, is vexing to Berlin’s allies. Now that the euro crisis has catapulted Germany into the role of Europe’s leading power on economic policy, it also faces heightened expectations in other respects. The contradiction between Germany’s economic strength and its military self-doubt is bigger than ever.

Needless to say, aversion to militarism is not something to lament. I’m not an expert on German foreign policy post-WWII, but – much to the ignorance of this Der Speigel piece – it is no accident that Germany and Japan ended up with explicitly pacifist doctrines after WWII. Both countries experienced the graphic rise of amplified militarism and, more than many other countries, ended up on the receiving end of the utter destruction the war brought. That combination tends to teach a society some lessons.

Some people, however, are resistant to those lessons, believing instead that militarism – not peace – is “progress.”

Ten years ago this month, Operation Iraqi Freedom began.

The invasion of Iraq occurred in spite of protests of millions of people around the world. Massive demonstrations took place in the months leading up to the war. On Feb. 15, 2003, there were protests in more than 1,000 cities and on every continent. Never before had such a huge antiwar movement sprung up before a war had even begun. At the time, The New York Times described this global peace movement as the world’s “second super-power.”

Ignoring the desire of the world’s people for peace, Congress authorized George W. Bush to attack Iraq. Democrats controlled the Senate at the time and could have prevented the war. But a number of Democratic leaders — including Harry Reid, Dianne Feinstein, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry — opted for violence. To their credit, Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, and California Sen. Barbara Boxer were among the Democrats who resisted the call to arms.

As many in the peace movement predicted, the reasons given to justify the war were proven to be false. Saddam Hussein did not have an active program to produce weapons of mass destruction, Iraq had no connection to the terror attacks of 9/11, and the invasion did not bring freedom or democracy to Iraq.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq killed hundreds of thousands, and left more than 600,000 Iraqi orphans. At least 4 million Iraqis have become refugees. More than 4,000 Americans died in Iraq and tens of thousands were wounded.

During the occupation, Gen. David Petraeus, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials oversaw a network of torture, death squads and secret prisons. Torture is rampant in Iraq today and the Iraqi government is one of the most corrupt on Earth. Violence against women has increased dramatically. Millions of Iraqis are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. Seventy percent have no access to clean water. Because of the destruction of Iraq’s sewage treatment plants, factories, schools, hospitals and power plants by the U.S. military, Baghdad is rated the world’s least liveable city by the Mercer Quality of Living survey. According to the Global Peace Index, Iraq is the second most dangerous country in the world (after Somalia).

The invasion is viewed by many as a “mistake.” In reality, it was a crime. In the words of Benjamin Ferencz, who prosecuted Nazi leaders at Nuremberg: “A prima facie case can be made that the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity, that being an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation.”

Despite the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the incredible suffering inflicted upon millions, none of the people responsible for planning and executing the war have been prosecuted, and most continue to enjoy positions of power and privilege.

The U.S. government is now planning another act of aggression — the invasion of Iran. The Times of Israel has reported the Obama administration is “gearing up” for a strike on Iran, with the “window of opportunity” for bloodshed opening this June. Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program will provide the pretext, despite the consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran has no such program.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Every citizen is responsible for every act of his government.”

Our government is busy planning another bloodbath. It is our responsibility — yours and mine — to stop it.

Phillip Crawford is an attorney and President of the Monterey Peace and Justice Center.

Carl Warner, an attorney defending 11 Guantanamo detainees, appeared in an interview with Russia Today and read a statement from one of his clients, Faiz al-Kandari, who remains detained despite having his charges dropped last year.

Kandari’s statement was the following:

“I scare myself when I look in the mirror. Let them kill us as we have nothing to lose. We died when Obama indefinitely detained us.  Respect us or kill us. It is your choice. The US must take off its mask and kill us.”

Kandari, along with dozens of other Guantanamo detainees, is taking part in a hunger strike to protest his deprivation of legal due process. Warner said he had lost “more than 30 pounds less than a month ago,” his “cheeks were sunk in. He was exhausted, weak, he could not stand.”

“I do not want to see my clients die,” Warner added, “and the fact that they are in this condition is one of the most heart-wrenching things I have had to experience as a lawyer.”

The absolute worst part of all of this is not that these men, who are unjustly and indefinitely detained, are suffering from lack of nourishment. Rather, it is the deafening silence in the US media about their hunger strike. Such protests are intended to create pressure on the authorities to change cruel policies like indefinite detention without charge or trial. But if the media and the public don’t care, then there is no pressure, and hunger strikers simply die.

For two of the best write-ups of this Gitmo hunger strike, see Carol Rosenberg at the Miami Herald and Antiwar.com’s own Kelley Vlahos.

As conditions in Iraq spiraled downward in 2005, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld prodded the Pentagon press corps to adopt the long view. Instead of focusing on short-term setbacks and daily violence, with all the “gloom and doom” this involved, “we should ask what history will say.” Fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan was admittedly “tough and ugly,” but history would reveal that “America was on freedom’s side,” and that “literally millions of people were enjoying liberty” because of the brave actions of coalition forces.

Famously weak on predictions, Rumsfeld’s suggestion that history will judge the two wars a success and the harbinger of freedom for “literally millions,” seems unlikely. But having just passed the tenth anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq, the secretary’s question is worth pondering: what will history say about this war of choice? And more importantly, what should be remembered?

As we know, history doesn’t write itself and how a society comes to understand its own past is the product of many voices: professional historians to be sure, but also politicians, journalists, filmmakers, schoolteachers and the participants themselves. With regard to the Iraq War the process of remembering has only begun, but the responses this past week provide distressing hints of a possible “verdict,” at least here in the United States.

For a country hooked on anniversaries, this one passed with little fanfare, opening the possibility that the Iraq War might soon be relegated to the margins of national consciousness, along with the Korean War and other military undertakings. There are certainly powerful incentives for those in high places to change the subject and move on.

But if not ignored, the Iraq War is already fitted to a dominant narrative, which emphasizes the “mistaken” nature of the enterprise, undertaken out of an excess of fear and zeal in the aftermath of 9/11. In that account, the Bush sdministration’s careless and possibly dishonest evaluation of intelligence about “weapons of mass destruction” features prominently, as does the gullibility of the mass media and major public figures. Also highlighted are the thousands of dead Americans and Iraqis, the trillions of dollars already spent or committed and the damage to the U.S. economy of paying for the war with borrowed money. Criticisms abound, but it is worth pondering some missing pieces.

Less emphasized or omitted entirely is the suffering of the Iraqi people — not just the body count, but also the myriad ways in which ordinary life in that country was upended, once the Americans and British had arrived. Beyond the numbing death toll, the experience of live Iraqis might stir an empathic response and deepen Americans’ understanding of what military intervention in foreign lands has entailed. Yet pour through the stories of the tenth anniversary and see how scarce is that discussion.

Continue reading “Donald Rumsfeld: ‘What Will History Say?’”

Update: The CIA officer in question has been promoted to the top position in the clandestine service as of Thursday, according to The New York Times.

John Brennan, the man Obama appointed to head the CIA, is reportedly on the verge of promoting an undercover agent to be director of the CIA’s clandestine service, despite the fact that she helped run the CIA’s illegal torture and detention program after 9/11 and “signed off on the 2005 decision to destroy videotapes of prisoners being subjected to treatment critics have called torture.”

“The woman, who remains undercover and cannot be named, was put in the top position on an acting basis when the previous chief retired last month,” reports The Washington Post. “The question of whether to give her the job permanently poses an early quandary for Brennan, who is already struggling to distance the agency from the decade-old controversies.”

As we know, Brennan himself played an integral part in the CIA’s lawless torture and rendition program during the Bush administration. Obama’s embrace of Brennan had independent-minded critics shouting “Aha!” and “I told you so,” noting the President’s clear contradiction of the sentiment he road into office on and his supposed repudiation of torture in his Executive Order banning it. Obama supporters, as a matter of course, refused to acknowledge any inconsistency.

Brennan’s seemingly impending appointment of an agent at the center of the torture program – and, disgracefully, the decision to obstruct justice by destroying evidence of it – is a perfect exemplification of the scandalous Obama-era effort to shield Bush-era government criminals from any accountability. This unnamed woman, like Brennan, is not only shielded from justice, she is up for promotion.

See former CIA officer Ray McGovern on Brennan’s “heavy baggage” and former FBI agent-turned whistleblower Coleen Rowley on Brennan’s tortured past (no pun intended).