Hamas's Men of Peace

Hamas accepts 1967 borders, but will never recognize Israel, top official says

So Hamas goes on record again "accepting" a two-state solution. The Norman Finkelstein's of this world will be delighted and point to this as proof that Hamas wants peace more than Israel. What Mahmoud Zahar said:

Hamas would be willing to accept a Palestinian state within 1967 borders, a leader of the militant group, Mahmoud Zahar, told the Palestinian news agency Ma'an on Wednesday, adding, however, that Hamas would never recognize Israel since such a move would counter the group's aim to "liberate" all of Palestine.

...

Speaking to Ma'an on Wednesday, Zahar, hinting at the possible political line of a future Palestinian unity cabinet, said that recognizing Israel would "preclude the right of the next generations to liberate the lands," wondering: "What will be the fate of the five million Palestinians in the diaspora?"

The Gaza strongman went on to tell Ma'an that Hamas would be willing to recognize a Palestinian state "on any part of Palestine," as opposed to the group's proclaimed aim to form a state from "from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea."

Zahar also referred to the future of Hamas' military truce with Israel, confirming that the movement would continue to honor the cessation of fighting, following a joint decision made with its new Fatah partners. The Hamas leader, however, reiterated that the truce was "part of the resistance not its rejection," adding that a "truce is not peace."

There is an easy way to determine whether this should actually be viewed as a serious commitment to peace, as well as expose those who say that Hamas is more committed to peace than Israel is.

Just imagine if someone like Netanyahu or Liberman said the same words from the Israeli perspective.

Hypothetical Lieberman: "We will be willing to accept a Jewish state temporarily on the 1967 lines, but we will never recognize "Palestine's" right to existence as this would deprive future generations of killing Palestinian civilians en masse in order to achieve Israeli domination over the whole of Eretz Yisrael and with it the expulsion of the vast majority of the Palestinian people. This will be a temporary truce, not a peace treaty, and we reserve the right to return to the armed struggle as and when we see fit. This truce is tactical and part of the resistance to the Palestinians, not a strategic change on our part. We remain committed to the ultimate goal of Eretz Yisrael.

Yeah, I'm sure the people trumpting that "Hamas accepts the two-state solution" and are seeking a peaceful diplomatic solution would see a statement like this from Liberman as evidence of his gentle, peaceful soul. Wouldn't they?

Why the killing of Osama Bin Laden should not dilute our commitment to Afghanistan

The killing of Osama Bin Laden by a team of CIA officers and US Navy SEAL Team 6 is an extraordinary event, and one of great historical importance. Osama Bin Laden was the the ideological, if not operational, head of Al Qaeda, and for many Americans, and Europeans represented a monstrous and seemingly protean and omnipresent threat. The removal of that dark ideological cloud hanging over us all must be seen as a moment if not exactly for celebration, then for relief.

In the days and months ahead, however, we must not let the legitimate relief we feel at the death of such an evil man cloud our judgment on the threat of Al Qaeda-inspired terrorism, or allow ourselves to be deluded that Afghanistan was all about catching Bin Laden, and that we can now simply hightail it out of Camp Bastion, as soon as we can load up the Hercules. Both reactions, although understandable, would be incredibly short-sighted, and could undermine everything that has been achieved in this costly war.

Osama bin Laden was an enormously influential figure in the modern jihadist movement. 'The Sheikh' as he is known to his followers, is almost the textbook example of what Max Weber identified as 'charismatic authority'. This son of a multi-millionaire Saudi-Yemeni construction tycoon gave up his wealth and privilege in the opulent and decadent desert kingdom to live in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan to fight a 'holy war' against the infidel, atheist Communist invaders. He helped forge a transnational jihadi front against the United States, to a degree, uniting the fractured and dispirate movement under his own banner. He repeatedly attacked the 'arrogant' United States, and was able to evade capture as the world's most wanted man for almost 10 years after the horrific events of 11 September 2001 and the launching of George W Bush's 'Global War on Terror'. There will never be another leader quite like Osama Bin Laden to act as a figurehead for the global jihadi movement. Al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri is thoroughly uncharismatic, and is disliked by many within the movement. American-born preacher and ideologue for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Anwar al-Awlaki, although charismatic and able to reach out to the English-speaking world, lacks the experience and battle-proven reputation of the now deceased founder of the organization. Someone will, of course, fill the gap, but the 'Emir' has big shoes to fill, and no one looks likely to fill them in the near future.

Bin Laden's death will undoubtedly weaken the organization, already weak before his death, further, although revenge-inspired attacks may make the risk of terrorism increase in the short-term. Does this likely long-term decline in Al Qaeda's virility mean that the threat of terrorism is now over and we can move on with our lives? Not quite. Bin Laden became the personification of radical Islamist terrorism in the years after 9/11, partly, it must be admitted, due to the Bush administrations efforts to build Bin Laden up as a symbolic enemy, an incarnation of evil, which could unite the country in a time of conflict. The threat was never quite so personal, however.

Bin Laden was just one man. An incredibly important man of course, but still just one man. The jihadi movement is much bigger than one man. The movement had been declining long before the death of Bin Laden, for a variety of reasons: the sadistic sectarian bloodbath launched by the organizations affiliate in Iraq which alienated so many Muslims around the world, the oppressive reading of Shariah law which very few Muslims desire to live under, the tremendous events in the Arab world leading to the overthrow of Ben-Ali, then Mubarak, and who knows else. But if the jihadi movement is being diminished, it is not dead. AQAP is still a menace to American and Western security. Iraq is still seeing shocking levels of violence perpetrated by Zarqawi's successors. Afghanistan and especially Pakistan are seeing horrific carnage as pressured groups such as the Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban, the Haqqani network dispatch their suicide bombers to marketplaces. Terrorism influenced and inspired by the now dead Bin Laden is not over. The ideological poison has spread too far and too deep for the death of one man to kill it, or even significantly dent it.

All of which makes the renewed debate about withdrawing from Afghanistan very troubling indeed. A number of leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus recently issued a statement saying "In the wake of Osama bin Laden's death, now is the time to shift toward the swift, safe, and responsible withdrawal of U.S. troops and military contractors from Afghanistan." Their calls have been echoed by many liberal newspapers and media outlets, and there have also been reports of such a debate occurring in the Obama Administration itself.

All of this misses one crucial fact. The United States and its allies were never in Afghanistan only for Osama Bin Laden. Apprehending the terrorist leader and his cohorts was of course a large part of the reasoning for war, but it was never the only one. If it was, we would have been out of Afghanistan a long time ago, since it was generally assumed, rightly, that Osama Bin Laden skipped Afghanistan in December 2001 after the Battle of Tora Bora.

The other reasons for war in Afghanistan, which I fully support, were to dismantle and destroy Al Qaeda and its terrorist network in Afghanistan, and to deny them the opportunity to use Afghanistan as a safe haven from which to train and launch terrorist plots against the West. Denying Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups a safe haven in Afghanistan necessitated the overthrow of their sponsors and protectors, the Taliban government, and the continual effort to ensure that the Taliban shall never again rule over significant parts of the country.

Peripheral to these national security dominated aims were humanitarian arguments for keeping the Taliban from extending their rule over the country once again. The organization was one of the worst human rights abusers in the world, and removing that threat from the people of Afghanistan, and the broader region, has always been seen, rightly as a noble and worthy goal.

The killing of Osama Bin Laden does little to meet most of these goals, and cannot be used as an argument for immediate withdrawal. We should still be aiming for a stable and secure Afghanistan which can eventually defend itself from insurgents and terrorists, and which will not serve as a huge training camp for international terrorists. We should still be aiming to deny the Taliban rule over the country once more. These are still important aims, both for us in the West, and for the people of Afghanistan and the region. The killing of Bin Laden does not diminish these threats.

The Obama Administration, while feeling rightly proud of its accomplishment, should not deviate too far from its previous, and correct, counter-insurgency strategy. Troop withdrawals are due to start in July this year. The administration should not use the killing of Bin Laden to announce a huge withdrawal which would undermine the counter-insurgency effort and hand the Taliban a huge victory. We should stay the course we were on previously, aiming to slowly draw down troops based on conditions in the country, until we can hand over security to the Afghan army, hopefully by the agreed-upon withdrawal date of 2014.

We abandoned Afghanistan twice in the last two decades. Once, after the Soviet withdrawal when the United States had promised to rebuild the country after the war and subsequently reneged, effectively zeroing aid to the country. The result was a brutal civil war between the mujahideen factions, the rise of the Taliban, and the transformation of the country into a huge jihadi training camp. The country was abandoned once again after the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 when Bush quickly turned his attention to Iraq, turned the country over to the warlords again, and failed to effectively rebuild the impoverished nation, which set the stage for a renewed neo-Taliban insurgency in the country.

We must learn our lesson from these disasters. Killing Osama Bin Laden and declaring victory would be to repeat the mistakes of the past. We must use this as an opportunity to leave Afghanistan in a responsible way. If we do not, we will could very well watch as Afghanistan once again becomes a threat to regional and global peace and security.

An Interventionist Far-Left?

Congratulations are in order to some of the people over at Workers' Liberty for a number of the articles they have put up over the past few weeks regarding the situation in Libya and the question of Western intervention. They follow an ideology I regard as hostile to liberal democratic ideals, and they are probably rather hostile, to my centre-left New Labourish beliefs, but nevertheless, they have written some logical, realistic, principled and excellent articles over the last few days, although I don't agree with everything they write. I'll bring a couple to my readers attention.

The first was their excellent take-down of George Galloway and his coddling up to Arab dictators while criticizing the West for doing the same. George Galloway is a target of the right and the Harry's Place-type left almost ad nauseam, but much less frequently, as far as I'm aware a target of the far left. Which makes it all the more satisfying and refreshing to see a far left group take him down so thoroughly and completely.

It starts with a nice collection of hypocrisies and shocking statements by Galloway:

Galloway tells the same anecdote on the “Respect” website:

“Last week at a breakfast in Dubai, an Englishman munching his halal sausages said: ‘Your mate’s getting a hard time in Libya isn’t he?’ – though YouTube is groaning with films of me denouncing Gaddafi over many years. Of course, he could have been getting his Arab dictators mixed up, or – worse – confusing me with Tony Blair.” (2)

It’s easy to understand why Galloway is so justifiably worked up about this kind of thing.

Given the price of a suite in Dubai’s “One and Only Royal Mirage Hotel”, you shouldn’t have to put up with having your breakfast soured by a sausage-munching Englishman who can’t tell one dictator from another.

The sausage-muncher should have known that when Galloway uttered the immortal words, “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability and I want you to know that we are with you, until victory, until Jerusalem,” it was at a meeting with Saddam Hussein, not Muammar Gaddafi.

The sausage-muncher should have known that when Galloway wrote that a military commander who had seized power in his country in an army coup “seems an upright sort to me and should be given a chance,” he was referring to Pakistan’s General Musharraf, not Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi.

The sausage-muncher should have known that when Galloway joked with a dictator’s son about Cuban cigars, weight loss and hair loss, and promised him, “we’re with you, till the end,” he was socialising with Uday Hussein, not Saif Gaddafi.

The sausage-muncher should have known that when Galloway praised a Middle East dictatorship as “the last Arab country, the fortress of the remaining dignity of the Arabs,” praised its ruler as “the last Arab ruler,” and told the victims of the dictatorship that they were “a free people,” he was speaking of Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, not Gaddafi’s Libya. (3)

The sausage-muncher should have known that when Galloway referred to a country in the grip of a reactionary dictatorship for the past three decades as a country which “has only been a democracy for thirty years but (which) has come a long way in that thirty years,” he was referring to the Iran of the mullahs, not to Gaddafi’s Libya.

The sausage-muncher should have known that when the London School of Economics accepted a donation from the Gaddafi Foundation, this was a bad thing and justifies Galloway’s recent quip about the “Libyan School of Economics”, but when the same Gaddafi Foundation made a donation of a hundred lorries to Galloway’s last “Viva Palestine” convoy, this was something to be welcomed. (4)

It goes on to make a rather excellent and perceptive distinction of which principles Galloway uses to determine which "unconscionable thugs and criminals" (in the oh-so-memorable words of Christopher Hitchens) are worthy of Galloway's praise: "achievements" and "anti-imperialism":

The criterion of ‘anti-imperialist struggle’ is easiest understood by contrasting what Galloway has had to say about Gaddafi (not his “mate”) with what he has had to say about Al-Assad (a man of “dignity”).

According to Galloway, speaking in 2008, Gaddafi was “just another Arab dictator” because he had abandoned the ‘anti-imperialist struggle’:

“Gaddafi has betrayed everything and everybody. He turned away from the justified struggle of the Arab people against Zionist occupation and against imperialist domination of the region. He has lost any respect which any struggling people had for him. …”

“I think this is all a tragedy. Gaddafi was always strange, but in the past he took an Arab stance, even if it was more in words than in deeds. But now he is just like all the rest. … He was terrified of American power. But he should have waited because the uprising in Iraq has broken the American power.”

“Gaddafi surrendered to America when he saw Saddam fall but before the Iraqi people rose. If he had waited just one year he would have seen that in every street of Iraq the Arab resistance is defeating the occupation. He lost confidence and faith in the Arabs long ago.” (5)

By contrast, according to Galloway in 2005, Syria was “lucky to have Bashar Al-Assad as her president” because that dictator had kept Syria on the straight-and-narrow of ‘anti-imperialist struggle’:

“Syria will not betray the Palestinian resistance, she will not betray the Lebanese resistance, Hizbullah, she will not sign a shameful surrender-peace with General Sharon, and … Syria will not allow her country to be used as a military base for America to crush the resistance in Iraq." (6)

Earlier this month Galloway returned to the same argument: “The government of Syria for a long time has pursued a policy of Arabness. Of Arab nationalism, of Arab dignity, of support for the Palestinian cause, material support, material support for the resistance, rejection for the foreign occupation of Iraq. And a refusal to bow before the foreign powers.” (7)

Thus, Gaddafi, having ditched ‘anti-imperialism’, is “just another Arab dictator”, whereas Al-Assad, having remained loyal to ‘anti-imperialism’, is “the last Arab ruler”.

The criterion of ‘anti-imperialist struggle’ is easiest understood by contrasting what Galloway has had to say about Gaddafi (not his “mate”) with what he has had to say about Al-Assad (a man of “dignity”).

According to Galloway, speaking in 2008, Gaddafi was “just another Arab dictator” because he had abandoned the ‘anti-imperialist struggle’:

“Gaddafi has betrayed everything and everybody. He turned away from the justified struggle of the Arab people against Zionist occupation and against imperialist domination of the region. He has lost any respect which any struggling people had for him. …”

“I think this is all a tragedy. Gaddafi was always strange, but in the past he took an Arab stance, even if it was more in words than in deeds. But now he is just like all the rest. … He was terrified of American power. But he should have waited because the uprising in Iraq has broken the American power.”

“Gaddafi surrendered to America when he saw Saddam fall but before the Iraqi people rose. If he had waited just one year he would have seen that in every street of Iraq the Arab resistance is defeating the occupation. He lost confidence and faith in the Arabs long ago.” (5)

By contrast, according to Galloway in 2005, Syria was “lucky to have Bashar Al-Assad as her president” because that dictator had kept Syria on the straight-and-narrow of ‘anti-imperialist struggle’:

“Syria will not betray the Palestinian resistance, she will not betray the Lebanese resistance, Hizbullah, she will not sign a shameful surrender-peace with General Sharon, and … Syria will not allow her country to be used as a military base for America to crush the resistance in Iraq." (6)

Earlier this month Galloway returned to the same argument: “The government of Syria for a long time has pursued a policy of Arabness. Of Arab nationalism, of Arab dignity, of support for the Palestinian cause, material support, material support for the resistance, rejection for the foreign occupation of Iraq. And a refusal to bow before the foreign powers.” (7)

Thus, Gaddafi, having ditched ‘anti-imperialism’, is “just another Arab dictator”, whereas Al-Assad, having remained loyal to ‘anti-imperialism’, is “the last Arab ruler”.

Read the whole thing, it is an excellent take-down.

The second article is entitled "Libya: No illusions in West but 'anti-intervention' opposition is abandoning rebels".

The writer has clearly looked a very difficult question right in the face, and come to a rather uncomfortable conclusion. That question, which should be put to all anti-interventionists is this: "Are you willing to stand by and watch Gaddafi slaughter the inhabitants in Benghazi and crush the revolution because you don't want to see the West intervene." It is fair to be skeptical of Western motives, how this could end, mission-creep, the cost, hypocrisy and so on, but until you tackle that all-important question, and give a convincing answer to it, you simply aren't being serious. So congratulations to Workers' Liberty for looking this question dead in the face, and coming to the conclusion that it must support Western intervention, a traditional foe, because there is simply no other serious option right now.

On 17 March, after much procrastination, the United Nations agreed to military action against Libya’s dictator Muammar Qaddafi, whose murderous forces were advancing on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
The Stop the War Coalition immediately issued a statement condemning “a new war”, and “escalating armed intervention in Libya”. Socialist Worker headlined “No to intervention in Libya! Victory to Arab revolutions!” Much other left-wing commentary has focused on opposing intervention.
But the rebel forces in Benghazi greeted the UN decision with jubilation. Benghazi is a city where Qaddafi has, in the past, conducted the mass public execution of oppositionists. They knew what they could expect if Qaddafi triumphed. And it seemed likely that Qaddafi was on the verge of defeating the revolution, or at least inflicting terrible slaughter.
To oppose – that is, demonstrate against, and make a serious effort to prevent – the limited military action against Qaddafi, is to tell the rebels in Benghazi “you’re on your own.”
What socialist would want to send out such a message? Only one not deserving the name.

There is of course no reason to trust the armies of the West, or their Arab allies, to bring democracy to Libya or anywhere else. There is no guarantee that Western intervention will even succeed in its shortterm aim of halting Qaddafi’s advance.
The force which is advancing democracy across the Middle East is the mass movement, above all the workers’ movement. In Egypt a new, independent trade union federation has been formed in the midst of a wave of militant strikes.
This is the agency to which socialists look to transform the Middle East.
But neither such workers’ movements nor the labour movement internationally have a military force of our own to come to the aid of Benghazi. We can build our own forms of solidarity with the popular movement in Libya. We can be vigilant against whatever political steps the Western powers take (including, for example, any attempt to rehabilitate Qaddafi, which they may think is the best, most “stable option).
But what issue of principle should make us demonstrate against the one thing which might prevent untold slaughter, prevent Qaddafi’s immediate bloody victory, and therefore a crushing defeat for the wave of revolutions?
It is not good enough for socialists to point out that Cameron, et al, are no friends of the Libyan people. Indeed they are not. But what do you propose to do, instead, then, to prevent Qaddafi crushing his enemies? Socialists either address this real, life-and-death question or they are irrelevant poseurs.
It’s not good enough to argue that the West has supported dictators in the past and will do so again. Of course it will. But how able the West is to impose its agenda on the Middle East in future depends on the self-confidence of the mass movement. A terrible defeat in Libya might sap that self-confidence much more than a temporary acceptance of Western assistance.
We need to develop a strong solidarity campaign which is independent ofWestern (or Arab) governments. We need, in particular, to help the new Egyptian workers’ movement to continue to grow and develop, which could have an immense, positive effect on the whole region.
Instead, some socialists have responded to this crisis by putting their hostility to America above the lives of the Libyan rebels.
And this is a shameful disgrace.

I don't know about everyone else, but I find a far-left which expresses solidarity, real solidarity, with opposition to dictators who are not allies of the West, to be a pretty refreshing break from the weasels, opportunists and moral cretins who get into bed with every reactionary and lunatic dictator as long as he is an "anti-imperialist" with "achievements".

"United We Rise"

Peop1e, which as far as I can make out is a democracy advocacy group, has put together an absolutely inspiring video splicing a Charlie Chaplin speech from The Great Dictator with footage from the Egyptian Revolution. A must watch:

The Crass and Contradictory Cynicism of the Moribund "Anti-Imperialist" Left

Apologies to my limited readership for my inactivity, the pesky demands of real life (here read final year dissertation) have taken a grievous toll on my budding blogging career. I thought I'd break my blogging fast by deconstructing a disgraceful and shoddy piece of work I saw on the Stop the War Coalition website today:

10 Reasons to say no to western intervention in Libya

Stop the War Coalition are reliably consistent in their consistent deployment of every factually incorrect, inconsistent and irrelevant argument in the anti-war playbook. They really have turned throwing shit at the wall and hoping some of it sticks into an art form. Let's see if we can't scape all this facile excreta from the important pages of UN Resolution 1973, and leave it where it belongs: stinging the noses of the people who would rather see Benghazi burned to the ground by Gaddafi's thugs than allow the international community to give the Libyan people any meaningful help.

1. Intervention will violate Libya’s sovereignty. This is not just a legalistic point – although the importance of observing international law should not be discounted if the big powers in the world are not to be given the green light run amok. As soon as NATO starts to intervene, the Libyan people will start to lose control of their own country and future.

Yes, the imposition of a no-fly zone and tactical strikes will be a violation of Libya's sovereignty. Sensible people, however, have come to the conclusion that a state can surrender its sovereignty when it commits gross human rights violations, as Gaddafi undoubtedly has. This was taken into account in UN Resolution 1973, and it was determined that the atrocities Gaddafi has committed mean it is legitimate to breach Libya's sovereignty in order to protect Libyan civilians from his onslaught.

The last sentence, is a fair point, but is something for the international community and the Libyans to bear in mind, it is not a killer argument against intervention. There some risk of this Libyan revolution being taken over by outside powers, and we should do everything we can to make sure this is a Libyan affair, as much as possible. But what is almost absolutely guaranteed to leave the Libyan people without a say in their future is doing nothing and allowing Gaddafi to crush Benghazi and reassert control over the entire country again.

The call to respect Libya's sovereignty is a call to respect Gadaffi's "right" to butcher his own people with impunity.

2. Intervention can only prolong, not end the civil war. “No-fly zones” will not be able to halt the conflict and will lead to more bloodshed, not less.

This point is absolutely nonsensical and simply not grounded in reality. The military might of the international community, won't be able to roll back Gadaffi's offensive? It can't ensure a rebel victory if used properly? Yeah ok... I guess we should just take the word of the military experts at the StWC, rather than simply using common sense.

This war might get messy, with or without intervention, but if I'm a civilian in Libya opposed to the regime, I sure as hell like my chances a lot better with international help, rather than just being watched from afar by idiots wringing their hands about "imperialism".

3. Intervention will lead to escalation. Because the measures being advocated today cannot bring an end to the civil war, the next demand will be for a full-scale armed presence in Libya, as in Iraq – and meeting the same continuing resistance. That way lies decades of conflict.

Possibly. There's a small chance of that happening. War is a messy and uncertain business. There's a much better chance of a decent outcome with intervention than without though. They haven't proved that a no-fly zone and targeted strikes can't bring an end to the civil war and a rebel victory though (I think there's a good chance it could), so the leap to occupation is obvious logically flawed. It is right to raise concerns about where this could lead, but jumping straight onto the scare-tactic of "there's going to be a demand for an occupation, and it's going to be Iraq all over again" is hilarious hypocrisy, especially for a group which continually rails against the hyperbole and scare tactics of the "neo-cons" and "warmongers."

4. This is not Spain in 1936, when non-intervention meant helping the fascist side which, if victorious in the conflict, would only encourage the instigators of a wider war – as it did. Here, the powers clamouring for military action are the ones already fighting a wider war across the Middle East and looking to preserve their power even as they lose their autocratic allies. Respecting Libya’s sovereignty is the cause of peace, not is enemy.

This point is very interesting. Because their reasoning in sentences 2 and 3 make absolutely no sense if we apply them consistently, the only thing to take away from this point is their admission that non-intervention in conflicts means "helping the fascist side". StWC and their supporters get really, really defensive if pro-interventionist people say they are "helping the Taliban", "helping Al Qaeda", "helping Saddam" and so on. They say that they simply don't want to start a new war with more bloodshed. But here we have them admitting that non-intervention can mean actively helping the bad guys. We can see the inconsistency of applying this to Spain in Civil War (in which we should have intervened to save the Republic no doubt), but not to other places in the very next paragraph:

5. It is more like Iraq in the 1990s, after the First Gulf War. Then, the US, Britain and France imposed no-fly zones which did not lead to peace – the two parties in protected Iraqi Kurdistan fought a bitter civil war under the protection of the no-fly zone – and did prepare the ground for the invasion of 2003. Intervention may partition Libya and institutionalise conflict for decades.

Of course, this line of argument wouldn't entail "helping Saddam" commit a further genocide on the Kurds in the aftermath of the First Gulf War would it? No siree. See, we should have intervened in Spain in the Civil War because fascists are bad and letting them win will lead to further war, but we shouldn't have intervened in Iraq to save the Kurds, even though not protecting them would quite possibly led to a genocidal massacre.

Their further defense of rank inconsistency in point 4 is that the Western powers are waging wars across the Middle East now at the moment. Well, what the hell were the Western powers doing in the late 1930s? The British Empire, the French Empire, the United States, these powers weren't waging wars all over the world, and weren't trying to solidify their control over their colonies and dominions?

Does anyone actually think that StWC would actually be pro-intervention if the Spanish Civil War were being raged now? Like hell would they. They would sit back and let the Spanish Revolution be burned to the ground by the Falange forces, and they would sit there and watch, doing everything in their power to stop the "imperialist powers" from "hi-jacking" the Spanish Revolution.

StWC are NOT a progressive, left-wing, pro-democracy movement who only want to see an end to conflict. They are a thoroughly reactionary, anti-democratic organization with a monistic fixation on "Western Imperialism". They believe in a zero-sum view of politics: if the Western powers are for something, they are against it, even if that means allowing brutal dictators to rape, torture and murder "their own" citizens by the thousands.

6. Or it is more like the situation in Kosovo and Bosnia. NATO interference has not lead to peace, reconciliation or genuine freedom in the Balkans, just to endless corrupt occupations.

See? Things would be much better today if only we'd left Milošević's rape squads and ethnic cleansers finish their sordid business in Kosovo and Bosnia...

7. Yes, it is about oil. Why the talk of intervening in Libya, but not the Congo, for example? Ask BP.

Most of the pressure to intervene has come from ordinary Libyans, and ordinary people in the West, not oil companies eager to gobble up the reserves of Libya. Weren't StWC critical of the sweetheart deals done between the Brits, BP and Gaddafi? You can't have it both ways. BP can't simultaneously be propping up Gaddafi for oil deals, AND pressuring the government to overthrow him for oil deals. (Edit: Harry's Place noted this same contradiction a few days ago also)

But hey, these arguments almost never make any sense. You only have to mention the dread O-word, and they think they have just made a killer point against intervention.

The issue of the Congo is complicated, and there are many reasons for it. Maybe we should be doing more to help end the conflict there, but I think the one of the biggest reasons we don't do more to stop it is the fact that it is incredibly complex and it would be almost impossible to stop even if we tried. Libya, though not simple, is much more straightforward than the Congo - there is a reasonable plan on the table now, and a fairly clear idea about what we can do to help, and how we can do it. Not all the details are clear so far, but they are much more clear than the Congo.

They would be better off asking why we chose to intervene in Kosovo and Bosnia instead, places not exactly know for their huge natural resources ready to pilfer...

8. It is also about pressure on Egyptian revolution – the biggest threat to imperial interests in the region. A NATO garrison next door would be a base for pressure at least, and intervention at worst, if Egyptian freedom flowers to the point where it challenges western interests in the region.

This is just conspiracy-minded poo-flinging, which is barely even worth responding to. I have no idea why NATO would specifically need Libya as a base for intervention in Egypt if they wanted to do that, considering there are already bases in Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, and so on, all within striking distance of Egypt, not to mention the US Navy's Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean. This point is really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

9. The hypocrisy gives the game away. When the people of Bahrain rose against their US-backed monarchy and were cut down in the streets, there was no talk of action, even though the US sixth fleet is based there and could doubtless have imposed a solution in short order. As top US republican Senator Lindsey Graham observed last month “there are regimes we want to change, and those we don’t”. NATO will only ever intervene to strangle genuine social revolution, never to support it.

Bahrain is an absurd comparison. There may come a point where tricky questions are raised about US allies shooting down civilians protesting, but there is no comparison between the full-scale civil war in Libya right now, and the low level atrocities in Bahrain and elsewhere. No one would be calling for intervention in Libya if the atrocities were on the scale of Bahrain, so it is a completely false point to make (although, like I say, there will be some important questions to ask if violence does spiral out of control in Bahrain, Yemen, or Saudi Arabia).

10. Military aggression in Libya – to give it the right name – will be used to revive the blood-soaked policy of ‘liberal interventionism’. That beast cannot be allowed to rise from the graves of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ignoring the hyperbolic and rhetorical childishness of the "military aggression" jibe, they simply do not understand what "liberal interventionism" is, and when it has been used. Good examples of liberal interventionism are Bosnia, Kosovo and Sierra Leone.

Afghanistan was NOT a liberal intervention. It was a war of defense after 9/11 with the aim of destroying the organization which attacked the United States, denying them safe havens, and toppling the Taliban "state" which gave them a safe haven and tried to protect them after the attacks. It has been subsequently argued for in terms of liberal interventionism (human rights, democracy, women's rights and so on), as it should in my opinion, but Afghanistan was and is, primarily a war of defense and a war of national interest for America and the West in general.

Iraq is a similar story. Plenty of liberal interventionist themes have inevitably come up, but Iraq was primarily sold as a war of necessity by the Bush administration (think of the reasoning what you will). It was not primarily sold on helping protect the Kurds or Iraqi civilians, it was primarily sold on the issue of WMD and Saddam's links to Al Qaeda. Think of the war and how it was sold however you want, Iraq was not primarily a "liberal intervention" to protect human rights.

The tactic of comparing Iraq to every single act of military intervention by the West around the world is an old tactic by now, and it is a very good sign that such demagoguery is not persuading huge numbers of people to adopt the narrow, feeble-minded isolationism of StWC and their so-called progressive supporters. The people of Benghazi seem to agree with me:



Sidenote: this post is not meant to denigrate all those who oppose intervention in Libya for their own reasons, some of them sensible and some of them not so sensible. This is merely meant as a riposte to the quoted StWC article, and the general arguments which the group routinely employs.

Moonbats

In somewhat lighter (though still somwhat sinister) news; from the "anti-imperialist" rag, The Morning Star, comes this twaddle:

As democratic as Mr Gaddafi

You really have to give Prime Minister David Cameron big brownie points for sheer unmitigated cheek and an arrogance that seemingly knows no limits.

His coalition is at present making tut-tutting noises at the Libyan government for being anti-democratic, unresponsive to public opinion and pressure and continuing to prosecute its own agenda regardless of the feelings of its population.

At the same time, however, his cobbled-together coalition is proceeding blithely on its own course, attempting to wreck the welfare state, sell off anything that moves and bury anything that doesn't.

But the Con-Dem coalition has about as much of a mandate to do this as Muammar Gaddafi's minions had to cut loose with guns on the Libyan protesters.

And, while that comparison may seem a little over the top, it should be remembered that Mr Cameron's offensive on the welfare state, encompassing as it does attacks on the National Health Service and the whole range of public services to people at risk, could easily cost lives and will likely result in the destruction of many people's wellbeing.

You have to feel sorry for people who are so blinded by their dogma and Western masochism that they legitimately cannot tell the difference between an elected government in a liberal parliamentary democracy and a brutally repressive military dictator who has had his jackboot on the throat of the Libyan people for 42 years now. Who are so deluded that budget cuts (whether you agree with them or not), in a time of recession, are comparable to hundreds of unarmed protesters being massacred in the streets, and orders to increase tuition fees are comparable to orders given to fighter pilots to strafe and bomb Libyans in the streets.

An article written with the arrogant certainty of a Bethnal Green-living, Shoreditch-partying, Che T-Shirt-wearing, unemployed, dole-claiming, student-dropout, SWP-card-carrying, George Galloway worshipping twat, who got shoved by a "pig" at the student protests and who now thinks that "the mask has come off" and this British "fascist police state" has now "revealed itself."

The Threat from Dissident Irish Republican Terrorist Groups

From the front page of todays Times, comes this story, which I thought would be worth reproducing, and writing a little about, not least because stories from the Times so often get lost on the blogosphere because of their stupid paywall:

Dissident Irish terror cell at large in Britain

An Irish republican terror cell is operating in England for the first time in a decade, creating a growing security problem in the weeks before the royal wedding, The Times has learnt.

Counter-terrorism teams in southern England have been diverted from tracking Islamist cells to examining a potential threat. And Cobra, the Government’s national emergency committee, has increased the number of its occasional meetings in Whitehall to three a week, with some of them chaired by David Cameron.

The threat from dissident groups, the most potent of which is thought to be operating under the name Óglaigh na hÉireann (“Irish Volunteers”), has been anticipated for months by police and MI5. The security situation is, according to one source, incredibly tense, with discussions taking place at the highest levels about the terror threat “coming from two different directions”.

There are two months until the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton; President Obama arrives for a state visit in May; and the London Olympics begin in 18 months.

An attack is not believed to be imminent, however, and the dissident unit is not considered to be as immediately dangerous as a number of home-grown Islamist terror cells with links to al-Qaeda. Some of these groups are known to be plotting a terror attack in the style of the Mumbai assault of 2008, when more than 170 people were killed in a series of co-ordinated shootings and bombings.

Last week police and soldiers took part in an exercise that mocked up the possibility of simultaneous terrorist gun attacks in Birmingham and Reading. The exercise included an emergency meeting chaired by Theresa May, the Home Secretary.

The Times also understands that armed anti-terrorist units were “scrambled” on New Year’s Eve in response to fears that an attack by an Islamist group was imminent. The incident was quickly found to be a false alarm and the teams were stood down.

Until recently the dissident Irish republican threat had been confined to Northern Ireland and the security assessment was that the different factions were too small and inexperienced and lacked the capability to operate outside Northern Ireland. A Real IRA bombing campaign in 2001 was the last time republican groups exported terror across the Irish Sea.

Hugh Robertson, the Olympics Minister, said last week that dissident Irish republican groups were regarded as a real threat to security at the Games.

A counter-terrorism source said: “As the Games get closer the appetite for risk will diminish. The plan will be to disrupt and deter plots, making sure they don’t get off the ground, rather than letting them run to gather evidence and get convictions in court.”

Recent incidents in Northern Ireland have involved car bombs and anti-personnel devices which have usually been preceded with coded, though often confused, telephone warnings to the authorities. They have also, however, targeted individuals with booby traps.

The threat level for Irish terrorism in Britain was raised last September from “moderate” to “substantial”, meaning that an attack was a strong possibility. At the time Jonathan Evans, MI5 Director-General, said that the dissident groups posed a real and rising security threat.

The threat level for terrorism linked to al-Qaeda is currently at “severe”, meaning that an attack is highly likely. The Islamist danger is, however, feared to be changing in character.

One plot being investigated by British, American and other international agencies is for simultaneous armed attacks in Britain, France and Germany. British police are particularly concerned after the case of a former American Marine who allegedly smuggled handguns into Britain on transatlantic flights. Sixty weapons are believed not to have been recovered.

It comes amid a number of recent stories concerning Irish republican dissidents threatening the British mainland. The concerns over dissident republican attacks on the London Olympic Games have been increasingly in the news over the past few weeks. Here is just one story run by the Telegraph a week ago:

Hugh Robertson, the sports minister, said that “threat assessments” had identified a real danger from dissident Republican groups to the 2012 Games.

His comments are the first official confirmation that security agencies fear groups based in Northern Ireland could stage terrorist attacks on the British mainland.

Mr Robertson, a former Army officer who served in Northern Ireland, was speaking at the publication of the annual report on preparations for the Olympic Games, which will be held next summer.

Asked if Republican groups were a significant threat to the Olympics, he replied: “It's a threat to the Games.”

There are three main armed Irish republican groups which are still operational at this point: The Continuity IRA, the Real IRA and Óglaigh na hÉireann (ONH). All three reject the power-sharing agreement instituted after the Good Friday agreement of 1998, and seek to force a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland through armed struggle, resulting in the unification of the entire island of Ireland into a single policial unit.

Given the threat indicated by the Times seems to be feared to be coming from Óglaigh na hÉireann, a look at the previous actions of the group, and its capabilities, is very worthwhile.

Óglaigh na hÉireann

Óglaigh na hÉireann was formed in a gradual process after the split in the Real IRA in 2002, over the issue of the "ignominious" ceasefire with the British. From 2009, one of the splinters began publicly identifying itself with the name Óglaigh na hÉireann, and it is from this point that the group really began to operate as an independent, distinct body.
Its operation include (but are far from limited to):

Splinter group blamed for threat - Óglaigh na hÉireann reported to have attempted a home robbery on January 5, 2009.

Member of Real IRA found shot dead in churchyard - Óglaigh na hÉireann thought to have shot another republican dissident in a churchyard on 14 February, 2008.

'Surge' in paramilitary shootings - ONH involved in an increasing number of punishment shootings in mainly Catholic areas of Northern Ireland, as reported by the BBC on April 9, 2009.

'Splinter group' behind road bomb - 600lb car bomb left by Óglaigh na hÉireann in a field in south Armagh on September 9, 2009.

We Planted Car Bomb: ONH - ONH admit detonating car bomb which injured the girlfriend of a police officer in east Belfast on October 17, 2009.

Army Camp Blast Could Have Killed - ONH detonate bomb near a Territorial Army base in north Belfast on October 22, 2009.

Policeman injured in Randalstown bomb critically ill - ONH detonate car bomb in County Antrim, critically injuring a police officer on January 8, 2010.

Bomb intended for the Police is discovered in Belfast - ONH abandoned a bomb on the Antrim Road in Belfast on 26 January, 2011.

The 2008 Independent Monitoring Commission reported that:

"Óglaighna hÉireann (ONH) had continued to be active. It had attacked police officers, a PSNI station and members of District Policing Partnerships; had sought to enhance its capability; and members had engaged in criminal activity including drug dealing." It also reported that in "December 2007 ONH launched a pipe bomb attack on Strabane PSNI station, the second ONH attack on this target in less than six months. The device failed to function as intended. The grouping attempted to recruit and train new members and it undertook targeting for the purposes of possible attacks – mainly of security force personnel and premises. It also attempted to obtain weapons and to raise funds. In October 2007 the PSNI discovered terrorist equipment in Strabane belonging to ONH. We now have information suggesting that in August 2007 (in the preceding six month period) ONH exiled a member for failing to observe the instructions of the leadership. Members continued to be involved in a wide range of serious criminal activity, including drug dealing, mainly, we believe, for personal profit. ONH thus remains a continuing and serious threat, including to the lives of members of the security forces."

Martyn Frampton in his recent report for The International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence, 'The Return of the Militants:
Violent Dissident Republicanism', wrote:

"Such attacks may suggest that ONH might just be emerging as a possible unifying force around which the different dissident organisations might gravitate. Though often described as small in number, it is reputed to comprise of former senior Provisionals, as well as RIRA members. Furthermore, despite its short-lived existence it has already demonstrated a capacity for successfully carrying out major attacks."

The Belfast Telegraph at the end of 2010 identified ONH as "the most serious terrorist threat in Northern Ireland over the past year":

"It is regarded by police on both sides of the border as the most dangerous of the three main dissident republican groups.

It has about 50 activists and has been attempting to boost its ranks by a recruitment campaign North and South while also stepping up its efforts to purchase arms and develop its skills in manufacturing homemade bombs."

It is clear at this point that ONH is a serious threat to the stability and security of Northern Ireland, and is gaining increasing strength. The report by the Times and the various security warnings give rise to an increasing chance that we will be seeing dissident Irish republican attacks on the British mainland over the next few years, something we have not seen since 2001.

An interview with high-ranking ONH officers in November 2010 revealed that ONH seemed to confirm this threat, and indicated that ONH is very open to the idea of operations on the British mainland:

Rowan: Is Britain – attacks there – part of your focus and thinking?

ONH: Oglaigh na hEireann will decide when and where it attacks. Sceptics will say, ‘they would say that because they don’t have the capabilities’. Eighteen months ago, they told us we couldn’t even detonate a bomb. Nothing is beyond our reach.

Book Review: The Longest War by Peter Bergen

Peter Bergen is a national security analyst for CNN who made his name by producing the first television interview with Osama Bin Laden in 1997, and who has previously authored books two books on Al Qaeda: Holy War Inc., a 2001 study of Al Qaeda, and The Osama Bin Laden I Knew a collection of personal accounts of Bin Laden by people who had been close to him at various point in their life. Now, nearly ten years into the War on Terror, Bergen has produced by far the best one volume account of the conflict between America and Al Qaeda, condensing into one book a level of detail and analysis which you would have previously had to have read 10 books to imbibe.

From the first moment you open the book it is clear that Bergen is no instant-expert on Al Qaeda, his many years following the group really does show with the sheer amount of research he brings to the table. I bought the Kindle version, and the footnotes to the book take up about 30-40% of the total size of the book. This is a book which has not been entered into lightly, it is a labour of love which has taken him many years to complete.

He starts with a very short history of September 11, 2001, and how we got to that point. To anyone who has read Holy War Inc., much of this will be very familiar. Peter Bergen is very level-headed in assessing the steps which took us to 9/11 and the motivations of those who committed the atrocities. He judges the actions of various individuals without being preachy, all too many books about Al Qaeda are badly disguised political partisan hackery. My main gripe, though it was a small one, with this section, was how he conceives of the motivations for Al Qaeda's attacks on the United States. He paraphrases Bin Laden, seemingly in agreement that "it was U.S. foreign policy in the Muslim world that was the reason al-Qaeda is attacking America". I think this is rather misleading when stated so bluntly. U.S. foreign policy, and resentment of it, of course, should be given careful attention when assessing the motivations of members of Al Qaeda. It should not, however, be taken at face value at the exclusion of other very important issues and ideas within the group. It is impossible to assess the motivations of Al Qaeda and its' members without finding a place for their radical conception of a future, pure Islamic state, governed along the strict lines of Sharia law (as they interpret it). Ignoring this central desire of Al Qaeda means that any assessment of their motivations is likely to confuse means and ends. The means Al Qaeda is employing to meet their ends are attacks on the United States. They feel that by attacking the United States they can inflame a global Muslim uprising and force a withdrawal of the United States from the region which will lead to their desired ends. Al Qaeda ends are the removal of any foreign influence in the Arab and Muslim world, the removal of the "apostate" rulers, and the creation of an Islamic caliphate which will enforce strict Sharia in the style of the Taliban and embark upon an expansionist jihadist foreign policy, expanding the influence of Islam until the world world submits to Islam and says "āʾilāhaʾillallāh, Muḥammad rasūlu-llāh" ("There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet"). This is their totalitarian desire, and I would wager that this desire would inflame a small number of young, discontented Muslims, whether the US was supporting Israel and or not. Revanchism and a pining for the mythical glory days of past Islamic empires has deep roots, and while the Arab and Muslim world is in such a malaise, it will occur regardless of American foreign policy. I would argue that even if the United States was not following the foreign policies that Bin Laden decries, even if it was an entirely benevolent power, it would still have been attacked due to its power and influence in the region. Bin Laden realizes that the United States is the foremost enemy of his conception of a pure, united Islamic Caliphate. He recognizes that if this utopian goal is to be realized, then American influence in the region must be removed, and without that vital precondition, his efforts will be in vain.

That is not to say that the United States' foreign policy has no effect on this totalitarian movement at all. Clearly, many Muslims have been been inflamed by American actions in Iraq, support for Israel, support for brutal tyrants like the now-toppled Mubarak, and so on, and removing those grievances would go a long way to losing support and recruits for the jihadists, but we should not focus on American foreign policy to the exclusion of all else. Unfortunately, I feel Bergen gets the balance wrong in his book, and should have concentrated far more on the totalitarian religious utopianism in Al Qaeda's thinking, but it is only a minor gripe in such an excellent book.

From 9/11 we move quickly to the response by the Bush administration and the battle for Afghanistan. One of the best aspects of Bergen's book is his documentation of Al Qaeda's strategic thinking when fighting the war and the developments that it took. He shows the fracture within the jihadist community and Al Qaeda itself over the 9/11 operation. Bin Laden, informed by the ineffectual cruise missile strikes of the Clinton era, as well as the Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia withdrawals, felt that America was a paper tiger, which, if only hit hard enough, would be forced to withdraw from the region. At best, he felt that America would launch another ineffective attack on Afghanistan which he could survive, while bleeding the Americans until they withdrew. He was told by other members of the jihadist community that he was underestimating America, and that attacks like 9/11 would bring disaster on Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and everything they had built. Bin Laden was wrong it turned out, and the dissenters were right. Some analysts of Al Qaeda have developed the idea that what Bush did in Afghanistan is exactly what Bin Laden wanted him to do. Bergen destroys this thesis. Al Qaeda was absolutely smashed by the response to 9/11, in a way they did not plan for, did not foresee and most certainly did not want. They lost many of their members, now either in body bags or in orange jump-suits, lost their safe haven in Afghanistan, and lost in the Taliban what remains the only Sunni Muslim state run along the lines prescribed by Al Qaeda. Only a fool could describe such a disaster as a victory for Al Qaeda. Bergen, using an immense weight of evidence has put such claims to rest.

From here we move on to the by, now familiar territory of the Bush administrations failures. Tora Bora, Guantanamo, the PATRIOT Act, extraordinary renditions, "enhanced interrogations", the "with us or against us" Manichean mentality of the Bushies, the failure to reconstruct and secure Afghanistan and so on. All of it many will have read before, but Bergen does it with such flair, and such depth of research, that it's an absolute pleasure to walk through this familiar landscape again.

Bergen's assessment of Iraq I found to be rather flat in many ways. Bergen was against the invasion, felt it would be a diversion from the fight with Al Qaeda, and would be a huge victory for Al Qaeda, reviving them when they were on the point of defeat. I agree with his assessment to an extent, but I felt that he conformed to the anti-Iraq line a little too much, and without question. He doesn't raise any of the difficult questions surrounding the intentions of Saddam Hussein with regards to WMD, or the possibility of the failure of containment, or the moral costs of leaving Saddam in power, or the possibility that Iraq could have fallen apart without an invasion anyway. I don't have a problem with his opposition to the war, I have very mixed feelings on the decision to invade myself, but I think he skirts round some very difficult questions in this section, without giving them a proper go. Redeeming himself excellently, however, his sections on the surge are absolutely excellent, and the part of the book I enjoyed reading the most. He does not allow his opposition to the invasion to cloud his thinking on how the war should best be ended, quoting approvingly the words of Lieutenant Colonel David Kilcullen: "Just because you invade a country stupidly doesn't mean you have to leave it stupidly." Anti-war protesters - take note of these fine words.

The last sections of his book were dedicated to the continuing war with Al Qaeda, the possibility of its termination and the war in Afghanistan. Bergen has been an passionate advocate of the NATO/ISAF effort in Afghanistan and the need to combat Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and in the tribal frontiers of the Pakistani mountains. I always sense a genuine streak of humanitarianism and concern for the Afghan people when Bergen talks or writes about the war in Afghanistan and the fight against terrorism and the Taliban there. He poignantly identifies the main problem with the arguments of opponents of the Obama counter-insurgency plans: we have tried the alternatives before, and they were disastrous. We have tried before the anti-war stance of simply "leaving Afghanistan alone". We did it in the 1990s after the Soviet withdrawal - it led to a disastrous civil war, the rise of the Taliban and an unspeakable humanitarian crisis for the people of Afghanistan. We have also tried the "counter-terrorism plus" strategy advocated by so-called realists like Stephen Walt, and Vice President Joe Biden. We tried that after the invasion of late 2001, and this light-footprint strategy also ended in disaster, with a reinvigorated Taliban insurgency. Obama's proposal of a troops surge and a long-term investment in the country may be messy, costly and time-consuming, but it is the only real chance we have, as Bergen makes clear, of reconstructing Afghanistan and making sure it does not again become a source of regional chaos and a safe haven for the worst kinds of terorrists.

Despite some relatively minor criticisms of certain parts of his book, Bergen has written an astounding book, which will be read for years to come. I cannot imagine a better book being written on this period for the foreseeable future, and when the histories are written in decades to come, Bergen's book is undoubtedly going to be a very important reference point.

Terrorism: Then and Now

Reading some primary sources from the Russian Civil War today led me to this little gem of a quote. It is a telegram appeal from Litvinov, representative of the Bolshevik government, to President Wilson discussing the Allied intervention in the Russian civil war, dated December 24, 1918:

I wish to emphasize that the so-called 'Red Terror' - which is grossly exaggerated and misrepresented abroad - was not the cause but the direct result and outcome of Allied intervention.

Hmmm, now where have we heard excuses for terrorism of this nature before? It seems the hard-left's apologies for totalitarian terrorism haven't changed much in the past 100 years or so. Reading the hard-left press in Britain at the time reveals that many of the trade unionists and Communist activists bought into this argument as well. There was even an early 20th Century equivalent of Stop the War Coalition, who made it their goal in life to explain away, lie about and apologize for every imaginable Bolshevik atrocity and try and sabotage any possible opposition to them by the British state.

It is a world view in which the only conscious actor is "imperialism". Since "imperialism" is the dominant power in the world, then anything negative that happens around the world must be caused by it, and any forms of terror are only caused by and reactions to imperialist interventions. If only the imperialist powers would leave everyone else alone, then all would be right in the world. In this view there are no other, independent forms of coercion, authoritarianism or totalitarianism. Everything bad which the Bolsheviks (or modern day terrorists) did is explicable as a reaction to intervention.

The fact that the Bolsheviks had closed down newspapers, imprisoned thousands (many of them socialists), closed down the Constituent Assembly because they fared badly in the elections to it, launched a civil war against not just the reactionaries and the bourgeoisie, but the democratic left as well, long before Allied intervention was really a problem for the Bolshevik government, just doesn't enter into this line of thinking.

There are no totalitarianism (Bolshevik or jihadist). Just imperialism and those who fight it. If they happen to brutally slaughter a few million people along the way, then so be it. They can always just blame it on the imperialists anyway.

Afghanistan: Resolute Humanitarianism or Pick Up Sticks and Run?

Two articles on Afghanistan really caught my eye this week. They are both very good examples of two different schools of thought on not only Afghanistan, but also humanitarian intervention and the reconstruction of shattered societies. I think it's worthwhile putting them side-by-side and seeing how they compare. The first article is entitled Afghanistan is being stifled by military operations by Mark Curtis writing for the Guardian, and the second is entitled News Flash: The Taliban Violate Human Rights by Christopher Hitchens writing for Slate.

Curtis writes:

Five years after Britain deployed forces to Helmand province in Afghanistan it is becoming clear that British and US policies in the country are not helping but setting back development prospects.

Although more children now go to school and health services have improved, it is remarkable how little Afghanistan has progressed, given that it is the world's most aid-dependent country, with 90% of its budget financed by donors. One in five children die before the age of five and one in eight women die from causes related to pregnancy and childbirth.

There are few signs that donor support is improving. Hundreds of millions of dollars are wasted while up to 80% of donations return to donor countries in corporate profits or consultants' salaries.

Aid itself has become militarised. Nato's use of the military to deliver much of the aid – essentially as part of its counterinsurgency strategy – turns aid personal and projects into targets for the insurgents. It doesn't help that CIA agents also use aid teams as cover to gather intelligence. Unicef has reported that military operations are making more than 40% of the country inaccessible to humanitarian workers for extended periods. Thus military operations, far from paving the way for development, are undermining it.

The UN security council says that 25 times as many Afghans die every year from poor nutrition and poverty as from the war; yet Britain has spent 10 times more on military operations than on development (for the US, it is 20 times as much). Afghanistan has become the most militarised country on earth, where the government spends nearly half its entire budget on "security". Britain exported to a country already awash with arms £34m worth of military equipment, including more than 18,000 assault rifles, between 2008 and 2010.

Using aid money, from 2004 to 2009 the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development spent £69m on the "shadow army" of private military companies providing "security" and "combat support" to regular forces. These companies have considerable immunity from criminal prosecution but the British government has refused to ban or even regulate them.

Nato has also spent hundreds of millions of dollars recruiting and arming more than 1,000 illegal "armed support groups" to provide security at bases and escort convoys – militias often run by former military commanders responsible for human rights abuses or involved in the drugs trade. Alongside them are thousands of CIA-backed paramilitaries, working closely with US special forces, some of whom are accused of being little more than death squads.

A reduction in the number of civilian deaths would be the one sign of progress, yet the number has increased every year since 2006, and a third of the nearly 10,000 total are attributable to Nato or Afghan government forces. A confidential US military report in 2009 conceded that Nato was causing "unnecessary collateral damage"; but policies causing civilian deaths continue, notably the use of drones for surveillance and "targeted" killings – though they mainly kill civilians.

It is not just the Taliban but also western forces who are holding back the prospects for the next generation of Afghans. Yet our leaders keep troops there. As the defence secretary, Liam Fox, said recently, this is because a withdrawal of troops would "damage the credibility of Nato". Similarly, the chief of the general staff, General David Richards, told Chatham House in 2009 that a key issue was the "grand strategic impact on the UK's authority and reputation in the world of the defeat of the British armed forces and its impact on public sentiment in the UK". The British exit is being delayed by British imperial hubris.

Helping Afghanistan develop means not only facing up to a withdrawal of troops. There is also an even more immediate need to stop the drone attacks, end the backing of militias, regulate private armies, close the secret torture network and stop selling arms.

He perfectly exemplifies what Hitchens is rightly criticizing in his Slate article.

Hitchen's conclusion is especially apt and worth reproducing here (though it seems the realization on the part of aid agencies is far from universal, as shown by Curtis):

I can only too well remember attending some press conferences in Pakistan in the winter of 2001 and seeing the unbearably smug expressions on the faces of various human rights and "relief" spokesmen who were concerned lest the military operation against the Taliban should disrupt their relatively modest efforts. They failed or refused to see that the removal of the Taliban was a necessary precondition of any serious relief and reconstruction. It's heartening to learn that, almost a decade later, they are at least open to the awareness that the Taliban is the worst offender. The next stage—may it come soon—will be the realization that the Taliban does not "violate" human rights, but entirely lacks the concept of their existence.

It's worth adding to Hitchens article by recounting some extremely important, but all too often neglected facts about the Taliban, their time in power, and their actions after their removal from power.

- Banned women riding on motorcycles.
- Banned women from riding in taxis without a mahram (a relative who acts as a chaperone)
- Banned women from working and expelled all female civil servants without offering an alternative livelihood, making many previously employed women destitute and homeless.
- Banned women and girls from education, something they are still attempting to enforce, despite the protestations by their apologists.
- Expelled the United Nations from Afghanistan during their time in power.
- Banned NGOs from operating in Afghanistan, and are still doing it in areas of Pakistan where they have control (they also banned polio vaccinations for children).
- They are still murdering aid workers for being Christian.

The British forces leaving Helmand province to the Taliban, a group that acts in such a way, is supposed to make the lives of Afghans better and allow for increased humanitarian aid to flow to the area? What world does Curtis live in?

The NATO/ISAF presence has been far from ideal, could have been, and still can be, run in a way which helps the Afghan people much more than it is now. The excuse that war is a messy business has a basis in reality, but it should not be used to excuse failings of policy, of which there have been many, especially under the Bush administration which criminally neglected the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan and allowed a movement which had been broken in late-2001 to regroup and restablish itself as a brutally violent insurgency which has increased in strength for years and managed to destablize almost the entirety of the south and east of the country, as well as, increasingly, the north.

Recognizing the many failings of NATO/ISAF policy in the region though, should not blind us to the nature of the Taliban and the threat of humanitarian disaster which they still pose to the Afghan people. NATO/ISAF is not perfect. But it counter-insurgency campaign to combat the Taliban and their allies, and the effort to construct a more stable and secure Afghan state which can protect itself, offers the only chance for the reconstruction of Afghanistan and a brighter future for the Afghan people. The Taliban offers no hope to the Afghan people. It offers only poverty, misery and the rough justice of the village Sharia court, enforced through the sword.

Ahmed Rashid in his classic book Taliban, used Tacitus' famous quote about the Roman Empire to describe the peace that the Taliban brought Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001:

They create a desolation and call it peace.

It seems that history needs to be relearned by many of those who would abandon the Afghan people to this desolation called peace because this desolation seems easier to them than the difficulties associated with doing the right thing, condemning the Taliban to the ash heap of history, and establishing a real kind of peace. A peace not of desolation, but a peace of reconstruction, free of terrorism, both of the international kind exemplified by Al Qaeda, and the more national terrorism of the Taliban.

Libya protests: 'foreign mercenaries using heavy weapons against at demonstrators'

According to the Telegraph and a number of other sources, Gaddafi has been shipping in mercenary fighters from across northern Africa to massacre the protesters taking to the streets in an effort to end his 42 year rule.

"Tanks and helicopter gunships full of foreign mercenaries are fighting gangs of demonstrators. At least one dead man had been hit by an anti-aircraft missile, while other bodies are riddled with heavy machine gun fire."
......

Omar added: "Tanks are being used in Benghazi, but there are already soldiers joining the demonstrators. They are on the side of the people." While low-paid Libyan army recruits are always likely to desert, the dictator's third son, Saadi Gaddafi, was said to be coordinating African mercenaries to act as shock troops against the protesters.

A Libyan journalist who is currently banned from writing about the trouble because of a news black-out imposed by Gaddafi said: "Some of these mercenary shock troops have been killed or captured, and some of them are said to on the equivalent of around 500 dollars a day.

"These killers are coming from countries like Chad. They're vicious killers. People are so terrified of them that they've been doing everything possible to get away."

There have been a number of videos leaked from Libya which seem to prove this assertion:

Mercenaries Deployed in Benghazi Libya today 18.02.11



Benghazi Mercenary found dead February 19th, 2011



African Mercenary killed in Libya

Cut off from any modicum of civilized conduct, Gaddafi's regime murder hundreds

The people of Libya today must be praying for the relative moderation and passivity of the Mubarak and Ben-Ali regimes.

Human Rights Watch on Friday recordered an estimated 84 deaths inflicted by the Libyan security services.

The Associated Press, today have come out with claims of much higher death tolls, possibly reaching 300:

CAIRO (AP) — A doctor in the Libyan city of Benghazi says his hospital has seen the bodies of at least 200 protesters killed by Moammar Gadhafi's forces over the last few days. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he fears reprisal.

Witnesses told The Associated Press a mixture of special commandos, foreign mercenaries and Gadhafi loyalists went after demonstrators on Saturday with knives, assault rifles and heavy-caliber weapons. That followed days of protests in Benghazi, a focal point of the uprising aimed at toppling Gadhafi after more than 40 years of rule.

CAIRO (AP) — Libyan protesters defied a fierce crackdown by Moammar Gadhafi's regime, returning Sunday to a square outside a court building in the flashpoint city of Benghazi to demand the overthrow of longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi.

Witnesses told The Associated Press hundreds of demonstrators gathered early Sunday morning at the court building after a day of bloodshed, during which Libyan forces opened fire on mourners leaving a funeral for protesters.

In the hours after that attack, a medical official said at least 15 people were killed.

But Mohammed Abdullah, a Dubai-based member of the Libyan Salvation Front, said Sunday that the toll could be much higher. He quoted hospital officials in Benghazi saying the death toll might have reached 300. Witness accounts said a mixture of special commandos, foreign mercenaries and Gadhafi loyalists armed with knives, Kalashnikovs and even anti-aircraft missiles went after the demonstrators.

AP in a later report from today repeat the death toll as being over 200, and recount stories of unarmed, un-threatening Libyans, peacefully marching being opened up on with live fire and even machine guns:

Libyan security forces opened fire on mourners at a funeral for anti-government protesters in the eastern city of Benghazi again Sunday, a day after commandos and foreign mercenaries loyal to longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi pummeled demonstrators with assault rifles and other heavy weaponry as well as knives. A doctor at one city hospital said he counted 200 dead in his morgue alone since unrest began six days ago.

The latest violence in the flashpoint city of Benghazi followed the same pattern as the crackdown on Saturday, when witnesses said forces loyal to Gadhafi attacked mourners at a funeral for anti-government protesters. The doctor at a Benghazi hospital said at least one person was killed by gunshots during the funeral march, and 14 were injured, including five in serious condition. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

A man shot in the leg Sunday said marchers were carrying coffins to a cemetery when they passed a military compound in Libya's second-largest city. The man said security forces fired in the air and then opened up on the crowd.

There is something of a media blackout in Libya at the moment. The internet has been shut down in this country which has always been one of the most heavily censored regimes in the Arab world. We will almost certainly not be seeing from Libya the amazing footage broadcast live by Al Jazeera in Cairo from weeks past. A number of videos from the protestors are making it out of Libya and onto the internet though. They are a testament to the sheer brutality of the Gaddafi regime and the tactics of his hired thugs and mercenaries.

Al Jazeera: Violent clashes hit Libyan city of Baida:

Protester shot by Libyan security services (very graphic):

Al Bayda (2/18) - Protester shot in the head by Khamis Al-Gaddafi's battalion (extremely graphic):

The levels of violence in Egypt didn't catastrophically spiral out of control for a number of reasons:

- The restraint of the army.
- US involvment in the country and aid to the regime meant that Mubarak could not brutually crush the protestors the way Gaddafi is trying to, for fear of alienating his strong ally.
- The openness of Egypt and its meda (relative to Libya of course), which Mubarak could never shut down, although he tried many times by unleashing his plain-clothes thugs. In a country much less isolated than Libya, like Egypt, it is impossible to simply mow down protestors in large numbers with live fire because the regime is much more susceptible to international opprobrium and sanction.
- The focus of the world's attention having always been much more on Egypt than Libya. Libya has never had the stature, presence and importance that Egypt does on the world stage, therefore it can get away with a lot more with the world not paying full attention.

It was for these reasons that Egypt could topple the regime without a huge amount of blooshed. Mubarak, I think, realized, that if he employed a huge amount of force against the protesters, it would sound his death knell, as his vital allies would be forced to desert him and could pressure him much more. Gaddafi's Libya has always been much more isolated, cut-off and autarkic than Egypt, therefore being internationally ostracized and pressured is nothing new for it, and it can cope very well with it, whereas Egypt has not experienced that and would have been much less prepared to cope with it. It is for these reasons that I fear the Libyan protesters could be in for a much, much rougher time of it than the Egyptians had (without wishing to denigrate the struggle of the Egyptian people, and those who died).

The Guardian is reporting that the pro-government paper, Al-Zahf al-Akhdar:

warned that the government would "violently and thunderously respond" to the protests, and said those opposing the regime risked "suicide".

I fear that this is a promise the regime is more than determined to keep.