Category Archives: Foreign Policy

Clinton Cops To 'Collateral Damage'

Bush, Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, Neoconservatism, Propaganda, The Military

Under Bush and his backers (who have NO claim to the tea-party movement), it was verboten to mention that nation-building or democracy-spreading—whatever the term du jour to describe America’s assorted missions and monster slaying—costs the people upon whom these “blessings” are visited.

Bush backers in the media became indignant—still do—whenever it was suggested that America’s bravest inadvertently, and unintentionally, killed scores of innocent civilians.

Today, after one of those expeditions that resulted in “collateral damage,” US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that “Washington ‘deeply, deeply’ regrets the death of Afghan civilians killed by an air strike.”

But what are you going to do about it, Madam? Why not terminate the “mission” to Afghanistan?

That “mission” I summed-up in “A War He Can Call His Own“:

Nations building is Democrat for spreading democracy. Spreading democracy is Republican for nation building. These interchangeable concepts stand for an open-ended military presence with all the pitfalls that attach to Iraq.

Americans are currently training the Afghan army. As in Iraq, it’ll take years if not decades before the training wheels can be removed. The men of the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions have made magnificent progress in pushing the Taliban back. But the gains are short-lived. The Taliban invariably regroup. Their stake in that country is simply greater than ours. Always will be. Then there are the costs and the casualties. When Special Forces target the Taliban, they frequently infringe on tribal territory instead. Civilians die. Tribal elders are enraged, and rightly so.

Nation building in that country also entails policing a corruption-riddled police force. Afghani officers of the law are “uniformed thieves.” They run the opium trade by which the impoverished Afghani farmers survive. Somewhere on the food chain sit the drug traffickers. We mediate between them and other crime bosses, or war lords, as they are known. When we supply impoverished farmers with basic supplies, the Taliban first fleece these long-suffering folks and then punish them for collaborating with the Americans. By swooping down to save the locals from the Taliban we cripple them with kindness and deepen their dependency.

Another of the contradictions of occupation: The Pashtun population we patronize happens to disdain the central government we hope to strengthen. So it goes: We help local groups we believe to be patriots but, at the same time, end up establishing an authoritarian protectorate. Pakistan anyone?

Updated: Israelis To Sue NATO For 1999 Air Strikes On Serbia

Europe, Foreign Policy, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Justice, Political Philosophy, War

What a great move, from the only people to have stood by my homeland, South Africa. The tactic taken by the Israelis is aggressive. It accomplishes two things: It makes it a little harder for the hypocrites who monopolize the discourse on justice to get away with murder. It achieves a measure of justice by calling a crime a crime. An added bonus it that an Israeli outfit here is actually bucking American foreign policy.

I can almost sense the bitterness in this BBC News report (sent by john peter maher):

“The Israeli Almagor Terrorist Victims’ Association is about to file a lawsuit against NATO officials who gave the green light for the bombing of Serbia in 1999.

The association elected to take the move in response to the decision by Judge Fernando Andreu of the Spanish Audencia Nacional (National Court) to launch an investigation into Israel’s bombing of Gaza in 2002, when one Hamas leader was killed and 14 people were wounded.

In the suit, Almagor cites the names of a number of high-profile Spaniards, including EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana, who was NATO secretary general from 1995 to 1999, as well as the names of certain officials from other European countries and the United States.

Almagor Director Meir Indor told the media in Israel that the lawsuit would be completed shortly.

He confirmed that the Serbian case might open a Pandora’s Box, which could make certain individuals think twice before deciding to accept any lawsuits that the Palestinians filed against Israel.

‘We see this as a case highlighting the double standards of Europeans who are accusing Israel of war crimes, while at the same time, those very same countries, as part of NATO, committed crimes that were a lot worse,’ Indor said.

He stressed that every European NATO member-state would be mentioned and that the suit would be filed in every country that decided to file similar actions against Israel for war crimes recently committed either in the aforesaid case, or, more recently, during the Israeli offensive in Gaza at the turn of the year.

‘Even now Israeli Army generals cannot travel to the UK for fear of being arrested the moment they set foot in the airport,’ said the Almagor president.

The organization’s delegate in Serbia was, he said, a certain Mr. D., an Israeli businessman who was caught in the crossfire when the air strikes began, and who works in Serbia to this day.

Serbian citizens have welcomed the news that Almagor has launched their case, says Mr. D.

Almagor purports to being a humanitarian organization that represents the victims of global terror, not only in Israel, and is endeavoring to obtain authorization from Serbian victims of the bombing to present their case.”

Update: In response to the comment: Sure, this is a self-serving action on the part of the Israelis. Altruism is overrated–and, at times, wrong-headed. You serve others best by serving yourself first and foremost. Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand and all that stuff. Good stuff.

This is why I love this feisty move.

Update II: Brownie Points For Barack

Barack Obama, Bush, Europe, Foreign Policy, Free Markets, Islam, Military, Neoconservatism, War

Yes, I award them when warranted.

• Obama has lifted the “Pentagon’s 18-year ban on media covering the return of fallen U.S. service members” to the Dover air force base in Delaware.
Excellent, honest move. I applaud Obama for taking it. In this way, Americans can see what death in the service of America’s recreational wars looks like.
As a child in Israel, I remember funerals for the fallen being state affairs. The entire nation would honor the fallen soldiers and be made to confront the agony of death. No wonder Israeli Jews have no stomach for wars.

• Recalibrating the relationship with Russia: another very good move, although, given how Bush-like Barack is—in other words, neocon-compatible—it’s hard to envision him taking a fundamentally different stand on Chechnya or Georgia, for example. Still, restarting the relationship with Russia is in itself a start.

• All in all, making nice with “Old Europe”—which is how the stupid, reckless Bush administration dismissed Europe (including its correct objection to the Iraqi invasion)—is a good thing. Sure, neoconservative war harpies get hot for over heated rhetoric against any and all. They’ll have to get their kicks playing video war games. As will they have to get through their thick skulls that this country is no longer a super power. It’s neither sexy nor smart to smite the world when you’re … broke and bankrupt.

No matter how Republicans spin it, Obama’s overtures to Islam and the Muslim world do not present any change from Imam Bush’s religion-of-peace preaching.

• It’s premature to rejoice over the cuts to some military spending announced by Defense Secretary Robert Gates today. Touted as a balancing of “want and need,” and intended to gear “Pentagon buying plans to smaller, lower-tech battlefields the military is facing now, and expects in coming years”—Gates’ proposed $534 billion budget for the coming year is up from $513 billion for 2009.

This is really nothing but a reshuffle.

Update I (April 7): Obama gets credit on Cuba too. This from MyWay News:

President Barack Obama will soon move to ease travel and financial restrictions on Cuba as his administration conducts a broad review of its policy toward the communist nation, a senior American official said Monday.

“We can expect some relaxation, some changes in terms of the restrictions on family remittances and family travel,” said Jeffrey Davidow, the White House adviser for the upcoming Summit of the Americas, which Obama will attend.

Davidow said Monday that the changes – which officials say would allow unlimited visits to Cuba by American families and remove caps on money transfers – are intended not only as a moral step for the estimated 1.5 million Americans who have relatives in Cuba, but also to foster change there.

Good going. Trade—not democracy or sanctions—is also the best antidote to war. The more economically intertwined countries are, the less likely they are to quarrel. Boycott Cuba less and barter with it more and it’s bound to tone down its belligerence and transform for the better.

Update II (April 8): Neocon Newt Gingrich is going gaga, but here again Obama’s “refusal to take military action against nations like North Korea and Iran” is the right thing to do.

Newt the nut told Fox News’s Gretta von Susteren that Obama needed to learn from his trip. And what is it that Newt believes the lessons ought to be? Obama must follow the neocons’ policy prescriptions and consider nations that do not do what we want them to do as hostile. From the fact that Europe didn’t indulge Obama, he needs to learn what Newt and the neocons preach: there is no basis for diplomacy, unless the world bows to America.

Only America has national interests; other nations have a problem aligning theirs with America’s.

Don’t Be A Turkey, Obama

Barack Obama, EU, Europe, Foreign Policy, Islam, The West

The Europeans have qualms about admitting a Muslim country into a European Union. Obama, like Bush before him, wants to admit the entire world into the US–and expects Europeans to, similarly, advance an all-inclusive EU.

“Mr Sarkozy, a long-standing opponent of full membership for Turkey, rebuffed the US leader in language that seemed to sour the revival of Franco-US relations. …the French President warned his US counterpart yesterday to keep his nose out of the issue of Turkey’s membership of the European Union.”

More details from the Times:

“Mr Sarkozy said in an interview on French television. ‘I have always been opposed to this entry and I remain opposed,’ he added.”

“His comments laid bare the continuing EU split over Turkish membership, with France and Austria openly opposed and deep reservations in Germany and the Netherlands. Turkey would become the most populous EU country and Germany in particular is said to have concerns about the shift in power that this would cause, with the largest number of MEPs coming from Turkey, along with strong voting rights in European Council decisions.”

Imagine that? As awful as the EU is, even it, occasionally, acts in the national interest, while the US never does, concerning itself with political correctness and eternal posturing about a fictitious fraternity of mankind.