Drone bombing insurgents, much less civilians, will not win the ‘war on terror’ in Afghanistan, which has now spread to Pakistan, enabling the possibility of a nuclear-resourced Taliban. Former Pakistani SIS head, Lt-Gen Hameed Gul has been himself allegedly blacklisted as a terrorist by the UN for advocating dialogue with moderate elements of the Taliban and for stating the obvious. Gul was and is no angel. He masterminded US support for the Mujaheddin, who later became the Taliban, at a time when the US were primarily concerned with pissing off the Russians – but he is right to state that Afghans see any occupying force as a prime enemy, and thus that the US and Britain are as bad as the Russians in their eyes. Warlords expediently unite to repulse foreign occupiers. Invaders cannot and will not win a conventional war against guerillas in hostile terrain, fought against a backdrop of justifiable civilian outrage at ‘collateral damage,’ without huge attrition. Afghanistan could prove as costly to the US and its allies as it was to the end-of-empire Soviets. The only ‘winners’ are those who stand to gain from fanning the flames of Islamophobia and keeping the US committed to a bellicose policy.

Mission Accomplished. Democracy has triumphed. Mahdi Army rules OK.

Even if we acknowledge that US Middle East policy is modelled on the Keystone Cops, it is extraordinary that absolutely no lessons have been learned from history, or benchmarks taken from the Iraq farrago, where not only has the ‘surge’ failed to establish peace or a democratic mandate – civilian casualties have largely returned to pre-surge levels – but the entire 8 year multi trillion dollar misadventure has left the country infinitely worse off whilst empowering clan-led militias. Some, such as the Mahdi Army, are bent on establishing a version of Shiite fundamentalism and general extortion along the way. Others are simply motivated by the opportunities of corruption on a grand scale in a failed state. Al Qaida, the Taleban and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalyse have never been in ruder health.

Afghanistan, arguably the epicentre of the original problem, has fallen off a cliff. Puppet President, Pashtun warlord Hameed Karzai, whose credentials stem largely from his Mujaheddin past and US links stemming from the anti-Soviet insurgency period, has a brother Ahmed Wali Karzai who allegedly controls the largest syndicate in a country which supplies 93% of the world’s heroin-grade opium – infinitely more damaging to the West than the export of Islamic fundamentalism. On his chaotic watch a violent variant of rule of law is enforced in Taleban-controlled districts and US bombs are directed at his enemies while corruption is endemic. According to the New York Times: “kept afloat by billions of dollars in American and other foreign aid, the government of Afghanistan is shot through with corruption and graft. From the lowliest traffic policeman to the family of President Hamid Karzai himself, the state built on the ruins of the Taliban government seven years ago now often seems to exist for little more than the enrichment of those who run it.” (Bribes Corrode Afghans’ Trust in Government, New York Times, 1/01/08).

Ashraf Ghani. All he is saying, is give peace a chance. And stop stealing from the people. And give the stage over to civil society, not war and criminality.

I’m no expert on Afghanistan, but I know a failing state, and I know a man who knows a lot about both. I have a high personal regard for Ashraf Ghani, Finance Minister of Afghanistan from 2001-4, founder of The Institute for State Effectiveness and co-author, with Clare Lockhart, of ‘Fixing Failed States. Dr Ghani, a previous candidate for the role of UN Secretary General is also a member of the UNDP Commission of the Legal Empowerment of the Poor. As Finance Minister he was widely credited with restoring the country’s pillaged treasury to some form of accountability before he fell out with Karzai. Though highly connected, he is anything but a warlord, which admittedly has a downside of reducing his chances of success unless he has strong international support (not based on military threats). He has also urged a pragmatic dialogue with moderate elements of the Taliban, and has been fiercely critical of the vast waste of aid money on consultants and NGOs, which has not endeared him to the Powers that Be. But he has everything to play for. Last November, before Dr Ghani entered the fray, a poll gave Karzai a 25% popularity rating. ‘Nobody’ with 22%, came second.

Transparency International rank the Karzai administration as the fifth most corrupt government in the world. Last year only 40 billion Afghanis (approximately USD 800 million), were reported as revenues. In March this year the Finance Ministy estimated that 2/3rd of the government’s annual revenues, amounting to USD 1.6 billion, were ‘lost’ to waste and corruption, indicating potential annual revenues of USD 2.4 billion USD. According to Ghani’s campaign team: “the Karzai government has repeatedly expressed its inability to increase the salaries of civil servants, teachers or address the needs of the disabled, widows, and other vulnerable segments of our society. Lack of financial resources and dependence on donors who are unwilling to support these expenditures has been used as an excuse.” Ghani’s economic platform is based upon the simple expedient of establishing fiscal propriety and using the $US 1.6 billion additional revenues currently lost through corruption and waste to provide salaries and services to the most vulnerable groups of Afghani society. The extremist Taliban elements, meanwhile, draw power from the fact that there is seemingly no alternative between fanatic relgious law upheld by voilence or corruption and criminality, again upheld by violence. Ghani represents a thinking middle path.

According to Dr Ghani: “Citizen awareness of the cost of corruption and mobilization against it has been critical to promoting good governance from the early 20th century United States to Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa. We must address corruption as citizens. When citizens can count the cost of corruption on their wellbeing, and the loss of opportunities for their children and grandchildren, then they can transform their individual frustrations into a collective force for change.”

Bombing wedding parties in the name of the war on terror, propping up drug lords and radicalising a ferociously independent population by settling an army of occupation among them has proved a recipe for failure and misery for the past 35 years or more, not to mention several centuries. Afghanistan could become Obama’s Vietnam, if it isn’t already. Powerful people in the US and elsewhere would be delighted for that to happen, the same people, dare I say it, who convinced Bush to focus his misguided efforts on Iraq. While it is highly unlikely that the Afghan elections in August will be fair or democratic, Ashraf Ghani represents a better than outside chance of establishing a civil society and saving the US and Britain from another humiliating misadventure in the neo-colonial Great Game, which we shouldn’t be playing in the first place, to the detriment of world peace and the enrichment of arms dealers, drug dealers and fundamentalists of all stripes. He deserves a fair go. So does Afghanistan.

John J Kelly

The suffering population of another country on another continent was bombed into the stone age in pursuit of its oil, under the pretext of freeing its people and establishing democracy. Torture and illegal detention became the norm, as a ‘war on terror’ was pursued to the detriment of the lives and liberties of large parts of the planet, justified by a systematic disregard of international law. Breathtaking abuses of trust, enacted in the name of liberalisation, destabilised and pillaged the global financial system. Armed and supported by that great nation its Middle East client state annexed territories, built concentration camps, killed thousands of civilians, invaded a neighbouring sovereign state causing billions of dollars of damage and ensured the election of a fellow neocon hawk by murdering over 2300 men, women and children, fanning the flames of despair, hatred and fundamentalist terror. Eight years later, with thousands of its own soldiers dead and wounded, fighting another unwinnable war of aggression with a busted economy and its international reputation in tatters, it was time for another election. This time the good guy won. Or did he?

I’m not talking about Iran.

John J Kelly

“Let me say this as clearly as I can. The United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. . . America’s relationship with the Muslim world world cannot and will not be based on opposition to Al Qaeda.” Barack Obama, Ankara, 6 April, 2009.

President Obama’s Turkish state visit is pivotal because he used it as a powerful opportunity to reverse the primitive Islamophobia which has blighted US relations with the Middle East and empowered 20 years of stupid, unrepresentative fundamentalist terrorism. It also signals recognition that Turkey is potentially the most important US regional ally, not least because of its geography. It is the Middle East’s largest secular democracy and has NATO’s second largest armed forces after the US. It has a modern plural economy, a global outlook, youthful demographics and a respect for education and social improvement. Most important, it can and will stand up to any other beligerent power in the region and would probably prevail, nuclear conflict notwithstanding.

Turkey’s robust opposition to its former ally Israel’s destructive adventures in the Lebanon and Gaza can be used by Obama to send a message the Netanyahu administration (and to AIPAC) to exercise restraint. Turkey, no shrinking violet when it comes to dealings with terrorist groups or dissent, (without excusing its past, I personally think its reputation as a human rights abuser has been exaggerated), has opined that Hamas must be included in any peace talks (however odious that may be to some, Hamas is an elected authority). So has Syria, another fiercely secular state. Pragmatism should not be confused with endorsement. It has its own internal tensions regarding fundamentalism, but has by and large dealt with these efficiently and, by contrast with other players, reasonably. Contrary to received wisdom, the military has been far from heavy-handed of late. Turkey is a sophisticated ‘managed’ democracy. Its model may not please the idealogues, but, as we saw with Iraq, ‘Democracy Inc.’ (inverted totalitarianism) proved itself least as dangerous as Al Qaeda.

If Obama can genuinely open a sensible dialogue with Iran and Syria and if these countries recognise the opportunity and react accordingly, it will confound the Israeli hawks and their Beltway coat-holders who have led US Middle East policy by the nose for so long for their own dubious purposes. Obama has made clear that he favours a two state solution, which Netanyahu continues to oppose. He has also made it clear that Turkey could gain huge prestige by reconciling its differences with Armenia. It has already gained much by conceding identity rights to its Kurdish population. In doing so, it has weakened grassroots support for the PKK and with the first Kurdish parliamentarians, promises to include, not isolate, the substantial Kurdish minority in Turkey’s national identity.

The benefits to the world of a progressive plural democracy with economic links to Europe and the US are immense. Turkey has adhered to customs union with the EU since 1996, has delivered on its NATO commitments and, in fact, its refusal to play the Bush game as regards Iraq arguably saved the country and the region from complete conflagration. A Middle Eastern country  will never be comfortable in the ‘expanded’ EU. Turkey has little to gain from being an unwelcome bit player in a club which has long outgrown its remit, has overplayed its hand and has bitten off far more than it can chew with its latest impoverished member states. It is also puzzling to understand exactly why or how Obama’s endorsement of Turkey’s EU membership carries any legitimacy. Last time I looked, the USA was not a member state. And it already has an Uncle Tom.

Having returned from a trip to to region, I can confirm that the overwhelming view of Iraq’s neighbours is that the country has been pointlessly laid waste, destabilised, its people terrorised and factionalised by a brutal and mindless occupying force. The much-lauded ‘Petraeus Doctrine‘ was more in the hearts and minds of the Bush PR machine than in evidence among the US troops in Iraq. 

The footage here shows a heavily-armed and armoured US soldier brutally and callously harranguing and taunting Iraqi police. Having accused them of belonging to the Madhi Army (if they weren’t before, they most likely will have joined shortly thereafter) he personally threatens them, insults their country and finally urges them to prove themselves ‘as police’ by indulging in random acts of violence. It defies description, so I won’t try. If you want to see how not to win hearts and minds, watch this advertisement for insurgency and terrorist recruitment: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1GrdTakvl8

President George W. Bush in a final press conference on Monday 12 January, 2009 acknowledged he made some mistakes in the White House, but most Americans – at least for now – are a lot more critical than that. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of Americans say Bush is one of the five worst presidents in U.S. history, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Just six percent (6%) say he was one of the five best, and 34% place him somewhere in between. 

Republicans aren’t much help to the retiring 62-year-old Grand Old Party (GOP) president. While predictably 81% of Democrats rate Bush as one of the five worst presidents, so do 20% of Republicans. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans (65%) put Bush in the somewhere-in-between category, while only 11% say he was one of the five best chief executives.

Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 62% rate Bush as one of the five worst presidents, 31% somewhere in between and two percent (2%) one of the five best. In August 2008, a month before Wall Street’s financial problems began hitting the front pages, 41% of Americans said Bush will go down in history as the worst U.S. president ever, but 50% disagreed.

A plurality (41%) say Bush will be best remembered for the war in Iraq, followed by 16% who say his response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and 14% for the economy. Six percent (6%) list the response to Hurricane Katrina and two percent (2%) his role in trying to achieve peace in the Middle East.

For 51% of Democrats, the Iraq war is the chief element of Bush’s legacy, a view shared by 42% of unaffiliateds and just 26% of Republicans. Similar numbers of Republicans give equal weight to his response to 9/11 and his handling of the war on terror. Democrats and those unaffiliated with a major party are more than twice as likely as Republicans to rate the economy as what Bush will be best remembered for.

Even for the accomplishment on which Bush prides himself most, fighting terrorism to keep the country safe from further attacks, he comes up short. “All these [political] debates will matter not if there is another attack on the homeland,” he said in his valedictory press conference. But while 38% say Bush has made America safer, 47% disagree and the rest are not sure. In the first survey on war on terror issues this year, 48% said the United States is safer today than it was before the September 11 terrorist attacks, while 36% disagreed. Only 26% of adults, however, believe America will be a safer place by the end of Barack Obama’s first year as president. While Bush has the distinction of being part of one of only two father-son presidential teams, he suffers in comparison with his dad, President George H.W. Bush, who served from 1989 to 1993. Just 11% say the current occupant of the White House is a better president than his father was, while 56% feel the opposite way. Twenty-five percent (25%) rate the two men about the same.

For December, the final full month of his presidency, 13% of American adults said they Strongly Approved of the way Bush performed his job as president. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapproved. As for his own political party, 77% say Bush hurt the Republicans, while eight percent (8%) say he helped them and the same number (8%) think his presidency had no impact. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of Republicans say he hurt the party, while 14% say he helped it. Seventeen percent (17%) say he had no impact, and 13% are undecided.

Eighty-nine percent (89%) of Democrats and 82% of those not affiliated with either party say Bush hurt the GOP. 

The emetic value of his ennoblement of Tony Blair cannot be overlooked, however. Watch out for the wink at the cringeworthy conclusion to his unintentionally ironic valediction (‘this man believes in freedom’) of his grinning hopfrog.

Brown and Maliki sharing an uncomfortable moment, admiring the wreath, trying to think of something to say that they didn't say on Sunday, waiting, waiting, for the shoe that never came

Nouri Al-Maliki looked slightly puzzled as to why Gordon was back so soon, especially as he actively dislikes him and thinks the Brits did a bad job in Basra, but when it was explained to him that it was Wednesday and record unemployment figures were being announced in the UK, along with partial privatisation of Royal Mail involving its sale to more foreign Johnnies he produced flowers and agreed that Democracy had been restored, sad to se the troops go etc. everything was grand. Gordon Brown in Iraq Sky News Nobody threw any shoes at the muted press conference – like everything else in Bagdhad, shoes are in short supply and Gordon Brown is very much the monkey to George W Bush’s organ grinder. Journalists were asked to wear curly Ali Baba slippers  and reminded of the ongoing retraining programme for their Bagdhadiya TV colleague (only joking, they weren’t allowed in) - but to celebrate his photo opportunity, 18 people were killed and 52 wounded in a car bomb and IED incident in the city where life, according to a Brown spokesman, has returned to normal.

John J Kelly

Journalist retraining scheme for Muntadhar-al-Zaidi?

Unfortunately, my playful prediction that the Iraqi authorities would meet out summary justice to the shoe thrower was justified, as this BBC report illustrates: Shoe thrower ‘beaten in custody’. Apart from demonstrating absolute contempt for any civilised behaviour, this shows that George W Bush was either powerless to influence the actions of his ‘hosts’ in Bagdhad, or complicit. I would prefer to believe that he is just dumb, and the situation is out of control, but either way, it’s sad. Meanwhile, several Arab potentates are vying for the right to buy the shoes. Touching one’s enemy with shoes is a traditional sign of contempt serious matter in Iraqi custom, I’m told. Munthadar-al-Zaidi was not engaged in a copycat version of the notorious Alex Ferguson boot throwing incident which led to the departure of Golden Balls David Beckham. This was much more serious and for that reason we’ll hear no more from him.

John J Kelly

Here’s the video, in case anybody missed it: George Bush shoe attack

Meanwhile, despite the constant propaganda telling us that the ‘Iraqi people’ are eternally grateful (many of them are in eternity) to America for giving them ‘democracy,’ the move was praised as ‘a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people.” In a Reuters vox pop, Bagdhadiya Television called on the authorities to release their reporter, Muntadhar-al-Zaidi . “It’s the Shot of the Age and Bush deserved it” said one interviewee. “Bush failed to keep his promises. The situation gets worse every day.”