Temporary lack of vision

Right off the top, let me first say that I respect the work of Craig and Marc Kielburger very much. The two have worked tirelessly to address such issues as child labour and other inequities. However in an August 20, 2007 article in The Toronto Star about Rwandan president Paul Kagamé, they made a huge mistake, though one for which they should be excused, as the work they have done to better the lives of others far overshadows this one slip-up. Still, [the royal] we must shed some light on their error, lest their one-sided, sugar-coated take on Kagamé be perpetuated as truth.

In the article, the brothers presented a very narrow take on Kagamé. To read the account of their meeting with the president, you would swear the man deserves to be put right up there with the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. The truth is, the Rwandan government under Kagamé is well known in political and human rights circles for its many abuses, including attacks on the free press and the independence of NGOs, to name but a few.

The Kielburger’s article ran as follows:

A vision of stability in Rwanda
The Toronto Star
August 20, 2007
Craig and Marc Kielburger

"This is not the end of the struggle, but the beginning of our liberation," the bespectacled man says defiantly. "We have to improve conditions for schools, social programs and public welfare. True liberation is an end to begging and the ability so support oneself."

Standing behind a large podium, he seems almost out of place. He is speaking before a soccer stadium full of ordinary Rwandans, there to commemorate the end of the 1994 genocide. Despite his appearance, he delivers a powerful message.

The man describing his vision for the country as a stable, prosperous place, where people work hard and rely on no one but themselves, is Rwandan President Paul Kagamé. We watch from our seats as thousands of heads nod in agreement.

Kagamé also has a direct message for all the civil servants and government officials in the crowd. Corruption is inexcusable, he tells them. Their jobs are to serve their country in every way they can and to ensure Rwanda's success.

It doesn't take long to see that Kagamé, a central figure in Rwanda for more than 15 years, is no ordinary African leader. He was chosen to lead the rebel RPF army in overthrowing the genocidal government after the group's original commander was killed in 1990.

The trouble was, Kagamé was studying in the United States at the time. So he led the RPF's campaign via telephone until he could find a way to join them on the front lines.
Now as president, Kagamé faces tougher challenges than any he saw on the battlefield. Rwanda is a tiny, landlocked nation with an infrastructure destroyed by war and a population decimated by poverty and HIV/AIDS.

In the few days we spend as his guests, Kagamé tells us about growing up in Uganda, forced to flee anti-Tutsi violence with his family. He joined the army there and even became a commander. But he always had his heart set on returning to Rwanda.

Kagamé is highly disciplined, likely thanks to his years as a soldier. He often talks about the sacrifices he and his generation must be willing to make for the sake of future Rwandans. Only genuine and honest hard work will make his country prosper, he
insists.

There is reason for optimism. Just more than a decade after 800,000 people were murdered in three months, Rwanda's economy is growing twice as fast as those in the U.S. or Europe. Kagamé is leading the way by taking only a modest salary and refusing to use a chauffeur. He insists the government set a good example for citizens.

Of course, he does not come without controversy. Some Rwandans remain bitter for what they call an unnecessarily long war with the genocidal government that allowed even more people to die. But Kagamé explains his strategy simply by saying he had to be methodical in his attack to ensure victory over the government forces. He remains
unapologetic.

Now seven years into his presidency, Kagamé faces the same turning point his African counterparts have before him. Will his idealism cause him to stray from the path of good leadership and cling to power like Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and so many others? Or will he keep putting Rwanda first, even when that means relinquishing power democratically?

Only time will tell for sure. But if Kagamé does stay true to his vision, he will become an inspiration to the next crop of African leaders.

Now, let’s take a closer look at some of the abuses for which the Kagamé government is well known.

It has been theorized that Kagamé is capitalizing on fears of a recurrence of the genocide in order to give it an excuse to clamp down on dissenting opinions, likely in order to further consolidate power. This theory is quite sound.

A popular tool used by Kagamé and his allies involves branding dissident groups – including political opponents, staff of NGOs, clerics, journalists, teachers and students – as ‘divisionist’ and/or blaming them for propagating ‘genocidal ideology.’ In a country that is still jittery after the rampage in 1994, the tactic has proven to be quite effective.

Regarding elections, there have been questions and concerns expressed by observers, including the European Union Observer Mission, as to the fairness of the August 2003 presidential election which put Kagamé into power. According to Front Line, Kagamé’s main (and probably only viable) competitor, former Prime Minister Faustin Twangiramungu, was arrested prior to the election; and several of his supporters were either arrested, detained or intimidated, many just two days before the vote. According to the U.S. State Department: "The actions taken by authorities during the 2003 election campaign period created an atmosphere of fear, so many groups simply chose not to meet. Members of political parties other than the ruling RPF reported that, because Rwanda had essentially become a one-party state, there was no sense in meeting."

Accusations by journalists against the Kagamé government have, in recent years, been common. They include: verbal intimidation; arrests (often without due process); receipt of death threats; beatings, abductions, disappearances and assassinations; expulsions; exile; blacklisting; censorship; and seizure of publications, printing presses and even entire media outlets.

Certain laws in Rwanda make life quite difficult for NGOs operating in the country. For instance, by law the government has a say in the selection of NGO staff and requires that the government approve NGO projects before they are sent to donors. Further, by law, NGOs are required to provide to the government all data and documents pertaining to their operations within one month of the government requesting them.

White the Kielburger’s note Kagamé’s contempt toward corruption, both Transparency International (TI) and the World Bank Institute have concluded that Rwanda has become more – not less - corrupt in recent years. Rwanda came 83rd out of 159 in TI’s Corruptions Perception Index in 2005, but a far lower 121st in its 2006 index. The World Bank Institute concluded that ‘control of corruption’ had declined from 44% in 2004 to just 24% in 2005.

None of this was even touched on in the Kielburger piece. Instead, they chose to gush that if "…Kagamé does stay true to his vision, he will become an inspiration to the next crop of African leaders."

Perhaps if the Kielburger’s took off their blinders, they would have written "…an inspiration to the next crop of African dictators.

Knock the war, but support the troops

A September 4, 2007 Letter to the Editor in The Hamilton Spectator (Ontario, Canada), was so ill considered and disingenuous, that I felt the strong need to attempt to remove the cancers from it. Unfortunately, after having done so, there was nothing good or healthy that could be salvaged from it. No loss, to be sure.

The entire letter ran as follows:

Hey, that's no way to say goodbye (Sep 4, 2007): I was distressed to learn our government has chosen to name a portion of Highway 401 the "Highway of Heroes."

Dictionaries point to both the mythological and mundane definitions of the word. Heroes are both characters of legendary or mythical stature as well as "illustrious warriors" of everyday life. The problem is that Canada's national identity and common life is rooted in neither the myth nor practice of war. The last true "illustrious warriors" this country produced were the citizen soldiers of the Second World War, men and women who made enormous sacrifices to protect the world from oppression in what has since been called the last truly just war.

The conflict in Afghanistan is the creation of a political agenda not of Canada's making. Even though it is sanctioned by the United Nations, it is nevertheless clear that we are involved more as a means of protecting our economic relationship with the United States than protecting the world from oppression. As heinous as the Taliban were, they were principally a threat to their own people and were meant to have been dealt with locally.

Scholars have pointed recently to the frightening dimensions of militarization that have overtaken so many aspects of America's political and social identity and life. America has a truly professional military, a corps of people who have freely chosen to enlist themselves on behalf of their nation's political agenda. Let us make no mistake, in the modern world soldiering is a profession, and even if those who enlist are not paid
handsomely, they are nevertheless paid to further that agenda. One can only assume that they truly believe in it.

Canada's military is professional as well. If men and women enlist and put their lives at risk for what they believe in, that is their choice. However, their choice would not be my choice, and their sacrifices do not make them illustrious nor does it make them heroes in my eyes.

Therefore, the naming of even a portion of a major highway in such an eponymous manner disturbs me in as much as it points to Canada's own willingness to embrace the military myth.

First, the letter-writer proves to be quite selective in his use of the dictionary definition of ‘hero’. Yes, "[H]eroes are both characters of legendary or mythical stature as well as ‘illustrious warriors’ of everyday life." However, along with this pair of definitions, Merriam Webster’s also defines ‘hero’ as "one that shows great courage" and "an object of extreme admiration and devotion." (It appears that the letter-writer used Webster’s for his definition.)

Second, he states that "Canada’s national identity and common life is rooted in neither the myth nor practice of war." Has he never heard of the battle at Vimy Ridge, which countless academics have cited as the event which put Canada on the map? What of our reputation as peacekeeper, which is done not by peacekeepers, per se, but by heavily trained, armed fighting men and women? And why do we wear poppies on our lapels each November if what he says is true? Even if we accept what he says as fact, can it not, then, be argued that it’s all the better to name the section of the 401 "Highway of Heroes"? After all, if we rarely take part in war, should we not take special measures to recognize those Canadians who die in one when we do?

Third, he states that "The conflict in Afghanistan is the creation of a political agenda not of Canada’s making. Even though it is sanctioned by the United Nations, it is nevertheless clear that we are involved more as a means of protecting our economic relationship with the United States than protecting the world from oppression." He is correct. The conflict in Afghanistan is the creation of a political agenda not of Canada’s making; it was of al Qaeda and the Taliban’s making (and not of the United States’, if that’s what he is implying).

Next, it is somewhat irrelevant that the action has been sanctioned by the UN. Though this is helpful to Canada, we have chosen to take part in the action in Afghanistan because the coordinated attack of September 11, 2001 triggered Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty which states that ''an armed attack against one or more of them [members] in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all." Canada takes great pride in the role it has played in the world’s key multilateral organizations, with NATO being one of them. Further, if we are in Afghanistan to protect our economic relationship with the U.S. why, then, did Canada not contribute at least something – even just token - to the war in Iraq?

Finally, the letter-writer states: "America has a truly professional military, a corps of people who have freely chosen to enlist themselves on behalf of their nation's political agenda. Let us make no mistake, in the modern world soldiering is a profession, and even if those who enlist are not paid handsomely, they are nevertheless paid to further that agenda. One can only assume that they truly believe in it. Canada's military is professional as well. If men and women enlist and put their lives at risk for what they believe in, that is their choice. However, their choice would not be my choice, and their sacrifices do not make them illustrious nor does it make them heroes in my eyes."

It is doubtful that individuals join a nation’s armed forces with the express understanding that they are doing so to further their country’s political agenda. People join because the lifestyle appeals to them, because they don’t wish to sit behind a computer the rest of their working lives, because they wish to see the world, because they wish to help people, because they have few options due to poverty and lack of education etc. What’s more, several pieces of research (including my own) indicate that soldiers fight, not for God and country and not even for a given cause. They fight for those to the left and the right of them; they fight for their comrades. If the writer is implying that soldiers join the armed forces merely to become an implementer of governmental policy, that they know what they are getting themselves into and, thus, are not heroes; he is way off the mark. Could his viewpoint not be carried over to, say, policing and firefighting? Aren’t members of those professions paid professionals who make a choice to go into those lines of work? Can we not say that because of this, they are not illustrious or heroes?

For all his disingenuous and flawed thinking, the writer could just as much have argued that the relevant portion of highway 401 should not be named for a kind of sandwich.

Canada in the ‘stan’

A Decima Research survey, published October 2, concluded that 59 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement that Canadian soldiers "are dying for a cause we cannot win."

The same day, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said that the Afghan war against Taliban guerrillas can never be won militarily and urged support for efforts to bring "people who call themselves Taliban" and their allies into the government. It was reported that Frist learned through briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated on the battlefield. "You need to bring them into a more transparent type of government," Frist said during a visit to a military base in Qalat, Afghanistan. "And if that's accomplished, we'll be successful."

The conflict in Afghanistan is quite complex, to be sure, but it may be premature to call it a lost cause. A cause is lost when all options have been exhausted, which they haven’t been in this case (particularly not the obvious - though bolder – ones). These measures centre around three main elements:

First, the free movement of Taliban and other insurgents across the border with Pakistan has to be staunched. Second, the poppy crop has to be eradicated. Third, NATO member countries must contribute fighting forces without qualification. All three of these two things need to be done in order to increase NATO’s chances of winning the war in Afghanistan.

Writing in the October 3 Globe and Mail (Canadian soldiers are not enough), Sarah Chayes, author of The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban comments that “What is being called a Taliban insurgency is not, in my view, a true insurgency. It is not an ideological, grassroots uprising against the Western presence in Afghanistan. Rather, it is a low-grade invasion primarily orchestrated across the border in Pakistan. The evidence for this conclusion is abundant. Top Taliban leaders reside openly in the capital of Pakistan's Baluchistan province; Taliban crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan get preferential treatment from Pakistani border guards; training camps have dotted that border; Taliban fighters -- often underage youths too immature to form ideological convictions -- are paid and equipped by Pakistani military intelligence.”

In a September 7 speech in Kabul, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in no uncertain terms acknowledged that al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgents were crossing over from Pakistan to launch attacks inside Afghanistan. However, he denied that Pakistan’s powerful military intelligence agency was helping them (the agency is said by many to be teeming with fundamentalist Muslims).

One of the problems lies with a truce agreed to by Musharraf’s government and the Taliban in the border region of Waziristan. The truce has resulted in the withdrawal of the Pakistani army from all frontier posts in the region, allowing the Taliban to cross the border with impunity. As a result of this move, and others (including recent public comments by Musharraf that former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage threatened to bomb Pakistan “back to the stone age” if it didn’t cooperate with the war in Afghanistan) Frederic Grare wrote in the August 2006 issue of Foreign Policy (Worse than a Mistake) that “The Bush administration does not know it yet, but Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf may have just outlived his usefulness.”

For this statement not to be true, Musharraf has to control his country’s border with Afghanistan. This will largely put a stop to the ‘hit and run’ tactics of the Taliban, who cross the border to strike NATO troops, then cross back again to regroup, lick their wounds, and fight again another day.

Next comes the poppy crop. According to the UN’s anti-drugs chief on September 2, Afghanistan’s opium cultivation rose 60 per cent in 2006; translating into 6,100 tons, enough to make 610 tons of heroin. According to the CIA Fact Book, expanding poppy cultivation and a growing opium trade may account for one-third of the country’s GDP. Most of the end product will be sold on the streets of Europe. Under the Taliban, Afghanistan reportedly produced no opium in 2000 (though there is data contradicting this statement).

It is, largely, drug money which nourishes the insurgency. In the opium-rich southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, Taliban commanders are said to protect growers in return for a 30 to 40 per cent tax, which is spent to recruit fighters. It is also said that the money from the poppies is used to bolster anti-U.S. elements in Pakistan’s intelligence service.

What’s more, the drug trade greatly feeds rampant corruption in Afghanistan, as Afghan police, armed forces and government officials are paid off to facilitate the trade. According to Chayes in The Globe: “…while southern Afghans, in my view, are not fostering the current Taliban resurgence, some of them are making room for it. The main reason they are doing so is not ideological, but practical: They are deeply frustrated with the post-Taliban government. Far from serving or protecting them, it seems just as hostile to their legitimate interests as the Taliban are. Even before I arrived in Kandahar, in December, 2001, I was worried about what kind of government would replace the Taliban regime. For it seemed that U.S. officials were ushering discredited warlords into positions of power, though the Afghan people wanted nothing of them, and gave President Hamid Karzai a resounding mandate to expel them from the body politic. In 2002 and 2003, the U.S. government prevented Mr. Karzai from moving against these warlords, and then he, discouraged, gave up trying. The result is a government that is devoured by corruption, with offices up for sale, and officials whose entire motivation is to extract money and favours from their countrymen.”

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai reportedly opposes the aerial spraying of poppies with herbicides, citing the health risks associated with such a measure. Perhaps with memories of Vietnam and Agent Orange still in mind, the U.S. military is also reportedly against doing the job, stating that it should be left to others (crop eradication is not their area of expertise).

One option is to use the poppy crop for the production of legitimate pharmaceuticals, such as morphine and codeine. However the U.S. is opposed to this, perhaps because it would be too difficult to secure poppy fields, to ensure that the crops don’t fall into the wrong hands.

In the meantime, the White House is applying great pressure to push Karzai to make a decisive move on the opium trade, for good reason. Once the Taliban’s main source of funds are cut off, there will likely be a reasonably quick downslide in the insurgency.

Finally, NATO members need to commit more forces to combat roles in Afghanistan. At present, a number of countries have forces in the country which are restricted from fighting offensively, leaving the “heavy lifting” to the United States, Britain and Canada. A recent call by NATO for an additional 2,000 combat troops met with the sound of crickets chirping, and countries such as Canada ended-up increasing their burdens.

Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty clearly states: “... an armed attack against one or more of them [members] in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all." There should be no options as to how a NATO member country deploys its troops when an Article 5 mission is declared. Troops should be sent without question. Like when an “officer down” call goes out over police radios, the allies should send their unqualified support. With NATO, you are either all the way in, or all the way out. Perhaps there should be a discussion about a permanent NATO rapid reaction force.

The three actions that need to be taken are known. Some may say they are glaringly obvious. The political will just needs to exist to implement them.

In the meantime, while the country’s biggest export continues to be opium, its greatest import will continue to be bodybags, with no end in sight.

The show goes on...

March 20 will mark the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and what does the U.S. have to show for it? Certainly not bin Laden’s head on a spike, which raises the question if they even really want it.

Regardless of all the resources available to the U.S. (on February 6, George W. Bush sent Congress a 2006 defence budget of US$419.3 billion), it is quite possible that the powers that be know where bin Laden is, but have chosen not to grab him.

Consider that the U.S. has numerous satellites at its disposal powerful enough to read a licence plate from space. Further, the country has enough cash to buy all the tea in China. Wouldn’t you think that it would offer a substantial sum for the man responsible for murdering 3,000 Americans, and don’t you think at least someone somewhere would go for it? But nodda on both counts.

Why?

The theory goes something like this: The U.S. asked Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf to provide support for the October 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Musharraf agreed, but only after purging his military and intelligence service of senior officers considered to lean toward the extremist side. (It has been reported that roughly half of Pakistan’s security services and, according to some, Pakistani society at large, is made up of fundamentalists who support al Qaeda or who, at the very least, do not support the U.S.)

Anti-American sentiment is fierce in Pakistan, and just about anything could push the country over the brink. The concern is with civil war. And with Pakistan being a nuclear power, if extremists were to overthrow Musharraf (don’t forget, he gained power in 1999 after a coup) the country’s neuks could end up in terrorist hands. It is such a real consideration that the U.S. could very well be leaving bin Laden alone for fear that capturing him would trigger a firestorm in Pakistan.

The killing March 2 of a U.S. foreign services officer in a bomb-blast just prior to president Bush’s visit to Pakistan shows just how volatile that country is (as do the three attempts on Musharraf’s life, that we know of).

Additionally, the fiery reaction to two U.S. missile attacks in Pakistan (the first on December 3, 2005, which killed senior al Qaeda lieutenant Hamza Rabia; and the second on January 13, 2006, which killed 18, none of whom were Ayman al-Zawahiri, purported to be the target) illustrate the strong anti-American sentiment in the country.

Pakistanis were outraged by the attacks, to the point where Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz lodged an official complaint during his visit to the White House January 24 (it has been reported that U.S. and Pakistani forces worked together on the first attack).

If missiles launched from a drone could spark such outrage, can you imagine what the capture of bin Laden on Pakistani soil by foreign troops would do?

I’m not sure anyone, even the U.S., is willing to find out.

Until then, we will continue to hear promises from the White House that the U.S. will not rest until Osama is captured. In others news, OJ is still searching for his wife’s murderer.

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

War, McNamara style

From the very nature of the insurgency, to use of such phrases as “Iraqification” and “Winning the hearts and minds,” to the absence of a viable exit strategy for U.S. forces, it is difficult to view the war in Iraq as anything but another Vietnam.

Even, it appears, employing body count as a means of measuring success has been dusted off for use in the War Against Terror (WAT) - something the Pentagon said early on, and in no uncertain terms, it would not do. ("We don't do body counts” asserted CENTCOM General Tommy Franks, in response to a journalist’s question about the war in Afghanistan. You can’t get any clearer than that.)

The use of body count in Vietnam, a “metric” dreamed up by “whiz-kid” Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, eventually became a weapon wrested from the hand of its owner and turned against him. With the advent of body counts as a yardstick, Vietnamese, both young and old, male and female became targets of U.S. and South Vietnamese forces, particularly in free-fire (read: anything goes) zones. Anybody killed, either by accident or by design, became an insurgent for the purposes of cooking the books. Then, of course, came the phantom VC, where a body count of 10 or 100 in reality became 100 or 1,000 in after-action reports (the numbers were often inflated by commanders looking for promotions).

However, soon the “embellishment” got the best of them and reports of battlefield successes by senior commanders began to be used as ammunition against the White House by opponents of the war. After Vietnam, use of body count became verboten, not to be used even during the Gulf War (probably because coalition forces killed a disproportionately high number of Iraqi soldiers and the slaughter wouldn’t have made good PR).

But body count, it appears, is back with a vengeance.

According to the Washington Post September 19 (U.S. Claims Success in Iraq Despite Onslaught): “After generally rejecting body counts as standards of success in the Iraq war, the U.S. military last week embraced them -- just as it did during the Vietnam War. As the carnage grew in Baghdad, U.S. officials produced charts showing the number of suspects killed or detained in offensives in the west. [Maj. Gen. Rick] Lynch, the [top U.S.] military spokesman, cited killings and detentions of 1,534 insurgents in the region. The fact that the number of insurgents killed or captured in the northern city of Tall Afar was roughly equal to advance estimates of their strength, he said, was proof that insurgents weren't simply escaping to fight another day -- and that U.S. forces were doing more than razing infrastructure. ‘Zarqawi is on the ropes,’ Lynch told reporters.”

Lynch’s remarks are reminiscent of promises made to the White House by senior commanders in the field, the Pentagon, and Defense Secretary McNamara, that once “the lines intersect" (i.e. the number of killed or captured VC meets, then exceeds the number of insurgents flowing across the border from the North) victory will be imminent. The promises proved to be hollow and victory was not to be, as it became evident that field commanders did not have a handle on the true number of insurgents coming down from the North or of those already in the South.

The Post article may be read to imply that the U.S. military has just lately begun to use body count as a yardstick in the WAT. However, according to Julian Barnes at USNews.com (7/18/05) “The body count has returned. It started slowly, but now it has become a regular occurrence. On June 21 [2005], for instance, American military officials in Afghanistan reported killing ‘approximately 40 enemies’ southwest of Deh Chopan. On June 30, Marines reported killing a single insurgent during ‘Operation Sword’ in western Iraq. On July 2, the military reported that a patrol northeast of Kandahar ‘killed two enemies, wounded another, and captured two.’ On Independence Day, the military command in Baghdad reported detaining 100 ‘suspected terrorists.’”

Barnes’s litany hardly scratches the surface. Nearly every day, media outlets echo body count information released by the military that day or the day before. CNN, for example, said September 18 that according to the U.S. military “Coalition forces killed six insurgents in Northern Iraq…during raids on al Qaeda safe houses.” The day prior, CNN reported that “Two Taliban rebels were…killed during fighting in Kandahar province Thursday [September 15]…Eight suspected rebels were arrested…On Saturday [September 17], U.S.-led coalition and Afghan troops caught 20 militants laying explosives along Kajaki Dam in southern Helmand province.”

Reports of battlefield gains may sound good to the average American, and that’s probably who they are being directed at. But as Anthony Cordesman, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, comments in the Washington Post piece: "The question is, what does victory mean? It certainly isn't the number of people we kill or detain.” Cordesman maintains that the U.S. death and detention counts have “zero credibility," since U.S. forces provide little detail on those being killed and detained. As the Post item notes, “Since 2003, U.S. forces have detained 40,000 people, twice U.S. generals' highest public estimate of the number of fighters in the insurgency.”

Although they make good headlines, use of body counts fail as a key metric because they don’t stand on their own: Without knowledge of the ultimate size of the enemy force and of the potential pool from which the enemy may draw, body count doesn’t tell you much. So 100 are killed – what if the enemy’s total force is one million? So you take 50 out in a firefight, but the enemy acquires 100 new recruits the same day, are you better off? The Pentagon and White House certainly tried to make the people think so back in the day, and it appears they are trying to do the same thing now – making people think there is light at the end of the tunnel. But there is no light. Says Cordesman: "On a day-to-day basis, the overall level of security is obviously low. We can't secure the airport road, can't stop the incoming into the Green Zone, can't stop the killings and kidnappings.” Sounds an awful lot like Vietnam. (Indeed, as this was being written, eight American soldiers were killed in Iraq, bringing the total number of U.S. troops killed there to 1,907.)

It is important to note that use of body count as a metric is a key component of an attrition strategy that the U.S. supposedly proved doesn’t work (and it cost them 58,000+ personnel to do so). The war in Iraq was not supposed to be a war of attrition. But it looks like that’s what is has become, and the Pentagon made it so.

The ‘good news’ is that it does appear that the war in Iraq is unlike Vietnam in at least one key area. A study released September 14 by two groups, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF), has concluded that the monthly cost to the U.S. for the war in Iraq is now greater than the average monthly cost of the Vietnam War. The report put costs in Iraq at $500 million a month more than in Vietnam, adjusted for inflation. The study calculates the cost of current military operations in Iraq at $5.6 billion every month.

So proponents of the WAT can honestly say that comparing Iraq with Vietnam is not fair in at least one major way, though I’m not so sure it will help their argument any.

Untarnished brass

After months of intensive investigations - including taking sworn statements from 37 people who were directly involved - officials representing the office of the United States Army Inspector General announced April 22 that four top and seven lesser officers have been cleared of wrongdoing in connection with the prisoner abuse scandal at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. The officials who disclosed the findings of the investigations did so on condition of anonymity because Congress had not yet been fully briefed on the IG’s findings.

The four officers, including Lt. Gen Ricardo Sanchez (three stars), Maj. Gen. Walter Wojhakowski, Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, Col. Mark Warren and eight other senior officers at or above the rank of colonel, were facing allegations of leadership failures. None were facing criminal charges.

Inspector General Stanley E. Green concluded that allegations against the 11 were unsubstantiated. This, despite the fact that earlier investigations into leadership lapses and related matters pointed at Sanchez and others for errors that may have contributed to the prisoner abuse. For instance, the report of the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Detention Operations (aka. the Schlesinger Report) said of the general and his team, "We believe LTG Sanchez should have taken stronger action in November [2003] when he realized the extent of the leadership problems at Abu Ghraib. His attempt to mentor BG Karpinski, though well-intended, was insufficient in a combat zone in the midst of a serious and growing insurgency. Although LTG Sanchez had more urgent tasks than dealing personally with command and resource deficiencies at Abu Ghraib, MG Wojdakowski and the staff should have seen that urgent demands were placed to higher headquarters for additional assets. We concur with the [Faye-]Jones findings that LTG Sanchez and MG Wojdakowski failed to ensure proper staff oversight of detention and interrogation operations."

It appears that Brigadier General Janice Karpinski, the Army Reservist in charge of the 800th Military Police Brigade and fifteen detention facilities in southern and central Iraq (including Abu Ghraib) will be the only one left twisting in a shamal by the Inspector General, who concluded that allegations against her could be substantiated. As noted by Seymour Hersh in his book Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, Karpinski was “quietly” suspended from her command in January 2004, though the Army has maintained that her departure was part of a normal troop rotation. Karpinski reportedly received a written reprimand, the nature of which is unknown to the public, and was demoted to Colonel on May 5, 2005 (which effectively ends her military career).

So, 11 regular service officers have had their careers salvaged, while an expendable reservist takes the weight for a scandal which, by all rights, should have triggered the rolling of many senior heads, right on up to and including those in the highest levels of the Pentagon - both military and civilian.

Though far be it for me to defend Karpinski, who is by no means without fault in the Abu Ghraib scandal and fully deserves what was meted out to her; she should not stand alone in being held accountable for the lapses which caused the abuse, torture and murder to happen. It is called a chain of command for a reason, and she was not the only weak link in that chain.

In CNN's coverage of the April 22 IG release, it noted, “…three senior defense officials associated with the Green investigations cited mitigating circumstances in the Sanchez case. That included the fact that his organization in Iraq, known as Combined Joint Task force 7, initially was short of the senior officers it required, they said. They also cited other complicating factors, including the upsurge in insurgent violence shortly after Sanchez took command and the intense pressure the military faced in hunting down Saddam Hussein, who was hiding and thought to have a hand in the insurgency.”

However, in case nobody was paying attention (apparently, they weren't), Karpinski also had her hands full. According to the Schlesinger report: "Of the 17 detention facilities in Iraq, the largest, Abu Ghraib, housed up to 7,000 detainees in October 2003, with a guard force of only about 90 personnel from the 800th Military Police Brigade. Abu Ghraib was seriously overcrowded, under-resourced and under continual attack. Five U.S. soldiers died as a result of mortar attacks on Abu Ghraib. In July 2003, Abu Ghraib was mortared 25 times; on August 16, 2003, five detainees were killed and 67 wounded in a mortar attack. A mortar attack on April 20, 2004 killed 22 detainees." (Seven-thousand detainees with only 90 personnel - that's a ratio of 77 to one. The ratio at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay is one-to-one.)

It appears that Sanchez and the 10 other poor dears had too much on their plates to be concerned with abuse, including torture and murder, happening right under their noses, and the powers-that-be have excused them for it.

There are those who called it right, right from the start - "Watch. Karpinski will be the scapegoat."

Low and behold.

R.G. McGillivray

http://www.rgmcgillivray.com/pages/1/index.htm

Wonders never cease

February 24, 2005 – one of those days that makes one proud to be a Canadian, for it is on this day that the Martin government finally and officially announced that Canada will not participate in the missile defence shield.

In less than two years, the country has been faced with as many monumental military-themed decisions the responses to which would prove to speak volumes about who we are as a people: our contribution, if any, to Operation Iraqi Freedom; and our participation in the Ballistic Missile Defense Shield. The last time the country was faced with such decisions probably came when Bush the Elder was assembling his coalition to evict Iraq from Kuwait. Before that, Canada likely hadn’t faced such a decision since we were asked to support our southern neighbours in Indochina, or perhaps farther back to whether we would contribute to the conflict in Korea.

Proponents of the missile shield, both foreign and domestic, have argued the case on many fronts: that terrorists may gain access to a missile and direct it at Canada or at the U.S. using Canadian airspace. There is a new world order out there, ya know. Terrorists no longer have to be state-sponsored. Everything has changed since 9/11. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Cheerleaders for missile defense have also argued that if Canada doesn’t participate in the project, it will give up its sovereignty by, in effect, outsourcing the country’s defence to the U.S. The same crowd has maintained that Canada has been riding American continental defence coat tails for years now.

The argument has even been made, amazingly, that Canada should participate in the project for no other reason but to regain favour with the Bush White House after spurning George W. in his coalition (read: country)-building exercise on the Arabian Peninsula.

U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci wasted no time remarking on the decision, saying that he was perplexed over Canada's apparent decision to allow Washington to make the decision if a missile was headed toward its territory.

"Why would you want to give up sovereignty?" he asked quizzically. "We don't get it. We think Canada would want to be in the room deciding what to do about an incoming missile that might be heading toward Canada."

A day after the public announcement, and in the wake of Cellucci's confusion, Martin noted that he would expect the United States to consult with Canada before launching intercept missiles into Canadian airspace. Cellucci, however, maintained that Canada has abdicated its say over when and where intercept missiles are fired, and would be "outside of the room" when any such decision is made. It would, however, be interesting to see how such a decision would be made without Canada in the room, given the existence and recently expanded role of NORAD.

From the standpoint of U.S. relations, Martin's pronouncement was probably a hard one to make, particularly given Jean Chretien's decision to keep Canadian troops out of Iraq, and the prediction (i.e. hope) that Paul Martin would set a different, more positive tone with the White House. However, with a minority government serving an electorate said to be against the missile shield, and the NDP and Bloc sharing that sentiment; domestically, it was likely not a hard decision for Martin to make at all.

From a strategic standpoint, I suspect it was also an easy decision, and not because Canada will likely never be targeted by missiles because we are "so nice". Rather, the belief by many in the international intelligence and military communities that the next attack on the U.S. will likely come from a test tube, briefcase or shipping container is a far more plausible scenario than a rogue nation or terrorist group lobbing a multibillion-dollar long range missile at Toronto or Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo Jump, Alberta, or even New York City, for that matter.

If the United States put as much resources into ramping up security at various ports of entry throughout the U.S., it would likely go a lot further to ensuring the safety of that country than would pumping US$65 billion into a system that has thus far failed five of nine tests, passed four tests that some regard to have been only marginally challenging and realistic, and whose overall worth is a big question mark.

In other words, it may be easy for Martin to shrug off the threat of a missile being fired from a rogue nation and the U.S. not consulting with Canada before trying to intercept it, simply because the likelihood of it happening is slimmer than a fraction of a nanoparticle.

We did the right thing by staying out of Iraq. We have done the right thing by not participating in missile defence. Firstly, by entering the program we would have legitimized the far-out theory that having a terrorist group or rogue nation fire a missile into North American airspace is so real, that such a missile shield is absolutely necessary for our future survival. This is bunk.

Second, entering the program would legitimize the Bush Administration's abandonment of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which restricted such defenses as the missile shield on the theory that it would slow the nuclear arms race by maintaining a kind of standoff known as "mutual assured destruction."

Third, it would raise the spectre of the weaponization of space.

According to Cellucci, the White House doesn't get it.

Perhaps it should try harder.

R.G. McGillivray

http://www.rgmcgillivray.com/pages/1/index.htm