Quotulatiousness

May 21, 2012

The US Navy’s “brown water” sailors get re-assigned

Filed under: Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 08:57

The US Navy had a problem in Iraq, which they addressed by setting up some squadrons of “brown water” riverine craft. Now that they’re no longer required in Iraq’s rivers and coastal areas, the question of what to do with these units needed to be answered:

The U.S. Navy has decided what to do with its “brown water navy,” including three Riverine Squadrons, now that they have no overseas assignment. The coastal and river force sailors are going to be divided between bases on the U.S. east and west coasts. There they assist with coastal and river patrol duties. The riverine force contains 2,500 active duty and 2,000 reserve sailors. There will also be opportunities for training with riverine forces of other countries, particularly in the Americas.

Organized for service in Iraq, the three riverine squadrons were rotated in and out of Iraq from 2007 to 2011. Before first arriving in Iraq the riverine sailors received lots of infantry and amphibious training, much of it provided by U.S. Marine Corps instructors. Until 2007, the army and marines had been providing most of the riverine units in Iraq. There are some sailors there as well, but not as organized riverine units. In 2005 the navy established Riverine Group One, which eventually had three squadrons (each with 230 sailors and twelve 12.5 meter/39 foot boats). With headquarters and support troops, the group had 900 personnel and 36 armed boats. Each boat has a crew of sixteen and is armed with machine-guns and automatic grenade launchers.

The navy riverine forces eliminated terrorist movements along, and across, the main rivers in Iraq. This was similar to the successful riverine campaign the navy waged in Vietnam four decades ago, using 16 meter (50 foot) “Swift” boats.

May 15, 2012

Conducting espionage operations in the age of the internet

Filed under: Britain, Middle East, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:04

Shashank Joshi in the Telegraph on the good and bad news coming out of the recently foiled “underwear bomber” incident:

This week began with news of a remarkable intelligence coup. It has ended in ignominy, and a reminder that the pathological leakiness of the American bureaucracy has consequences for counterterrorism.

According to the Associated Press (AP), the CIA foiled an audacious plot by Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) to attack an aircraft using an upgraded version of the underwear bomb that failed three years ago. The AP had, apparently, shown great responsibility in delaying publication for days at the request of the White House.

Then, the story grew both muddier and more remarkable still. The would-be bomber was in fact a mole. He was a British national of Saudi Arabian origin, recruited by MI5 in Europe and later run, with Saudi Arabia, by MI6. This is a testament to the unimaginable courage of the agent in question, and the ingenuity of British intelligence.

But the emergence of this story, with a blow-by-blow account of operational detail, is the result of reckless, impetuous leaking that could cost lives and compromise operations in the future.

Israel and the draft dodgers

Filed under: Middle East, Military, Religion — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:21

Israel’s growing ultra-orthodox community are exempt from the military draft, and even those who choose to join the military are demanding changes in the way the military operates. Strategy Page explains:

Israeli police have declared open season on young men and women who refuse to serve in the armed forces. Last year 2,700 Israeli men and over a thousand women illegally avoided military service. That’s fifty percent more than in 2010. This trend is partly in response to the growing number of Jewish Israelis claiming religious exemptions. Government efforts to placate the religious conservatives have not worked. This perceived unfairness is making it difficult to maintain morale and high standards in its armed forces.

The most obvious sign of this declining morale is the growing number of young men and women who are avoiding service (draft dodgers, in U.S. parlance). The Israeli armed forces has about 175,000 people on active duty, about 60 percent of those are draftees (men serving for 36 months, women for 21 months) and a third are women (who can serve in 90 percent of military jobs). There are another 450,000 reservists (those who have already completed their active service). You get drafted at 18, unless you have a deferment. Currently about a quarter of men and nearly half the women get some kind of deferment.

The military expects this deferment rate to keep increasing. In an effort to get more young men with a religious deferment to volunteer, the army is giving in to conservative Jewish sects that demand unmarried men and women remain separated while in the military. At first, this meant smaller (company and battalion size) units containing only “religious” (actually, very religious) Jews. But when these units came together for operations or ceremonies, the religious Jews demanded that female soldiers be segregated from the men. They also demanded that women soldiers not sing (Israeli soldiers sing a lot) when religious male soldiers are around. In general, female soldiers were increasingly not allowed to mingle with male soldiers if there are religious soldiers present. All this sort of thing has been bad for morale, angered the female soldiers and caused a public uproar over the issue.

[. . .]

But the most contentious problem is, ironically, the religious one. Israeli women know very well how women are mistreated in Moslem countries and they see ultra-religious Jews as a local version of that. The ultra-orthodox (Haredi) Jews are becoming more aggressive in imposing their rules on others. Violence by religious extremists is becoming more common. The most conservative religious Jews have increasingly used violence in Jerusalem. For example, they oppose the government allowing cars to park near Haredi neighborhoods on Saturday (the Sabbath). They also oppose billboard ads that feature women anywhere near where Haredi live, and segregate women on buses in their neighborhoods. Now they want to segregate the military as well, in addition to keeping most of their young men and women out, and that has aroused a lot of public opposition.

May 5, 2012

We have always been at war with Oceania

Filed under: Asia, Middle East, Military, Religion, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 09:22

Strategy Page on the western wishful thinking that contrasts with attitudes in Islamic countries:

The senior commander in the U.S. military recently ordered a course taught at a staff school for the last eight years to be revised to eliminate any mention of a war between Islam and the West. The course (“Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism”) pointed out that Islam, at least according to many Islamic clerics, is at war with the West. The U.S. has officially denied that since shortly after September 11, 2001, despite the fact that many Islamic clerics and government officials in Moslem nations agree with the “Islam is at war with the West” idea. But many Western leaders prefer to believe that by insisting that such hostile attitudes are not widespread in Moslem countries, the hostility will diminish. To that end the U.S. government has, for years, been removing any reference to “Islam” and “terrorism” in official documents. This comes as a shock to military or civilian personnel who have spent time in Moslem countries. The “Islam is at war with the West” angle is alive and well among Moslems.

There is plenty of evidence. For example, twenty nations account for over 95 percent of terrorism activity in the world. Of these twenty (Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Yemen, Iran, Uganda, Libya, Egypt, Nigeria, Palestinian Territories, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Colombia, Algeria, Thailand, Philippines, Russia, Sudan, Iran, Burundi, India, Nigeria, and Israel) all but four of them (Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Colombia, and Burundi) involve Islamic terrorism. In terms of terrorism fatalities the top four nations (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia) accounted for 75 percent of the world total of terrorism related deaths. All of these were the result of Islamic radicalism, often directed at other Moslems and not just non-Moslems (“infidels”).

This has been the case for decades, and the Moslem world does not like to dwell on this fact. Many Moslem leaders admit that there is a lot of Islamic terrorism but insist that it’s all the fault of Infidels who are making war on Islam, so some Moslems feel compelled to fight back. The catch-phrase Moslem leaders like to repeat is that Islam is the “religion of peace.” It is not, and the historical record makes that very clear.

April 24, 2012

Corruption in Afghanistan reaches new heights

Filed under: Asia, Government, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:33

From Strategy Page:

A major obstacle to improving security in Iraq and Afghanistan was not equipment, training or leadership, but corruption. No matter how well led, trained and equipped the troops were, if they could be bought they were worse than useless. But the corruption went beyond the troops themselves. Government officials had to be carefully monitored to prevent the money for equipment, training and pay from being stolen before it got to the troops. More fundamentally, corruption was the reason Iraq, Afghanistan and so many other nations are poor and full of unhappy, and often violent, people. Corruption is why these places are chaotic and so often in the news. Corruption is the major cause of Islamic terrorism. Corruption does not get the recognition it deserves.

But in Afghanistan corruption has recently risen to new heights; literally. Several recent attacks in Kabul have made use of unfinished high-rise buildings, where terrorists used the height advantage to do more damage. American advisors noted that there were a lot of unfinished tall buildings in Kabul, and many had apparently been abandoned. The Americans asked the local government who owned these high-rise structures and was told that the government didn’t know. Kabul has undergone a construction boom in the last decade, and many of the builders (or their backers) didn’t bother with getting construction permits. If the cops or officials came around asking questions they were offered a bribe, or a death threat, or both. Inquisitive journalists were handled the same way.

April 23, 2012

More from the Bahrain protests

Filed under: Government, Liberty, Media, Middle East — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:25

Marc Lynch on what he terms as Bahrain’s “Epic Fail”:

This week’s Formula One-driven media scrutiny has ripped away Bahrain’s carefully constructed external facade. It has exposed the failure of Bahrain’s regime to take advantage of the breathing space it bought through last year’s crackdown or the lifeline thrown to it by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry. That failure to engage in serious reform will likely further radicalize its opponents and undermine hopes for its future political stability.

Bahrain’s fierce, stifling repression of a peaceful reform movement in mid-March 2011 represented an important watershed in the regional Arab uprising. Huge numbers of Bahrainis had joined in street protests in the preceding month, defining themselves as part of the broader Arab uprising and demanding constitutional reforms and political freedoms. Bahrain’s protest movement began as a reformist and not revolutionary one, and the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry found no evidence that the protests were inspired or supported by Iran.

[. . .]

A ferocious battle over how to understand the events in Bahrain has unfolded in the months since the crackdown, as anyone who has attempted to report on or discuss it can attest. Supporters of the regime have argued that they did what they must against a dangerously radical, sectarian Shi’a movement backed by Iran, and fiercely contest reports of regime abuses. The opposition certainly made mistakes of its own, both during the protests leading up to the crackdown and after. But fortunately the facts of Bahrain’s protest movement and the subsequent crackdown have been thoroughly documented by Bahrain’s Independent Commission of Inquiry.

The BICI report established authoritatively that the Bahraini regime committed massive violations of human rights during its attempts to crush the protest movement. Hundreds of detainees reported systematic mistreatment and torture, including extremely tight handcuffing, forced standing, severe beatings, electric shocks, burning with cigarettes, beating of the soles of the feet, verbal abuse, sleep deprivation, threats of rape, sexual abuse including the insertion of items into the anus and grabbing of genitals, hanging, exposure to extreme temperatures, forced nudity and humiliation through acts such as being forced to lick boots of guards, abuse with dogs, mock executions, and being forced to eat feces (BICI report, pp.287-89). Detainees were often held for weeks or months without access to the outside world or to lawyers. This, concluded the BICI, represented “a systematic practice of physical and psychological mistreatment, which in many cases amounted to torture, with respect to a large number of detainees in their custody” (Para 1238, p.298). And then there was the demolition of Shi’a mosques, widespread dismissals from public and private sector jobs and from universities, sectarian agitation in the media, and so much more. No political mistakes made by the opposition could possibly justify these acts.

April 22, 2012

Protecting the Turkish identity should not include ignoring history

Filed under: Education, History, Liberty, Middle East, WW1 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 12:11

Ayşe Kadıoğlu is a Turk who went to university in the United States. Part of the experience was meeting Armenian-American students in Boston and learning about events in Turkish history that have been rigorously suppressed in aid of bolstering “Turkishness”:

I grew up in Turkey, where the prevailing education system still conceals certain historical facts in primary and secondary school curricula lest they harm the “indivisibility of the state with its country and nation”, an expression that is used several times in the current Turkish constitution. Perhaps the fear about deeds that can harm the unity of the state and nation is best symbolised in the Turkish national anthem, which begins with the lyrics “Do not fear”.

When fears nurture and sustain taboos, the ability to retain experiences declines. Enduring an education that is laden with either false historical facts or an eerie silence makes it impossible for people to exit the state of self-imposed immaturity.

[. . .]

There are many taboos in Turkey that mainly concern the protection of the “indivisibility of the state and nation”. There are also many laws that make it a crime to break these taboos. When taboos are sustained by law, the minds (and, many times, bodies) of citizens end up being imprisoned. One such taboo involves the founder of the Turkish republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. In Turkey, it is a crime to insult his memory and harm his statutes. Another taboo involves the sacredness of the armed forces. This is sustained by a law against discouraging people from performing their compulsory military service.

[. . .]

Taboos, enforced by law, are fetters in front of the ability to reason. It is possible to be released from the spell of taboos and strengthen the ethos of democracy by upholding the realm of public debate and deliberation. Therefore, yes, I agree with Free Speech Debate’s fourth draft principle, “We allow no taboos in the discussion and dissemination of knowledge”, because we try not to be trapped in a state of immaturity and want to do our utmost to fulfil our capacities as reasonable human beings.

April 19, 2012

The Bahrain Formula One: it’s just a car race

Filed under: Liberty, Media, Middle East, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:58

Tim Black writes about the real reasons for protests against the Formula One race in Bahrain:

The way some politicians and commentators are talking, you would think that the fate of Bahrain hinged on whether or not this weekend’s Formula One (F1) grand prix goes ahead. Cancel it, and Bahrain’s repressive monarchs, the Al Khalifa family, will have to face up to the failings of their autocratic reign. But proceed with it and F1 might as well have crushed the Bahraini people’s democratic aspiration itself.

[. . .]

Ecclestone’s assessment of the state of Bahrain is certainly questionable. While life does go on for the 600,000 people of this tiny gulf state, there is little calm beneath the surface. Instead, the conflict between a politically and economically disenfranchised Shia majority and the ruling Sunni monarchy continues to simmer. Saudi troops may have helped Bahrain’s own security forces to quell the most explosive manifestation of this conflict last spring, but the arrests, torture and sometimes killing has continued. In the past fortnight alone, three teenagers were shot dead.

Yet as Panglossian as Ecclestone’s view of Bahraini society is, his larger point still stands: ‘it is not [F1’s] business running the country.’ And that’s the problem: too many commentators and politicians are so ‘wrapped up in their own bubble’, to quote Webber, that they believe that the question of whether or not a car race is staged in Bahrain is incredibly important; it is their business running the country. The grand prix is no longer just a car race: it has become a vehicle for exhibiting one’s moral credentials.

[. . .]

This seems to be the prevailing rationale behind the calls to cancel the grand prix: it is all about showing disapproval, striking a moral pose. Bahrain, a country increasingly seen, thanks to the press offices of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as a photo-essay in state brutality, is little more than a convenient background against which to act righteous. Of course, the calls for F1 to boycott the Bahrain grand prix are not recognised for their essential vainglory; they are presented as compassionate. For the advocates of a Bahrain boycott, those willing for the grand prix to go ahead are the callous, self-interested ones. By staging the grand prix, they are tacitly approving of, and legitimating, the rule of the Al Khalifa family.

But who does this disapproval benefit? Who is this display of moral opprobrium for? It’s certainly not those in whose name the grand prix could be cancelled: the disenfranchised majority in Bahrain. After all, if the grand prix does go ahead, it won’t legitimate or validate the regime in their eyes. For those indulging in running-street battles, for those with no political freedom, for those who experience life under the al-Khalifa autocracy on a daily basis, the presence or absence of F1 will make little or no difference. Their lives will still be marked by a ruthlessly enforced unfreedom.

April 14, 2012

“The unipolar era has not been a success for America”

Filed under: Europe, Government, Middle East, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 10:55

Conrad Black examines the differences between the Cold War, when America had a clear mission, and the post-Cold War period, when America could be said to have completely lacked a coherent foreign policy:

Indeed, the overwhelming and relatively bloodless victory in the Cold War, the fruition of the brilliant American strategy of containment, left the United States as the only seriously Great Power in the world, a condition unique in the history of the nation-state, starting in the Middle Ages. As a result, there was, 20 years ago, a good deal of frothy (and, as it turns out, grossly premature) intellectual blather about the end of history and the political culmination of the world in democratic capitalism.

The unipolar era has not been a success for America. The great irony of these 20-something post-Cold War years has been that while the United States was the indispensable country in the triumph of capitalist democracy — its preservation from 1917 to 1941, and its outright victory in the following 50 years — it is not now one of the world’s best, or even better, functioning democracies.

Under the Clinton, Bush Jr., and Obama administrations, there has been no coherent strategy to replace the previous masterly and bipartisan missions to lead the West to victory in the Second World War and in the Cold War. Bill Clinton, on the world stage, as in America, and before that in the diminutive state of Arkansas, exuded bonhomous goodwill, extended free trade to Mexico, and expanded NATO into the former Soviet Union, suavely calling it “a partnership for peace.” He moved in the Balkans, but only when the Europeans, who started by calling the challenge posed by Bosnian massacres “The hour of Europe,” fell on their faces and started crying like frightened little pigs for America to end ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. And even then, nothing would have happened if the Republican leader in the Senate, Robert Dole, a bravely wounded veteran of the European theatre in the Second World War, had not legislated military orders (lift and strike) normally in the province of the commander-in-chief. There never really was a Clinton foreign policy: His responses to the early terrorist attacks (Khobar Towers, the African embassies, the USS Cole) were very inadequate.

George W. Bush, forced to deal with the monstrous outrage of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, had a piercing, towel-snapping, locker room vision that since democracies do not engage in aggressive war, ergo, every country that was not already democratic should be propelled by the scruff of the neck and the small of the back toward democratization. Thus did Hamas replace Fatah in Gaza; the Muslim Brotherhood, (whose adherents had proudly murdered Anwar Sadat) is replacing Hosni Mubarak in Egypt; terrorist chaos is replacing Saleh in Yemen; and Hezbollah has more or less taken over from the Syrians in Lebanon. Trillions of dollars have been spent, along with over 6,000 American lives, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it would be impetuous to forecast comparative stability and enlightenment in the near future of either country.

April 10, 2012

The easy days of piracy are fading rapidly

Filed under: Africa, Middle East, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:05

Strategy Page has an update on the anti-piracy efforts off the Somalian coastline:

After two years of immense prosperity, the last year has been a disaster for the Somali pirates. For example, in the last eight months, only six ships have been captured, compared to 36 ships in the same eight month period a year ago. Pirate income is down 80 percent and expenses are up. Pirates have to spend more time at sea looking for a potential target, and when they find one, they either fail in their boarding efforts (because of armed guards, or better defense and more alert crews) or find anti-piracy patrol warships and armed helicopters showing up. Unlike in the past, the patrol now takes away the pirates weapons and equipment, sinks their mother ships and dumps the pirates back on a beach. The pirates claim that some members of the anti-piracy patrol simply kill pirates they encounter on the high seas (some nations have admitted doing this, at least once, in the past). But no one does this as official policy, and the rules are still basically “catch and release.” The big change is that the patrol has become much better at detecting pirates, on captured fishing ships, and shutting these pirates down. Often the pirates bring along the crew of the fishing ships, to help with the deception. But the patrol knows which fishing ships have “disappeared” and quickly identify those missing ships they encounter, and usually find pirates in charge. The anti-piracy patrol also has maritime reconnaissance aircraft that seek to spot mother ships as they leave pirate bases on the north Somali coast, and direct a warship to intercept and shut down those pirates. The pirates have been losing a lot of equipment, and time, and money needed to pay for it.

[. . .]

Pirates have responded by finding new targets (ships anchored off ports waiting for a berth) and using new tactics (using half a dozen or more speedboats for an attack.) The pirates still have a powerful incentive to take ships. In 2010, for example, pirates got paid over $200 million in ransom. The year before that it was $150 million. Most of that was taken by the pirate gang leaders, local warlords and the Persian Gulf negotiators who deal with the shipping companies. But for the pirates who took the ship, then helped guard it for months until the money was paid, the take was still huge. Pirates who actually boarded the ship tend to receive at least $150,000 each, which is ten times what the average Somali man makes over his entire lifetime. Even the lowest ranking member of the pirate gang gets a few thousand dollars per ransom. The general rule is that half the ransom goes to the financiers, the gang leaders and ransom negotiators. About a quarter of the money goes to the crew that took the ship, with a bonus for whoever got on board first. The pirates who guard the ship and look after the crew gets ten percent, and about ten percent goes to local clans and warlords, as protection money (or bribes).

[. . .]

For the last four years, Somali pirates have been operating as far east as the Seychelles, which are a group of 115 islands 1,500 kilometers from the African coast. The islands have a total population of 85,000 and no military power to speak of. They are defenseless against pirates. So are many of the ships moving north and south off the East Coast of Africa. While ships making the Gulf of Aden run know they must take measures to deal with pirate attacks (posting lookouts 24/7, training the crew to use fire hoses and other measures to repel boarders, hanging barbed wire on the railings and over the side to deter boarders), this is not so common for ships operating a thousand kilometers or more off the east coast of Africa. Ships in this area were warned last year that they were at risk. Now, the pirates are out in force, demonstrating that the risk is real.

March 23, 2012

Facebook seen as harmful … to deployed troops

Filed under: Asia, Middle East, Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 08:17

Strategy Page explains how increasing sophistication on the part of the al Qaeda/Taliban forces has been allowing them to select targets of opportunity through things like Facebook posts and cell phone traffic:

The U.S. Army is warning its troops to be careful what they post to on social networking sites (like Facebook). When they post photos of themselves they often reveal militarily useful information. This was discovered in Iraq, where a lot of tech savvy people working with terrorists were able to compile information from what troops posted. This sometimes led to attacks, and this was discovered from interrogating captured terrorists and captured documents and computer data. The background of pictures often indicated targets for the terrorists, or details of base defenses and American tactics. Islamic terrorists have been quick to use the Internet and other modern technology to plan and carry out their attacks.

Some of this technology can be very dangerous, like the geo-locating capability of many smart phones (which include GPS receivers and location data that hackers can obtain.) Troops in combat zones are ordered to turn geo-locating off while in areas where the enemy could use it. Even without geo-locating turned on, cell phone use can provide militarily useful information. This goes back to a century old practice called traffic analysis. This has been used with great success against terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, but it can be used against the troops.

[. . .]

Al Qaeda was long suspected of knowing how to manipulate message traffic in order to deceive our traffic analysis methods. This was rarely the case, but this form of deception has been used in the past with success. For example, when the June 6, 1944 D-Day invasion of France was being planned, a fake army group headquarters was set up in England. Actually, this “army group” consisted largely of a lot of radio and telegraph operators sending a large number of messages that would be normal if the “army group” were preparing for an invasion of France, in an area other than where the actual invasion was going to take place. The deception worked. German traffic analysis experts were fooled and the Germans believed the actual invasion at Normandy was just a feint, a move to get the Germans to send their reinforcements to Normandy rather than were the fake “army group” was going to invade.

Intelligence agencies have to be constantly on the guard for al Qaeda, or any other terrorist group, using this kind of deception. It has happened in a few instances, so a larger-scale attempt is not out of the question.

March 22, 2012

Syria is a “nation made up of little pieces, and they all are about to fall to the floor”

Filed under: History, Middle East, Politics, Religion — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:02

Geoffrey Clarfield on the history of Syria and the possible future of the region:

From outside Syria, it appears that a government is waging war against citizens who are demanding change and democracy. That is certainly how many media outlets are reporting the ongoing violence in that country. But as many Syrians know, this war is about something else entirely. Something much larger.

A century ago, Syria was still part of the Ottoman Empire. Although the administrative sub-districts of what is now called Syria changed many times under the Turks, by the early 20th century they comprised a number of distinct administrative units that centred around key cities, such as Damascus and Aleppo. Beginning in 1874, they also included the areas around Jerusalem (which had a Jewish majority). The British called the area “the Levant.”

The area was, and still is, made up of a number of occasionally co-operating, occasionally competing ethnic groups: Sunni Arabs, Maronite Christians, Arabic-speaking Greek Orthodox Christians, Aramaic-speaking Christians, Arabic-speaking Alawis, Muslim Gypsies, Armenians, Jews, Yezidis, Kurdish-speaking Sunnis and nomadic Sunni Bedouin — each with their own distinctive history, loyalties and competing interests.

[. . .]

As the Sunni Arab elites of Aleppo and Damascus clamoured for independence from the French, they became enamored with three overlapping ideologies. The first was that of Pan-Islam, which many rejected because it was seen as too similar as that of the defunct and discredited Ottoman Empire. The second was Pan Arabism, which held that the Arab world was once one country, and was destined to become one again. (This school of thought would survive until Nasser’s era in the 1950s and 1960s, but no one talks about it anymore.)

The third was “Greater Syria.” This theory held that the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean were all members of one unit — including present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and southwestern Turkey. Extreme versions of the “Greater Syria” ideology include Cyprus and the Sinai desert. In none of these worldviews is there any room for an independent Jewish homeland, a Christian Lebanon or, in the masimalist cases, even a Greek Orthodox Cyprus. Unlike Pan Arabism, the ideology of Greater Syria still has some resonance in the region.

March 20, 2012

Suppressing one shoot of the Arab Spring, with British and American help

Filed under: Government, Liberty, Media, Middle East — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:02

Tim Black talks about the oddly different reaction to the Bahrain “Arab Spring” protests:

For decades, the people of this Middle Eastern state have lived under what is effectively a hereditary dictatorship. In spring last year, however, it looked like things might finally change. A long-repressed people began to feel emboldened. Protests gathered momentum. At last, it seemed, a more democratic, more open future beckoned. And then, the crackdown. The troops moved in, the shooting (and killing) started, and the summary arrest, detention and torture commenced in earnest.

Now, you could be forgiven for guessing Syria. But you’d be wrong. The place I’m describing here is the small Gulf state of Bahrain, just off the coast of Saudi Arabia. Still, given the brutal repression, given the popular unrest, you would expect the West to have responded to events in Bahrain much as it responded to events elsewhere in the region. After all, Bahraini troops effectively began firing on their own people; and a disenfranchised majority struggling for some degree of political sovereignty, long withheld by Bahrain’s decidedly unconstitutional monarchy, is still being repressed.

[. . .]

As I have written before, Bahrain is the point at which the hypocrisy of the West’s attitude to the Arab uprisings is writ large. While America, the UK and France were happy to pose, posture and bomb when it came to a pantomime villain like Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi, the far more problematic state of Bahrain offers no such easy moral capital.

[. . .]

So what of the situation now? With ‘human rights-trained’ police out on the beat, it must be hunky dory, right? Well, given that around 200,000 people (about a third of Bahrain’s population) gathered to protest in a suburb of Manama a few weeks ago, and given the near nightly explosions of tear-gassed violence in the villages and districts around the capital, it all seems far from hunky dory. As one activist put it last week, ‘This is a war’. And it is a war which officials from Saudi Arabia, America and Britain are fighting in — on the anti-democratic, liberty-crushing side.

March 12, 2012

The role of narcissism in calls for military intervention in Syria

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Middle East, Military, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 09:40

Brendan O’Neill says that one of the driving factors for those demanding military action in Syria is narcissism:

Failed Canadian politician Michael Ignatieff recently made waves with an op-ed in the Financial Times calling for Western intervention in Syria. Revisiting some of the themes of his 1990s writings (Ignatieff made a living championing ‘humanitarian interventionism’ before he led Canada’s Liberal Party to its worst electoral defeat ever), Igantieff said the West should impose a ‘comprehensive quarantine of Syria’ in order to ‘force [Assad] from power’.

Yet the most startling thing about his piece was not its extreme short-term historical amnesia, its ignorance of the disasters unleashed in Iraq and Afghanistan following Western meddling, but rather its exhibition of self-regard and self-concern, even of that most malignant form of self-love: narcissism. Ignatieff mentioned his own feelings about what is happening in Homs six times and the possible feelings of the people of Homs themselves only three times. His short op-ed mainly focused on the ‘guilt’ and ‘shame’ felt by people like Igantieff — that is, Western observers possessed of a good, caring, Sarajevo-informed ‘international conscience’ — while the ‘fear’ and ‘desperation’ of the people of Homs were given far briefer treatment.

This ratio of 2:1 between Ignatieff’s feelings of guilt and Syrians’ feelings of desperation not only suggests that modern Western interventionists are two times more obsessed with themselves than they are with the victims of foreign conflicts they claim to care so much about — it also reveals that what is really motoring the demands for Western intervention in Syria are the emotional needs of Western observers rather than the practical needs of Syrians. This kind of narcissism is now widespread among those who desperately want the ‘international community’ to intervene in Syria. These people are so amazingly vain that they see the bombing of Syria as a kind of balm for their guilt-ridden consciences, a physical act that might help to make their own emotional turmoil that bit more bearable. Their rallying cry should be: ‘Bomb Syria so that I can sleep at night.’

March 5, 2012

US Army to retire the M-2 Bradley IFV

Filed under: Middle East, Military, Technology, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:05

The M-2 was the primary infantry fighting vehicle for the US Army intended to replace the Vietnam-era M-113 armoured personnel carrier. It was designed to protect infantry in a high-intensity battlefield from bullets and shrapnel. It wasn’t designed to protect them against mines and improvised explosive devices:

One of the little-known casualties of the Iraq war was the American M-2 Bradley IFV (Infantry Fighting Vehicle). Five years ago, the U.S. Army stopped using the M-2 in combat. By then it was clear that the enemy was intent on using mines and roadside bombs in a big way, and the M-1 tank, Stryker and MRAP vehicles were much better able to handle these blast weapons than the M-2.

This was a hard decision to make, because up until then it was believed that the M-2 could be made competitive with upgrades. For example, the BUSK (Bradley Urban Survival Kit) has been applied to about 600 M-2s. [. . .]

All this added about three tons to the weight of the vehicle. Because of his, a major upgrade of the M-2 was planned, to include a more powerful (800 versus 600 horsepower) engine, a more powerful gun (30 or 40mm) and lighter armor (or protection systems that shoot down anti-tank missiles and RPGs). Improved sensors were planned, plus vidcams to give people inside the vehicle a 360 degree view of what’s outside.) More electronics, including one that would allow variable power, and fuel consumption, from the engine were in the works. More safety features were planned as well, including an improved fire extinguisher system. The new version was not expected to show up until 2012. It did not happen, mainly because there was no way of getting around the M-2’s vulnerability to roadside bombs. The M-1 was too heavy (60 tons) to be hurt by bombs or mines, and Stryker and MRAPs were designed to cope with the close range explosions.

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