Afghan elections, part 2

I wrote here Sunday about my concerns that the US-dominated order in Afghanistan might essentially steal the Afghan elections on Karzai’s behalf… Also, that many outsiders now working in Afghanistan might be,

    so deeply invested in the success of these elections … that they are prepared to overlook what in other circumstances they might clearly recognize as fatal flaws in the system.

Last night the BBC had this interesting story on their website:

    Afghanistan’s leading human rights body has criticised the United Nations for the way it has set up its investigation panel into irregularities during the recent presidential election, saying it is not independent…
    [T]he UN has decided not to appoint any Afghans to the panel.
    That decision raises “a number of concerns” about its independence, according to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC).

The author of the piece, the Beeb’s Andrew North reporting from Kabul, added that,

    The senior spokesman of the AIHRC, Nader Naderi, argues that many of the problems with the election are being blamed on “international staff and organisations”, not on Afghans.
    Yet it is all foreign nationals who will be on the panel.
    “We recommended an Afghan expert from our commission to build confidence in this process,” says Mr Naderi, a position also supported by European Union officials in Kabul.
    But he says this was rejected.

I noted in that earlier JWN post that,

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Middle Eastern powder keg

The post I put up here yesterday was not optimally organized. That’s one problem of having to work over a very slow internet connection… Anyway, the latter half of it included some observations about the precariousness of the geostrategic situation all the way from Lebanon to Afghanistan that I think are worthy of having their own separate post. So here, lightly re-edited, they are (again).

What I can say, just sitting here with my eyes and
ears open and thinking about this complex region of the world, is that the
regional situation seems fairly dangerous and potentially explosive. One
reason is that all the competing forces are suddenly so deeply intermingled
all the way from here to Afghanistan…

Lebanon, as I’ve noted here before, has for long been a battleground between
its two kmore powerful neighbors, Israel and Syria, both of whom tend to
view what goes on here as pretty much a zero-sum game. Allied to Israel,
of course, you have the US, which has its own extremely schizophrenic relationship
with Syria… So here in Lebanon, you have a very tense situation over the (Syrian-motivated)
extension of Pres. Lahoud’s mandate for a further three years. Plus, the Security
Council’s passage of Resolution 1559 which called for a quick withdrawal
of Syria’s remaining forces from here plus the disbanding of Hizbollah. Plus,
the ugly escalation of Syrian or Syrian-inspired moves like the assassination
attempt against Marwan Hamadeh ten days ago…

Personally, having watched the Syrians’ moves here for 30 years now, I’d
say they’re acting as if they’re feeling extremely spooked and edgy… I
mean, prolonging Lahoud’s term was really unnecessary and stupid. It
was almost bound to provoke a backlash here, and as many Lebanese have said,
the Syrians could have found a dozen other presidential candidates just as
willing as Lahoud to dance to their tune, so why bother with the whole extension
business at all?

Okay, so why might the Syrians be spooked and edgy? Perhaps because
they have the US army sitting along their very lengthy eastern border with Iraq,
and many leading US political figures still openly urging “regime change”
in Syria as the next step? Plus, they also have the Mossad undertaking
anti-Hamas assassination actions in the heart of downtown Damascus and thus
majorly spooking the regime. The Israelis killed one Hamas guy there
not so long ago; and yesterday the Syrians said they’d smoked out a second
cell of Mossad-directed agents who were planning to kill the overall Hamas
head Khaled Meshaal… Oh, and let’s not forget the admitted presence of
some Mossad people with the Kurds in northern Iraq, and the Syrian regime’s
huge concerns about attempts to mobilize their own Kurdish population against
them…

Lots of reasons for unease, fear, and perhaps a resulting tendency to general
overreaction there, I’d say…

Okay, moving further east we then have Iraq. Do you think the Americans stretched out like sitting ducks throughout the country are feeling uneasy and fearful, and prone to over-reaction? I’d
say so!

And then, moving further east still, Iran. Reasons for unease, fear,
and a tendency to overreact? Absolutely! Remember, the Iranians
have the US forces boxing them in from both Iraq and Afghanistan– and also,
from the Gulf, and also, of course poweful forces inside the Bush administration still baying for regime change there.

And finally we come to Afghanistan. Certainly not the most peaceful and stable of places these days…

I’d say this whole line of countries looks poised on the brink of an explosion,
and any outbreak of additional ternsion anywhere along the whole line could set off a really damaging chain reaction.
This kind of geo-strategic intermingling of mutually hostile forces,
plus the failure of the US to really sit down properly with the Syrians and
Iranians in an effort to de-escalate and sort everything out, looks inherently
unstable. (And of course, as always, it’ll be the weakest countries
that get hit the hardest and hurt the most.)

In the IHT today, by the way, I saw a really good article about Iran
by Gareth Evans and Karim Sadjadpour of the International Crisis Group. I
tried to find a digital version of the text on both the IHT website (which
sucks, frankly) and the ICG site. But it wasn’t on either when I looked.
So let me quickly here just type in a couple of the better bits:

The debate in Washington is no longer whether the United States
can help [a democratic and stable] Iraq shape Iran, but whether it can stop
Iran from shaping Iraq…

Among Iranians, diffuse hope that the United States could improve their lot
has gradually given way to widespread skepticism. As a Teheran resident
told one of us: “When we look at what’s going on in Iraq, or Afghanistan,
it seems that the real choice is not one between democracy or authoritarianism,
but between stabuility and unrest. People may not be happy in Iran,
but no one wants unreast.”

… Today, with vital U.S. interests at stake in terms of Iraq, Afghanistan
and global nonproliferation, Iran is playing a central role in each and the
United States isn’t talking to it about any… [T]he United States
will need to put aside its illusory dreams of regime change, overcome its
deep-seated trepidation over a bilateral dialogue and engage Iran in a coherent,
sustained and comprehensive manner.

I almost couldn’t have said it better myself.

NYT on the ‘blond beasts’

The NYT’s Craig Smith had a good piece from Kabul in yesterday’s paper about the problematic behavior of the (US mercenary) ‘blond beasts’ who’ve been guarding Hamid Karzai.
(I wrote here back in July about the BBs who were guarding Iyad Allawi at the time. Not sure if they stiull are? Not sure, actually, if Allawi ever leaves the Green Zone these days… )
Anyway, here’s some of what Smith writes:

    A century or so ago, American missionaries fanned out across the globe to spread not just their religion but Western ways to the “uncivilized” masses. Then came the Peace Corps, which sent idealistic young Americans to build schools and dig wells and show the world how good the United States could be. These days, though, belligerent men with sunglasses and guns are America’s most visible civilian representatives in some parts of the world.
    The United States has hired private contractors to perform functions like palace security and even interrogations both here and in Iraq, where they were implicated in the prison abuse scandals. A C.I.A. contractor in Afghanistan has been charged in connection with the death of an Afghan man in custody in June 2003. Their relationship to the American military is sometimes unclear even to Americans, let alone to their allies.
    [German Army Capt. Georg] Auer and Western diplomats complain that the American government’s use of such ambiguous forces has sown confusion and resentment in Kabul.
    So murky are the lines of authority, Captain Auer said, that it sometimes seems any American with enough muscles and guns can pose as a representative of the United States government. He gave the example of Jonathan K. Idema, recently convicted by an Afghan court on charges of detaining and torturing Afghans as part of an apparently private hunt for terrorists.
    Even NATO’s International Security Assistance Force thought Mr. Idema was working for the United States, and on three occasions responded to his calls for backup. So overwhelming is American force these days that NATO officers ostensibly in charge of Kabul’s security do not challenge the authority of Americans, even those out of uniform.
    Contractors do not live by the same constraints as active-duty soldiers. At best, they reinforce the stereotype of Americans as brawny and boorish. At worst, their blurring of the military-civilian line serves as a reminder that military discipline not only keeps up morale, but encourages moral behavior. [HC emphasis there]
    DynCorp is the same company whose employees hired child prostitutes while working in Bosnia a few years ago, until some people started complaining. Rather than face local justice or courts-martial, the perpetrators were simply sent home...

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Beirut, part 4

I’ve been continuing to work on re-encountering Beirut with some wariness.
Lots of reasons for that. Some personal, some political.

If you want to skip the following few “personal” observations
and get straight to what I write about the political situation here and in
the region, click here.

This afternoon, I walked up to Smith’s supermarket on Sadat Street. Boy,
the proliferation of big, modern supermarkets in Lebanon these days is really
something! Yesterday, I went to a large Monoprix near my old apartment
up on Verdun. Incredible: vast; extremely clean expanses of floor and shelving;
with great, mainly Lebanese goods hygienically packaged, beautifully presented,
and not terribly expensive… I’ll definitely go back there.

Smith’s Supermarket, however–an old institution in Ras Beirut–does not
quite compete with that one, on quite a number of grounds. Including
price. But it does have wine, and I wanted to lay in a couple of bottles.
Also, it’s within walking distance of our AUB faculty apartment here.
So I wandered around it a bit, picked up a few things, paid for them, and
was just picking my way over the nasty bit where they’re remaking the sidewalk
outside when I heard a gravelly male voice say, “Um Tarek, keefik?“

I don’t know how high I jumped off the ground. It’s been ages since
anyone called me Um Tarek–Tarek’s mom– the usual Arabic monicker for a
woman whose eldest son is called Tarek. Actually, on later consideration,
not that long: many of the Palestinian friends with whom I caught up in Ramallah
and Jerusalem last February are people who call me Um Tarek. But still,
I definitely wasn’t expecting it there, on the sidewalk outside Smith’s…

Continue reading “Beirut, part 4”

Men behaving very badly…

… and what women think of them:
First, from Saudi Arabia, the horrific news that the eponymous royals have decided not to let women take part in the (partial) municipal elections scheduled for next February-March.
Those elections will will fill only half of the seats in the renewed municipal councils in the kingdom. (The other members will still be appointed by the eponymous royals.) But still!!! It is truly amazing that even with those highly–as we might say– emasculated forms of election, they could not let women run in them.
I don’t know why they bother to go through this whole charade of pretending to move towards democracy at all…
And then, from the US, we have this great piece of commentary in the NYT today: Being President Means Never Having to Say He’s Sorry, by the sociolinguist and gender-studies expert Deborah Tannen.
She writes,

    Many men learn, from the time they’re children, to avoid apologizing, because it entails admitting fault, and that’s risky for them. Boys have to be on their guard against appearing weak – either literally, by losing fights, or figuratively, in the way they speak – because if they act or talk in ways that show weakness, other boys will take advantage and push them around.
    But refusing to apologize infuriates women because that makes it seem as if the guy doesn’t care that he let her down, and if he doesn’t care, there’s no reason to think he won’t do it again. This is the negative effect – the collateral damage – that Mr. Bush’s “certainty” is certain to have on many women: if he won’t admit he made a mistake in his handling of Iraq, it seems he doesn’t care about the American soldiers killed and maimed, the civilians beheaded, about the Iraqi children blown up by insurgents’ bombs…

Well, let’s hope Tannen’s right. Apparently the “undecideds” in the US election include a large proportion of women…

Reflections on south Lebanon

I noticed that the post I put up here yesterday about my trip to south Lebanon suffered from the “amazing disappearing bottom” in some renditions. Okay, the problem is it was too long. So in case your reading of my “Refelections” section there got cut off, I am just copying it in here so that you can–I hope– read all of it.

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Truths from Iraq

I am so happy about the news of the ceasefire agreed for Sadr City between the Sadrists, the Iraqi army, and the Americans.
May it hold! May it be extended to the whole country!
Meanwhile, I read with huge interest this piece in Sunday’s WaPo, by Steve Fainaru, a reporter who’s been embedded with a Marines unit for a while now. Though he seemed a little unquestioning of the official line earlier, here’s some of what he had in today’s piece:

    “Sometimes I see no reason why we’re here,” [Lance Cpl. Carlos] Perez said. “First of all, you cannot engage as many times as we want to. Second of all, we’re looking for an enemy that’s not there. The only way to do it is go house to house until we get out of here.”
    Perez is hardly alone. In a dozen interviews, Marines from a platoon known as the “81s” expressed in blunt terms their frustrations with the way the war is being conducted and, in some cases, doubts about why it is being waged. The platoon, named for the size in millimeters of its mortar rounds, is part of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment based in Iskandariyah, 30 miles southwest of Baghdad.
    The Marines offered their opinions openly to a reporter traveling with the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines during operations last week in Babil province, then expanded upon them during interviews over three days in their barracks at Camp Iskandariyah, their forward operating base…
    “I feel we’re going to be here for years and years and years,” said Lance Cpl. Edward Elston, 22, of Hackettstown, N.J. “I don’t think anything is going to get better; I think it’s going to get a lot worse. It’s going to be like a Palestinian-type deal. We’re going to stop being a policing presence and then start being an occupying presence. . . . We’re always going to be here. We’re never going to leave.”

And there’s much more:

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Beirut, Part 3

Saturday was field trip day. Destination: parts of southern Lebanon.
To be precise, we visited, in short order:

  1. The Old City of Saida (Sidon),
  2. The family lands near Marjayoun to which my
    ex-husband–and therefore, in their turn, my two eldest kids– have some
    claim,
  3. Members of that same family, in Marjayoun,
  4. The infamous Khiam Detention Center, which through
    to the Israeli withdrawal in 2000 featured in numerous reports by human-rights
    organizations because of the tortures and other abuses practiced there by
    Israel and its local collaborators,
  5. The truly historic Beaufort Castle (Qala’at
    al-Shaqif).

In the course of the trip, I got a much more vivid idea than I’d previously
had both about the current situation in south Lebanon and about the complex
relationship between Hizbollah and the Lebanese government. I also gained
some interesting insights into the whole process of “unilateral withdrawal”,
such as Sharon is now proposing to undertake from the Gaza Strip. So number
“6” of what I post about here will be:

6. Some reflections after the trip.

Continue reading “Beirut, Part 3”

Afghan elections–a model?

In this Sept. 25 column in Al-Hayat, I asked:

    [I]s it possible that the upcoming Afghanistan election-like the one organized under U.S. military control in Vietnam in 1971-is more about consolidating U.S. military power around the world than it is about seeking and respecting the “free will of the (non-American) people”?

Sadly, as of now, it still appears that this answer may end up being answered with a yes.
The whole debacle in Afghanistan over the use of non-permanent inks by election officials is almost beyond belief.
Sometime during the day yesterday, all 15 of the opposition candidates announced their decision to withdraw from the elections because of the demonstrated seriousness of the ink-marking problem.
The AP’s Paul Haven wrote a great piece in which he contrasted the reactions of George Bush– who crowed about the election being a “marvellous thing”– with those of the actual election contenders in Afghanistan:

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