The American Bear

› Paul Kagame: I asked America to kill Congo rebel leader with drone | Guardian

Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, has rejected accusations from Washington that he was supporting a rebel leader and accused war criminal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by challenging a senior US official to send a drone to kill the wanted man.

In an interview with the Observer Magazine, Kagame said that on a visit to Washington in March he came under pressure from the US assistant secretary of state for Africa, Johnnie Carson, to arrest Bosco Ntaganda, leader of the M23 rebels, who was wanted by the international criminal court (ICC). The US administration was increasing pressure on Kagame following a UN report claiming to have uncovered evidence showing that the Rwandan military provided weapons and other support to Ntaganda, whose forces briefly seized control of the region’s main city, Goma.

“I told him: ‘Assistant secretary of state, you support [the UN peacekeeping force] in the Congo. Such a big force, so much money. Have you failed to use that force to arrest whoever you want to arrest in Congo? Now you are turning to me, you are turning to Rwanda?’” he said. “I said that, since you are used to sending drones and gunning people down, why don’t you send a drone and get rid of him and stop this nonsense? And he just laughed. I told him: ‘I’m serious’.”

› U.S. Guilty of Genocide in Guatemala Should be real headline | Ajamu Baraka

Last week news coverage around the world heralded the conviction of Efrain Rios Montt on the charges of genocide against the Mayan people during his 17 month tenure as Guatemala’s head of government and military strongman. The three-judge panel led by Jazmin Barrios determined that evidence presented to the court established that there was a clear and systematic plan to exterminate the Ixil people as a race and that the plan developed and executed by the Montt government satisfied the definition of genocide. With this conviction, the 86 year-old ex-dictator was sentenced to 80 years in prison.

This is a tremendous victory for the people of Guatemala that is a powerful expression of justice and accountability for human rights abuses that offers hope to the many victims of atrocities around the world. This victory, however, doesn’t end with the sentence of the Guatemalan dictator. Another chapter needs to be opened with a more thorough examination of the relationship between Montt, the Guatemalan military and the United States government which, if examined objectively, establishes a clear chain of moral and legal culpability. A relationship that even with a cursory understanding of the history of the conflict in Guatemala would lead logically to the inescapable conclusion that if Efrain Rios Montt, and by extension the Guatemalan military, are guilty of the crime of genocide, the U.S. government and its officials are just as guilty as Rios Montt and that justice in Guatemala remains unfulfilled until everyone, including those responsible for pulling the strings in Guatemala, are also brought to justice. [++]

› White House extends application of Executive Order 13611 which declared a state of emergency in Yemen

From the letter:

Section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)) provides for the automatic termination of a national emergency unless, within 90 days prior to the anniversary date of its declaration, the President publishes in the Federal Register and transmits to the Congress a notice stating that the emergency is to continue in effect beyond the anniversary date. In accordance with this provision, I have sent to the Federal Register for publication the enclosed notice stating that the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13611 of May 16, 2012, with respect to Yemen is to continue in effect beyond May 16, 2013.

The actions and policies of certain members of the Government of Yemen and others[*] continue to threaten Yemen’s peace, security, and stability, including by obstructing the implementation of the agreement of November 23, 2011, between the Government of Yemen and those in opposition to it, which provided for a peaceful transition of power that meets the legitimate demands and aspirations of the Yemeni people for change, and by obstructing the political process in Yemen.

* The U.S. government is not included in the “others” that “threaten Yemen’s peace, security, and stability” of course, because the murder/drone program/not-so-secret secret war there is nothing if not benificent. (Just ask the Yemeni people about the peace and stablity the US frequently brings to the country).

Milquetoast media report on the sanctions/”National Emergency” order originally signed in May of 2012 here.

› Reagan’s Favourite Genocidaire | LRB

… At the time [of the genocide], Ríos Montt defended what was going on in a way reminiscent of US justifications for attacks on Vietnamese villages: ‘Look, the problem of the war is not just a question of who is shooting. For each one who is shooting there are ten who are working behind him.’ Ríos Montt had the active support of President Reagan, whom he met in December 1982. Reagan saw Guatemala as a proxy battleground in the cold war. He said that Ríos Montt was ‘totally dedicated to democracy’ and had been given a ‘bum rap’ on human rights issues. Perhaps he’d been persuaded by the US ambassador, who earlier in the year said that the ‘killings have stopped’.

While the trial’s verdict means that the 86 year-old ex-dictator should spend the rest of his life in jail, it also has wider implications. It’s the first domestic conviction of a former head of state on genocide charges, and a milestone in Guatemala’s faltering progress towards cleaner politics. It provides a degree of justice to Mayan villagers, who nevertheless remain deeply impoverished and marginalised.

More broadly, it was a trial of Guatemala’s political establishment. The current president, Otto Pérez Molina, at one point denied there had been genocide and tried to stop the trial, allowing it to continue only as long as he wouldn’t be drawn into it. Yet it was inevitable that he would, as he had been the commander in charge of army units who carried out some of the massacres. Will he face prosecution when his presidential immunity ends in 2016?

and how about Elliott Abrams while we’re at it?

› Speaking of Abrams, What Did He Know About Genocide in Guatemala? | Jim Lobe

[On Friday, a] Guatemalan court … found former President Efrain Rios Montt guilt of genocide and crimes against humanity committed against the indigenous Mayan Ixil population as a result of the counter-insurgency campaign he directed as president from 1982 to 1983; that is, in the middle of Elliott Abrams’ tenure as the Reagan administration’s assistant secretary of state for human rights. While human rights, church groups, and the American Anthropological Association repeatedly denounced that campaign (with some actually calling it “genocide”), the administration moved during that period to restore and increase military aid to the government. In fact, after visiting personally with Rios Montt in Honduras in early December, 1982, Reagan himself declared that the born-again president was getting a “bum rap” from rights groups and journalists and that he was “a man of great personal integrity” who faced “a brutal challenge from guerrillas armed and supported by others outside Guatemala.”

[…] Clearly, [Friday’s] conviction should prove rather embarrassing for Abrams, as this genocide occurred “on his watch,” so to speak, and there’s no on-the-record indication that he ever disagreed with the defense that the administration mounted on Rios Montt’s behalf or that he opposed its repeated efforts to provide Guatemala’s army with military aid. Nor, of course, did Abrams resign in protest over those efforts.

Precisely what his stance vis-a-vis Guatemala policy was during this period remains somewhat cloudy, as the American Republic Affairs (ARA) bureau, then led by the late Tom Enders (the man who oversaw the secret bombing of Cambodia), was the main public spokesman for the administration’s policy. Hopefully, the National Security Archive, whose dogged work played a major role in making Rios Montt’s prosecution possible, will soon release declassified documents that will shed light on what Abrams did or did not do on Guatemala during this period and specifically whether he signed off on/objected to/tried to amend testimony and other public statements made by Enders and other officials. (It would be very interesting to find out whether he may have, as the chief human rights official, personally briefed Reagan before the “bum rap” statement.) […]

› The Roadmap to the Destruction of Syria | Pepe Escobar

Just when the red line charade was reaching fever pitch – but still buried in the sand – and he had to choose between the US “exercising restraint” or “directly involving itself” in the Syrian war, (see The Syria-Iran red line show, Asia Times Online, May 2, 2013) President Obama was saved by Bibi Netanyahu’s Israeli government.

The temptation was oh so great for Obama to replay Ronald Reagan and gloriously wear the mantle of Obama The Syrian Mujahid, just as Reagan did in the 1980s with his beloved freedom fighters of the Afghan jihad. That will have to wait – perhaps not too long.

Let’s cut to the chase. Israel’s bombing of Syrian army installations at Jamraya near Damascus is a provocation and an act of war. Israel acted as a Washington proxy – which may have even provided the list of targets. And Washington – not to mention those useless puppets in Brussels – won’t condemn the bombing, which for the umpteenth time makes a mockery of international law.

… [A]fter much huff and puff, Obama ended up with something way more comfortable than a no-fly zone: targeted strikes – with jets and/or missiles, conducted by the Israelis. The blueprint could be Operation Desert Fox (the Bill Clinton-ordered bombing of Iraq in 1998.) The objective, to “send a clear message” to Syria.

The next bombings may target airfields, concentrations of aircraft, more weapons depots, tanks and artillery. Collateral damage, inevitably, will soar, proportionately to the level of provocation.

Former US ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson, very close to the Clinton clan, has already gamed on ABC News that Obama is “leaning towards aerial strikes”. Yes; this is just the beginning. Mini-Shock and Awes await.

The question is why did it take so long. The destruction of Syria – as conceptualized by Sheikh Nasrallah – with the West once more collaborating with jihadi gangs, has been in the cards for years. See how Seymour Hersh outlined it in 2007. And see how badly the bipartisan Washington establishment craves regime change.

And Damascus, of course, is just a stop towards Tehran. The proverbial anonymous sources have leaked to the Rupert Murdoch-ownedSunday Timesin London that a “Defense Crescent” is becoming a reality.

› The west and its allies cynically bleed Syria to weaken Iran | Seumas Milne

If anyone had doubts that Syria’s gruesome civil war is already spinning into a wider Middle East conflict, the events of the past few days should have laid them to rest. Most ominous was Israel’s string of aerial attacks on Syrian military installations near Damascus, reportedly killing more than 100.

The bombing raids, unprovoked and illegal, were of course immediately supported by the US and British governments. Since Israel has illegally occupied Syria’s Golan Heights for 46 years, perhaps the legitimacy of a few more air raids hardly merited serious consideration.

But it’s only necessary to consider what the western reaction would have been if Syria, let alone Iran, had launched such an attack on Israel – or one of the Arab regimes currently arming the Syrian rebels – to realise how little these positions have to do with international legality, equity or rights of self-defence.

Israeli officials have let it be known that the attacks, launched from Lebanese airspace, were aimed at stockpiles of Iranian missiles bound for Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia resistance movement and governing party. They were not, it was said, intended as an intervention in Syria’s civil war – but as a warning to Iran and protection against Hezbollah attacks in a future conflict.

That’s not how it seemed to the Syrian rebel fighters on the ground, filmed greeting the attacks with cries of “Allahu akbar”, unaware of who had actually carried them out. By bombing the Syrian army, which has recently made advances in some rebel-held areas, Israel is clearly intervening in the war.

The raids follow the public declaration by Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah last week that his fighters are supporting government forces inside Syria – which are also backed by Iran, Russia and China. It is Syria’s role as the pivot of Iranian influence across the Middle East that has turned the Syrian war into a potential regional conflagration.

Having hedged its bets, Israel has now started to make clear it regards the prospect of Islamist and jihadist groups taking over from the Assad regime as less threatening than the existing “Syria-Iran-Hezbollah axis”, as the Israeli defence ministry official Amos Gilad put it recently.

… [W]hat began in Syria more than two years ago as a brutally repressed popular uprising has long since morphed into a vicious sectarian war, manipulated by outside forces to change the regional balance of power and already dangerously spilling over into neighbouring Lebanon and Iraq.

The consequences for Syria have been multiple massacres, ethnic cleansing, torture, a humanitarian crisis and the risk of the country’s breakup. The longer the war, the greater the danger of a Yugoslavian-style fragmentation into sectarian and ethnic enclaves.

The Assad regime bears responsibility for that, of course. But so do those who have funded and fuelled the war, bleeding Syria and weakening the Arab world in the process. The demand by Cameron and other western politicians to increase the flow of arms is reckless and cynical.

The result will certainly be to ratchet up the death toll and spread the war. If they were genuinely interested in saving lives – instead of neutralising Syria to undermine Iran – western leaders would be using their leverage with the rebels’ regional sponsors to negotiate a political settlement that would allow Syrians to determine their own future.

› Reminder: The U.S. Government Lies About the Use of Chemical Weapons in the Mideast | A Tiny Revolution

Obviously I have no idea whether any chemical weapons have been used in Syria, and if they have who’s responsible. But this is a good time to remember that, even beyond the bogus case for the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. government has a long history of lying about this subject.

This is from last week:

In a letter to key lawmakers, the White House said U.S. intelligence agencies “assess with varying degrees of confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically the chemical agent sarin.”

Now Carla Del Ponte, a member of the UN Commission on Syria, says they have “strong, concrete suspicions” that chemical weapons were used in Syria, but that they were deployed not by the Assad regime but by Syrian rebels. (Del Ponte was the lead prosecutor of Slobodan Milošević‎; earlier she barely escaped assassination when Sicilian organized crime attempted to blow up her house with 1000 pounds of explosives.)

And this is from March 1988, about Saddam Hussein’s notorious gassing of the Iraqi city of Halabja back when Saddam was our ally:

The U.S. State Department said both Iran and Iraq had used poison gas in the fighting around Halabja and called on both nations to desist immediately.

“This incident appears to be a particularly grave violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol banning chemical weapons. There are indications that Iran may also have used chemical artillery shells in this fighting,” department spokesman Charles Redman said in Washington.

He declined, however, to say what evidence the United States had to implicate the Iranians.

Seventeen years later, investigative reporter Joost Hiltermann wrote about declassified State Department cables instructing U.S. diplomats to muddy the water by claiming that both Iraq and Iran had used chemical weapons around Halabja and “to dodge the ‘What’s the evidence’ question with the stock ‘Sorry, but that’s classified information’ response…In the final analysis, the only evidence for the convenient claim that Iran used chemical weapons during the war is that the US government said so.”

More recently, a senior U.S. official explained the general principle about this kind of thing: “The countries that cooperate with us get at least a free pass. Whereas other countries that don’t cooperate, we ream them as best we can.”

P.S. Charles Redman, the Reagan State Department spokesman who lied about Iran using chemical weapons in 1988, was later rewarded by Bill Clinton with the Ambassadorship to Germany. He then cashed in by becoming a senior vice presidential at Bechtel. Thanks to Bradley Manning and WikiLeaks you can read here about Redman flying to Tripoli to try to get Bechtel into business with the Qadhafi family.

› Israel's Bombs Invite Obama to Join a War Against Syria | Bob Dreyfuss

If Israel’s bombing of Syria, which apparently killed more than 100 Syrian troops, is meant as a warning to Iran—as various analysts in Israel and The Jerusalem Post suggest—then the message is: We can strike a nearby, war-embattled nation just minutes from our bases. It really says little about Israel’s ability to strike Iran, a far more complex target much, much farther away. But it does put Israel into a firm alliance with Saudi Arabia (and the Sunnis) in a very dangerous Sunni vs. Shiite sectarian conflict.

President Obama, who, as noted in this blog, repeatedly, awkwardly boxed himself in with his off-the-cuff “red-line” comments about Syria’s alleged (and let us repeat, “alleged”) use of chemical weapons, should decline Israel’s violent invitation to take sides in the anti-Iranian crusade. But John McCain, who’s wanted to bomb Syria from the start, is urging Obama to accept Israel’s invitation to join the fight. Unfortunately, too many Democrats, mostly liberal interventionists and allies of the Israel lobby, agree.

Perhaps his readiness to intervene in Syria will be tempered by the fact that it now appears as if the Syrian rebels have used chemical weapons, too, according to the United Nations. But as The New York Times reports, the United States and its allies were, “in secret,” already discussing air strikes against Syria. But Obama should instead seek an immediate cease-fire, with Russia’s support—Secretary of State John Kerry is heading for Moscow—and then work out a political accord.

In any case, it’s hard to take Israel’s assertion that its strikes against Syria on Friday and again on Sunday, more massively, were aimed simply at rockets that may or may not have reached Hezbollah in Lebanon. From early reports, it appears that the attacks were aimed at key bastions of the Syrian government and military in and around the capital, Damascus:

The attack, which sent brightly lighted columns of smoke and ash high into the night sky above the Syrian capital, struck several critical military facilities in some of the country’s most tightly secured and strategic areas, killing dozens of elite troops stationed near the presidential palace, a high-ranking Syrian military official said in an interview.

Last night, speaking on CNN, Syria’s deputy foreign minister said that the new attacks mean that Israel is now firmly in an alliance with Al Qaeda against President Bashar al-Assad. He’s right. It’s an alliance that the United States, already entangled in the war, doesn’t need to join.

The attacks also create a major public relations problem for the rebels, mostly militant Islamists, Al Qaeda types, Muslim Brotherhood activists, and other Sunni religious folks, all of whom are not enthralled by the idea of getting overt Israeli help in toppling Assad. According to The New York Times, the rebels issued a confused statement noting that they don’t want assistance from “external occupying forces,” that is, from Israeli forces occupying Palestine. Some of them are critical of the Assad government for refusing to confront Israel.

Syria is threatening to retaliate against Israel, but really there isn’t much that they can do, and Iran, too, isn’t likely to allow itself to be provoked by the Israeli attack. That could change though, if Israel continues to bomb Syria in what would be an overt alliance with the rebels. But with Benjamin Netanyahu now in Beijing, it isn’t likely that Israel will continue to attack Syria, for now.

› Israeli bombing of Syria and moral relativism | Glenn Greenwald

Israeli defenders claim that its air attack [on Syria] targeted weapons provided by Iran that would have ended up in the hands of Hezbollah. Obama officials quickly told media outlets that “the administration is fully supportive of Israel’s airstrikes”. Indeed, Democratic Sen. Pat Leahy noted: “Keep in mind the Israelis are using weapons supplied by us.” There is, needless to say, virtually no condemnation of the Israeli assault in US media or political circles. At this point, the only question is how many minutes will elapse before Congress reflexively adopts a near-unanimous or unanimous resolution effusively praising Israel for the attack and unqualifiedly endorsing all past and future attacks as well.

Because people who cheer for military action by their side like to pretend that they’re something more than primitive “might-makes-right” tribalists, the claim is being hauled out that Israel’s actions are justified by the “principle” that it has the right to defend itself from foreign weapons in the hands of hostile forces. But is that really a “principle” that anyone would apply consistently, as opposed to a typically concocted ad hoc claim to justify whatever the US and Israel do? Let’s apply this “principle” to other cases, as several commentators on Twitter have done over the last 24 hours, beginning with this:

If Syrian planes bombed Israel’s Ramat David Airbase because it houses US-supplied weaponry, what would the appropriate Israeli reaction be?
— Nima Shirazi (@WideAsleepNima) May 4, 2013

Here’s a similar question:

Imagine if, say, Iran had unilaterally launched a strike on Salafi Syrian rebels overnight? Would we all be okay with that? #lawofthejungle
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) May 5, 2013

Or, for that matter, if Syria this week attacks a US military base on US soil and incidentally kills some American civilians (as Nidal Hasan did), and then cites as justification the fact that the US has been aiding Syrian rebels, would any establishment US journalist or political official argue that this was remotely justified? Or what if Syria bombed Qatar or Saudi Arabia on the same ground: would any US national figure defend the bombing as well within Syria’s rights given those nation’s arming of its rebels?

Few things are more ludicrous than the attempt by advocates of US and Israeli militarism to pretend that they’re applying anything remotely resembling “principles”. Their only cognizable “principle” is rank tribalism: My Side is superior, and therefore we are entitled to do things that Our Enemies are not. [++]

› In time of trans-Atlantic austerity, US opens another military base in Spain

With its already small defense budget hit hard by the economic crisis Spain is leasing several bases to the US in exchange for access to better technology, intelligence, and training.

(Source: jayaprada)

› Israel Bombs Syria, Again | As'ad AbuKhalil

… The US government and media play their usual roles. Never question what Israel does anywhere in the world. Justifications are provided instantly, and it was not a coincidence that the New York Times had a front page story about poor little Israel and how it has to fend for itself to defend itself from the conflict and turmoil in Syria. Only a week ago, David Ignatius of the Washington Post, having received different propaganda marching orders from the Israeli government, reported that Israel was in fact calm and just enjoying the carnage in Syria.

The conflict in Syria has long been outside of the hands of the Syrian people. It is not that a local-internal conflict became regional and international over a two years period. No, it was regional-international from the start. The US and its clients in the Arab counter-revolution movement were ready to steer Arab uprisings in a direction that pleases US and Israel. The fall of Mubarak required the fall of the Assad regime although the US and Israel are discovering that they can continue to do business with the Muslim Brotherhood.

This is not to say that the Syrian people don’t have more than a hundred reasons to overthrow the Syrian regime. They do, but this was not about the underlying causes of revolt in Syria. The Qatari, Saudi, Turkish, Israeli, and US beef with the Syrian regime was never about democracy. The Syrian regime had brutally repressed revolts and uprisings before and there were no criticisms heard and the Saudi government (and later the Qatari) was willing to bankroll the Assad dynasty provided that the two work together in Lebanon and in the region.

It is not that the there is no Syrian revolution (and there is not), but the outcome of the conflict in Syria is now certainly not going to be democratic. You can make that prediction on the basis of the sponsors of the “revolutionaries” and the ideology (and practices) of the active armed groups in Syria. But the Syrian armed groups are being fooled by US and Israel into thinking that the Syrian throne is now within their reach, while the two sides hope for a longer protracted conflict that would exhaust and fatigue the entire Syrian nation and would distract them from considering harming Israeli interests.

The Syrian regime has shown in the past that it was willing to do business under the table with Israel. The Syrian National Coalition and all the active armed groups in Syria have proven that they are willing to align with Israel before they reach power and to do business over the table. That can only bode ill for the future of Syria.

› If 40 Months of Drone Strikes in Yemen Haven’t Made Transfers Safe … | Marcy Wheeler

… [B]ack when the moratorium [on releasing cleared Yemeni prisoners from Guantanamo] was announced 40 months ago, the Obama Administration suggested that it was a response to a recent setback in security in Yemen, one which would be fixed by its new counterterrorism efforts in the country [i.e. death by robot, signature strikes, guilt by association, location, etc.]

Midway through the ensuing period, the Obama Administration succeeded in killing Anwar al-Awlaki, whom they would implicate in that Christmas Day attack.

And yet 40 months after the moratorium (and the drone strikes) started and 19 months since Awlaki’s death, the Administration still hasn’t removed the moratorium.

It may well be that things in Yemen haven’t gotten more stable since January 2010 and on that basis the Administration continues the moratorium (though Yemen’s treatment of Adnan Latif sure made it sound like the Administration was moving toward some shift). Indeed, Brennan’s most recent estimates say the number of AQAP members has grown fivefold through this period of moratorium.

Clearly, the Gitmo policy has to change. But what about the Yemen policy, which over 40 months time hasn’t brought the stability Obama’s team was promising when the moratorium started?