Withdrawal And Then What?

The politics of a withdrawal from Afghanistan are firmly on the British political agenda, the recent comments by Gordon Brown’s office indicates that, even Nick Clegg is hedging his bets.

Combined with the removal of the United Nation’s western officials, the situation in Afghanistan is looking bleak, despite the urgency of the McChrystal’s request for extra troops the White House is dithering.

There is a distinct possibility that NATO forces and aid agencies could withdraw completely from Afghanistan within the next few years, or before, and despite what some “anti-imperialists” suggest such a course of action would not be a victory, as ultimately the Afghans will suffer a terrible fate.

I think it worthwhile pondering the possible outcomes of a precipitous withdraw of NATO troops.

These preliminary points should not need stating, however, I think they provide a wider context from which we can draw some conclusions.

• Firstly, the Taliban is engaged in a war of conquest, it wants to control Afghanistan at all costs, the whole country as it did years ago.
• Secondly, it will use any means to achieve that end, it would gladly kill thousands, if not tens of thousands, or more, that’s what the Taliban will do.
• Thirdly, the years of neglect and misgovernment have taken their toll and finally, that the joint NATO and Afghan forces are having a real difficulty subduing the Taliban.

All of these points are fairly obvious, but they point to wider problems, should NATO forces leave abruptly then the remaining Afghan forces would have serious difficulties overcoming the Taliban.

Again, if the combined resources of both Afghan and NATO forces can’t readily defeat the Taliban, at the moment, then the Afghan forces on their own probably would not be able to do it. What follows from that is very important, because as far as I can see there are two conceivable outcomes of a hasty withdrawal of NATO forces:

1. Civil war in Afghanistan.

2. A Taliban victory and conquest of the country.

Should a civil war occur in Afghanistan then potentially hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians could be slaughtered, as neither side would pull any punches and use all and any available methods to subdue the other side.

Either with, or without, a civil war a Taliban victory is highly probable.

In victory they will show no mercy, in the past they have deliberately attacked other ethnic minorities in Afghanistan, etc. I am not sure that we need to dwell on what type of society that the Taliban would reconstitute, but 13th century medievalism would be their starting place. Women in Afghanistan would be repressed and made the chattel of men. Girls education would be banned. Most modern innovations, even chess and music, would be made illegal

Under the Taliban the cult of the gun and the bullet made the dominant ideology, all that and much more. Aid agencies would be banned, as they were before, from the country as foreign “interlopers”, the Afghan economy would atrophy and millions of potential refugee’s seek shelter in neighbouring states. Starvation will return to Afghanistan.

Once that has occurred Western states will find any number of reasons not to intervene, as blood drips down the streets and alleyways of villages in Afghanistan.

That is certainly probable, in light of a Taliban victory, and in the West we will hear such nauseating variants on the “they are savages, let them fight it out” theme or “we shouldn’t split a drop of British blood for those Afghans” etc

In such an eventuality, a typically Western mix of isolationism, xenophobia and realpolitik would be used to justify inaction and passivity in the face of a Taliban victory.

All of that, is certainly a possibility, and more probable than many in the West would readily admit. A Taliban victory and the consequences for the ordinary Afghans does not bear thinking about, the result will be untold amounts of bloodshed and parsimonious hand-wringing in the West.

UN Vs. Hamas?

Not likely, the UN will roll over and more than likely give in, but the Torygraph reports on the dispute between them:

“A UN agency is producing a human rights curriculum which is to be proposed for inclusion in the studies of secondary school pupils. It is to be discussed with the local community within weeks.

At least one senior UN official in Gaza has said he is confident the Holocaust will become part of the curriculum adopted by local schools.

There is intense opposition from Hamas hardliners however.

Yunis al Astal, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, is reported to have said that including the details of the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis in school teaching would be “marketing a lie”. Those responsible for teaching the Holocaust would be committing a “war crime”, he added.
…”

Minimize The Ongoing Catastrophe.

Darfur seems to be off the Western news radar, but Eric Reeves argues against such complacency:

“September 26, 2009 — The diminishment of large-scale combat in Darfur has led some observers to minimize the ongoing catastrophe for the people of this tortured region. In words that have become notorious, outgoing UNAMID commander Martin Agwai declared in August that “as of today, I would not say there is a war going on in Darfur,” but rather “very low intensity” engagements. These words were anticipated by those of the departing UN/AU special representative to UNAMID, Rodolphe Adada: “There is no more fighting proper on the ground.” “Right now there is no high-intensity conflict in Darfur…. Call it what you will but this is what is happening in Darfur—a lot of banditry, carjacking, attacks on houses.”

These assessments appear strange indeed when we consider that during the tenure of these two men more than 450,000 Darfuris were newly displaced, according to figures from the UN High Commission for Refugees and the UN Department of Peacekeeping operations (317,000 in 2008 alone). The vast majority of these civilians were violently displaced because UNAMID continues to be ineffective in deterring or halting various forms of attacks on civilians. Despite the large number of personnel on the ground, UNAMID continues to operate at less than 50 percent of mandated capacity. Too often troops, civilian police, and other personnel lack equipment, transport, adequate communications and intelligence capacity—or even a clear understanding of their civilian protection mandate, which has UN Chapter 7 auspices.

But the assessments by Agwai and Adada failed completely to anticipate the recent violence initiated by Khartoum’s Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) in the Korma region northwest of el-Fasher in North Darfur. Reports of a significant military offensive by the SAF and its Janjaweed militia forces, underway since early September, have still not been investigated, nor have the conditions of several thousand newly displaced civilians been assessed by UNAMID or humanitarian organizations. Twenty civilian casualties were reported in early September and more recently an additional eighteen civilian casualties have been reported; even so UNAMID remains unwilling to demand of Khartoum that access be granted—a deference that breeds only more intransigence on the part of the regime. The rebel forces, who have seen this deference—and with good cause view UNAMID as having taken the regime’s side in the conflict—had previously refused to grant security guarantees to UNAMID but have now accepted that the immediate needs of civilians demand access and have granted it. Khartoum alone blocks UNAMID from investigating.”

Good Summary on Honduras.

This is a surprisingly good video clip from Honduras:

Update 1: UN mobile? Zelaya spoke to the United Nations General Assembly via a mobile phone, whilst still in the Brazilian Embassy, as the Times reports:

The ousted Honduran president has become the first world leader ever to address the United Nations General Assembly by mobile phone, appealing to the world body to help return hm to power.

Manuel Zelaya made the long-distance speech to the 192-nation body from his refuge in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, where he is surrounded by soldiers and riot police.

Patricia Rodas Baca, his Foreign Minister, surprised delegates by pulling out her mobile phone at the start of her UN address last night.

Flourishing the phone, she gave Mr Zelaya a dramatic introduction. “Our President is under siege by military forces…” she said. “He is being threatened and constanly, every minute, every second, that passes, could be the one that brings the tragic resolution.” “

Update 2: Spanish language sites on the crisis in Honduras, resistencia morazan and honduras resistencia.

Update 3: I forget if I published this link before, but el libertador is a good newspaper in Honduras covering events.

Hamas Lying.

No comment:

“GAZA, Aug 30 (Reuters) – Hamas condemned the United Nations on Sunday, saying it planned to teach Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip about the Holocaust — but the U.N. agency which runs schools in the enclave would not confirm any change.

Branding the Nazi genocide of the Jews “a lie invented by the Zionists”, the Islamist movement which runs the Gaza Strip wrote in an open letter to a senior U.N. official that he should withdraw plans for a new history book in U.N. schools.

A spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which educates some 200,000 refugee children in Gaza, said the Holocaust was not on its current curriculum. He would not comment on Hamas’s statement that it was about to change.

Palestinians resent the way world powers reacted to the Holocaust by supporting the establishment of Israel in 1948, a move that left half the Arab population of then British-ruled Palestine as refugees in Gaza, the West Bank and abroad.

Hamas said it believed UNRWA was about to start using a text for 13-year-olds that included a chapter on the Holocaust.

In an open letter to local UNRWA chief John Ging, the movement’s Popular Committees for Refugees said: “We refuse to let our children study a lie invented by the Zionists.”

UNRWA spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna said: “There is no mention of the Holocaust in the current syllabus.” Asked if UNRWA planned to change that, he declined to comment.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, run by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas, teachers said there was no official guidance on teaching about the Holocaust.

Israelis are angered by denial of the Holocaust among some in the Middle East, notably lately by leaders in Iran, who provide support for Hamas. Abbas, who has engaged in negotiation with Israel, has had to distance himself from his own 1980s doctoral thesis, which cast doubt on the scale of the Holocaust.

Hamas’s official spokesman in Gaza, Sami Abu Zuhri, said he did not want to discuss the history of the Holocaust but said:

“Regardless of the controversy, we oppose forcing the issue of the so-called Holocaust onto the syllabus, because it aims to reinforce acceptance of the occupation of Palestinian land.” “

Update 1: Previous posts on Hamas:

Hamas Moderates Discuss Peace?

Maps, Guns and Butter?

Hamas Recognizes Israel?

Hamas and the Holocaust.

Hamas Out Duke David Irving.

Psychopaths or Legitimate Resistance?

Wrong Answer To The Wrong Question

Slip Of The Tongue from Hamas?

Update 2: It get worse:

“Hamas’s Younis al-Astal lashed out after hearing that the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) planned to teach pupils in Gaza about the Holocaust. Mr Astal wrote in a statement that this would amount to “marketing a lie and spreading it”.

“I do not exaggerate when I say this issue is a war crime, because of how it serves the Zionist colonisers and deals with their hypocrisy and lies,” he wrote. “

Update 3: More from the Hamas leadership (sorry, iffy link):

“Ismail Haniyya of Hamas, Prime Minister of the dissolved government in Gaza, stated that the vow of his government to the Palestinians people is “not to give up the Palestinian right to liberate Jerusalem, not to sellout the blood of the martyrs, and not to recognize the Zionist entity”.

Haniyya added that the resistance, and its victory against the Israeli offensive in Gaza, will prevail and will lead the Palestinians to liberation.

He also said that the Palestinian detainees would be freed due to the steadfastness of the people and the resistance.

“Resistance will remain steadfast, we will never recognize the Zionist entity”, he said, “Our people in Gaza re the freedom fighters who defend the country, and sacrifice themselves to achieve liberation and a better future for their people, they defended their religion and their homeland”.

He also said that “God willing, we will gather in the yards of the Al Aqsa mosque, and pray after liberating it from the occupiers”. “

I suppose “liberating it” is some form of euphemism?

United Nations War Crimes Tribunal And Florence Hartmann.

Elites and the powerful like to control information and suppress dissent as we’ve seen recently in Iran, China, etc and it is happening closer to home, at the Hague. The BBC reports:

“The United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague has put on trial its former spokeswoman Florence Hartmann, who is charged with contempt of court.

The tribunal accuses the Frenchwoman of revealing confidential information following the trial of the late Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

The charges relate to a book written by Ms Hartmann and published in 2007.

They carry a maximum sentence of seven years in jail and a 100,000-euro (£85,000) fine. She denies the charges.

The sensitive information included confidential orders by the court in the Milosevic trial, not to publicise documents that allegedly implicate the Serbian state in the Srebrenica massacre of 1995, in which some 8,000 people were killed.

The documents were provided by the Serbian government to The Hague on the condition that they were only to be used confidentially in the Milosevic trial. “

Greater Surbiton covered this last year and it is still rather relevant.

She did the right thing and needs our support.