NEW
WARS / OLD WARS –
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
War,
American Style, What Is It Good For? Absolutely Nothing
Looking
back on almost 15 years in which the United States has been engaged in something
like permanent war in the Greater Middle East and parts of Africa, one thing couldn’t be clearer: the planet’s sole
superpower with a military funded and armed like none other and a “defense”
budget larger than the next seven countries combined (three
times as large as number two spender, China) has managed to accomplish --
again, quite literally -- absolutely nothing, or perhaps (if a slight rewrite of
that classic song were allowed) less than nothing.
Unless,
of course, you consider an expanding series of failed states, spreading terror movements, wrecked cities, countries hemorrhaging refugees,
and the like as accomplishments. In these years, no goal of Washington -- not a
single one -- has been accomplished by war… For the weapons makers and the rest
of that complex, failure or success may increasingly be beside the point.
More
Saturday,
March 12
MASSACHUSETTS PEACE
ACTION
2016 Annual
Meeting
@11:00am- 4:00pm
First Church in Cambridge, 11
Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138
Cost- $10- $20 (includes
lunch)
Phylis Bennis is the author of
Understanding ISIS and the New Global War on Terror: A Primer. Her focus
at this meeting will be on the Syrian War ,ISIS, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the
United States.
Representative Jim
McGovern
represents Massachusetts' 2nd Congressional District in Congress. Rep. McGovern
will be awarded the 2016 Peacebuilders Prize for his leadership in Congress on
peace and justice issues.
The U.S. Extends Its
Drone War Deeper Into Africa With Secretive Base
ON OCTOBER 14,
President Barack Obama announced to Congress that America’s global war on
Islamic terrorism had expanded to yet another front: The U.S. was sending 300
troops to a new drone base inside Cameroon, along that country’s volatile border
with Nigeria, where Boko Haram is most active… Garoua
[Camaroon] represents the newest expansion of America’s stealth war against jihad in Africa.
Piloted and unmanned aircraft have flown from bases in Djibouti — the center of U.S. drone operations on the continent — as well
as Ethiopia and Kenya, in addition to ships off the coast of East Africa.
Predator MQ-1 drones and their larger cousins, MQ-9 Reapers, have been based in
Niamey in Niger, N’Djamena in Chad, and Seychelles International Airport. There
is plenty more to come. The National Defense Authorization Act for 2016
appropriated $50 million for construction of an “Airfield and Base Camp at
Agadez, Niger … to support operations in western Africa.” More
US-Russian Cease-Fire
Pact: Closer to a Syria War Endgame?
The United
States and Russia are hoping that the partial Syrian cease-fire agreement they
reached Monday to take effect February 27 will begin a new phase of the war. The
cease-fire will not apply to operations against al-Qaeda's franchise in Syria
(al-Nusra Front), and the two powers have apparently agreed to try to split off
a significant number of armed opposition groups from their cooperation with
al-Nusra Front. Along with continued Russian, Syrian and Iranian operations
against al-Nusra Front, that split could further weaken the al-Qaeda franchise
and begin a process of winding down the war between the Assad regime and
military forces other than ISIS… The reality that has shaped the nature of the
war since 2013 has been that virtually all armed opposition groups that were not
already partisans of an Islamic emirate in Syria gravitated to tight military
alliances with al-Nusra, because the latter had superior organization and highly
effective military tactics. Also, such cooperation was being urged on them by
Turkish, Saudi and Qatari agents who were generous with heavy weaponry
More
Syrian rebels want
Al-Qaeda included in cease fire
The United
States and Russia announced plans for a "cessation of hostilities" in Syria that
would take effect on Saturday but exclude groups such as Islamic State and al
Qaeda's Nusra Front, a loophole Syrian rebels immediately highlighted as a
problem… The plan allows the Syrian army and allied forces, as well as Syrian
opposition fighters, to respond with "proportionate use of force" in
self-defense. It leaves a significant loophole by allowing further attacks,
including air strikes, against Islamic State, Nusra and other militant groups.
Bashar al-Zoubi, head of the political office of the Yarmouk Army, part of the
rebel Free Syrian Army, said that would provide cover for Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad and his Russian allies to keep attacking opposition-held
territory where rebel and militant factions are tightly packed.
More
Kerry warns of
breakup of Syria; but is that Realistic?
Amid ongoing
talks in Geneva around a cessation of hostilities in Syria, Secretary of State John Kerry said Wednesday night in a joint
telephone call with other diplomats, “It may be too late to keep it as a
whole Syria if we wait much longer.” … A fragile reconstituted state, similar to
what has happened in Algeria, could be one outcome of such a situation. Another
possible scenario would be Afghanistan, where the central government is just
very weak in some provinces and constantly battling insurgents in a
low-intensity conflict. A break-up of Syria, however, on a South Sudan model,
seems unlikely… If al-Qaeda and Daesh are defeated on the battleground and
deprived of territory, it is true, they could devolve into terrorist
organizations again. But that pathway does not lead to a break up of Syria.
More
Western weapons
and equipment flow freely between the so-called “moderate” rebels in Syria and
their close allies from extremist groups like al-Qaida, according to an
investigation from a BBC reporter. In a Dec. 17
episode of the BBC Radio series “The Report,” investigative journalist Peter
Oborne documented disturbing evidence that the United Kingdom and United States
continue to support the Syrian opposition, particularly the Free Syrian Army,
despite ample evidence that they work closely with extremist groups NATO has
traditionally thought of as enemies. Oborne reported that at least two
Westerners who were accused of aiding extremist groups in the region, found
their charges rapidly dropped when they argued that by seeking to destabilize
Syria and depose its president, Bashar Assad, they’d fought on the same side as
the U.K. He also explained how the U.S. has aided al-Qaida’s efforts to
“rebrand” its Syrian branch, the Nusra Front, as a moderate group able to be
safely financed and “managed” by the U.S. More
More
Arms to Saudi Arabia: More Mideast Conflicts
Until
recently, the military relevance of sending weapons to Saudi Arabia had less to
do with the Saudis using U.S.-supplied arms than it did with cementing ties with
Washington. The implicit understanding was that the purchase of large quantities
of U.S. armaments was a form of payback for Washington’s commitment to come to
the rescue of the Saudi regime in a crisis… The idea that the Saudis were
unlikely to use their U.S.-supplied arms went out the window with the 2015
intervention in Yemen. The Saudis are the key players in a coalition that has
caused thousands of civilian casualties while bombing everything from hospitals
and markets to water supply systems. Coupled with a naval blockade that has made
it extremely difficult to get food and medicine into the country, the Saudi
intervention has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen. And Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch have described the use of U.S.-supplied
cluster bombs in civilian neighborhoods by the Saudi coalition as possible war
crimes. More
Yemen
conflict: Al-Qaeda joins Saudi coalition battle for Taiz
During
a visit to the frontline outside Taiz late last year, documentary maker Safa
AlAhmad spoke to pro-government militiamen attacking Houthi fighters on a key
hilltop with the support of troops from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who were
providing tactical advice. While there, Ms AlAhmad was warned by one group
participating in the battle not to film them. She was told they were members of
Ansar al-Sharia, an affiliate of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and
that they were angered by the presence of a woman… Several reports of coalition
forces and AQAP militants battling the Houthis in the same areas in southern
Yemen have emerged over the past 11 months, despite the jihadists' long-standing
violent opposition to US-allied coalition governments. More
Obama’s
Russian Rationale for $1 Trillion Nuke Plan Signals New Arms Race
The
Obama administration has historically insisted that its massive $1 trillion
nuclear-weapons modernization program does not represent a return to Cold-War
era nuclear rivalry between Russia and the United States. The hugely expensive
undertaking, which calls for a slew of new cruise missiles, ICBMs, nuclear
submarines, and long-range bombers over the next three decades has been widely
panned by critics as “wasteful,” “unsustainable,” “unaffordable,” and “a fantasy.” The administration has pointed to ageing missile silos, 1950s-era bombers and other outdated technology to justify the spending, describing the
steps as intended to maintain present capabilities going forward – not bulking
up to prepare for a future confrontation. … But President Obama’s defense budget request for 2017 includes language that makes
it clear that nuclear “modernization” really is about Russia after all. The
budget request explicitly cites Russian aggression, saying “We are countering Russia’s
aggressive policies through investments in a broad range of capabilities…
[including] our nuclear arsenal.” More
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