OP-ED: "Hearts, Minds ... and Schools: War isn't the best route to democracy," by Lawrence E. Harrison, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 25 December 2006-7 January 2007, p. 23.
ARTICLE: "The alternative to war: A landmark in the peace process," The Economist, 16 December 2006, p. 40.
ARTICLE: "The alternative to voting: A slide back into all-out war," The Economist, 16 December 2006, p. 40.
ON LANGUAGE: "Realism: The comeback work in foreign policy," by William Safire, New York Times Magazine, 24 December 2006, p. 20.
Good and very thoughtful op-ed by Harrison, that's somewhat obscured by the silly title (Duh! War isn't the best route? WHODATHUNKIT!). In it, Harrison makes a good case--based on a big project of research--that changing culture is the key to creating economic opportunity and successful connectivity with the outside world, and that this is the best route to generating democracy in the long run:
Our goal was to capture the role of culture and cultural change in a society's evolution. We found that Confucian values of education, achievement and merit played a central role in the economic "miracles" in East Asia. Open economic policies and the welcoming of foreign investment triggered several transformations, including in India, Ireland and Spain. Visionary leadership was crucial in the cases of Botswana, Turkey and Quebec. In Ireland, Italy, Spain and Quebec, modernization was also accompanied by decline in the influence of the Catholic Church [mostly on birth control, a concept that make sense as your economy matures--thus putting you at odds with the church--Tom].
We concluded that enlightened policies can, over time, produce cultural change--change that in turn spurs political pluralism and economic development. However, it is extremely difficult to impose such changes from outside; war is not a helpful instrument. Better tools include education that inculcates democratic and entrepreneurial values; improved child-rearing practices; religious reform; and development assistance keyed to cultural change.
Then he goes on to list a number of foci that make sense in assistance, like literacy and getting (and keeping) girls in school.
No arguments from me on that stuff (as these are arguments I've offered myself in PNM and BFA). My only problem with this article is the presumed binary choice between using war as an instrument and avoiding it.
Obviously, you don't want to have to wage war any more than is absolutely necessary, but the definition of necessary is crucial. Some situations (e.g., certain dictatorships, some forms of civil strife) simply won't get better without outside intervention. These are ongoing wars against individuals within countries that will rage on--if allowed--and thus prevent the evolutions in culture that Harrison rightfully advocates. In fact, left to their own course, these situations not only retard such necessary evolution, they can send the societies in question down retrograde paths of dissolution (in many ways, on display in Iraq today and what we saw in ethnic cleansing throughout long-repressed Yugoslavia). Great dysfunction like that often necessitates very violent divorces, which we can trigger (like in Iraq) or stand by and idly observe (Balkans), but which we'll likely be drawn into in some manner because of the inevitably resulting regional instability.
You can say, "We should only take on the easy jobs," but truth be told, the easy jobs will be handled for the most part by the private sector (not a big U.S. military interventionary role in Ireland and India, for example). It's the stinkers that get left to intervening states.
And no, I've never advocated (as some cartoonish reviews of my work surmise) invading every Gap state to bring integration. But in certain cases, intervening is the best route, not for creating democracy, but for removing a key impediment to its eventual emergence. Why? Dictators tend to squelch economic connectivity between the masses and the outside world, because to let that stuff unfold is to lose power progressively over time. And civil strife kills such connectivity simply by making the environment too scary for outsiders to enter (unless they're energy companies protected by private security firms).
So yeah, war isn't the best route to democracy. But in certain cases wars are the only way to get to a postwar in which Harrison's ideas can get their logical play.
But if we're real realists, we're not interested in that postwar, just picking and choosing our wars for specific punitive effect. The problem is, the games really are won in the postwar nowadays, not in the wars. So interventionary wars themselves are not the problem (and indeed, sometimes are the solution), it's our unwillingness to take seriously the challenges of the postwar.
Indonesia's Aceh is mired in intractable conflict for decades, until the perfect, crushingly destructive foreign intervention occurs, known as the tsunami.
The disaster opened the eyes of both the government in Jakarta and the rebel Free Aceh Movement (GAM) to Aceh's war-weariness. A peace deal was struck in August 2005. Since then, events have unfolded more hopefully than anyone could have predicted. Under the supervision of monitors led by the European Union, GAM disarmed and Indonesian troops returned to barracks. A law was passed granting Aceh generous autonomy.
A quasi-separation, achieved peacefully, amidst the massive reconstruction effort following untold destruction and death from a nasty outside force that crushed all in its path.
That's not to wish tsunamis on intractable conflicts. It's simply to note that sometimes something has to intervene from outside to break the deadlock, kill the conflict, stop the shooting and repression.
We made our recovery effort, engaging in nation-building and reconstruction with a far lighter hand and including a nifty array of local partners, and we resurrected a military-to-military relationship with Indonesia's armed forces for our reward.
Compare that effort (which I highlighted in BFA) with Sri Lanka's slide back into war. Yeah, it'd be nice if India took that one on again, but that's unlikely. And given the violence that will once again pervade that society, there's almost no chance that any of Harrison's precepts will be given a chance.
I know, I know. We're all realists now, thanks to our failings in postwar (not in the war) Iraq. But even an able diagnostician of those failures such as George Packer will readily admit that:
At some point events will remind Americans that currently discredited concepts such as humanitarian intervention and nation-building have a lot to do with national security--that they originated as necessary evils to prevent greater evils.
Globalization ain't going away, despite all its complications and challenges, and so pretending we'll only take the easy cases when we own the world's largest military just ain't realistic. Because what we don't try to fix (hopefully with plenty of others), others will be forced to fix--however well they can.
The real unrealism of today is the belief that by eschewing difficult efforts, we meet the Hippocratic criteria of "do no harm," when the harm, in virtually every instance you can name, has already been done by ourselves and others, leaving us just to contemplate whether we give a damn at this point or simply want to pass off our problems to those "others," whose efforts will inevitably be cast by national security types as "clear proof" that Country A is trying to reduce our influence by increasing theirs, and thus harming our "national interests," which too often consist of nothing more than our belief that certain regions are ours and ours alone to either ignore or screw around with.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Somalia's Terrorists by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross
Recently two prominent left-wing bloggers, Matthew Yglesias and Spencer Ackerman, have questioned whether the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) -- the radical group that Ethiopia is currently battling in Somalia -- is really linked to terrorism. Yglesias writes, "What are the names of these people the Islamists are sheltering? How many of them are there? Who are they? What have they done? What diplomatic efforts has the United States made to get the Islamists to turn them over? Pardon me for being cynical, but in this day and age my suspicion is that names aren't involved in these articles but [sic] there's no one in particular the Bush administration is worrying about and this is mostly hype and paranoia." And Ackerman, after a grand total of two telephone calls to public affairs officers at State and the DNI, concludes, "The administration believes three terrorists are in Somalia, with unclear or unstated connections to the ICU. Then there's the issue of Aweys, whom the U.S. isn't officially making an issue, for unclear reasons. Decide for yourself if this is a good reason to instigate a regional war."
In the first place, the criteria these two gentlemen use is flawed: there's no reason to make the names of specific terrorists the determinative measurement, rather than the seventeen active terrorist training camps in the country, the al-Qaeda-like propaganda tapes that the ICU has been producing, and the conspicuous presence of foreign fighters. But beyond that, this also illustrates one of the flaws of making the study of terrorism all about the Bush administration. Either the ICU is a threat or it isn't: two phone calls to a couple of public affairs officers with no expertise in Somalia is unlikely to resolve the matter. The fact is that an examination of information that is publicly available would quickly turn up links between the ICU and terrorism -- including the names that Yglesias and Ackerman desire.
As an initial matter, the precursor group to the ICU, al-Ittihad al-Islamiyya (AIAI) hasn't abandoned its support for terrorism. A look at the biographies of the fourteen high-value terrorists who were recently transferred to Gitmo bears this out: the section on the last detainee, Gouled Hassan Dourad, shows that in recent years AIAI has planned to attack the U.S. military base in Djibouti, shoot down Ethiopian airliners, and kidnap Western NGO workers in Somalia.
The United Nations released reports in both 2004 and 2006 that support the view that there is a substantial presence of foreign fighters in Somalia that are facilitating terrorist training and adopting an international jihadist agenda. (Foreign fighters do not comprise the majority of ICU fighters, but are still a significant presence). For specific names of terrorists, we can turn to reports produced by the International Crisis Group -- an organization that tends to be critical of the U.S. role in Somalia.
The ICG’s May 2002 report Somalia: Countering Terrorism in a Failed State names four key leaders in the AIAI terrorist group: Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, Hassan Turki, Mogadishu bin Laden associate Sheikh Omar Faruuq, and Hassan Turabi associate Ibrahim Disuqi.
The ICG’s July 2005 report Counter-Terrorism in Somalia: Losing Hearts and Minds? notes the following:
- Aden Hashi 'Ayro, who trained in an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, has assassinated four foreign aid workers. (I have a list of people killed by 'Ayro's group that shows there have, in fact, been far more assassinations than this.) The report notes that 'Ayro's network may be helping al-Qaeda operate in Somalia with logistics, jobs, identities and protection. (A quote from the report as a caveat: "Although evidence linking 'Ayro to al-Qaeda appears to be largely circumstantial, the allegations are serious enough to merit a brief review of al-Qaeda's involvement in Somalia over the years and the scope of its current presence there.")
- 'Ayro's lead assassins are named. Jamaa Ali Isma'il (Kutiye) is a former Somali commando who fought with AIAI from 1992 onwards. Da'ud Salah Iidle is the former deputy manager of the local branch of the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation (my former employer); in 2003 the U.S. charged Al Haramain's Somali offices with being linked to al-Qaeda. Farhan Abdulle Mohamed was a student at a school run by the Tablighi Jamaat before joining Mogadishu's freelance militias. And Ibrahim al-Afghani reportedly fought in Afghanistan and Kashmir before returning to Somalia to join AIAI.
- Hassan Dahir Aweys and Hassan Turki both helped al-Qaeda prepare to attack the U.S. embassy in Nairobi in 1998.
- Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, members of al-Qaeda's Somali cell, had returned to Somalia. They were financed by Sudanese al-Qaeda operative Tariq Abdullah (a.k.a. Abu Talha al-Sudani), who operated between Somalia and the UAE. Mohammed and Nabhan were involved in preparations for the 1998 embassy bombings, and masterminded the November 2002 Mombasa attack on the Paradise Hotel. They were aided in the Mombasa attack by Somali associates Suleiman Ahmed Hemed Salim (a.k.a. Issa Tanzania, captured in April 2003), and Issa Osman Issa. After the attacks, the group returned to Somalia. The ICG report notes that "[t]he members of al-Qaeda's Somalia cell are today among the most wanted fugitives on the planet."
- Other al-Qaeda leaders in Somalia and protected by 'Ayro are Ali Swedhan, Samir Said Salim Ba’amir, and Mohamed Mwakuuuza Kuza.
The December 2005 report Somalia's Islamists notes the following:
- Abu Talha al-Sudani is the head of al-Qaeda’s operations in East Africa.
- Aden Hashi 'Ayro's likely superior is Afghan alumnus and al-Qaeda associate Ahmed Abdi Godane.
- The Somali Takfir wal Hijra had small communities in Mogadishu and Bosaaso, as well as training camps in Ras Kamboni under Hassan Turki.
- Sheikh Ahmed Nur Jim'aale (former chairman of the Somali telecom company al-Barakat, which had its assets frozen by the U.S. on the grounds that al-Qaeda was using it to move money) has denied ties to al-Qaeda, but is widely seen as a patron of radicals.
So even a cursory examination from sources that are quite critical of the U.S. reveals that the threat from al-Qaeda in Somalia is a lot more than just three guys. For more on AIAI, see Michael Scheuer's book Through Our Enemies' Eyes.
In the first place, the criteria these two gentlemen use is flawed: there's no reason to make the names of specific terrorists the determinative measurement, rather than the seventeen active terrorist training camps in the country, the al-Qaeda-like propaganda tapes that the ICU has been producing, and the conspicuous presence of foreign fighters. But beyond that, this also illustrates one of the flaws of making the study of terrorism all about the Bush administration. Either the ICU is a threat or it isn't: two phone calls to a couple of public affairs officers with no expertise in Somalia is unlikely to resolve the matter. The fact is that an examination of information that is publicly available would quickly turn up links between the ICU and terrorism -- including the names that Yglesias and Ackerman desire.
As an initial matter, the precursor group to the ICU, al-Ittihad al-Islamiyya (AIAI) hasn't abandoned its support for terrorism. A look at the biographies of the fourteen high-value terrorists who were recently transferred to Gitmo bears this out: the section on the last detainee, Gouled Hassan Dourad, shows that in recent years AIAI has planned to attack the U.S. military base in Djibouti, shoot down Ethiopian airliners, and kidnap Western NGO workers in Somalia.
The United Nations released reports in both 2004 and 2006 that support the view that there is a substantial presence of foreign fighters in Somalia that are facilitating terrorist training and adopting an international jihadist agenda. (Foreign fighters do not comprise the majority of ICU fighters, but are still a significant presence). For specific names of terrorists, we can turn to reports produced by the International Crisis Group -- an organization that tends to be critical of the U.S. role in Somalia.
The ICG’s May 2002 report Somalia: Countering Terrorism in a Failed State names four key leaders in the AIAI terrorist group: Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, Hassan Turki, Mogadishu bin Laden associate Sheikh Omar Faruuq, and Hassan Turabi associate Ibrahim Disuqi.
The ICG’s July 2005 report Counter-Terrorism in Somalia: Losing Hearts and Minds? notes the following:
- Aden Hashi 'Ayro, who trained in an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, has assassinated four foreign aid workers. (I have a list of people killed by 'Ayro's group that shows there have, in fact, been far more assassinations than this.) The report notes that 'Ayro's network may be helping al-Qaeda operate in Somalia with logistics, jobs, identities and protection. (A quote from the report as a caveat: "Although evidence linking 'Ayro to al-Qaeda appears to be largely circumstantial, the allegations are serious enough to merit a brief review of al-Qaeda's involvement in Somalia over the years and the scope of its current presence there.")
- 'Ayro's lead assassins are named. Jamaa Ali Isma'il (Kutiye) is a former Somali commando who fought with AIAI from 1992 onwards. Da'ud Salah Iidle is the former deputy manager of the local branch of the Al Haramain Islamic Foundation (my former employer); in 2003 the U.S. charged Al Haramain's Somali offices with being linked to al-Qaeda. Farhan Abdulle Mohamed was a student at a school run by the Tablighi Jamaat before joining Mogadishu's freelance militias. And Ibrahim al-Afghani reportedly fought in Afghanistan and Kashmir before returning to Somalia to join AIAI.
- Hassan Dahir Aweys and Hassan Turki both helped al-Qaeda prepare to attack the U.S. embassy in Nairobi in 1998.
- Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, members of al-Qaeda's Somali cell, had returned to Somalia. They were financed by Sudanese al-Qaeda operative Tariq Abdullah (a.k.a. Abu Talha al-Sudani), who operated between Somalia and the UAE. Mohammed and Nabhan were involved in preparations for the 1998 embassy bombings, and masterminded the November 2002 Mombasa attack on the Paradise Hotel. They were aided in the Mombasa attack by Somali associates Suleiman Ahmed Hemed Salim (a.k.a. Issa Tanzania, captured in April 2003), and Issa Osman Issa. After the attacks, the group returned to Somalia. The ICG report notes that "[t]he members of al-Qaeda's Somalia cell are today among the most wanted fugitives on the planet."
- Other al-Qaeda leaders in Somalia and protected by 'Ayro are Ali Swedhan, Samir Said Salim Ba’amir, and Mohamed Mwakuuuza Kuza.
The December 2005 report Somalia's Islamists notes the following:
- Abu Talha al-Sudani is the head of al-Qaeda’s operations in East Africa.
- Aden Hashi 'Ayro's likely superior is Afghan alumnus and al-Qaeda associate Ahmed Abdi Godane.
- The Somali Takfir wal Hijra had small communities in Mogadishu and Bosaaso, as well as training camps in Ras Kamboni under Hassan Turki.
- Sheikh Ahmed Nur Jim'aale (former chairman of the Somali telecom company al-Barakat, which had its assets frozen by the U.S. on the grounds that al-Qaeda was using it to move money) has denied ties to al-Qaeda, but is widely seen as a patron of radicals.
So even a cursory examination from sources that are quite critical of the U.S. reveals that the threat from al-Qaeda in Somalia is a lot more than just three guys. For more on AIAI, see Michael Scheuer's book Through Our Enemies' Eyes.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
When will Brazil's Gangs Make the Jump? by John Robb
Over the last 24 hours, gangs (see my earlier brief on "Transnational Gangs" for more) in Brazil's Rio de Janeiro unleashed a series of attacks that torched a police station and 3 buses (18 died). This incident is similar to the flare ups earlier this year in Sao Paulo that pitted the police against the PCC.
Stated reasons for these Rio attacks include the election of Sergio Cabral to the governorship of the state on a security platform and pressure from rival vigilante militias that are now in a contest with the drug gangs for control of the street and the economic (these militias charge residents and businesses for protection) power that confers:
"It's a fight for economic power... The militias exist, they are the fourth major gang in the state," (Asterio) Pereira (Rio state penitentiary chief) said (Reuters).
In sum, this is a situation where rapid urbanization and enormous profits from black globalization have put the gangs in a collision course with the state. As semi-legitimate contenders with the state, they are increasingly in need of some measure of political power (which for them is to be left in control of a patchwork urban TAZ) if they are to evolve without escalating violence. Of course, that isn't likely, given the state is going to push back and "loyalist militias" have formed to vie for control of the street (many of these militias will jump into the drug game too, given time, they are part of the same beast but from a different starting point). The inevitable result is that Brazil's urban gangs will adopt the methods of 4th generation warfare to survive and continue their growth. The only question is: how fast?
So far the process of evolution has been reasonably slow and inept. That could change quickly. It would radically shorten if target cities were forced into failure through systems disruption and the gangs expanded their financial endeavors into energy smuggling, human welfare/support, and "security" services (a carrot/stick combo that would contrast favorably with the government). Further, cross connections to other global open source insurgencies and stand alone 4th generation forces would rapidly provide the training, weapons, and methods necessary to reverse the outcomes of any engagement with state police/military forces. It will be interesting to see if they are smart enough to make this happen.
Stated reasons for these Rio attacks include the election of Sergio Cabral to the governorship of the state on a security platform and pressure from rival vigilante militias that are now in a contest with the drug gangs for control of the street and the economic (these militias charge residents and businesses for protection) power that confers:
"It's a fight for economic power... The militias exist, they are the fourth major gang in the state," (Asterio) Pereira (Rio state penitentiary chief) said (Reuters).
In sum, this is a situation where rapid urbanization and enormous profits from black globalization have put the gangs in a collision course with the state. As semi-legitimate contenders with the state, they are increasingly in need of some measure of political power (which for them is to be left in control of a patchwork urban TAZ) if they are to evolve without escalating violence. Of course, that isn't likely, given the state is going to push back and "loyalist militias" have formed to vie for control of the street (many of these militias will jump into the drug game too, given time, they are part of the same beast but from a different starting point). The inevitable result is that Brazil's urban gangs will adopt the methods of 4th generation warfare to survive and continue their growth. The only question is: how fast?
So far the process of evolution has been reasonably slow and inept. That could change quickly. It would radically shorten if target cities were forced into failure through systems disruption and the gangs expanded their financial endeavors into energy smuggling, human welfare/support, and "security" services (a carrot/stick combo that would contrast favorably with the government). Further, cross connections to other global open source insurgencies and stand alone 4th generation forces would rapidly provide the training, weapons, and methods necessary to reverse the outcomes of any engagement with state police/military forces. It will be interesting to see if they are smart enough to make this happen.
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