Countering Insurgency and Terrorism Conference (March 2008)

The Global Defence Forum, Swedish National Defence College, and the United Kingdom Defence Academy will hold a Countering Insurgency and Terrorism Conference, on March 11, 2008 to March 13, 2008, in Stockholm.

The conference will include some of world’s most distinguished military thinkers to debate the current threat from insurgency and terrorism. The risk of use of CBRN weapons, intelligence methodology, countering radicalization, and the best military and police doctrine on adversary methods will be discussed. The long list of esteemed expert speakers will include Lt. Gen. Graeme Lamb, the UK Commander of Field Army & Land Command, and former Deputy Commander of Multinational Force Iraq; Gijs de Vries, former Counter-Terrorism Coordinator for the European Union; Nigel Inkster, former Director of Operations and Intelligence, British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6); and Dr. Magnus Ranstorp, Research Director of the Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies, and SNDC Sweden.

Summit website.

Who's Who of President Campaign Security Advisers by James Gordon Meek

As a companion to the Sunday Daily News’ three-month investigation into who is advising Democratic frontrunners Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on counterterrorism, national security and foreign affairs, the Mouth of the Potomac offers a complete list of the major presidential candidates’ top wisemen on these issues.

The presidential campaigns of Democrat Christopher Dodd and Republican Fred Thompson would not disclose their advisers to the Daily News. But in the case of Thompson, our reporting yielded two names.

There also are some security experts advising multiple candidates, such as National Security Network director Rand Beers, who are not included on the master list. A former career official at the National Security Council, Beers says he is counseling Democrats Joe Biden, Dodd, Clinton and Obama.

Read the full list after the jump.

Asterisks * indicate close advisers for each candidate.

HILLARY CLINTON

* Madeleine Albright *
* Richard Holbrooke *
* Sandy Berger *
* Lee Feinstein *
* John Podesta *
* Jeffrey Smith *
* Steve Simon
* Wendy Sherman
* Kurt Campbell
* Lt. Gen. Don Kerrick
* John Dalton
* Vali Nasr
* Stu Eizenstat
* Ray Takeyh
* Bob Einhorn
* Gen. Wes Clark
* Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton
* Lt. Gen. Bobby Guard

BARACK OBAMA

* Tony Lake *
* Susan Rice *
* Richard Clarke *
* Greg Craig *
* Denis McDonough *
* Maj. Gen. Scott Gration
* Mike Schiffer
* Samantha Power
* Gen. Tony McPeak

RUDY GIULIANI

* William Simon, Jr. *
* Mike Anton *
* Stu Verdery *
* Louis Freeh *
* Robert Bonner *
* Rep. Pete King *
* Charlie Hill *
* Howard Safir
* Thomas Von Essen
* Joe Whitley
* Joshua Filler
* Andrew Maner
* Jon Odermatt
* Richard Sheirer

JOHN MCCAIN

* Randy Scheunemann *
* Richard Armitage *
* Mark Felter *
* Henry Kissinger
* Gen Alexander Haig
* George Schultz
* Lawrence Eagleburger
* James Schlesinger
* Robert “Bud” McFarlane
* R. James Woolsey
* John Lehman

MITT ROMNEY

* Steven Schrage *
* Cofer Black *
* Rep. Pete Hoekstra *
* Jim Talent *
* Mitchell Reiss *
* Robert Charles
* Roger Noriega
* Pierre Prosper

JOE BIDEN

* Tom Donilon *
* Tony Blinken *
* Leslie Gelb *

FRED THOMPSON

* Mark Esper *
* Joel Shinn *

JOHN EDWARDS

* Derek Chollet *
* Michael Signer *
* Miles Lackey *
* Barry Blechman
* Irving Blickstein
* Lt. Gen. Michael Hough
* Gen. Paul Kern
* Gen. Lester Lyles
* Gen. Gregory Martin
* RAdm. William McDaniel
* Radm. David Oliver
* Maj. Gen. Allen Youngman

Sudan: Genocide in Darfur by Gérard Prunier

The Darfur conflict, which has already left 400,000 dead, has destabilised Sudan, Chad and the Central African Republic. At a summit in Cannes last month, all three countries agreed to respect each other’s territorial integrity, but the diplomatic activity conceals an international political deadlock over potential oil wealth.

Two million people have fled Darfur in northwest Sudan since 2003, 250,000 of them since last August (1), and the resources of neighbouring Chad are suffering from the strain of 250,000 refugees. The conflict has left 400,000 dead in four years. Aid workers from the United Nations and NGOs have had to move camps 31 times to escape attacks, although this did not prevent the arrest of several aid workers on 19 January in Nyala; they were beaten with rifle butts by the Sudanese police. Twelve aid workers were killed during massacres and five others have disappeared.

The Islamic government in Khartoum justifies frequent air raids by claiming their victims are rebels who refused to sign the Abuja “peace” treaty in Nigeria on 5 May 2006 (2). In reality, the Sudanese government is trying to prevent the fighters from holding a congress that would unify their movement and enable them to start negotiations with the support of the international community (3).

The UN and the African Union (AU) have been powerless in the face of this disaster, producing only symbolic measures and stalling tactics. For the past two years the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS), an inter-African military force of 7,500 men, has been deployed in Darfur. A dozen African countries contribute contingents but most come from Rwanda and Nigeria. The force is totally ineffectual. At least 30,000 men would be needed for an area the size of Darfur, 500,000 sq km.

AMIS is under-equipped and has a ludicrously restrictive mandate: soldiers may not carry out offensive patrols and may only negotiate. They are there to count the dead. The international force requires political determination to end the massacres that both the AU and the UN refuse to qualify as genocide. The powerless African soldiers admit in private: “We’re no use here at all”.

AMIS is almost entirely financed by the European Union; the US makes a nominal contribution. On 31 August 2006 the UN conceded a lack of results and adopted resolution 1706 to deploy a UN intervention force. But the resolution has not been implemented because the Sudanese government has yet to approve the deployment. Diplomats have flown to Khartoum to persuade President Bashir to change his mind.

His objections are astonishing. He accuses the UN of wanting to re-colonise the Sudan, and claims that the force is merely a cover for the West to enable it to get hold of Sudanese oil (4). He also says the international forces have “peddled Aids” (5) and he has threatened to use special Iraq-type suicide units against the peace troops.

The Ghost of Milosevic

These justifications are fanciful. Jan Pronk, the former UN special representative in Sudan who was expelled from the country last November for having criticised the Sudanese army, explains in his blog: “On more than one occasion high political officials in Sudan have told me that they had weighed the risk of non-compliance with Security Council resolutions against the risk of compliance. Non-compliance might bring them in conflict with the council and its members: sanctions and threats against the regime.

“Compliance would entail a different risk: domestic opposition and efforts to change the regime from within. They had compared and weighed those risks meticulously, they told me, and they had come to a rational conclusion: the risk of compliance would be much greater than the risk of non-compliance. They have been proven right.”

The Sudanese government fears that the UN forces may act as the secular arm of the International Criminal Court, which for the past two years has held a UN-compiled list of war criminals. The list has never been made public but it is likely that several important members of the Sudanese government are on it, possibly even Bashir. It would be a great boost to the opposition if these were to be prosecuted: the ghost of Slobodan Milosevic hovers over the Islamists in Khartoum.

Although the Sudanese government will not permit the deployment of UN troops, it encourages the international community to continue financing AMIS, precisely because it serves no purpose. This arrangement is hypocrisy. The Europeans and the Americans turn a blind eye to the inefficiency of the African forces because it makes them appear to be doing something. On 23 January the British government said it would provide another $28.8m to AMIS, although British diplomats have confirmed in private that they do not believe these forces will be able to protect civilians in Darfur from the Janjaweed.

Faced with a deadlock, the UN has come up with a new concept: hybridisation. Since the Sudanese government will accept an African force but not a UN one, why not have an Afro-UN force? This would mean the UN sending 103 police officers and 20 administrative staff. Serious discussions are being held in the UN and the AU about the exact proportions of this hybrid force. The Sudanese government accepted this proposal on 28 December, knowing full well that it is just another futile gesture. They intend to keep it that way.

Why is the international response so weak? The US position is ambiguous. Beneath the firm entreaties is a mixture of tricks, double talk and impotence. Since 11 September 2001 Washington has considered that Khartoum has earned a good behaviour ticket in the fight against terrorism. The Sudanese secret services have a good cop, bad cop routine in which Nafi Ali Nafi, former interior minister and adviser to Bashir, plays the bad cop, while his deputy, Salah Abdallah “Gosh”, plays the good guy. Ali Nafi is denounced as an extremist while Gosh (one of the main authors of repression in Darfur) is invited to discussions with the CIA and considered an ally in the war against terror.

Compromising Collaboration

The practical results of this compromising collaboration have yet to be seen. Washington’s official declarations remain firm but are not followed up by concrete measures even when encouraged by President George Bush’s own political allies. California’s Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, passed a law obliging California public bodies to sell any shares in US or foreign companies working in Sudan. This disinvestment policy, which enabled human rights activists to force the Canadian oil company Talisman Energy to withdraw from Sudan in 2003, was not supported by the White House. The first victim of US double-dealing was Bush’s own special envoy, Andrew Natsios, former director of the US Agency for International Development. When he ran out of resources he threatened Bush with a mysterious plan B if plan A, which was UN deployment, failed. When pressed by journalists, Natsios was unable to provide any details about plan B.

China is an unknown, though important, factor in Sudanese geopolitics, and a reason for international inertia about Darfur. Sudan is China’s second-largest trading partner in Africa and bilateral trade was $2.9bn in 2006. China buys 65% of Sudan’s oil and is the leading supplier of arms to Bashir’s regime, the guns that are killing people in Darfur.

When Chinese president Hu Jintao went to Sudan in February he spoke only about business and visited the new hydroelectric plant in Meroe, financed by the Chinese to the cost of $1.8bn. Although he recommended the deployment of UN forces to Bashir, his lack of conviction was such that Bashir was able to say he felt under no pressure. In the UN, China demands that Sudan’s national sovereignty be respected, despite resolution 1706.

France is working behind the scenes to help its own proteges under threat from Sudan. Although it has long defended Sudan against the hostility of Anglo-Saxons, it has not received any benefits in exchange. Total’s oil permits in southern Sudan are blocked by legal squabbles and the regime’s militia uses Darfur, whenever possible, to destabilise France’s allies: Chad’s president, Idriss Deby, and Central African Republic (CAR) President François Bozizé.

Indeed, despite Deby’s protests to the contrary, he supports the guerrillas in Darfur. These include many fighters from his own ethnic group, the Zaghawa (see “The factions”). French forces provide logistical support to the Chad army fighting Sudan-backed rebels, and in December 2006 they were involved in bombing and ground skirmishes in the north of the Central African Republic, to chase out other rebels, also supported by Sudan. But beyond these frontier skirmishes, the oil stakes are real. The relationship between Chad and the US oil companies working there is tense and they have been threatened with expulsion. In April 2006 rebels who got as far as the streets of the capital N’Djamena were carrying Chinese weapons. One might wonder if China is trying to topple some of the central African regimes (6).

Ethnic Cleansing, Not 'Genocide’

The UN has raised the issue of ethnic cleansing in Darfur but, like the EU, will not use the term genocide. Among the arguments it uses to justify this is the myth of tribal warfare as a result of the desertification of the Sahel, with nomadic Arab herdsmen contending for pastureland with sedentary African peasants. Like all clichés, this one contains a modicum of truth, but no more than that.

Nomadic shepherds are unlikely to conduct aerial bombardments. The Janjaweed are armed, fed and equipped by the regular army, which often fights alongside them. Since December the main Arab ethnic group in Darfur, the Baggara Rizaygat, has set up its own militia, claiming that it was needed because of its poverty and the government’s negligence (even though it is an Arab government) (7).

There is another reason. The regular attacks by the militia on black African tribes do not resemble attacks by armed groups of nomadic Arab shepherds. The militia include criminals of various ethnic origins who have been freed from prison on condition they join, as well as deserters from the government forces stationed in the south of the country who have had nothing to do since the 2005 Nairobi agreement (8). There are also members of the small tribes of camel herdsmen from the far north of Darfur, such as the Jalloul, who are the real victims of climate change, and even members of small African groups, such as the Gimr, who hope that by allying themselves to this genocidal cause they may be co-opted into the larger Arab family and benefit from its social standing and economic advantages.

Why does the Sudanese government want to exterminate, or at least subjugate, the African population in its western province? The reason cannot be religious since everyone in Darfur, killer and victim alike, is a Sunni Muslim. The true reasons are racial and cultural. Arabs are a minority in Sudan. The Islamists are the latest historical incarnation of Arab dominance in the region.

Peace between north and south is disintegrating. On 9 January, the second anniversary of the Nairobi agreement, Salva Kiir Mayardit, deputy leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in the south, warned Bashir that if the situation did not improve, secession would be inevitable within four years.

‘Adjust’ the Border

The Khartoum government needs to act urgently. It has to adjust the north-south frontier to place most of the oil in the south (this is under way). It has to buy arms in preparation for renewed hostilities and forge solid international alliances (China is a given, Iran is being negotiated). The government also has to maintain its territorial dominance by setting up an ethnic cordon sanitaire that would extend from the Nouba mountains to Kordofan and include Darfur (9). The Nouba tribes were crushed in fighting between 1992 and 2002, but Darfur represents far more of a threat. The Arab leaders in Khartoum will do anything to avoid a breach through which African tribes from the west could ally themselves with an independent, oil-rich, black Africa in the south.

It has become a strategic necessity to subdue revolt in Darfur by any means. The regular army, which includes representatives from many of the region’s African ethnic groups in its ranks, cannot be relied on for this task. Hence the recruitment of the Arab Janjaweed militias, largely made up of minority groups or social misfits. They must prevent the real Arabs in Darfur from revolution — meaning the Baggara tribes that make up 22%-30% of the population in the region. They, as much as their black African fellow-citizens, are the victims of discrimination in the region. The only reason the Baggara support the murdering elite in Khartoum is for reasons of misplaced Arabism, which is more imagined than real.

The protection of oil revenues comes at a deadly price, currently being paid. Unlike Rwanda, where 800,000 people were killed in 100 days, ethnic cleansing in Darfur has gone on for four years. Those who still dare to say never again are either totally ignorant or hypocritical. Once again the dead are being valued according to the colour of their skins.

Sources

(1) See Jean-Louis Peninou, “Sudan: war in Darfur”, Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, May 2004.

(2) Minni Minnawi’s faction was the only one of six guerrilla factions to sign the Abuja agreement. Since then its members have been absorbed into the government or dissolved.

(3) The places where UN and AU envoys meet with guerrilla fighters are regularly bombed.

(4) At present there is no proof that there is oil in Darfur, for the simple reason that no oil company has been able to carry out systematic surveys.

(5) Recent justified accusations of paedophilic acts by Asian soldiers from the United Nations Mission to Sudan were used by the Sudanese government to justify its position.

(6) It is not known whether there is oil in the Central African Republic, but it is geographically feasible since the Chad basin is close to the frontier.

(7) The awlad al-balad, sedentary Arabs from the Nile valley, despise their nomad Arab cousins in Darfur, whom they regard as backward savages.

(8) The Nairobi peace agreement signed on 9 January 2005 between Khartoum and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement provides for the sharing of power and oil revenue. See Gérard Prunier, “Sudan: peace accords won’t end war”, Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, February 2005.

(9) Khartoum protects its slaves, the term used for the black Africans of Sudan. The destruction of black shanty towns in Khartoum, the deportation of squatters to the desert and the confiscation of their land for Arab luxury property development all represent the acceptable urban aspect which the World Bank views as development projects.

In Pakistan, Echoes of Iran by David Ignatius

As we struggle to make sense of the current political crisis in Pakistan, it's useful to think back nearly 30 years to the wave of protests that toppled the shah of Iran and culminated in the Islamic Republic -- a revolutionary earthquake whose tremors are still shaking the Middle East.

The shah was America's friend, just like Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. He was our staunch ally against the bogeyman of that time, the Soviet Union, just as Musharraf has been America's partner in fighting al-Qaeda. The shah ignored America's admonitions to clean up his undemocratic regime, just as Musharraf has. And as the shah's troubles deepened, the United States hoped that moderate opposition leaders would keep the country safe from Muslim zealots, just as we are now hoping in Pakistan.

And yet the Iranian explosion came -- a firestorm of rage that immolated any attempt at moderation or compromise. A similar process of upheaval has begun in Pakistan -- with one terrifying difference: Pakistan has nuclear weapons.

The Iran analogy was made forcefully two weeks ago by Gary Sick, a Columbia professor who helped oversee Iran policy for the Carter administration during the time of the revolution. "There was no Plan B," Sick wrote in an online posting. He sees the same dynamic at work in Pakistan. "We have bet the farm on one man -- in this case Pervez Musharraf -- and we have no fall-back position, no alternative strategy in the event that does not work."

So ask yourself: What Iran policy would have made sense, in hindsight, given the ruinous consequences of the Iranian revolution? Should the United States have encouraged the shah to crack down harder against protesters and ride out the storm, as some hard-liners urged at the time? Or should it have moved more quickly to encourage a change of regime, after it became obvious the shah couldn't or wouldn't reform?

Even now, almost 30 years later, it's hard to know what we should have done. And perhaps that's the point.

Many Americans instinctively feel that the United States should have pushed sooner for reform -- and helped engineer a transition to a democratic Iran. We should have gotten ahead of the storm, the argument goes, before the Iranian movement for change was captured by followers of Ayatollah Khomeini who, it turned out, wanted to destroy the modern, secular state that was struggling to be born during the shah's tumultuous rule.

Advocates of benign intervention would take a similar line now in Pakistan. Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule last weekend was a shah-like act of desperation. A change of regime is coming in Pakistan, the argument goes, and we should work with responsible opposition leaders such as former prime minister Benazir Bhutto to encourage a political transition. Unless Musharraf agrees to go ahead with parliamentary elections planned for January, America should squeeze him by reducing its aid package of $150 million a month.

Reformist regime-change advocates would argue, further, that we're in better shape in Pakistan than we were in Iran. The Bush administration began pressuring Musharraf months ago to widen his political base by allowing Bhutto to return home. And many of the protesters in the streets of Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi this week aren't reactionary Islamists but middle-class lawyers. Their leader isn't the fanatical Osama bin Laden but the deposed chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry.

Yet even as we watch the birth pains of a better Pakistan, we know that al-Qaeda operatives are plotting to take advantage of the chaos. And we recognize, too, that if Musharraf is toppled, there is a new threat from those Pakistani nukes -- and even more, from the fissile material that would allow others to build nuclear weapons or dirty bombs.

The abiding truth, about Iran then and Pakistan now, is that outsiders don't understand the forces at work in these societies well enough to try to manipulate events. The disaster of Iran happened partly because of American meddling -- in installing the shah in the first place and then enabling his autocratic rule. Pakistan, too, has suffered over the years from too much U.S. intervention.

Pakistanis are in the streets this week protesting Musharraf's gross assault on democracy. I hope they succeed in creating a Pakistan that is more free and democratic. I pray that the reformers can work with the Pakistani military to suppress al-Qaeda and Taliban movements that would destroy any semblance of democracy in that country.

But changing Pakistan is a job for Pakistanis, and history suggests that the more we meddle, the more likely we are to get things wrong.