Updates on Libyan war/Stop NATO news: July 31, 2011
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NATO’s First African War: 17,203 Air Missions, 6,493 Strike Sorties
Libya: The True Costs Of War
Americanization And Militarization Of Canadian Foreign Policy
Afghanistan: NATO Loses Five Soldiers Today
Afghan War: NATO 2011 Death Toll Rises To 330
NATO Troops Kill Afghan Civilian, Arrest Several More
NATO Certifies Another Bulgarian Warship For Deployment
Uganda: AFRICOM Chief Pledges U.S. Role In Fighting LRA
Vermont: NATO Obstacle Course Training For Military “Olympics”
U.S. Senate Tells Russia To Withdraw Troops From Abkhazia, South Ossetia
Georgian Foreign Ministry: U.S. Senate’s Anti-Russian Move Strengthens Strategic Partnership
Chinese Warships Participate In Russian Navy Day Events
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NATO’s First African War: 17,203 Air Missions, 6,493 Strike Sorties
http://www.nato.int/cps/en/SID-A2FBC11B-177D933B/natolive/71679.htm
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
July 31, 2011
NATO and Libya
Allied Joint Force Command NAPLES, SHAPE, NATO HQ
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Over the past 24 hours, NATO has conducted the following activities associated with Operation UNIFIED PROTECTOR:
Air Operations
Since the beginning of the NATO operation (31 March 2011, 06.00GMT) a total of 17,203 sorties, including 6,493 strike sorties, have been conducted.
Sorties conducted 30 JULY: 128
Strike sorties conducted 30 JULY: 50
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Libya: The True Costs Of War
Pambazuka News
July 28, 2011
Libya: The True Costs of War
Charles Abugre*
A wicked blow to Africa, the invasion of Libya has little to do with protecting civilians and all to do with strategic interests. Why are these invaders so heartless, asks Charles Abugre
-The bottom line is war was solely unwarranted. But my greatest sadness and shame was to see the United Nations secretariat beating the war drums and cheering on the battle rather than singing the songs of peace. This is a sad time indeed. How else can one describe what is going on in Libya but a wicked, heartless folly?
The invasion was planned and the opportunity to execute it was highly propitious.
They say ‘time heals’ emotional wounds. If that is so why don’t I feel less enraged as the days go by since the outrageous invasion of Libya on ludicrous false pretences four months ago? Yes, Libya is under invasion from air and sea bombardments directed by foreign special forces on Libyan soil. The purpose of the invasion is regime change. The aim of the bombs that are killing people and laying Tripoli to waste is for one purpose only, to help a rebel group they formed and armed to overthrow the Colonel Gaddafi regime.
The air bombardments were initiated in the false expectation that once bombs started falling in Tripoli, Libyans in Tripoli would rise up against Gaddafi and in this murky situation the armed group would march in from Benghazi and take power. As time goes by, the strategy gets desperate. It has now become ‘anything to kill or oust Gaddafi and his sons will do’. This is reminiscent of the 1960s when the same actors used not so dissimilar tactics to overthrow governments they didn’t like. The plan failed, which is why four months into the carnage, Gaddafi still pops out of the hole he is hiding in to scream insults at his invaders.
The invasion was planned. In the case of the US involvement, as far back as George Bush Junior’s ‘war on the axis of evil’. In the case of the French, active planning may have been since October 2010. The planning most likely included ensuring that weapons and forces were ready in Benghazi when the moment came. This is why the civil protest in Benghazi, which started in a similar manner as the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings of unarmed civilians, turned into an armed rebellion in two days, and in less than a month, the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation)/French invasion had began. This incredible speed of events is far from spontaneous.
That there are British, Dutch, French and Italian special forces, among others, on the ground not just in Benghazi but all over the country is neither debatable nor denied. We know that much, from the reports of the British media and from the clumsy ways in which the Netherlands and Britain sought to introduce their special forces days into the insurgency.
Recall the helicopter full of British special forces that landed in the middle of the rebel troops who promptly captured and displayed them before realising that they were ‘friendly forces’. Days later, the Dutch were even clumsier. They ended up being captured by the Gaddafi forces, who displayed them before the world’s media and then released them. You should have the seen the glee in the face of Gaddafi’s son.
But the penetration of special forces into Libya, if we are to believe Franco Bechis, the Italian journalist writing in the 24 March edition of Libero (re-told in www.economicsnewspaper.com), may have been as far back as 16 November 2010 when a train-load of French people landed in Benghazi carrying what were alleged to be businessmen seeking to invest in Libya’s agriculture. A large number of these ‘businessmen’ were in fact soldiers. According to Franco Bechis, quoting the Maghreb Confidential, active planning for regime change by the French began on 21 October 2010 when Nuri Mesmar, Gaddafi’s chief of protocol and his closest chum, arrived in Paris for surgery.
However, Mesmar was not met by doctors but by the French secret service and Sarkozy’s closest aides. Mesmar was also responsible for the Ministry of Agriculture. On 16 November, Mesmar agreed to a strategy to drop troops in Libya under the guise of a business delegation. Two days later, a plane-load of people, including soldiers, landed in Benghazi where they met, among others, Libyan military commanders to encourage them to desert. One of them who agreed to desert was Colonel Gehan Abdallah, whose militia subsequently led the rebellion. Where did this information come from? The Italian intelligence service.
The role of Nuri Mesmar – using a close friend to stick the knife in the back of his friend in power – is as old as the story of Brutus and Caesar in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and reminds one of how Captain Blaise Campaoré of Burkina Faso was used by the French to overthrow and execute his closest friend Thomas Sankara.
But it was not only from France that the armed rebellion was planned. The head of the Libyan National Council, Colonel Khalifa, arrived from the USA on 14 March to lead the armed rebellion a month after it began. Colonel Khalifa has been living in the United States since the 1980s, apparently working as an agent for the CIA. This fact was contained in a book published in 2001, titled the ‘African Handling’ by Pierre Pean according to www.economicsnewspaper.com.
The 31 March edition of the Wall Street Journal carries a story which says that ‘The CIA officials acknowledge that they have been active in Libya for several weeks, like other Western Intelligence Service’. Khalifa, Mesmar and others will be joined in the leadership of the Provisional Government by some of the most murderous individuals in the Gaddafi regime, including Jalil Mustafa Abud, who until the uprising was the minister for justice and on the list of Amnesty International’s most egregious human rights violators.
LUDICROUS FALSE PRETENCES
I used the phrase ‘ludicrous false pretences’ to describe the excuses publicly sold to a gullible press, decidedly. Why? The core of UN Security Council Resolution 1973 claims to have the aim of ‘protecting civilians’. There are two sets of principles which the need to protect civilians could have been drawn from. One is the principle of holding all combatants responsible in respect of the Geneva Convention.
This principle is covered by UN Security Council Resolutions 1265, 1296 and 1820, among others. Armed combatants from both sides who violate the Geneva Convention will be held liable, under these resolutions, and could suffer sanctions and by extension be liable to face the International Criminal Court (ICC) owing to the extent of the violations qualified as crimes against humanity or as genocidal. These resolutions however do not legalise external military intervention.
The second is the principle of the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P). This is based on the concept of ‘borderless’ security, which was the title of the report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) released in December 2001 and subsequently adopted as an operative principle by the UN.
This commission, chaired by Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun, undertook to study the relationship between (a) the rights of sovereign states, upon which the greater part of international relations has been built, and (b) the so-called ‘right of humanitarian intervention’ which has been exercised sporadically – in Somalia, Bosnia and Kosovo but not Rwanda – and with varying degrees of success and international controversy. The report addressed ‘the question of when, if ever, it is appropriate for states to take coercive – and in particular military – action, against another state for the purpose of protecting people at risk in that other state’.
The conclusion was that the priority should be the protection of human beings, not state sovereignty. Therefore, if human security – physical safety and dignity – was threatened by the state or its severe inability to address, the international community had the responsibility to act, including by armed intervention. R2P places humanitarian law above that of sovereignty. The R2P was heavily lobbied, for especially Western humanitarian organisations, and its adoption by the UN celebrated.
However, others have warned against the danger of this principle for a number of reasons. First, supplanting humanitarian law over sovereignty means supplanting humanitarianism over rights for the latter and is based on citizenship, which in turn rests on sovereignty. Secondly, the R2P principle opens the door for selective interventions and selective justice by those who control the Security Council. It also creates legal and political dependence on the UN Security Council and militarily powerful countries, thereby undermining the very foundations for long-term justice and peace which rests on domestic political processes. Resolution 1973 was crafted on the basis of R2P, ‘legalising’ the invasion. Invasion is what the NATO countries wanted, not simply in order to minimise harm to civilians by Gaddafi’s forces but for regime change.
Was an invasion necessary on humanitarian grounds? This is debatable because the answer lies in the counter-factual, namely, the issue of whether or not Gaddafi’s forces would have bombed Benghazi to bits as claimed. What we now know is that the Gaddafi air force did not target civilian settlements in Benghazi when they flew and according to Amnesty International, the claim of mass rape by Gaddafi’s forces could not be verified on the ground. We also know that the suppression of the 15 February civilian uprising by Gaddafi was not the first.
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[T]he plain truth is that the situation was no longer a civilian uprising after two days. It was an armed insurgency and every state has the right to confront armed insurgency with arms. We have seen this time and again in the Unites States, whether they are responding to religious fanatics or drug gangs in black neighbourhoods.
Was there a better way to save lives? Yes, if given the chance. We know that President Lula da Silva (former president of Brazil) offered to lead a mediation mission to mediate a ceasefire. This was supported by Latin American countries, the African Union and even the weak-kneed Arab League. Gaddafi had agreed to the idea of a ceasefire, including international forces, to observe it. This was turned down by NATO and their vassals in Benghazi. The African Union mission was humiliated in Benghazi and the Western media hosted discussions that ridiculed the AU initiatives. Peace was given no chance. Why? Because the agenda is regime change and not the protection of civilians.
If military intervention was the better route to protecting civilians, why hasn’t NATO invaded Yemen where a wholly non-violent uprising is being brutally suppressed with live bullets? Robert Gates, who was until recently the US defense secretary is reported to have said, ‘I do not think it’s my role to intervene in the internal affairs of Yemen.’ Could it be because he is ‘our bloody dictator’? After all, he is fighting a war against left-wing separatists ‘we’ don’t like. How about Bahrain, the tiny kingdom where the royal family owns most of the islands that make up the kingdom, and where with the support of Saudi troops large numbers of unarmed demonstrators have been gunned down? Is there even a talk of hauling the sultan to the ICC? This is the selective use of the R2P that many have feared.
Is the military intervention saving lives? Clearly not! How do aerial bombardments of civilian settlements and atrocities by rebels armed by NATO constitute saving civilians lives? Are the people of Benghazi more civilian than the people in Tripoli and other places? The history of Western military invasions ostensibly meant to save lives has often tended to claim lives. Take Iraq, where a million or so died directly from bombs and indirectly from sectarian violence and a million more have been displaced. Not even Saddam’s several years of murderous rule managed to achieve that feat. Or take Afghanistan or Somalia or even the Balkan interventions?
Are these invaders capable of false pretences to justify armed interventions? Yes. The evidence abounds. The story of lies and deceitfulness that was sold to the same gullible media to justify the invasion of Iraq is well known. George Bush and Tony Blair were in no doubt that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. Once the decision was made to invade Iraq everything was done to provoke a justification for invasion. Before the invasion of Afghanistan on the pretext of going after Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaida, the ruling Taliban had offered to hand Bin Laden over to an international tribunal if the Americans provided evidence of his involvement in the 9/11 bombing of the Twin Towers in New York. There are similar stories relating to the bombardment of Yugoslavia.
WHY REGIME CHANGE?
So, if the North African uprisings that spilled over into Libya provided the enabling conditions for regime change planned long before, and if ‘saving lives’ was not the real purpose of the military intervention, why are they so desperate to remove Colonel (Brother) Muammar Gaddafi and his family from power?
There are many theories.
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IN SUPPORT OF A LEGITIMATE INDEPENDENCE STRUGGLE
In the New Eastern Outlook journal (www.journal-neo.com), Dmitry Isayev quotes [Berlusconi] as saying that the war in Libya is a war of independence of Cyrenaica (eastern Libya), presumably from the colonisation of Western Libya, perhaps in much the same way as the separation of South Sudan from the rest of Sudan. Silvio’s Italy is therefore clear in what it is doing – it is supporting a separatist movement. While it is unlikely that his NATO counterparts will welcome this perspective of the war, Silvio’s view does have resonance.
The armed insurrection is launched from Benghazi (the capital of the east), which for several centuries was the seat of the monarchy. While the monarchy lasted Cyrenaica controlled the oil resources, a thriving port and fishing grounds, and therefore the wealth. This monarchy was overthrown by Gaddafi in 1969 with the support of clans from the west…But if the purpose of the war is to separate the two Libyas, how does this gel with UN Security Council resolution 1973, which is meant merely to protect civilians?
GEOPOLITICAL INTERESTS
In the 23 June issue of Issue (536) of the leading online publication on African issues, Pambazuka News (www.pambazuka.org), Ismael Hossein-Zadeh suggested that NATO are going after Gaddafi because of his insubordination that threatens strategic interests and the very sense of power itself. One area of unforgiveable insubordination is Gaddafi’s (and his Syrian counterpart’s) refusal – the only two ‘Arab nations’ to do so – to be absorbed into NATO/US/French strategic security arrangements for the control of the Mediterranean Sea Basin and the Middle East.
‘Libya and Syria have not also participated in NATO’s almost ten-year-old Operation Active Endeavor naval patrols and exercises in the Mediterranean Sea and neither is Libya a member of NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue military partnership which includes most regional countries: Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania’. Libya’s Gaddafi also opposed the US Africa Command (AFRICOM).
These are serious infractions because of the strategic importance of the Mediterranean region. Staying out means Gaddafi cannot be trusted when it comes to the security of Israel – a country you do not mess around with. Staying out means an important source of oil, gas and minerals deposit cannot be relied upon in strategic planning. Staying out also means leaving a crack for other non-NATO countries, especially China, Brazil, India and Russia, to find serious footing in the region. Staying out constitutes a serious geopolitical risk.
The concern to contain India and China is not a throw-away point. Questioned on his view about what really motivates the invasion of Afghanistan, Henry Kissinger, the famed foreign secretary of the Cold War era, says that ‘trends supported by Japan and China, to create a free trade area in Asia – an opposing bloc of the most populous nations in the world with great resources and some of the most industrial nations will be inconsistent with American national interests.
For this reason, ‘America must maintain a presence in Asia …’ (Simon and Schuster, ‘Does America need a foreign policy?’, quoted in www.economicsnews.com). This is consistent with the views of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor, the man understood to have discovered and mentored Barack Obama into the presidency. He considers Euro-Asia to be the ‘chessboard on which the battle takes place for global primacy’. The Mediterranean is a core part of Euro-Asia. Speaking on 28 March, Barack Obama said of the Libyan invasion: ‘when our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act … America has an important strategic interest in preventing Gaddafi from defeating those who oppose him’.
STRATEGIC ECONOMIC INTERESTS
In my view there are three areas in which strategic economic interests express themselves: economic policies that influence the accumulation, ownership and movement of capital, goods and services; the control over natural resources indirectly or directly; and the power of long-term debt. In the Pambazuka article, Ismael makes the point that the control of oil matters but that NATO/French countries already exercise control through the presence of their companies. The problem is that Gaddafi has refused to privatise the oil wells and so exercises effective control. That is dangerous, in the same way that Hugo Chavez is. Gaddafi keeps an open-door policy with regards to foreign companies. Such a policy risks letting China into Libya in a big way, thereby complicating the strategic security question. As George Bush once said, ‘if you are not with us then are against us.’ Obama has merely retained this view.
Besides, control over natural resources is control over policies. Neoliberalism may be dead in academic circles, but not in real politik. If it were, Goldman Sachs wouldn’t be literally running the US economic policy. Gaddafi has been extremely naughty in this area as well. If you look at the World Bank’s world development indices, you find that Libya has not borrowed from the World Bank and the IMF in years, even after the sanctions were lifted.
Libya’s economy is heavily state-owned. It has a life expectancy and quality of life comparable to the richest countries. This is against the grain. Worst still, by actively supporting and putting aside resources to realise the dreams of the three major pan-African institutions – the African Monetary Fund, the African Investment Bank and the African Central Bank – Libya could be said to be undermining the Bretton Woods institutions controlled by the NATO countries and France.
Breaking the stranglehold that these institutions have over Africa could also mean weakening the geopolitical influence of NATO countries/France over the continent. Moreover, Libya has become and investment competitor in Africa. The Libya African portfolio has a rolling kitty of US$8 billion dollars channelled into investments ranging from telecommunications, the hospitality industry, some manufacturing and retail of oil and gas. Libya is effectively redeploying some of their sovereign wealth funds (SWF) away from purchasing US government bonds into investments in Africa. That cannot be totally encouraged given the US government dependence on petro-dollars for selling their bonds.
WAR AS A MEANS OF TRANSFERRING BADLY NEEDED CAPITAL OUT OF LIBYA
The military bombardments of Libya have already resulted in the shifting of capital from Libya to the invaders. Directly, they have seized the assets of the Libyan people owned by Libyan public institutions and re-channelled them into expenditures. These expenditures will most likely be military hardware and other logistics support for the war. The US impounded US$30 billion or so, which Ismael suggests is earmarked as a contribution to the building of the pan-African institutions mentioned earlier.
Britain impounded undisclosed bank accounts and assets, including UK£700 million worth of Libyan dinars printed by a British currency printing firm, De la Rue, which they are likely to give to the rebels. The procurements in support of the war effort will most likely be from these countries and will therefore serve as a fiscal stimulus in these economies. In advance of the war, the Libyan ‘opposition’ figures would have quietly shifted their ill-gotten wealth abroad, some into the tax havens controlled by the invading countries. We will never know how much.
But perhaps the most significant and long-term means of inducing capital from Libya will be as reparation payments for the war. The cost of every munitions that was fired wildly or on target by the Libyan rebels and by NATO/France; the cost of every missile fired from the air or seas; the cost every spy plane that flew over Libyan airspace; the cost of every soldier mobilised for the war effort; the cost of intelligence, special analysts and contractors will be paid for by the Libyan people, with their oil and gas, decades into the future. And this will not be cheap. Newspapers in Britain speculate that if the war continues to the autumn, Britain may spend upwards of a UK£1 billion.
At the end of May, the British armed forces estimated that they had flown 1,500 sorties, attacked 300 targets and fired at least 20 tomahawk missiles, one costing US$1 million. A tornado bomber flying a 3,000-mile round trip from its base to Tripoli and back costs US$300,000 per flight. A C17 transport plane costs over US$60,000 per hour to fly. The British say they have over 1,000 personnel involved in the operation. The cost to the US taxpayer is estimated to top a US$1 billion by autumn. In March, the US had 75 aircrafts involved in the operation and FT reports that on the first day of the operation, the US had spent US$110 million.
If the Kosovo war is a guide, by the end of the third month the US had spent US$2.4 billion in the operation. Add the cost of the other NATO and Arab partners and it is conceivable that by end of July the cost of the Libyan invasion will approach if not exceed US$10 billion and counting. David Cameron, the British prime minister, said plainly on TV that whatever the outcome of the war, Libya will pay the cost of its participation. Add the cost of reparations and compensation for mercenaries and plain theft by many of the crooks constituting the provisional government and the Libyan people will find themselves tens of billions of dollars out of pocket.
THE LONG-TERM BENEFICIAL EFFECTS OF WAR TO THE VICTORS
Note that the power of debt is not simply the volume of money one owes and transfers but the effect on power relations. Libya will forever be subordinated to its creditors even if the debt is odious. It will have to open up its policy making to the creditors, open up its banks, import more and privatise assets, including natural resources. As the vanquished, it will be forced to join those organisations it previously stayed away from and conform. The destruction is equally beneficial. The more the better – after the war of destruction is the reconstruction.
This is great for the construction firms of the victors, suppliers of building material, architects and engineers. The suffering banks of Europe and America will be energised by massive lending for the reconstruction effort, exacerbating the debt burden of the Libyan people but widening the profit margins of investment banks and the army of rent-seekers that follow them – accountants, lawyers and gamblers. War, especially in an oil-rich country, cannot be bad for economies in the doldrums.
IMPACT ON THE REST OF AFRICA
I characterised the invasion as wicked and heartless, quite deliberately. It is wicked because of the selfishness of the agenda underpinning the invasion, its lack of concern for the impact on the Libyan people. The invasion will undoubtedly turn Libyans from a proud people who know little abject poverty (in spite of Gaddafi’s dictatorship and several years of economic sanctions) into a typical sub-Saharan African type – a few wealthy people swimming in increasing pools of desperately poor people with severely wounded pride.
It is not inconceivable that various armed factions will emerge however this madness ends. Centuries old tribal and clan divisions would have been widened not narrowed. Racial bigotry will spread having been unleashed by the media propaganda about black African support to Gaddafi. Libya will never be the same again and seeing what is happening in Iraq, Libya’s change will not be for the good for a long time to come.
But the wicked effects are not limited within the boundaries of Libya. Anything between 500,000 to 1 million workers from across Africa south of the Sahara have been displaced, and adding to the already over-flowing pool of the unemployed. The president of Niger estimated the displaced Nigerien workforce to be in the region of 200,000. Is anybody intending to compensate for these losses?
The effect of this displacement is not simply that it aggravates the already scary poverty situation but also that it has the potential to exacerbate the insecurity in these fragile zones, especially the area stretching from Mauritania, across Niger, Mali, Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea and Djibouti. These areas are fragile and volatile in several respects – ecologically, economically, socially and in terms of potential for armed conflicts. The potential for violent conflict will be made worse by increased availability of arms of all sorts – the type that are now being dropped all over the place by NATO/France.
The invasion is heartless also because it has deprived Africa of investment resources and undermined the creation of institutions that are critical for the poorest continent to transform its countries’ economies and overcome suffering and the indignity of poverty. It has transformed the African Union from one representing all of Africa to one effectively representing Africa south of the Sahara in the manner that Libya has been characterised by the invaders (as an Arab country), a characterisation that the rebel group seems to carry proudly on its chest.
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[T]here is no alternative to negotiation as the way forward. Even the NATO/French invaders have been forced acknowledge this, especially since their hope of speedily toppling Gaddafi has not materialised. The African Union plan for a negotiated settlement remains the most credible – an immediate ceasefire; humanitarian intervention and protection in all parts of Libya; an external observer force; an interim government made up of both sides; a timetable for political parties to form, electioneering to happen and elections to take place; and a legal process to investigate, try and punish the guilty. And if I may add, a no-reparations and no-debt-claims commitment by the invading forces. This should have been the way forward from day one, were the Lula mission and the AU strategy allowed.
The bottom line is war was solely unwarranted. But my greatest sadness and shame was to see the United Nations secretariat beating the war drums and cheering on the battle rather than singing the songs of peace. This is a sad time indeed. How else can one describe what is going on in Libya but a wicked, heartless folly?
*Charles Abugre is the regional director for Africa, United Nations Millennium Campaign.
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Americanization And Militarization Of Canadian Foreign Policy
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/canada-in-afghanistan/letter+Canada+must+cease+instrument+foreign+policy/5175155/story.html
Edmonton Journal
July 28, 2011
Letter
A letter on how Canada must cease to act as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy
Tony Simmons
-There is…evidence that some retired senior military officials — including a former minister of national defence — have become prominent Ottawa lobbyists for the arms industry.
These connections help to explain the extravagant procurement of the 65 new F-35 fighter jets at an estimated cost of over $30 billion over the next three decades.
The military-industrial complex that so alarmed Dwight Eisenhower, is growing in strength and influence in Canada today.
Now that the Canadian combat mission in Afghanistan has ended, and the drawdown of Canadian troops has already begun, it is time for an honest appraisal, not only of the Afghan mission, but of the wider and longer-term implications of Canada’s present foreign policy.
In view of the steamy climate of self-congratulation emanating from Ottawa and from much of the media, the need for a critical assessment of our foreign-policy objectives has never been more urgent.
Indeed, if we cast a sober and unsentimental eye over the recent legacy of Canada’s foreign policy, a number of inconvenient truths cry out for acknowledgment.
First, not only is Canada’s mission in Afghanistan far from completed — notwithstanding the continuing presence of Canadian “trainers” — but more importantly, it is a mission that could never have been completed in the first place.
From the original deployment of Canadian Forces in early 2002, the terms of reference for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan have constantly changed — from the initial hunt for Osama bin Laden, to counter-terrorism, to counter-insurgency, to “nation-building,” to phased withdrawal.
While government and military press conferences may crow about the number of girls now attending schools across the country, and boast of the removal of the Taliban from their traditional strongholds, the grim facts of this war — reported by many credible NGOs on the ground — tell a different and more troubling story.
The last year has seen a dramatic increase in civilian casualties killed by both sides in this war, as well as an escalation in the Taliban resistance.
The legacy of this war has also left us with an unresolved inquiry into the Afghan detainees, the further destabilization of Pakistan, the escalation of internal refugees within Afghanistan and a booming opium trade, not to mention the deaths of close to 160 Canadian soldiers.
And although the U.S. president authorized a troop “surge” in 2010, the resignation of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, followed by that of secretary of defence, Robert Gates, reveals a U.S. policy in disarray.
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The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan should never have happened. The act of war should always be the choice of last resort.
Instead, in the case of Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya, it was the first.
The Canadian military mission in Afghanistan also signals a troubling trend in the increasing political power of the military elite in this country, and its growing influence on Canada’s foreign policy.
This trend has been noted by Janice Stein and Eugene Lang of the Munk Centre for International Studies in Toronto.
And a similar shift in the political power of the military in the UK has been reported by the former British Ambassador to Afghanistan, Sherard Cowper-Coles.
There is further evidence that some retired senior military officials — including a former minister of national defence — have become prominent Ottawa lobbyists for the arms industry.
These connections help to explain the extravagant procurement of the 65 new F-35 fighter jets at an estimated cost of over $30 billion over the next three decades.
The military-industrial complex that so alarmed Dwight Eisenhower, is growing in strength and influence in Canada today.
Finally, there is mounting evidence of the Americanization and militarization of Canada’s foreign policy.
Besides helping to undermine popular democratically-elected governments in Haiti and later in Palestine, successive Canadian governments have chosen to become instruments of U.S. foreign policy on most significant global issues, ranging from unwavering support for Israel and its illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, to its present involvement in the U.S./NATO war in Afghanistan, and now in Libya.
Rather than enabling us to “punch above our weight,” or allowing us to “claim our seat at the table,” Canada’s lurch to the hard right in international affairs will be seen in time for what it really is: a national disgrace that has left us with a legacy of lies, secrets and hypocrisy.
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Afghanistan: NATO Loses Five Soldiers Today
http://channel6newsonline.com/2011/07/five-nato-soldiers-die-in-afghanistan-isaf/
BNO News
July 31, 2011
Five NATO soldiers die in Afghanistan: ISAF
KABUL: Five coalition service members were killed in eastern and southern Afghanistan on Sunday as a result of three separate incidents, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.
ISAF said three of its service members were killed in western Afghanistan as a result of a non-battle related injury. Another service member was killed in an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan, while a fifth died in eastern Afghanistan as a result of an improvised explosive device (IED) attack.
As usual, the multinational force gave no other details about the incidents, including the exact locations and the nationalities of the service members involved. “It is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities,” a brief statement said.
Coalition casualties in Afghanistan have been rising sharply in recent years, with a total coalition death toll of 709 in 2010, making it the deadliest year for international troops since the war began…
So far this year, at least 335 coalition service members have been killed in Afghanistan. Most troops are killed in the country’s south, which is plagued by IED attacks on troops and civilians. Most of the casualties are American.
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Afghan War: NATO 2011 Death Toll Rises To 330
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-07/31/c_131021095.htm
Xinhua News Agency
July 31, 2011
NATO casualties total 330 in Afghanistan since beginning 2011
By Farid Behbud
KABUL: Since the beginning of this year, a total of 330 soldiers have been killed in the insurgency-hit Afghanistan as of Sunday July 31, according to iCasualites, a website tracking the casualties of NATO-led forces in war on terror in Afghanistan.
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Forty nine soldiers with the military alliance, according to iCasualties, have been killed in July this year against 88 during the same period in 2010.
In June of this year, 65 NATO service members were killed in Taliban attacks and Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blasts throughout the country against 103 casualties in June 2010, the deadliest month for foreign troops since the war against the Taliban began in Afghanistan in late 2001.
The latest wave of attacks against NATO-led troops was an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) attack earlier Sunday in eastern Afghanistan which left one soldier dead.
“An International Security Assistance Force service member died following an improvised explosive device (IED) attack in eastern Afghanistan today,” said a statement issued by the NATO- led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) here on Sunday morning.
However, the brief statement did not reveal the nationality of the casualty, only saying “It is the ISAF’s policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities.”
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In a similar incident two more NATO service members were killed on Friday in an IED attack also in the eastern part of the country, without disclosing details, the ISAF confirmed in a statement on Friday.
However, spokesman for the Afghan 203 Corps based in eastern Afghanistan, Colonel Sahat Gul told Xinhua on Saturday that a joint team of Afghan army and NATO-led ISAF forces were busy in defusing an IED placed along a road in eastern Pakita province on Friday but the bomb exploded killing eight people.
“As a result of the IED blast that took place in Mamozai area of Zurmat district in Paktia province on Friday afternoon two foreign troops, a local interpreter and five Afghan army soldiers were killed,” Gul added.
Two more people including an ISAF service member and an army soldier were wounded in the incident, according to Gul.
On the other hand Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack.
The purported Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, in talks with local media via cell phone from an undisclosed location, said the blast was carried out by the Taliban in Zurmat district killing 12 people including four NATO soldiers.
The simple but difficult to be detected Taliban weapon, the Improvised Explosive Device (IED), used in making suicide vests and roadside bombs, has proved a challenge for Afghan and NATO-led forces in the insurgency-hit country.
Out of 330 soldiers who lost their lives since the beginning of this year, 282 have been killed in IED attacks throughout the country, according to the website which recorded a total of 157 IED explosions so far this year.
Out of 330 NATO-led soldiers who have been killed in Afghan insurgency so far this year, 234 are Americans, 29 are Britons and the remaining 67 belong to other nations contributing troops to Afghanistan within the framework of NATO-led ISAF force.
Forty eight countries have contributed over 140,000-strong forces in Afghanistan with some 100,000 of them American troops…
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NATO Troops Kill Afghan Civilian, Arrest Several More
http://www.pajhwok.com/en/2011/07/31/isaf-soldiers-kill-civilian-arrest-suspects
Pakhwok Afghan News
July 31, 2011
ISAF soldiers kill civilian, arrest suspects
KABUL: One civilian was killed and several suspected insurgents were detained in a joint operation by Afghan and foreign forces in eastern Laghman province, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said on Sunday.
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District police chief, Capt. Rahm Khuda, told Pajhwok Afghan News the raid was conducted in the Malangyalai area of Daulatshah. He confirmed the killing and arrests.
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NATO Certifies Another Bulgarian Warship For Deployment
http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n255445
Focus News Agency
July 23, 2011
Bulgaria’s Verni frigate certified at international military drill
Kalina Encheva
Burgas: Bulgaria’s Verni frigate has been certified during the Briz/Sertex 2011 international drill, said Navy Commander rear admiral Plamen Manushev, cited by FOCUS – Burgas Radio.
The international drill was attended by the vessels and aircraft of Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Greece and the U.S.
According to the second level assessment, which evaluates the operative abilities of the vessel, the frigate is operatively ready. This will enable the Bulgarian Navy to declare a second frigate fit for NATO operations and missions. Thus Bulgaria fulfills its commitment to have two frigates – Drazki and Verni, he added.
Rear admiral Plamen Manushev expressed hope Bulgaria’s mine-sweeper Priboy and minehunter Tsibar will be certified at an upcoming international drill off the Turkish coast.
In this way Bulgaria will have two anti-mine vessels and two frigates fit for NATO missions and permanent groups, he added.
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Uganda: AFRICOM Chief Pledges U.S. Role In Fighting LRA
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/National/-/688334/1210440/-/bkktgwz/-/
Daily Monitor
July 31, 2011
US military to take part in hunt for Kony
By Gerald Bareebe
Stuttgart, Germany: The United States Military has pledged to join the imminent hunt for Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony, by providing logistics and surveillance support to the militaries of Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic who are preparing for the exercise.
Addressing journalists at the US Africa Command base in Stuttgart, Germany, Gen. Carter Ham, the new Africom Commander, said the US military will encourage and facilitate the coordination between the three primary countries who are engaged in the exercise, encourage and foster the sharing of information that can be useful to the parties involved.
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“Uganda, DRC and CAR have recognised that US will support them to do this,” Gen. Carter said. “We have been training a battalion in Eastern Congo for this. It’s a very important mission for us.”
The Ugandan military in December 2008 led a regional combat but failed to capture or kill Kony…
The American government already supports, and in some cases finances, UPDF operations – the latest being the ongoing mission in Mogadishu, Somalia. During Operation Lightning Thunder in 2008, the US offered logistical support and military intelligence to the two countries.
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Vermont: NATO Obstacle Course Training For Military “Olympics”
http://www.wptz.com/r/28638593/detail.html
WPTZ
July 22, 2011
Military Members Brave NATO Obstacle Course
COLCHESTER, Vt. – Four military athletes got an extreme workout in scorching heat on the NATO Land Obstacle Course at Camp Johnson, it’s one of three of its kind in the United States. They are competiting for spots on the U.S. team for a global military competition.
“I learned really early in life not to be a weak female,” Airman 1st Class Ziven Drake said.
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Drake’s the only woman vying for a spot to represent the United States next week in Poland at at the Inter Allied Officers of the Reserve (CIOR) Military Competition. The athletes are tested on their endurance from five obstacle courses. From there, coaches will determine who will travel to Warsaw.
“We hope to take everyone, but we do want the best representation for the United States that we can possibly get,” SEAL Cmdr. Grant Staats said.
The competitors went through 12 weeks of training at Camp Johnson. During that time, trainers judged their mental and physical abilities.
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U.S. Senate Tells Russia To Withdraw Troops From Abkhazia, South Ossetia
http://en.rian.ru/world/20110731/165476278.html
Russian Information Agency Novosti
July 31, 2011
U.S. Senate calls on Russia to pull out from Abkhazia, S. Ossetia
WASHINGTON: The U.S. Senate unanimously adopted last Friday a resolution calling on Russia to respect Georgia’s territorial integrity and to withdraw its troops from Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Relations between Russia and Georgia have been sour since a five-day war between the two former Soviet countries in August 2008, which began when Georgian forces attacked the breakaway republic of South Ossetia in an attempt to bring it back under central control.
Russia recognized South Ossetia and another breakaway Georgian republic, Abkhazia, as independent states two weeks after the conflict. Georgia considers the two regions part of its sovereign territory.
The U.S. Senate resolution “calls upon the Government of Russia to take steps to fulfill all the terms and conditions of the 2008 ceasefire agreements between Georgia and Russia, including returning military forces to pre-war positions and ensuring access to international humanitarian aid to all those affected by the conflict.”
The document also recognizes Abkhazia and South Ossetia as regions of Georgia “occupied by the Russian Federation.”
Georgia hailed on Saturday the U.S. resolution saying that the document created “a serious basis for future actions.”
Tbilisi took a case against Russia to the International Court of the UN in August 2008 over alleged discrimination by Russia against the Georgian population of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but the court ruled in April 2011 that the case was outside its competence.
Russia is unlikely to respond to U.S. calls for withdrawal from Abkhazia and South Ossetia as it considers Georgia’s territorial claims illegitimate and continues to strengthen ties with both republics.
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Georgian Foreign Ministry: U.S. Senate’s Anti-Russian Move Strengthens Strategic Partnership
http://rustavi2.com/news/news_text.php?id_news=42646&pg=1&im=main&ct=0&wth=
Rustavi 2
July 31, 2011
Georgia`s Foreign Ministry welcomes US Senate resolution
Georgia`s Foreign Ministry has welcomed the U.S. Senate`s resolution supporting Georgia passed on Saturday.
The ministry says in its statement that the adopting of the resolution is a significant step made towards the U.S.-Georgia strategic and partnership relations; with unanimous adoption of the resolution supporting Georgia, the Senate has officially expressed its clear and unanimous and position on Georgia`s sovereignty and territorial integrity and recognized the Russian Federation as the occupational force.
The statement also says with the document the senate calls the Russian authorities to fulfill all commitments of the 2008 cease-fire agreement.
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Chinese Warships Participate In Russian Navy Day Events
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20110731/165478059.html
Russian Information Agency Novosti
July 31, 2011
Chinese warships participate in Russian Navy Day celebrations
VLADIVOSTOK: Two Chinese navy ships are taking part in the festivities dedicated to the celebration of the Russian Navy Day in the Far Eastern port of Vladivostok, a spokesman for Russia’s Pacific Fleet said on Sunday.
Frigate Luoyang and training ship Zheng He arrived in Vladivostok on Friday. The ships are hosted by the Russian Udaloy class destroyer Admiral Vinogradov.
“The Chinese military delegation took part on Sunday in laying wreaths to the Glory of the Pacific Fleet memorial, commemorating Russian sailors who died defending their Motherland,” Capt. 1st Rank Roman Martov said.
Russian and Chinese sailors will participate later on Sunday in a variety of cultural and sport events, formal and informal meetings, he said.
Chinese warships last visited Vladivostok in 2008.
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