Steve Hutcheson

I have spent 3 and half years in Afghanistan since 2002 and have been the program manager in charge of about 200 million in various infrastructure projects, the last year with the Counter Insurgency program. It is all largely a waste. We are not bringing about peace, we are not changing anything. Why build a road to market if there is no market? Why give Afghan government workers computers when they cannot write and do not even have a manual system functioning first?

I think of America as a country developing on the basis of small government, small welfare and high on entrepreneurship. In Afghanistan we have introduced aid on a system that is focused on big government, big welfare, no entrepreneurship and all managed by public servants.

If they were to measure the impact of a project they funded three years ago, there would be nothing to comment on. We are doing work now that was being done six years ago, we are simply providing maintenance, not development.

It is extremely frustrating that those making the decisions on how funds are dispersed do so on a whim that they bring from the west, without understanding the people or the internal systems of the people of Afghanistan and all with a new way of doing things that they think will work knowing none of the above.

There are currently two groups of criminals in Afghanistan, one being the insurgents, the other being in government. We provide support to one side of what is a essentially a turf war between the two.

My guess is that ultimately, the west will stop giving aid and it will revert to the civil war with the Talibs driving the criminals out as they did in 1996 at which point the government will fold as it did then.

I wish that were not the case. Where we have failed is that we have not changed anything. We have not created sustainable industry but sought to enhance the existing economic structure of subsistence farming. There is no industry other than what is required to service the international assistance and budget. Take that away and you will be left with a big zero in economic activity.

Let me see if I have this straight. Masood Qaim who recently wrote in the Guardian (I’ve Changed my Mind about the West published 30 Dec 2009) about the failure of the west to take its reconstruction activities in Afghanistan seriously, who grew up the son of a General with power, position and was part of the privileged elite in socialist Afghanistan, losing it all on departure of the Russians. He is unhappy and grumbles that the Americans or the west have not reinstated his life to that which it once was and have not bought back the development in a manner that would suit him.  As a journalist Masood and judging from his complaint, sees himself as part of the intellectual mass of Afghanistan that believes and challenges the west should be doing more to reinstate his county to its former self.

Frankly, Masood represents about one percent of Afghanistan as it stands. Afghans voted and it was Karzai whom for better or worse the apparent majority Afghans felt represents their plight best of all.  

There are substantial issues for Afghanistan to face up to, least of all the rampant corruption amongst the government, the abuse of power by the warlords and the ongoing philosophical battle that represents the fundamental policy of the Taliban versus the liberation espoused by a more humane western sense of human rights. Biting the hands that primarily feeds them is the last thing Afghans need to be doing if they are to move anywhere in the direction of change and development.

In a Facebook thread on this article posted by Nushin Arbabzadah, another Guradian journalist, I have challenge Masood to address the question of how change would come about to Afghanistan if the west was to abruptly withhold all aid and intervention in the processes that are taking place. How will Afghans solve some if not all of the seemingly intractable problems his country faces?

In another more inspiring article that I have read lately drawn by Nicholas D Kristof in the New York Times (His Gift Changes Lives published New York Times 16^th December 2009) Kristof writes about a Sudanese youth, Valentino Deng who at first escaped the rigors of the war in Sudan but on eventually achieving some sense of stability and security in the US, has returned to his country work on the development process himself, building a school where countless NGOs have failed. He is not carping about how that the west is not doing enough, he has moved on and is doing it himself, he sees himself as the lucky one and that it is up to him to actually bring about the change needed to his country.    

Masood, and he is not alone in this, need to take control of their own set of circumstances. If it cannot be achieved at the ballot box then it needs to be done irrespective of the government and the corruption that exists in the world as they know it. It is after all, only what he is presently expecting the west to do for him.  

I take umbrage at his dismissal of the work of foreign NGO’s where he labels them as the greatest source of corruption in Afghanistan. Far be it from me to defend the actions of all of them, I often disagree with the methods and programs they become engaged in, however having worked there and experienced firsthand where the problems lie, it is not the internationals per se, it is more often in the local staff who find an avenue to corrupt the processes, who take backhanders from contractors, who manipulate the flow of funds an any number of other ways of stripping the funds out of NGO programs. For the most part as a program manager, I saw my role and that of other international functionaries in part was to introduce systems and processes that perhaps would not eliminate the corruption but would at least bring it into a respectable level of say eighty percent delivered. Where international inexperience on the part of the program manager was evident is where the most rorting of the aid funding existed. Many believed much like Masood seems to believe that Afghans would not be the major protagonists in this failure to see full delivery of program funding to bring about major impact by its delivery. It is not an intentional process but one brought about by default and consequence of young idealists taking a lead in many programs.

There is a problem with much aid funding that is for sure. Programs are introduced that have no commercial basis, they are feel good projects that do little to alter the economic plight that is at the root of the complaint Masood has.  We build schools in remote locations and then cannot get any qualified teachers to attend them because of security or remoteness or simply a lack of teachers. More than three hundred schools in the eastern provinces are vacant because of this. We build and equip clinics when there is no qualified staff to man them for the same reasons.  We build roads to market and then do nothing about ensuring that there is in fact a market at the end of it. We do nothing to ensure that the 70% of rural poor who are landless have an opportunity to have greater aspiration than to simply be an itinerant farm laborer or part time Taliban as an alternative. We look at our individual programs as self important and fail to register them holistically with the overall development process needed for the county.

Simply put, Masood is wrong in his assessment. He would do well to take a leaf out of Valentino Deng’s book and consider his good fortune to be one of the lucky ones and take action to make the changes he wants for Afghanistan himself.

There is considerable angst amongst international circles regarding the corruption of the recent Presidential elections and the lack of capacity that is available within the Afghan government.  But what is it that they are wanting?

Presumably they want to see good government however what they have is an administration that is wracked with corruption, staffed by untried criminals, lacking all manner of administrative capacity and a litany of other failings. It simply begs the question as to what is it that they are suppose to provide in the big equation that is Afghanistan?

From the perspective of the average Afghan, their lives would in many cases be better off simply by eliminating all local government intervention. Governance as it exists is a matter of favors and rampant nepotism all managed by incompetent and corrupt officials. It is of parties playing off other parties, be they of a different tribe, ethnic group or gender. 

There function is marred by an unrealistic desire. A desire to emulate good government such as it might exist in pristine environments of the west. That is not going to happen. Much of the present intervention is to provide these agencies with new tools, new infrastructure and new skills without addressing what purpose they serve in the long run. It provides computers to people in government who for the most part cannot read, have no electricity to drive the processors and comes before the ability to affect an administrative system that cannot even operate on a manual system since almost none exists. If seventy percent of the public servants in Afghanistan were dismissed, there would be almost no affect on the functioning or well being of the Afghan community.

Government is necessary but it has to arrive from a position of demand. Afghanistan as it is possible has the most laborious bureaucracy in the world. The administrative process is rife with incompetence and payoffs. It is simple not needed. It is proposing to address the problems of a fully functioning economy and social system when there is no economy and the social systems is more in tune with the local mosque than it is with the warlords.

The US and the west would do better to reconsider what it is they are proposing to build in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan is not going to advance simply because it has good government. It is going to advance if it has an economic activity that provides every one with a basic income and life support. Everything else will be or at least should be a flow down process from that. Inventing laws or holding up activity until the laws are drafted is the thinking that Lewis Carrol may have been considering when he drafted Alice. Allowing local officials unfettered power to dictate terms and conditions of projects has been the greatest stumbling block in developing a working economy and social reform.  

Afghanistan has traditionally had a socialist styled administrative system with hundreds of inefficient public departments, utilities and state owned enterprises controlling major sectors of the economy. The public service is increasingly large and cumbersome with multiple layers of bureaucracy at a national, provincial, district and village level, each sucking relentlessly on the public teat. So far through Afghan history, it has failed to function realistically. The international assistance program however continues to build on that failed model. Coincidentally, this flies in the face of a demand by the main providers and backers, the US where its domestic population is demanding smaller government and smaller government regulation enabling the market to sort out its own problems as part of whatever is perceived to be enshrined in its two hundred year old constitution.  

Where the west can assist Afghanistan is not in continuing to protect its failed government. It has an obligation at this stage to build a credible economy allowing market forces to regulate unfair practices as they evolve and not spend billions on creating a corrupt preventative environment before they even start. Hundreds of industries have stagnated waiting for the legislation to be introduced that in part will provide the legislators with unfettered access to the benefits that might flow out of them.

Afghanistan needs what might be termed “social venture capital”, funds and technology backed up with technical support to get the population and the economy moving forward and not simply allowing the unrepresentative government to control and restrict that process as it does. 

In September 2007, the pre-eminent US General in Iraq in conjunction with the US Ambassador to Iraq delivered to the US congress an up to the minute report on the state of events and the implementation of America’s interventionist policy to that country.

Gone are the days of focusing on the search Weapons of Mass Destruction that was the primary reason to intervene, the present search is for peace and the imposition of democratic processes and benchmarks that confirm them albeit in an American way.

Petraeus and Crocker managed to entice the US Congress for additional six months time to gauge the success of the “surge” and the level of progress in the Iraqi government. That report is due this week at which point, based on the preliminary information currently being fed to the media, that report should in fact once more stall for additional time while reporting that some progress is being achieved.

The recent violent incursion into Basra where more than 600 civilians are reportedly killed, the government is posturing success of the campaign ignoring that important statistic yet it was only that Sadr called a ceasefire that the campaign ended. With again a reported 1000 government soldiers deserting their posts from the government side it hardly augers a success.

The difficulty for Petraeus and Crocker is that they have to take a side in what is largely a battle between two local power brokers from the major ethnic group while the other ethnic groups sit out the skirmish looking to pick up any of the available remaining pieces. A further difficulty for Petraeus also is that the purpose of the surge was not intended to negate the power of al Sadr’s Sh’ia militias in Basra. They had for some time been subdued through their own holding of fire before it commenced. The surge was primarily to account for the activities of the Sunni militias, the remnants of loyalist to Saddam and also where al Qaeda has been operating from their midst in the area of Anbar province and Baghdad.

With the passage of time, a peace has been bought to order with the Awakening Councils, a process that has involved a significant transfer of funding from the US government to purchase these groups loyalty. Will it last, that is a moot point. Critics argue that is will survive as long as the US continue the payments and perhaps not much longer.

But now Petraeus and to a lesser extent, Crocker have to deliver a report on progress on all fronts of peace and security and the corresponding development in this country that has been at war for twenty years. It begs the question; will his report be a factual and objective account that is high on the success of the military strategy and less able to determine the political stability of the various factions or will it be to consolidate in the eyes of the American public the nebulous vision for Iraq that is proposed by the US Administration.

Petraeus has political ambitions. In a report in the British newspaper, the Independent in September last year, it was reported that Sabah Khadim, a senior Advisor with the Iraqi government had discussed this very issue with the General as far back as 2004.

In Khadim’s words “I asked him if he was planning to run in 2008 and he said, ‘No, that would be too soon’,” The political path for the General however is not to be overlooked.

Coming to the current Presidential campaign, Democratic frontrunner, Barack Obama has declared a policy of withdrawal of US forces from Iraq should he win government. That is possible however the implications for Iraq are not so straightforward.

A recent report compiled by a US think tank that is funded by the US congress, the US Institute of Peace argues that the surge is not working in the way it was intended. The political framework of Iraq is fragile, dominated by self-interested factions and is incapable of bringing together a cohesive government as none of the political benchmarks set by the US as a purpose for the surge have been reached and primary focus has been on those legislative benchmarks that primarily satisfy the US demands.

An immediate withdrawal of US forces should Obama win however, with the inability of the government force to maintain order is likely to draw the country into a much more unstable civil war than presently exists. Obama will be held responsible for the carnage and genocide that ensues leaving open the possibility of Petraeus to run a Republican Presidential campaign on  the basis of “I told you so” in 2012 is ever more plausible. Americans have long since seen military Generals gather political credibility on the basis of successful campaigns. In his case he needs to hold on to marginal successes until a new administration shifts the goalposts, at which point he can argue that he tried his best.

There may well be other options for peace at a regional level. Significant political influence can be held over the Iraqi Sunnis by Saudi Arabia as can great influence by Iran over the Sh’ia factions. The Kurds are not at war on an internal level other than expressing their desire for autonomy from both. It needs however a reckoning of the independence of both these nations from the US, an understanding of their own level of influence and a desire to move towards a regional peace process.

In the event that Petraeus does have a political ambition, the likelihood of him reporting a failure at this point in time in Iraq is less likely than ever, what has to be asked of him is, can the people of Iraq and the gulf region contend with instability of the order that is possible for another several years? It also has to do with his possible political aspirations in four years time.

American politics and the outcome of the campaign for the US Presidency is still any ones guess for the moment however the three front runners who are the primary contenders, are McCain as the Republican candidate and either Clinton or Obama for the Democratic candidate. The next few days will establish which of these last two carry the bulk of voting delegates and receive the final nomination but it would seem that Obama has gained sufficient impetus to carry the day.

In the meantime there is an interesting survey being conducted by a major Israeli English language daily where a media panel has been monitoring the various candidates with the express purpose of establishing which would be better for Israel. The acknowledgment being that Israel relies heavily on the US for financial and military support in addition to its current unfettered political support in the Middle East conflict.

All of the candidates with the exception of Texan Ron Paul who has not been included in the survey err on the positive side of the scale. Of the front runners however, Obama is the least attractive for the Israelis only registering a figure that is near neutral with a score of 5.2 while both Clinton and McCain are registering around 7.5 on a scale of 1 to 10.

Maintaining the status quo is obviously important to the Israelis in their present escalation of hostilities with the Palestinian militants in Gaza and simultaneously in either reaching consensus or inserting a protracted delay of the peace process that is presently being undertaken as a consequence of the Annapolis conference.

The peace process should be simple however the terms of peace for both sides remain some distance apart as elements of the demands by the Palestinians continue to be intractable to the Israelis.

A shift in the political climate support for the present Israeli regime and their stonewalling may have significant import in the final outcome however. To date Obama has been cautious with his words however he publicly maintains support for the Israeli government’s position and has so far divorced himself from any separation from the status quo for obvious reasons.

The Jewish vote in America is less than 2% however the political influence they have over the electoral process and the US government is far more significant than that small sector of the community represents. Through the efforts of AIPAC and other Jewish lobby groups there is no US politician currently prepared to speak out against Israel or the special relationship that exists between the two countries. As a number of American politicians have found out, to do so is tantamount to political suicide.

So is Obama the voice of reason that the world and particularly the Arab world needs and is that why the Israeli panelists have rated him less favorably in measuring their own interests?

In his words, Obama argues that US politics has become so partisan and gummed up by money and influence that they are unable to solve the world’s problems that demand solutions.

Quoting from his campaign website he states “I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists — and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not get a job in my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president.” It is fair warning to the lobbyists and that would include AIPAC that their days of undue influence on the American political system will draw to a close.

In relation to Israel his platform is still more of the same although there are subtle caveats. Obama has stated that he supports a secure Israel that is capable of defending itself, and that the foreign assistance provided by America will be maintained and that a strong relationship between the two countries will continue to exist.

But Obama also supports the continuation and acceleration of the peace talks and is prepared to add emphasis to the US relationship with Israel to make that happen. In a recent Q&A with the Washington Post he stated. “The Annapolis conference was a worthy, but late, effort, and already the follow-up has been lacking. As president, I will commit myself personally, and I will assign high-caliber diplomats, to be engaged with both sides on an ongoing basis — encouraging communication, helping them develop and implement solutions, holding them accountable to their commitments by carefully monitoring and reporting on their implementation. I will also demand greater support for this process from the Arab world.”

So what does this mean for Israel and why have the panelists been so cautious in their assessment and finally why does the Arab world have much to gain by his presidency? Firstly it is apparent that he will neuter the capacity of the Israel lobby through his office to address the inordinate influence that as one lobby group that it exerts over the system of government controlling the very things that they use to apply leverage, the financial backing of candidates. Secondly, it is his intention to be more proactive and to press home the peace process until an equitable resolution for a settlement between the two parties is reached.

How his policy alters once he is in office remains to be seen however for the moment there is a positive sign for the Arab world that he is committed to a bringing forward a peaceful resolution to the Middle East crisis, that he will remove the friction that the US war on terror has created in Iraq, he will add emphasis to pursuing the leaders of the terrorist organizations and that he will enter into dialogs with those presently considered rogue states with all the changes within the US government processes necessary to do that.

For a large number of people in the west, there is a rather strange myopic view of the Israeli – Palestinian question and the Gaza issue in particular. One that sees the people of Israel as being those that suffer most in the conflict, that if Hamas (and Hezbollah in Lebanon) were to suddenly cease their armed resistance to its perceived oppression by Israel then peace would automatically prevail in the region.

Peace might prevail under those circumstances but at the same time, if history is to be any judge, the oppression being waged on the Palestinian people wouldn’t.

For the Palestinians, their plight is a situation that has gone on continuously since the ethnic cleansing of the Arab people that occurred in 1948 following the Arab-Israel war, the same sort of ethnic cleansing that occurred with the Kosovo Albanians in 1999. However, in that case the Serbians did not have any influence with the US or British government as does Israel that would fail to arrest it. The refugees in the camps surrounding Israel and the Palestinian territories have become grandparents in the process of waiting for a solution that will be agreed to by the Israelis.

In response to an article I wrote recently that highlighted certain parallels with the present treatment of Palestinians in Gaza with the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto I received a number of emails that all pointed to the indiscriminate firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel as being the sole cause of the dislocation of the peace process yet this is so far from the truth that it beggars belief.

Too much emphasis is given to the Israeli situation and far too little is given to the Palestinian arguments; a function of the undue influence Israel has over the major media in the US such that the enemies of Israel are simultaneously the enemies of the US. Ignorance has become a weapon. The rhetoric that surrounds the whole peace process fails to adequately acknowledge the position of the Palestinians. They are perceived as the protagonists. From the Israeli perspective, the rockets are the sole cause of destabilisation of the peace process. The obligations for peace rest fully on the Palestinians as an oppressed people with no agreed rights and largely not on their oppressors whom are simultaneously seen to be fighting for their rights.

Hamas itself formed in 1987 at the beginning of the First Intifada as the Palestinian uprising was known. That itself was a consequence of the stalled peace negotiations the PLO had been engaged in over a 20-year period as well as protest to the brutal treatment then being meted out by the Israelis, treatment that included then and still includes today, mass detentions, extra-judicial killings and the wanton and unjustified destruction of Palestinian property. It is said Mossad supported Hamas in its early days as a means to counterbalance the political strength the PLO had at the time. It was a deliberate interference by Israel to destabilise the domestic politics of the territories. The converse of course is now the case, Israel currently provides support to Fatah to contest Hamas in a continued process of divide and conquer.

But why did Hamas form? What were the core tenets that gave rise to its base? The answer being that diplomatic discussions had failed successively to achieve anything towards settling the myriad issues that came with the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, or the rights of the four million people confined to external refugee settlements. Hamas with the support of the Palestinian people argued that peace was only likely to be achieved with a more militant process since diplomacy had consistently failed them. The Israelis were not being forcefully obligated to comply with successive UN resolutions and statements condemning their actions and the demands by the international community for peaceful solutions. The Hamas platform as did Hezbollah took on an extremist position as more moderate positions had consistently failed to achieve anything of substance.

Even while Hamas took part in the heavily monitored political process of legislative elections in January 2006, it was not meant to win nor was it meant to win as decisively as it did. The Israelis had miscalculated the feelings of the Palestinians of Gaza. Since then Israel has persistently attempted to derail the Hamas parliament, by targeting its leaders for assassination and by arresting the elected parliamentarians en masse, in favour of negotiations with a more conciliatory representative in the West Bank based President Mahmoud Abbas.

The indiscriminate guerrilla tactics currently employed by Hamas are a definite sticking point in the negotiations but they are not the cause of the conflict. The intransigence by Israel to reach a clear conclusion, the twists and turns that they employ to set any peace negotiation back for another year or decade are legendary. It is when the only major power to whom they will contend with, from whom that they receive the most lucrative financial and military support, decide that enough is enough and that an equitable peace must prevail and apply to all the pressure within their capability to both side with equality, that peace will prevail and not a moment before.

The Israeli occupiers and their US supporters have labelled Hamas a terrorist organisation even though Hamas would call themselves a resistance movement; there is a parallel in the Warsaw Ghetto that the occupying Germans would have called the ZZW and the ZOB that resisted them terrorists by the same broad but fuzzy definition, opposition to occupation.

I am not necessarily in favour of Hamas or Hezbollah or the methods they employ yet I see them as a consequence of a failed peace process and international ambivalence towards the humanitarian and political needs of the Palestinian people. Their strength will only continue to garner support while the world stands by and allows the people it represent to be constantly downtrodden in pursuit of a neighbouring populations unrealistic desires to dominate them.

The way to counter Hamas is not through suppression of the Palestinian people but by the world pressing forward the agreements that have been set aside in doing so. The two sides after sixty hears of discussion have not shown the capacity to reach a mutual consensus and it is in the interest of the world to arbitrate conclusively and fairly on their behalf.

I saw a photo today of a father holding his 6 month old baby son. The father’s face was devoid of expression; the child in his arms was dead. The boy’s name was Mohammed al-Borai; he along with several others had been killed in a blast fired indiscriminately by an Israeli cannon into the densely populated areas of Gaza.

What followed that in the article were more photos, one of a group of young boys holding flowers standing around the battered and bloodstained body of the baby boy that struck me as the most poignant. I had been having a discussion about the cause of suicide bombers in the Palestinian conflict and it will be this image more than any other that will concern me more than most. In their minds the young dead boy and the nature of his death will have more impact on their future than anything any one might tell them.

It was then that I started to contemplate perhaps more fully the plight of the Palestinians today and the parallels in the history of the Jews that led to their mass exodus from their own countries to immigrate to the land that was at the time known as Palestine.

The Warsaw Ghetto during the Jewish Holocaust hold special significance to the European Jews. It was a place of oppression and the pathway to the ultimate death of thousands of their population that has become symbolic with their struggle for recognition. Yet what they are failing to acknowledge as their descendants press forward with their own brand of Jewish and Zionist idealism is the parallel set of conditions that they are now imposing on the Arab people of Palestine.

The Nazis rounded up the Jews of Poland and quartered them in a small area of Warsaw, building a barricade around the perimeter to prevent them leaving. So too have the Israelis through conflict and force pushed many of the Arab inhabitants out of Israel into an enclave that now has a population density of 4200 people per sq km which 14 times that of the surrounding area of Israel which is currently at 360 people per sq km.

The Nazis deprived the ghetto inhabitants of food and essential supplies. So too have the Israeli government deprived the flow of goods into serve the population of 1.4 million inhabitants of men women and children by limiting the convoys of supplies into Gaza to a mere trickle.

The Nazis reduced the average calorie intake of the Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto to 241 calories per day. So too have the Israelis reduced the calorie intake of the Palestinians in Gaza that the UN report it is presently at 61% of the average daily requirements.

The Nazis restricted public utilities such as water and electricity. So too have the Israeli government restricted the flow of these essential utilities to the population at large.

The Nazis restricted the inhabitants from adequate health care. So too do the Israelis restrict the health care by limiting the medical supplies in or the treatment of cases that need to be done outside.

The Jewish inhabitants through the ZZB and the ZOB resisted the oppression by the Nazis albeit too late and their rebellion was brutally crushed without concern for who was in the way. So too have the Palestinians of Gaza through their own resistance organizations in particular Hamas, rebelled against their oppressors and so too do the Israelis use all means available to crush the rebellion without concern for who is in the way or who they maim or kill in doing so.

The Nazis destroyed the structure of the ghetto leveling it to the ground in a broad quest to rout the resistance to their oppression. So too do the Israelis indiscriminately level buildings and the infrastructure in Gaza in a quest to rout out the resistance to their oppression.

The Nazis assigned the Jewish people to a lesser status of all their inhabitants depriving them of their rights as citizens and even as humans. So too do the Israeli assign the refugees held in Gaza less status than they do to Jews worldwide and deprive them of their rights to return to their former lands.

The Nazis set themselves on a campaign to produce a nation that was all Aryans. So too have the Israelis set themselves on a path to have a nation that is all Jewish.

The Nazis applied whatever was at their means to break the will of the Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto avoiding their control. So too do the Israelis use whatever is at their means to break the will of the Palestinians avoiding the Israelis control.

The Nazis killed the Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto indiscriminately in forcing their control over the ghetto. So too do the Israelis indiscriminately kill the inhabitants in forcing their control over Gaza.

The Jews of Israel quite right protest at the inhumanity of the Nazis in their treatment of them and oblige the world to not allow the same situation to happen again. So to do the Palestinians protest at the inhumanity of the treatment by the Israelis yet in a bizarre twist of events, the world still allows the oppression to happen.

It was after the Jews in the ghetto had been largely killed or transported that the world stood up and found guilt in not acting sooner.

With the picture of Mohammad al-Borai in my mind I question when the world will stand up and say enough is enough, there is not going to be a repeat of the Warsaw Ghetto and particularly when its main protagonists are those who suffered the most by its conduct.

There is a basic conflict of inhumanity occurring to the Palestinian people of Gaza that the world is deliberately ignoring. An inhumanity that was inflicted by the Nazis over the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto is now more than ever closely paralleling that which they are inflicting on the people of Gaza. They learned a hard lesson but it was not a lesson learned well. They have been given the power to practice humanity but have decided instead that they will treat the concerns of the Palestinians in the same inhumane way the Nazis treated them.

A future monument will no doubt contain photos of Mohammad al-Borai in the arms of his father and the world will decry the injustice.

This article appeared in Arab News 2 March 2008

The war in Iraq is mired in controversy, a discombobulating pool of mixed messages, falsehoods and fanciful posturing. Earlier pronouncements as to the reasons for being there in Iraq uttered prior to the invasion now after some years, an enormous cost and an unacceptable casualty rate, have been proven erroneous and in many cases in fact, downright false. The discussion no longer looks at these facts, for the most part been swept under the carpet as historically insignificant, but now concentrates on how best to extricate the military from the scene and leave a lasting peace between the existing factions. A new agenda has surfaced that is constantly being massaged and repositioned.

Compounding this dilemma is the continuation of positive spin being applied by the government and the military on how well the various current actions are going, how much improved the war is going, how successful the various strategies are working, how beneficial it all is for the long term security of the region yet when it is all pealed away, much of what if said is still false, fulfilling an MBA mantra of constant positive affirmation as a panacea to ward off failure as failure in itself is considered unacceptable.

But are the government and the military living in a fantasy world, do they seriously believe that the solution will evolve out of a constant barrage of military might and positive determination on behalf of those that are directing it.

By comparison, one needs to look at the neighbour and again put things into a perspective, stripping away the rhetoric and looking at the logicality of the complex situations and in the end, asking if the powers to be really do have answers to these enormous problems.

Israel and the Palestinians have been warring for more than sixty years and still, even though Israel maintains the upper hand militarily, financially and with its strong US allegiances, it is no closer to a reaching an equitable solution with the Palestinians and their Arab backers now than it was in 1948.

In Iran, the US has imposed sanctions and sought its allies in the region as well as internationally to support them yet still Iran continues on its own quest, greatly inconvenienced but largely unimpeded in cementing its agenda and its position as a regional leader. The US President went to all his major allies of the region and continued to spread the message of moral superiority over the Iranians yet nothing could be further from the truth, a point noted almost universally by the Arab press while that news hardly causing a ripple in the western media where it promoted a sense of achievement.

The UAE, possible the most strongly aligned Gulf State to the US and heavily engaged in democratisation of its economy and political face has in 2007 Iran as its major trading partner, providing and consuming more than 50% of its national GDP as are all the other Gulf States so inextricably involved.

Each of the regional governments of the Gulf States listened to Bush yet retained one foot on the ground in acceptance of his words. They were not being elevated into another space and time frame as the reality of the proximity of their location and their deeper comprehension of the political and strategic issues at hand tempered the Bush almost naive attempt at persuasion.

The feeling of the Middle East and in particular the neighbours of Iran is that it has a place in their midst, it is a significant economy and strategic partner, it is of a similar faith and maintains a religious piety similar to their own, it is one that they will continue to deal with irrespective of the negative imputations delivered by the major international force and consumer.

Where the honesty appears to be failing is the rhetoric that proclaims Iran to be a threat to the Gulf and by extension, US security. The US administration would have the world believe that these States are as one with the US in its determination against Iran however gauging the response of the Gulf and Arabic papers following his excursion, Iran is not a threat to the Gulf nor to the world at large and conversely, on several fronts the Gulf and Arab nations are in advanced states of normalizing of their relationships, even that which is under the strongest US influence in the region, Iraq.

Major dilemmas also for the Bush administration are the constant unravelling of foreign policy for the region. In 2007, Alan Greenspan made a casual remark in his memoirs when he wrote “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”

To avoid being drawn, Greenspan spent the following weeks extricating him self, making the point that this was not the professed reason however never really recanting his assertion that is was the true one. The perceived belief promoted by the administration and its supporting media is that this was not the reason, the doctrine of dishonesty continues in the administrations quest to justify the military incursion.

Over the past two years as the war has entered into a phase that is largely intractable, a more permanent legacy that America will leave on the region for time immemorial extending the divide between the sectarian groups and between Islam and the west for which there appears to be no viable solutions, and the truth being that there may not be one. Committed army Generals after General have come forward upon retiring to lament the politicisation of the process of war with Iraq and the falsehoods upon which the battles have and are being waged. Within the administration itself a number of senior advisors have also been engaged in litigation and prosecution that highlights their dishonesty to the American public. Some such as Richard Perle, one of the architects of the Project for a New American Century have withdrawn their earlier opinions upon which the war was waged arguing that the government once engaged in the process became dysfunctional.

Colin Powell, the most senior insider of the Bush administration left after being obligated to make a case at the UN that in hindsight he regards that episode as a “blot” on his career saying on Barbara Walters program “It will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now”.

Where does that leave us? Now a new batch of Presidential hopefuls are pursuing the highest office of the land yet they too are obliged to continue in the wake of their predecessor, to support the dishonesty or at the very least, failing to address it as it should be as it too will weigh heavily on their administrations.

The questions that needs to be asked without the partisan rhetoric, without the flawed logic of the likes of the international hegemony proposed by the Project for the New America Century, without the need to appease influential foreign governments, is what is in fact best for America and why is in the mess it presently is in?

Unless honesty becomes a weapon in the arsenal being utilised by the US administration, unless the awful truths of why battles are being waged in distant countries that pose no serious threat to the security of the region or the west are revealed and addressed in consultation with the public, the house of cards build on lies will reverberate throughout the psych of America and throughout its various roles in the world for decades.

The Battle for Honesty must begin before we can go any further.

In all aspects of life, various segments of our communities have a common perception of their function and purpose. The military is regarded for what it is, a battalion of soldiers whose primary purpose is war, the idea that they might change that perception is difficult conceptually and ideologically and one that I believe is flawed. I have often wondered at the logicality of the “hearts and minds” efforts of military contingents in some of the places I have been engaged such as Kosovo, Afghanistan and Aceh. It is not just simple a matter of their extensive capability to do the work but the perception as to how they are primarily considered in a country where in the past, they may have crashed though doors, pulled down walls, taken captives and even wounded or killed people from the same neighbourhood where they are now installing a well or building a school or clinic. In the any event however, should the security declines they can easily revert to that more aggressive mode, the benevolent bully in the development cycle.

In most peaceful communities of the west, the military may be called out in moments of catastrophe and rightly so. They have the large machines, they have the manpower, the have the organisational structure and they have the logistics to support an immediate response however in terms of nation building they pose a political conundrum that is largely unnecessary and fraught with danger of abuse, abuse from both sides of the crisis. They do so at a cost that is both economically and politically prohibitive.

Where I saw the largest military response to a crisis other than from a military position was in Aceh immediately following the tsunami. Air, sea and ground forces from a dozen countries had descended into the province to provide assistance that raised an immediate dilemma for the national government. The Australian army for instance bought in a large medical and engineering capacity and did an admirable job that made me proud to be associated with them yet the preceding conflict in Timor also bought in a political opposition from the national army who had in a de-facto manner, forcefully opposed them at the time of that incident.

Although there was ample capacity and a willingness, there was a sense of animosity and restriction on movement that severely curtailed what they could and couldn’t do. More “friendly” armies but perhaps less capable units however were given greater freedom of movement, particularly with their air wings that worked tirelessly distributing aid along the coastline where access other than by sea had been completely cut off.

The US sent in a naval medical ship however it arrived some weeks after the majority of tsunami trauma cases had been dealt with by what was an absolute excess of private doctors and medical teams on the ground. Unfortunately it was relegated to dealing with a few special domestic and road casualties cases that normally go with any large city. Being obliged to locate in international waters it also entailed a ground-air-sea mission to treat even a simple appendectomy that may well have been undertaken in the hospital proper yet the large expended funds required to get them there dictated that they be “seen” to be contributing to the population at home.

In Kosovo there was a different agenda and political perspective of the military forces there yet all the time they were still regarded as that, a military force and not one assigned a nation building function. Under this circumstance however it was also largely unnecessary as the province had a surfeit of humanitarian and UN agencies dealing with almost every issue that the population could require and to engage the military in the planning and execution of programs was largely vacant other than in the application of cases that required a more difficult logistics. For a while I was based in a large village quite devastated and where a number of aid agencies had commenced reconstruction programs. The military capacity of the UAE contingent based in the town undertook a similar if not smaller rebuilding program however it applied itself to the most difficult mountain terrain where its numerous rough terrain vehicles and air support had the capacity to deliver the much needed reconstruction materials that otherwise may never have arrived.

Afghanistan was where I saw a transition from the exercise of dominant military capacity to one that was now interested in the hearts and mind campaign of the population, one that also posed an immediate conflict that even today the military and the involved governments are not facing up to while attempting to justify their intervention.

Like in Aceh, the military of the US and NATO is seen as the opposition to those that waged battle against them, in this case it was the Taliban. There is no excuse for the Taliban however the notion of nation building has since been integrated into the fight against them, a sort of play off to win tacit support from the population at large. The population however care naught for either side. They are more intent on resuming their lives after twenty-five years of war, to re-establish farming incomes or find a job in the ever declining economic travails that now beset the country as indeed it is affecting rest of the world, to resume a normal life.

The presence of the military and association with their programs however exposes the local people to the inherent danger of being charged with consorting with the enemy when these friendly armies finally depart, a real and ever present danger and one that on a daily basis is being waged by the Taliban to win back, or at least negate the support that all the good work invokes.

In this case, although the armies on one hand are building good will, on the other they are still applying themselves as an aggressor when the need arises and that is predominantly how the population continue to see them, no matter how much good they can achieve.

Being an aid worker for some years I have since learned that the psychological games that are played on a needy population can backfire and impede development rather than enhance it. Just handing out largess is not the answer if the population have no ownership of the projects or the resultant benefit. Too often a beneficiary or a village will wait until the free service comes along before they find the need to go and create the benefit them self. Too often they want to be paid for their labour that is ultimately for their benefit, it becomes a case of “greed comes before need”. It is this that has become a common issue in the distribution of aid and one that the military unknowingly serves to foster without taking account of the overall development issues at stake.

Often too, the military in its quest to improve its own public perception though aid development, do so outside the purview of those who have an ultimate responsibility, the government, as was often the case in Afghanistan. The final argument being however was that so much was needed that what ever they do will be well received. I would argue that more could be achieved in the application of these resources towards large projects that went outside the smaller hearts and minds exercise but came with wider benefit and of greater national importance, the creation of water storage damns, flood mitigation, the reconstruction of major access roads and the like. Instead the armies are delivering wells and playing with the children in the villages, creating a positive spin to account for their reason to be there.

In Afghanistan, the action of the army or at least those in the position to decide on initiating the hearts and minds campaigns must however take some of the responsibility for the decline in the overall security situation that now exists throughout the country. I was in Kandahar in January 2003 at the time the Taliban killed the first of the civilian casualties. It occurred because in their eyes, he represented the opposing military forces disregarding the fact that he worked for the Red Cross and was delivering water to poor villagers. This was before the US and NATO had taken to deliver these aid programs in the void created when the aid agencies retired to allow the war to conclude. At that time the US was seen as an aggressor, it still it. Its troops postured in that aggressive manner, unfriendly to the local population, disrespectful to local custom, intent solely on doing their job of routing out the enemy, of locating the Mullahs and finding al Qa-ida in a never clear landscape where anyone may have been and most likely was one or at least sympathetic.

The military have a role to play however once that is achieved they need to retire, if not to their base, then out of the country if that is appropriate. Countries prosper under the stewardship of self-determination with appropriate guidance, not a duplication of the existing government services as in some way the foreign militaries are now supposing to do. In Afghanistan and indeed Iraq, the military intervention has seen an escalation of insecurity partly in its quest to win public support and partly in its inability to solve the problems of containment of the enemy.

Communities exist around war. Afghanistan has existed around war for thirty years, Iraq has existed around war for ten years, what is not being addressed satisfactorily is the promotion of these communities to assist themselves achieve peace as opposed to forcing it upon them through constant military intervention.

The role of the military is many fold, it has a significant part to play in many aspects of life, it has no need to display its feminine side, it is desirable in the purpose of ensuing peace exists, in the removal of despotic regimes and powerful invaders, in providing is logistical might in times of critical need, however what it is not is a nation builder, it is not equipped physically or perceptively to play that role or the role of aid worker or to replicate the role of government, no matter how onerous that job might be to those that fulfill those tasks.

This article was the winner of an Essay competition conducted by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting in March 2007 

I can remember as a child having a vision about America that made me envious in a strange sort of way coming from a rural Australian background. It was a John Wayne, Doris Day image about all that was right with the world, the good guys always won and the bad guys were consigned to Boot Hill or prison. As I have grown older, I often wondered what has happened to me, and the world for that matter to change that image as much as it has been.

America no longer holds any appeal what so ever, in fact it is the opposite as I have come to peal away the outer Tinsel Town layer image and have been able to see what lies beneath it, the heart of those people to whom I once felt such fascination. The world we live in has contracted. Air travel, the internet and instantaneous news broadcasts have bought it so much closer. It is no longer the visual broadcast that would precede the movies on a Saturday night, now I can see riots in Kenya at the same time as it happens as I see a young movie personality being led away in Los Angeles to serve out a few days in jail.

What is the most disturbing is that the more I look, the harder it becomes to find that which was the heart of America, the moral giants of the likes John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart once portrayed. It is no longer the Magnificent Seven coming to the defence of a peasant village to fighting against an evil oppressor. It is now one criminal gang in Oceans Eleven stealing millions from another criminal gambler who have become the heroes.

The same can be said for the international moral credibility of the US. Too often of recent the US has been seen as the aggressor in what is sees as its moral rectitude. A sign that it too has lost sight of what it was and fails completely to see what it has now become. It is no longer Audie Murphy fighting a heroes battle against a known and international enemy, it is the Murderous Bride from Kill Bill, seeking bloody vengeance for a personal wrong committed against her, an eye for an eye rather than seeking what we all know as legal and moral justice.

In its purpose of seeking to retain its significant power, it’s bully power if you will, it has engaged international sycophants to support its campaign yet they too have tired of being drawn into needless wars for the sake of preserving US hegemony and are gradually leaving it to go alone. Even those that it argues it has saved from oppression would go back to the way things were before the US came to their rescue, the real purpose becoming more and more evident that it was not in their favour all along but that of the US alone.

Over the past decade America has become increasingly a pariah in the international community if not the political arenas, a liability in friendship rather than an asset. An increasing number of Americans travel as faux-Canadians to avoid these conflicts. Listening to their politicians as they campaign for the Presidency, they are in disarray. Everyone on both sides is playing a different tune to their nearest rivals. Some support the wars other don’t. For the average voter, the options are too wide apart to reach any discernable conclusion such that they are left with petty issues such as tears and personal slights that affect the voting patterns.

The one quandary that I have with America is the homage paid to Israel over all other players in the Middle East Crisis. Israel is not the oppressed nation as say Kosovo or Iraq was, but it is the oppressor with people under its stewardship. Israel receives the endorsement and almost one third of all US foreign aid mostly to enable it to continue being the oppressor. It has dominated the lives of the Palestinians mercilessly so much so that young Israelis consistently regard them now as non-human. The power that Israel politicians have over the psych of average Americans is awe-inspiring. Two US academics, Steven Walt and John Mearsheimer wrote a paper on the influence that the Israeli lobby has over the American Congress, a paper that appears objective as I read it, yet as they argue, the lobby has caused them to be isolated in the US community for bringing this issue forward.

As an outsider, and when I discuss it with other outsiders or non-Americans, all we can do is wonder what it is that small nation has over the Americans that has caused them to lose all ability to be fair, the fight for what is the moral right rather than supporting one that has total domination over another oppressed people.

I have worked for some years in these current hotspots and can only reflect on the desire for the average citizen in Kosovo or Afghanistan, and that is to have peace, long lasting and sustainable peace. It would be a peace where they can raise their kids and build their fortunes and perhaps even aspire to be like Americans. In the short term however, while America continues to force its hand over their national sovereignty for its own will rather than theirs they no longer even dream about what could be theirs is solely a purpose to survive and watch their country slip further into a quagmire?

The dream I have now is that America should rediscover itself and remove its own blinkers on its failings. It is no longer reasonable to say world opinion does not matter. World opinion does matter and it is an inherent cause of the continued violence and distrust that we have become. The world requires a leader once more, a moral giant, not a nation that oppresses others nor supports oppression and can no longer distinguish the difference.