Watching the Warmakers is based in Brighton, England.
Our aim is to support activists in educating themselves in the issues
which confront those struggling for peace and justice.

News archives for the week ending 2nd October 2009

US moves to block UN discussion of Gaza war crimes

UN investigator Richard Goldstone has defended his damning report on Israel's conduct in during its operation Gaza. As the UN human rights watchdog debated the report, which accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes, he rejected what he called a "barrage of criticism".

The report urged the UN Security Council to refer allegations to the International Criminal Court (ICC) if either side failed to investigate and prosecute suspects. The US had already rejected recommendations regarding the UN Security Council, saying it should not even discuss the matter.

Human Rights Watch, one of a number of NGOs that endorsed the report, has urged the administration to reverse its position.

"The Obama administration cannot demand accountability for serious violations in places like Sudan and Congo but let allies like Israel go free," said HRW's Sarah Leah Whitson.

BBC News, 30/9/09

US agrees aid to Pakistan

Legislation to triple aid to Pakistan and stem the tide of radicalism and anti-Americanism in that Asian nation cleared Congress on Wednesday and moved to President Barack Obama for his signature. The bill, approved by a voice vote in the House, would provide Pakistan with $1.5 billion in aid a year over the next five years focused on democratic, economic and social development programs.

The legislation also authorizes "such sums as are necessary" for military assistance to Pakistan, while conditioning that aid or arms transfers on several conditions. Those include certification that Pakistan is cooperating in stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons, that Pakistan is making a sustained commitment to combating terrorist groups and that Pakistan security forces are not subverting the country's political or judicial processes.

Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said that the congressional action, along with an upcoming trip to Pakistan by Clinton, could help turn around pervasive anti-American sentiments in the country.

"We recognize that Pakistani public opinion on the United States is surprisingly low given the tremendous effort the United States is making to lead in the international coalition in support of Pakistan," he said in New York.

Associated Press, 30/9/09

NATO will stay in Afghanistan as long as it takes...

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen assured U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday the alliance would remain in Afghanistan as long as it took to finish its mission.

"Our operation in Afghanistan is not America's responsibility or burden alone: it is and it will remain a team effort," the former Danish prime minister told reporters during a visit with Obama at the White House. Rasmussen said he agreed with Obama's approach of "strategy first, then resources."

"This alliance will stand united and we will stay in Afghanistan as long as it takes to finish our job," he added.

New York Times, 29/9/09

...as UN envoy dismisses 'simplistic' plans

The top U.N. official in Afghanistan is cautioning against "simplistic" efforts to split the Taliban insurgency by buying off rank-and-file rebels while militarily confronting hardcore elements.

Special representative Kai Eide acknowledged on Tuesday that some Taliban fighters are motivated merely by financial reasons while others are irreconcilable. But he told the Security Council that many have joined the insurgency because they feel alienated from a weak, graft-ridden central government in Kabul.

Several top western commanders and politicians have proposed emulating the success of U.S. forces in Iraq, who succeeded in pacifying the Sunni-led rebellion by integrating insurgents into the security forces. But efforts to achieve the same effect in Afghanistan so far have been unsuccessful.

Associated Press, 29/9/09

Conservatives would send more troops to Afghanistan

Britain's opposition Conservatives, widely expected to win the next election, would consider sending more troops to Afghanistan but only to train Afghan forces, their defence spokesman said on Monday.

Setting out a series of policy positions on Afghanistan, where Britain has 9,000 troops and which is shaping up to be an issue ahead of the election, due by June 2010, Liam Fox said his party wanted Britain to play a long-term role in the war.

"Afghanistan must be, and will be, our military's main effort under a future Conservative government," he said in a speech to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in which he said any more troops would be for training not combat.

"A Conservative government would be sympathetic to a request for an increase in the number of British troops to help expedite the training of the Afghan security forces," he said, saying he had discussed the issue with U.S. General Stanley McChrystal.

Reuters, 28/9/09

Low oil price curbs Iraq weapons purchases

A severe budget crunch here is holding up the sale of billions of dollars of American military equipment, including tanks, more than two dozen helicopters and thousands of radios.

The hardware is seen by Iraqi and U.S. officials as crucial in helping Iraq's military and police force completely take over security from American combat forces, scheduled to depart by August 2010.

"We are in a cost-crunch, time-crunch situation," says Army Lt. Gen. Frank Helmick, head of the Multi-National Security Transition Command-Iraq, the command training and equipping Iraqi security forces.

Iraqi officials placed orders for the equipment during superhigh oil prices in recent years, then saw their finances dwindle as crude prices fell. Iraq gets most of its revenue from oil sales. Its finances have created a kind of Catch-22 , with Iraq's credit rating after being invaded by the U.S. keeping it from buying U.S. equipment meant to aid the end of the U.S. military presence here. The equipment holdups go back as far as about a year.

Wall Street Journal, 29/9/09

Top British general supports escalation of Afghanistan war

Britain’s top general in Afghanistan backed calls for more troops, insisting it would be impossible to deny al-Qaeda their terrorist safe havens by “simply patrolling from the skies”.

In an exclusive interview with The Times, Lieutenant-General Jim Dutton, said yesterday that he supported a formal request made by his boss, General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander, for up to 40,000 new troops.

General Dutton said the ideal ratio of civilians to security forces, according to the most up-to-date counterinsurgency doctrine, was 50:1. In Afghanistan that would mean 560,000 Afghan and international soldiers for an estimated population of 28 million. There are now 100,000 foreign troops and 174,000 Afghan security forces.

The Times, 28/9/09

Gates: mistake to set Afghanistan withdrawal timeline

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is pushing back against liberal calls for withdrawal timelines from Afghanistan, saying it's a mistake to set a deadline to end U.S. military action and a defeat would be disastrous for the U.S.

In a stern warning to critics of a continued troop presence in Afghanistan, Gates said the Islamic extremist Taliban and al-Qaida would perceive an early pullout as a victory over the United States as similar to the Soviet Union's humiliating withdrawal in 1989 after a 10-year war.

"The notion of timelines and exit strategies and so on, frankly, I think would all be a strategic mistake. The reality is, failure in Afghanistan would be a huge setback for the United States," Gates said in an interview broadcast Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

Associated Press, 27/9/09

US threatens air-strikes in Pakistan

The United States is threatening to launch airstrikes on Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership in the Pakistani city of Quetta as frustration mounts about the ease with which they find sanctuary across the border from Afghanistan.

The threat comes amid growing divisions in Washington about whether to deal with the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan by sending more troops or by reducing them and targeting the terrorists.

The unspoken problem is that if the priority is to destroy Al-Qaeda and reduce the global terrorist threat, western troops might be fighting on the wrong side of the border.

The debate has been intensified by the debacle of the Afghan election, which has left many European leaders struggling to justify sending soldiers to support a government that has been fraudulently elected.

According to preliminary results, President Hamid Karzai won 54.6% of the vote, compared with 27.8% for Abdullah Abdullah, his main challenger. But there have been complaints that fraudulent ballots may account for up to 20% of the 5.5m votes cast.

The Electoral Complaints Commission, overseen by a UN watchdog, has begun to recount about 10% of the disputed votes. Final results are not expected for two weeks. If Karzai is left without the 50% needed for outright victory, there must be a second round unless he agrees to form a unity government.

In the meantime, the country is in limbo and the Taliban is taking advantage, opening up new fronts in the north and west.

The Afghan election has strengthened the position of those in Washington who advocate eliminating Taliban leaders in Pakistan.

Senior Pakistani officials in New York revealed that the US had asked to extend the drone attacks into Quetta and the province of Baluchistan.

Times Online, 27/9/09

Afghan Children seek asylum in Britain

Requests for asylum by unaccompanied Afghan children suggest that there are thousands crossing Europe. According to the UN high commissioner for refugees Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Germany saw the largest increase in unaccompanied minors – with 3,090 Afghan children requesting asylum last year compared with 1,489 in 2007.

According to Home Office statistics, 4,285 accompanied children requested asylum in the UK in 2008 – 1,800 from Afghanistan – up from 1,170 in 2007. In the first quarter of 2009, of the 710 minors applying for asylum, 375 were from Afghanistan.

Guardian, 26/9/09

Taliban funded by donations

The Taliban-led insurgency has built a fundraising juggernaut that generates cash from such an array of criminal rackets, donations, taxes, shakedowns and other schemes that U.S. and Afghan officials say it may be impossible to choke off the movement's money supply.

Obama administration officials say the single largest source of cash for the Taliban, once thought to rely mostly on Afghanistan's booming opium trade to finance its operations, is not drugs but foreign donations. The CIA recently estimated that Taliban leaders and their allies received $106 million in the past year from donors outside Afghanistan.

Washington Post, 27/9/09

Obama administration split on escalating war

As President Obama weighs sending more troops to Afghanistan, one of the most consequential decisions of his presidency, he has discovered that the military is not monolithic in support of the plan and that some of the civilian advisers he respects most have deep reservations.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s troop request, which was submitted to the Pentagon on Friday, has reignited a longstanding debate within the military about the virtues of the counterinsurgency strategy popularized by Gen. David H. Petraeus in Iraq and now embraced by General McChrystal, the top American and NATO commander in Afghanistan.

General McChrystal is expected to ask for as many as 40,000 additional troops for the eight-year-old war, a number that has generated concern among top officers like Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, who worry about the capacity to provide more soldiers at a time of stress on the force, officials said.

The competing advice and concerns fuel a pivotal struggle to shape the president’s thinking about a war that he inherited but may come to define his tenure.

New York Times, 26/9/08